• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, November 13, 2007

Legislators are mulling a new law that would authorize the Department of Justice to file civil lawsuits against file-sharers.

The Intellectual Property Enforcement Act of 2007, introduced last week by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and John Cornyn (R-Tex.), would also create a new FBI unit to focus on enforcing intellectual property laws and award $20 million a year to the FBI and Justice Department to investigate computer crimes.

Some consumer advocates are condemning the proposed measure, saying it would turn the federal authorities into private enforcers for the entertainment companies.

"Need we spend more money protecting the property of a small number of companies?" asks Gigi Sohn, co-founder of Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group.

A similar bill, the Pirate Act, was introduced in 2004 and cleared the Senate, but wasn't enacted. That measure also came in for similar criticisms, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation blasting it as "yet another attempt to make taxpayers fund the misguided war on file sharing."

In the last several years, the entertainment industry has brought thousands of lawsuits against individual consumers accused of file-sharing. The cases have been settled or withdrawn, but the Record Industry Association of America recently prevailed at trial against Jammie Thomas, a single mother found liable for $220,000 for uploading 24 tracks to a file-sharing site.

Still, despite the settlements and courtroom victory, the lawsuits are largely perceived as having hurt the industry's reputation with fans. Some musicians also take issue with the record labels' attempts to shut down peer-to-peer sites.

Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor this spring accused his record label of overcharging and urged fans to download tracks for free at file-sharing sites. Reznor and rapper Saul Williams recently collaborated on an album and posted a version of it online for free.