California Requires Identification of File Traders

According to a September 22, 2004 report by the San Fransisco Chronicle, "California file sharers who trade songs or films without providing an e-mail address and will be guilty of a misdemeanor, under the first-in-the-nation measure that could make it easier for law enforcement to track down people who illegally download copyrighted material":

653aa. (a) Any person, except a minor, who is located in California, who, knowing that a particular recording or audiovisual work is commercial, knowingly electronically disseminates all or substantially all of that commercial
recording or audiovisual work to more than 10 other people without disclosing his or her e-mail address, and the title of the recording or audiovisual work is punishable by a fine not exceeding two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500), imprisonment in a county jail for a period not exceeding one year, or by both that fine and imprisonment. . . .

According to the American Intellectual Propety Law Association, "The elements of failing to disclose e-mail addresses and titles would appear to overcome issues of copyright preemption." Click here to read the entire new Section 653aa of the California penal statute, courtesy of the AIPLA.