Opinion ID: 186085
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Purpose of the DMCA

Text: 31 Finally, the RIAA argues Verizon's interpretation of the statute would defeat the core objectives of the Act. More specifically, according to the RIAA there is no policy justification for limiting the reach of § 512(h) to situations in which the ISP stores infringing material on its system, considering that many more acts of copyright infringement are committed in the P2P realm, in which the ISP merely transmits the material for others, and that the burden upon an ISP required to identify an infringing subscriber is minimal. 32 We are not unsympathetic either to the RIAA's concern regarding the widespread infringement of its members' copyrights, or to the need for legal tools to protect those rights. It is not the province of the courts, however, to rewrite the DMCA in order to make it fit a new and unforeseen internet architecture, no matter how damaging that development has been to the music industry or threatens being to the motion picture and software industries. The plight of copyright holders must be addressed in the first instance by the Congress; only the Congress has the constitutional authority and the institutional ability to accommodate fully the varied permutations of competing interests that are inevitably implicated by such new technology. See Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 431, 104 S.Ct. 774, 783, 78 L.Ed.2d 574 (1984). 33 The stakes are large for the music, motion picture, and software industries and their role in fostering technological innovation and our popular culture. It is not surprising, therefore, that even as this case was being argued, committees of the Congress were considering how best to deal with the threat to copyrights posed by P2P file sharing schemes. See, e.g., Privacy & Piracy: The Paradox of Illegal File Sharing on Peer-to-Peer Networks and the Impact of Technology on the Entertainment Industry: Hearing Before the Senate Comm. On Governmental Affairs, 108th Congress (Sept. 30, 2003); Pornography, Technology, and Process: Problems and Solutions on Peer-to-Peer Networks: Hearing Before the Senate Comm. on the Judiciary, 108th Congress (Sept. 9, 2003).