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Anyone who has even a single copy of a pre-released song or movie could be prosecuted as a federal felon and jailed for up to 10 years if President Bush signs a new piece of legislation.

Last Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005.

Already having cleared the Senate on Feb. 1, the bill now awaits Bush’s signature. He is expected to sign it into law.

Under the bill, possessing or distributing songs or movies prior to their commercial release or using video cameras to record films in a theater would be federal crimes carrying lengthy jail time and stiff fines.

Regardless of whether downloading took place, penalties could include a prison term of up to 10 years and stiff fines of up to $250,000.

The bill targets peer-to-peer file sharers, which includes many college students.

Professor Francis Steen in the UCLA Department of Communication Studies said that the bill is a continuation of the federal government and private companies’ efforts to criminalize sharing.

Steen said the purpose of copyright law should be to foster creativity by rewarding people who come up with new ideas, but said that current laws no longer seem to serve this function of encouraging progress in the arts and instead “close off the realm of creativity, turning things into proprietary material.”

“(The bill) hinders creativity, because culture always builds on what comes before,” Steen said.

Under current law, unauthorized reproduction and distribution of copyrighted materials can already be prosecuted as federal crimes. But the value of the unauthorized copies must meet or exceed a total retail value of $2,500, even if no money has changed hands.

The Justice Department typically reserves criminal charges for the most serious cases.

UCLA law Professor Mark Grady expects the bill to make UCLA students think twice before participating in file sharing. “The penalties are so severe that I expect that they will have an effect on file sharers, especially if they are enforced,” Grady said.

But Tom Quickel, a graduate student studying chemistry, disagreed. He said he would not change his file-sharing habits. “That’s ridiculous,” Quickel said. “I’m not really worried because who isn’t doing that?”

Congressman Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, principle sponsor of the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, said in a statement that the bill would “close some significant gaps in our copyright laws that are feeding some of the piracy so rampant on the Internet.”

Along with doling out stricter criminal penalties to file sharers, the bill also affirms the right to use technology to skip objectionable audio and video content, allowing parents to shield their children from profanity and other adult material on movies watched at home.

Users and makers of such editing technology will be exempt from copyright infringement liabilities.