A Victory for Texas Music
Last week, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a new anti-counterfeiting bill (SB 1343) into law that strengthens protections against physical music piracy and provides law enforcement representatives and prosecutors with clear and efficient legal tools that can be used to protect the Texas music industry.
In the past, physical music piracy involved the unauthorized manufacture and sale of recordings on traditional media such as tapes, CDs and even vinyl records, which were accounted for in existing state law. SB 1343 clarifies that criminal prosecution for music piracy applies to new digital storage devices such as hard drives, flash drives and memory cards that can contain hundreds or thousands of pirated recordings.