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Copyright Law Mashup Moving Through Congress

Posted by michael on from the smoke-filled-rooms dept.

The Importance of writes "The INDUCE Act may be dead (for now), but that doesn't mean that Congress won't pass any copyright laws this year. Right now, HR 4077, the "Piracy Deterrence in Education" bill pulls together a number of different initiatives to not only get the government involved in civil copyright enforcement, but change fundamental definitions in copyright, and make certain types of home video viewing illegal. The Senate version (brought to you by Sen. Hatch and Leahy) adds even more copyright law changes. According to Public Knowledge, 'The recording industry and Hollywood are making headway! Threatening bills are positioned to move possibly today or tomorrow (yes, even Saturday!) in the Senate and we need your help, now. Not only do they want to rewrite copyright law (again) to lower the standard required for criminal enforcement of copyright infringement; but now they're changing how you watch TV or DVDs in your own home! The bills (H.R. 4077 and H.R. 2391) also are written to make the way you use iTunes and WiFi a crime. '"

11 of 352 comments (clear)

  1. Time to use those guns to assert your rights by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    It seems that government has run out of things worthwhile to legislate, and is pandering to corporate needs and greed needs.

    This usually happens before a civil war of some sort.

    If I buy music, I should be able to do any damn thing I want with it, short of copying it for friends. I should get an automatic right to use it within my house, on my person or in my car however I want. I should be able to turn one purchase into several different formats for my use, at my own cost. The same goes for videos and DVDs that I've paid for. If I have subscription TV, I should be able to record for keeping the programs that are broadcast normally (not PPV rental-like options though), it has been paid for by me and by the advertisers.

    Sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe in. Assert your rights, and make your feelings known.

  2. coralized, for your protection by meeotch · · Score: 3, Informative
    Snagged one page, anyway... Tho' the web form is still borked, I'm sure.

    mitch

  3. Fast-forwarding through commercials by LihTox · · Score: 5, Informative
    At first glance, it looks like this bill makes it illegal for people to fast forward through commercials, or even mute them (which would make their sound "imperceptible"). Looking at the law a little more closely, (there's probably a more direct source but I found Title 17 at http://floridalawfirm.com/copyr1.html), it seems that Section 110 of that Title is dealing with exemptions to copyright law, not with violations. That is, this current law might not be about making commercial-skipping illegal, butabout making it legal to skip offensive material in movies and the like.

    The fact that such a clause should even be necessary points to the warped mindset of the **AAs, of course.

    It could be useful to paint the bill as the "It will make it illegal to fast-forward through commercials!!" to get the word out.

    IANAL, so I could very well be wrong.

  4. Worsens penalties by Ghostgate · · Score: 5, Informative

    Worsens Penalties: Requiring the U.S. Sentencing Commission to modify its guidelines to significantly increase the criminal infringement sentences

    Right. Because there's still a FEW crimes out there that actually have bigger penalties than copyright infringement! I know - I'm as shocked as the rest of you.

    In all seriousness, WHY do you suppose copying a copyrighted music file illegally is already a felony in most cases (along with things like murder, kidnapping, and rape), whereas running into a store and swiping the actual CD is just a simple misdemeanor?

    For those few who will no doubt comment on this article and say "blah blah, good - people swapping files are criminals and should be punished" I ask you this - does the punishment even come CLOSE to fitting the crime?

    And now they want to make the punishment even more harsh?

    This is not justice. It's a joke.

  5. Copyright law, as with everything else... by The+Hobo · · Score: 2, Informative

    If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

    I'm oh-so-glad there's no DMCA in Canada.

    --
    There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
  6. Contact your representatives by erick99 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Use this page to find your senators, then click your way to their homepage and fill out an "email" form with your thoughts about these bills. It's easy. It took me about three or four minutes to email both of my senators.

    --
    http://www.busyweather.com/
  7. Re:Almost had me talked into it by tvon · · Score: 5, Informative
    Until I discovered that the so called Public Knowledge site had taken over Mozilla, and disabled my menu's for normal browser operations completely.
    I wrote the software in question and there is no "menu disabling" code in there. The site has been live for over a year now and we have had no reports of your problem, perhaps you could be more specific about what is happening and where?

    Feel free to message me with any additional information.

    Regards,
    Tom

  8. MOD PARENT TROLL by Lehk228 · · Score: 3, Informative

    The site does no such thing, i just went there and everything works fine.

    --
    Snowden and Manning are heroes.
  9. Re:umm... by hunterx11 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Don't worry, Emperor Norton I already abolished Congress in 1859.

    --
    English is easier said than done.
  10. Re:Almost had me talked into it by tvon · · Score: 3, Informative

    *I* never suggested you were a kook :)

    Here is what happens to your data on publicknowledge.org:

    1. Address information is used to query the US Post Office's Web API in order to determine your full 9 digit zip code (yes it would be easier if we just asked for this information, but most people don't know their 9 digit zip code).
    2. The 9 digit zip information is used to query the Project Vote-Smart database (which they have graciously provided to us) in order to determine who your representatives are.
    3. Your list of representatives is compared to the list of representatives that are set to receive the 'action' which in this case is the phone call , though various other methods are supported by the system, such as sending faxes.
    4. The union of your representatives and the representatives for the 'action' is used for the following page, which gives you a list of those representatives and their contact information. In other 'action' formats (such as the fax) the representative information is used to generate a form letter and send it to the representatives office.

    None of your information is stored beyond that point. For more information you can read the Public Knowledge Privacy Policy linked at the foot of every page on the site.

    The whole system is currently referred to as the Public Action Manager but will be properly released under the name Athens. All the code is Open Source (GPL) and can be found Subversion repository.

    All that being said, I have no clue what problem you are experiencing but I have filed it as a bug regardless. I'm sorry that you think it is intentional and not a bug in the page or Mozilla itself.

  11. The big picture by Intrinsic · · Score: 3, Informative

    "Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?"; said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against - then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens' What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
    - p.411, Ayn Rand, ATLAS SHRUGGED, Signet Books, NY, 1957