Last Wednesday, President Bush signed The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, also known as the Artist's Rights and Theft Prevention Act (ART Act) into law. While the act takes significant strides toward punishing copyright violators and allowing for greater technological freedom for the entertainment industry, the law also threatens file-sharers with excessive punishments.

There are three significant parts to the act. The first makes using a camcorder to copy a film showing in a movie theater a felony. The second makes it a felony to distribute "pre-released" movies over the Internet. The third part allows for companies to produce products that allow users to use a device to play a movie in a "censored" format (i.e. skipping over scenes containing excessive violence and sexuality or omitting foul language).

The third part of the law should be praised for allowing parents and users greater control over the versions of movies they want themselves and their children to see, and the second part of the law is redundant because there are laws already preventing the recording of movies in theaters.

The area that concerns us is the punishment for distributing a pre-released film - that is, copies of movies that come out before the movie is formally released by the studio. Under the ART Act, putting a film online via a peer-to-peer (p2p) network such as Kazaa or BitTorrent can put away first-time offenders for up to three years in jail, plus additional fines - even if the movie was never downloaded once. Attempting to distribute a pre-released film for a commercial profit could result in a prison term of five years plus fines. Repeat offenses can range up to a 10-year sentence.

While copyright infringement is illegal and artists and producers should be paid for their work, we believe that these new penalties are excessive. Is it fair to take away an Internet user's right to vote just because he or she offered a copy of the next Tom Cruise summer blockbuster for download?

If studios want to seek punishment and recover damages from movie pirates, they should do so with a civil lawsuit. If financial damages are the problem, then seeking financial recoveries would be the logical course of action to take against file-sharers.

Instead, the U.S. government has now put Internet pirates on the same level of bank robbers, child molesters, drug dealers, drunk drivers and domestic abusers in terms of societal harm. The government has just turned the common college student and Internet user into the common criminal. Sharing a pre-release DVD of the next Marvel comic book movie is hardly the same crime as manufacturing methamphetamine.

While the safest way to not get caught for copyright infringement is simply to not engage in the file-sharing process, we do realize that many students will still do so on a regular basis. We urge users to be aware of the penalties and know that no one is completely anonymous while using most mainstream p2p programs.

Participating in the distribution process is still illegal and those who create films deserve to be compensated for their efforts to bring society the entertainment that enriches our lives and stimulates our minds to think differently. The users and the copyright owners should learn to come to a compromise that can benefit both sides - otherwise there could be harsh consequences on both sides.