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Embed a Video, Go To Jail?
An anonymous reader writes "A few weeks ago, Slashdot had a post about the new bill in Congress to make streaming infringing videos a felony, punishable by up to 5 years in jail if just 10 people watch the video. As more details come out, the bill keeps looking worse and worse, as it appears that the definitions used in the bill would mean that merely embedding or linking to an infringing YouTube video could put you on the hook for jail time. Obviously, supporters of the bill insist that's not who will be targeted with this bill, but just the fact that they could be should be worrisome enough. We've seen other laws 'misused' in the past."
I'd be happy to appear on every radio and TV show discussing the out-of-control government which arrested me because I linked infringing "Sanctuary" episodes from youtube to my facebook page. It's time to Inform the public about what kind of tyranny they are living.
So go ahead and arrest me.
I'll be happy to fight back.
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
Whatever happened to our Constitutional protection from cruel and unjust punishments?
Is this the new War on Drugs or something?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Are you kidding me? That's the understatement of all time right there.
Virtually all laws get misused, and this will be no exception.
May make it hard for a jury to convict and up to 5 year how many rapist and others will have to go free to make room? And who will pay to keep all that many people locked up? When we can't even find room for the drug offenders.
What it boils down to, is they can send you to jail if they want to. This is just another hook to let the man fuck you over if you not play the game like a good little plebe.
This type of legislation is against the rune law or "Spirit Law" as they say in some religions. Voices anybody? :0)
The purpose of existence is to make money.
... wants to stop everyone from communicating over the Internet. Except for licensed corporations, of course.
The best solution for the interest groups involved would perhaps be to declare all of the US a jail (with some islands for the privileged).
This would be a rather elegant way to get rid of the 'constitution' 'legally'.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
is the name of the video site I'm going to launch!
"... supporters of the bill insist that's not who will be targeted with this bill..."
If it's written that way, sooner or later somebody will enforce it that way. They always have.
Legal framework wrangling for the myopic entertainment industry aside, why is it none of the top 10 major tech firms in existence have come out guns blazing, calling out both industry and politicians on these half-assed worded bills?
I try really hard, EVERY DAY, not to become more cynical of our system, but my confidence that common sense will ultimately prevail is continuously getting beaten to a pulp.
What can I, a lowly citizen and IT Admin, possibly do at this point to make a difference?
Why is misused in quotes?
Mean, Conniving, Untrusting, Coercion, Padding pockets are some of the words that come to mind. Fuck it, I will stop altogether watching any movies. How do yo like that? Its all shit anyway, garbage. There is nothing new in the way of concept and storylines. ITS ALL CRAP.
Absolutely. Everyone is guilty of something, even those who maintain their righteousness and purity at every opportunity.
Just another stick that can be pulled out and used to beat you with when it suits them and ignored the rest of the time.
Guns don't kill people! Admins do!
Lobbyists have destroyed this country. These groups only exist to protect and promulgate their own special interests. They have deep pockets and can exert unfair influence over the laws of this nation. What should be outlawed is the ability for lobbyists to exist and operate as they do today. I get that our representatives don't necessarily understand all the complex issues and nuances of everything that comes across their desk, but you can't have groups with only their own interests in mind leading/shaping the discussion. Our government is broken, and there's no one with the backbone and/or ability to fix it.
IF they are not Lying, then change the bill to close that loophole.
If they refuse to then they are bold faced liars. It really is as simple as that.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Y'know, as things worsen, I'm deeply considering constructing Skynet. Lock me up when I have my trigger finger on an AI that's just waiting to blow you to bits.
It's not even possible to feel smug about it from outside the US.
I'm in the UK and you can be sure if I ever embedded infringing material on Facebook then I'd be promptly handed over to US justice if they requested it. While there have been high profile cases against extradition I'm not sure that any have been completely stopped. They are, at best, ongoing.
Soon they'll be pressing charges against us for infringing on their intellectual property by thinking about the movie we just watched after we leave the theater without paying some sort of license to do so.
