Thar’ lies much gold to be had and platinum and diamonds in the form of music albums. One Eyed Willie and Calico Jack have been reincarnated in the form of file-sharing networks, and the army that is the U.S. Congress hopes a new bill will be the cannonball that will sink the armada of music pirates.

First it was Napster, then Audiogalaxy. File-sharing networks have been the objects of fear and hate from a plethora of copyright venues, particularly music. The first network to cause considerable problems for the recording industry was Napster. After a highly visual court battle, Napster has since gone out of business, and if members of Congress and a group of copyright owners get their way, so will every other peer-to-peer application.

The bill in Congress aims to allow copyright owners to identify individual users, disrupt peer-to-peer networks, and prosecute anyone they suspect of digital piracy. The bill is only a continuation of an ongoing dialogue in Congress over file-sharing networks and their relations to copyright infringement.

In May, U.S. Rep. Ed Towns, D-N.Y., wrote to The Hill, a weekly newspaper devoted to the inner workings of Congress, saying something must be done about peer-to-peer applications.

“When a person can purchase a computer and sell pirated music, books or content for pennies on the dollar for what the local merchant in Brooklyn is selling it for or simply giving it away for free, we must act and act quickly, because jobs and commerce are at stake,” Towns said. “No one can compete with ‘free.’ If everyone could copy a computer purchased originally by a friend, manufacturers wouldn’t be in business long.”

While Napster has bit the dust, and more recently Audiogalaxy has, more peer-to-peer applications have surfaced and are causing music labels to go on the attack. However, the push by music labels for more control is a deceptive tactic the entertainment industry has used for nearly 30 years, according to Joe Kraus, co-founder of the Digital Consumer.

“I definitely believe that under the guise of preventing piracy, the [entertainment industry] is instead working to basically gain greater and greater control over how consumers can use the media they legally acquire,” Kraus said.

Kraus likened music labels to “control freaks” and said their quest for greater control has been a “historical trend of Hollywood” that dates back to the inception of the VCR.

“If you look at history, they sued the VCR, MP3, TV replay device — they’re looking to make sure, whatever the next device is, that they have greater control over it than they have in the past,” Kraus said. “Basically, they are looking to Robert Shapiro, who is head of the Consumer Electronics Association, to make the play button the pay button so no longer will you be able to buy a piece of content and use it flexibly.”

Kraus noted a July 2001 congressional hearing where Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, held a lengthy discussion with the then-president of the Recording Industry Association of America, Hillary Rosen, over what constituted fair use of purchased media.

Hatch asked Rosen if it is fair for him to make a copy of a CD he owns, to make a copy of a CD he owns and use it in his car or to make a copy of a CD he owns and give it to his wife. Rosen said none of the proposed uses constituted fair use and were basically illegal. Rosen attributed the continued allowance of these practices to tolerance on behalf of the media companies.

The new law would let media companies act on fair-use violations and prosecute those individuals. Media companies are doing this by extending the law to define the limits of fair use. While it is legal to make a mix, it is illegal to break the copy protection to make the mix.

Still, some compare the new bill to “whipping a dead horse.” The increase of peer-to-peer applications and file-sharing networks on the Internet has grown too large for the entertainment industry to overcome. Brad Templeton, chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group advocating free expression in the digital age, said the music industry must realize this is a battle it is not going to win.

“In the end, they must realize their distribution monopoly is gone and they have to change the way they do business,” Templeton said.”

American University’s College of Law recently sponsored a one-day conference designed to open discussion on how to protect the copyrights of music and other intellectual property in the age of Kazaa and Morpheus.

Ideas coming out of the conference included having companies like Kazaa and Morpheus that profit from file-sharing networks pay a copyright fee that would be distributed to copyright owners. Current RIAA President Cary Sherman said there needs to be a system that lures users away from free services like Kazaa to pay networks, but noted this would be nearly impossible and that piracy would continue to exist forever in various forms.

The University of Wisconsin abides by the 1997 No Electronic Theft Act, which makes the act of creating or distributing unauthorized digital music a felony. Robert Drechsel, a professor of journalism and mass communication at UW, said music labels once threatened UW to block access to Napster.

“I can remember when Napster was really becoming popular; the lawyers representing the music industry sent some threatening letters to the university trying to get the university to block the use of Napster, and the university didn’t do that,” Drechsel said.”

While UW did not take action against students using peer-to-peer networks, a number of universities did. In 1999, 71 students at Carnegie Mellon University lost in-room Internet access for the rest of the semester after they were found in a surprise inspection to be posting audio files containing copyrighted music. CMU said this action was in response to the music industry’s effort to discourage music piracy.

Kelly Callan, a UW junior and self-identified plunderer of Kazaa’s treasure of diamond and platinum hits, said she does not see anything wrong with downloading songs.

“I don’t think downloading music is wrong, even though it is considered to be illegal,” Callan said. “It is a way for people to get a taste of many different kinds of music without having to spend a lot of money on CDs.”

While some believe the new law will burn down the music pirate flag, Drechsel says the debate is likely to continue for some time.

“I think that file-sharing is going to continue to be a huge issue,” Drechsel said. “We’re not near the end, but we’re probably nearer to the beginning of issues that involve file sharing. It just happens that music was the first issue to pop up.”

A number of representatives from music associations have acknowledged the battle against peer-to-peer networks is destined for ruin. Dieter Metzger of the National Music Publishers Association said he hopes users of peer-to-peer programs can learn a little respect.

“Hopefully, people will be enlightened and learn to respect that all artists need to be compensated,” he said.