Senate May Rush Copyright Legislation

iman1003 writes "According to an article on Wired, the Senate may soon pass a bill labeled HR2391, a bill which lumps many other copyright bills. If passed the bill would "would criminally punish a person who 'infringes a copyright by ... offering for distribution to the public by electronic means, with reckless disregard of the risk of further infringement.'" In addition the bill would "permit people to use technology to skip objectionable content -- like a gory or sexually explicit scene -- in films, a right that consumers already have. However, under the proposed law, skipping any commercials or promotional announcements would be prohibited." The bill would also punish people "who bring a video camera into a movie theater to make a copy of the film for distribution" with up to three years imprisonment and fines. If any of this worries you please contact your Senators and Representatives and voice your concern."

Comments

If you wish to voice your concern,

[Megaweapon]

please spell "concern" correctly.

Re:If you wish to voice your concern,

[Megaweapon]

The odds of a politician actually taking consideration of a constituent's letter/email/fax is low enough, it makes it even lower if words aren't spelled correctly. Sending a Slashdot-writeup-editing-effort type of message guarentees it being tossed in the trash. You might as well send "HYE SENATER, YR BILL ON COMPWRIGHT IS TEH SUKC!!11 PLZ NO VTOE FOR IT KTHXBYE!!1~"

Weird

[Anonymous Coward]

Did not read the article. I assume it is a US thing.

It is a very strange idea. Why would you want to skip the sex scenes but not the ads??

Why did you guys vote Bush in anyway? Oh, that's right, you're stupid.

loophole

[r00t]

Simply put a product tie-in into the sexually
explicit gory scene. There, it's an ad, so you
can't bypass it.

Re:Buy your Senator a TiVo

[13thirteen]

And at the very least, after a few weeks we could bust them all for whatever the hell they're going to call the crime (doesn't seem like copyright infringement) of skipping commercials.

Re:My what?

[DeepHurtn!]

I'm deeply conserned by compyright!!!!!!1111

Re:hello 1984

[Hatta]

In the White House.

Re:First Heinlein Reference

['nother poster]

"Bunch of streetwalkers, they are."

No, streetwalkers have standards. :)

if pvrs become outlawed

[enrico_suave]

only outlaws will PVR!

er... doesn't have quite the same ring, does it?

The rest I agree with, but....

[Master Nexxus]

I think the rest of the bill is actually OK. But the non-skip-over commercial stuff is really over the top.

Re:First Heinlein Reference

[xystren]

The bill would also permit people to use technology to skip objectionable content -- like a gory or sexually explicit scene -- in films, a right that consumers already have. However, under the proposed law, skipping any commercials or promotional announcements would be prohibited.

But I find the gore and the sexually explicit to be fine. It's the commercials that I find to be objectional!

Xysten
---
Tag lines? We don't need no stinky taglines!!!

Re:Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

[Wanker]

I initially read this as:

In addition, the Senate Judiciary Committee Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) will expire next year

I was getting pretty excited until I re-read the sentence properly. Darn!

Also Stated In The Bill

[Phixxr]

All must bow in prayer to the general direction of RIAA and MPAA Headquaters 3 times a day. Or face immediate execution.

-phixxr

Re:Advertising makes the world go around

[roman_mir]

LEELA: Didn't you have ads in the twentieth century?
FRY: Well, sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio... and in magazines... and movies, and at ballgames, and on buses, and milk cartons, and T-shirts, and bananas, and written in the sky. But not in dreams, no sirree.

I don't have a TV for over a year now, do you know how awesome that is? The only magic box that eats my time at home is my laptop.

But I don't listen to music either for 1.5 years now, so I have to enterntain myself sometimes... and go outside time to time....

Re:Illegal to skip commercials

[Prof.Phreak]

What will be the penalty for going to the bathroom during a commercial break?

The video player will detect your absense (scan room for open eyes, etc.) and will pause the commercial for you until you're right back and ready to see it... and you'll have to see it since once a commercial starts, the only way to get back to normal programming is to have your open eyes in front of the player for 5 minutes.

Re:Objectionable content?

[ad0gg]

Especially the commercials about menstruation. They always seems to come on when I'm eating diner.

Re:Senate.Gov

[JPelorat]

Right to your senators.

That reminds me.. we should ask them to increase education funding as well. =)

(just a friendly tweak, don't everyone go get excited and moddy about it..)

Re:Senate.Gov

[themaidtricks]

In that case, I'm going to use a piece of construction paper and crayons to write my letter.

Dear Mister Senater,

Pleez doo not pas the bill to ban "Tivo". I fukcing hate comershals.

Luv Jimmy

Re: levitra logo

[FunkyRat]

Well, I see a pony. I don't know about you. :-P

Re:As always, the rich get what they want

[Anonymous Coward]

I called my senators to oppose this bill from the phone on my desk at one of the major film studios... Oh the delicious irony.

Obligatory retort

[TiggertheMad]

On the subject of sexual symbolisim, Sigmund Freude was once quoted as saying, 'Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.'

You're just crazy. ;-)

Re:As always, the rich get what they want

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Yeah, whatever.

I just wanna know if I can use the technology to increase the amount of sex in a movie...

You know, like adding back in the deleted lesbo scenes from Bound or Fatal Instinct, or the cut scene in The Haunting where Catherine Zeta Jones sucks Lili Taylor's toes?