I mean really - they're gonna ruin some kid's life because the kid misused an embed tag? Really? Doesn't the "Justice" system have a better way to use their time and spend our tax dollars? Clownshoes.
In my country, there's something like "binding duty" (sorry, don't know English nor US Legalese enough to translate -- btw, this is a personal, just MHO post unrelated to other people/organizations.
It means a policeman cannot ignore a crime in front of him, nor just let go a criniminal for any reason, for he will expelled from Police and charged with a crime accusation (negligence, accomplicity, etc.).
> Obviously, supporters of the bill insist that's not who will be targeted with this bill
Once written, these guys won't even be reachable for comments. The law will have to be applied, or else law agents will be punished. At least, that's the way it works (should work?) in my country.
Invent a guillotine and prepare your neck.
Impossible to enforce, fills our jails, burdens our tax system, and is a total failure...
why not start another one of these
I think you allowed successive elected representatives to gradually erode any form of constitutionality
How did I allow it? A lot of these bills became law before I became old enough to vote, and most of the time since then, the candidate for whom I voted lost the election.
Let your representatives know what your view is here: https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/s978
This is it, what I've been calling Superclick.
If they pass it (and a few patches), it's the Grand Slam end to all Web 2.0.
As long as the law was only about uploaders, the viewing public was safe. But if they switch it to make linking a crime, and by extension clicking unauthorized copies, all sharing will end instantly except the Johnny Mnemonic Low-Tek rebels.
It will instantly slice down YouTube to a mix of corporate accounts and little guys.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
No, more likely the UK would itself charge and convict you, since UK laws are at least as draconian; no need to extradite you. Theses kinds of laws are massive cases of policy laundering. Britain (and Europe) are at least as much at fault here as the US.
Take responsibility for your own country instead of believing the propaganda that this is all America's fault.
So if everything is already illegal, and everyone is already guilty of something, then it doesn't really matter what I do. They'll arrest me when they decide it's my time.
Meanwhile, I can do whatever I want.
Cue Bart Simpson laugh...
---
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
Why is Congress constantly insisting that they can perform brain surgery with a sledgehammer....
While the brain can be adequately extracted with this method, any reconstruction or reuse is simply impossible.
by your friendly Prison Industrial Complex. Motto: "Incarceration cures all!" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison–industrial_complex
"Democracy." It's just a slogan.
Agreed. If they don't want to prosecute them, don't make them criminals. The worst "laws" are the ones that are not enforced except at the government's whim.
i) Corporations have a right to make a profit.
ii) People have a right to ensure that corporations make a profit.
iii) Changes to these clauses or introduction of claueses weakening these rights will be null and void.
Put down the mp3 player and streaming video toys and pick up an instrument. If you want entertainment, get creative and make your own. Then you can do all the sharing you want with content you make.
Like it or not, whining about "they are taking away my perceived rights" on /. will have no effect on the people who are writing this legislation. But if the people who are supposed to be paying for this content all say loudly in one voice "Your content is crap and I don't want it" and then grow a pair and stick to their convictions and DON'T WATCH THE CONTENT FROM THE PEOPLE WHO ARE BACKING THIS LEGISLATION IN ANY FORM, the loss of 10-20 million viewers will have an impact the longer it keeps up. The only language those people understand is cash. They think they are getting less than they deserve so they buy votes. We outnumber them so remind them they exist because we allow them to. It's not like your life will end if you don't hear/view the latest "thing".
Besides, if /. started looking around and something other than the media content this is about, you might notice there's a lot of stuff that geeks can do to keep crap like this from expanding.
Walk away. Nothing to see here. Literally
When they say "that not the intent", then modify the bill so that it's words match the intent. Nobody is going to give a shit what you meant to write, they're going to look at what you actually wrote down on paper.
I've been thinking about these kinds of problems that plague civilization when corporations have a louder voice than humans, and are able to manhandle laws into doing everything they can to keep the plebs in their places. The problem to me appears to be that corporations are completely amoral, and dedicated toward doing absolutely whatever it takes to make as much money as possible. They do this due to their obligations to the shareholders. I'm going to pause along this train of thought to abuse the corollary: Somewhere along the line, "The customer is always right", transformed into, "the shareholder is always right."
Basically what I'm getting at here is that I now believe that in order to effect change, the only way to proceed is to play their same game against them. I propose creating a holdings company, getting it classified as a NPO, and then using donations generated by those interested in the lofty goals of the organization to purchase stock in the companies that are causing the problems. Any and all dividends made from the stock would go toward operational costs of the organization itself, and any surplus would go toward purchasing additional stock. The purpose of this is to be able to try to lobby within the stockholder's meetings with the stockholders themselves, and at worst case and assuming that the organization has enough stock to do so, threaten to tank the company by liquidating the stock for pennies. I'm no market analyst, but I'm pretty sure that it would play havoc with all the automated trading systems were a couple thousand shares of stock to be put out there for 1% of the current asking price.
Anyway, I thought I'd leave this here, figuring that if anyone was cynical enough to be able to shred this to pieces, it'd be Slashdot. Obviously, it has flaws. I'm no genius, and it was just something that came to me the other day, so I've hardly spent much time considering it.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
It will get used exactly as intended, and you who talk about it being misused are foolish for believing that it is intended for anything other than what it will be used for.
If they didn't intend it to be used for all and every case they could have, and would have, included caveats.
Your 'representatives' pull this trick every time and every time you fall for it. It's no good voting for other 'representatives' because they will do exactly the same thing.
You thought you were living in a democracy but you aren't. You are living in an oligarchy with a voting feature to mislead you into believing otherwise - and it works. It keeps you quiet enough for them to pursue their agenda.
You've missed the point where the RIAA and MPAA have become the government.
So if everything is already illegal, and everyone is already guilty of something, then it doesn't really matter what I do. They'll arrest me when they decide it's my time.
Meanwhile, I can do whatever I want.
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
Correction, If your Maserati does 185, you can do whatever you want, for the rest of us, no you can't.
How does this affect them, when they allow you to post videos and what not?
If my unemployment ever runs out, I will get myself into the system easily. Free boarding, food, health care and awesome library.
We know this for a fact, because we alone saw it 30 times.
but don't worry, we wont shoot
The easiest way to get around this law would be to have or use a video hosting site that doesn't track view count. They'd be unable to prove that ten people watched it.
...our jails aren't overcrowded enough, lets start throwing in every other internet user.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Talk about scary - is everyone supposed to be an expert in copyright law?
Yeah, we could get sent to jail for linking to a youtube video while youtube brings in millions from the studios. Makes perfect sense.
We entertain friends and neighbors - get a movie, buy pizza - but by definition (10 folks+ within 180 days, 'public' performance), I guess I get a "GOTO JAIL CARD".
If I knew this was the freedom I was fighting for, I would have Joined the Insurgents.
I also never heard one man say he joined the army so police could inter his home without a warrant.
I no longer believe Americans know what freedom means or what it is,
Well At least I have some solace in know some people in this world rise up and kill these kind of cock suckers.
Consider This Scenario
I want my friend to see a really funny movie from 20 years ago, but they're not convinced it's worth their time. I search YouTube and I find a video of some highlights, so I send my friend the link to the video. I assume the clips fall under fair use because otherwise YouTube would have pulled them, right?
My friend watches the video, likes it, goes down to the store and buys the DVD and thanks me for introducing him to it.
The MPAA "piracy squad" spends all its time searching YouTube for copyrighted videos. It sues YouTube for its records, the logs show that I used their "share" feature to share the link with one person, and that person watched the video twice. The piracy squad watches the video 8 more times and then sicks its lawyers on me. Since I did indeed link to the video, and it was watched 10 times, I am guilty and convicted of a felony. I lose the ability to vote, the ability to work at many jobs, the right to possess firearms, ammunition and body armor, eligibility for welfare, eligibility for federally-funded housing, and the right to serve on a jury. I no longer have any influence in society and am reduced to flipping burgers by day and scanning retail inventory by night to scrape together enough money to live, which presumably keeps me sufficiently occupied to stay out of trouble.
Meanwhile, the MPAA gets a fee from the sale of the DVD that my friend would never have bought otherwise, they tip the balance of power in government further toward themselves by taking one more voter out of commission, and they strike fear in the hearts of anyone who even thinks about doing anything with video. The only previews you will get to see are the ones they force you to watch every time you pop in a DVD you bought from them.
Perhaps we could counterbalance this bill by adding language that makes it a felony to disable the FFWD or MENU button on a consumer's remote control. It's at least as criminal an act as linking to some YouTube video: millions of people are forced to watch 30 seconds to 5 minutes of previews every time they want to watch the movies they paid to "own" in their own homes. Sure, you could pop the movie in 5 minutes before you're ready to watch it, but the amount of productivity and electricity this needlessly wastes on a global scale is staggering. That's criminal.
the "/. crowd" is less than 1% of the entertainment industries client base. Your little boycott will have no impact.
pushing for way less government?
So, if this bill passes, and you film & post your family singing "Happy Birthday", and 10 people watch it, you get 5 years jail time?
Honestly, it takes an idiot to not realize that it is precisely such "it won't be the people you think we'll go after tha we'll go after" laws that effectively support a police state bordering on the infamous "new world order" model. Because, if they can, they WILL go after you. If they would want to. Give them a reason, c'mon! Of course simple laws of economy and ROI (let's face it, the modern world is largely a commercial enterprise of sorts) says that a 14 year old kid linking to infringed material on YouTube from a blog post comment will not prompt a court letter, but what if the kid is umm, son of a businessman someone would like to exert some gentle pressure on? you know stuff like that.
I am not the guy walking around with "the end is nigh, sinners repel!" banner nor do I share their views much, but admit it - it has been proven time and again that often enough world functions by the following "law" - "you are only alive, because no one wants you dead strongly enough." We may argue that it has always been so throughout the history, but in todays world it's far simpler to accomplish - to execute someone or to ruin their lives - than arguably in all other times combined.
By making this a criminal instead of civil issue - its not about locking you up - its about getting the government to prosecute copyright infringements instead of the corporation.
By making linking into a criminal law, now largescale content owners can harness the raw power of the taxpayer dollar - the governement is now the plaintiff, and government laywers are prosecuting on behalf of the corporations. Just like they have done with IP and piracy, by linking their profit protection to criminal matters (the Pirates are stealing our product and selling it on the streets!) they get to defray the costs of protecting their profts, and sic the government on anything they don't want to see happening, like sharing passwords or sharing content, when they could be making profits off of those interactions.
Winter is Coming.
"We've seen MOST laws "misused"."
FTFY
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power 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."
I was never an Ayn Rand fan, but she nailed that one. I leave it others to argue whether it was actual prescience or the "stopped clock" effect.
The kinds of legislation I worry about are where a few sentences get added to some unrelated legislation (some "Feed the Poor, Starving Children" type bill) that sneaks this kind of crap in. In the end, it will probably be struck down by an appeals court. But those accused will have to foot the legal bills to do so.
Have gnu, will travel.
If by some slim chance this was made into law the US government would effectively be able to throw whomever they wanted to in jail. This person causing trouble? Just slip an imbedded video link into their social account and go arrest them. The last couple administrations have shown they don't care about the US laws and Constitution anyways. They'll do what they want. "Change we can believe in".
Oh boy oh boy oh boy. All of this in the Land of the 'free'....
I worry more and more about my beloved nation across the vastness of the ocean.
The average jail time served for rape is 65 months.
Potential jail time for linking to a youtube video under this law? Up to 60 months.
If people could just go without buying their precious entertainment for just a month, it would change the economic and digital world. Media companies couldn't stand two successive disaster months because Wall Street would absolutely destroy them, and so pricing and distribution models could change enough that nobody would bother running afoul of these repressive laws. But no, that's too much to hope for I suppose. C'mon people, let's show a little attention span here please?
This is a clasic issue of business ethics and Friedman vs Freeman is typically cited. In "The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits" Friedman argues that companies should act in their own self interest and the interest of their share holders. Social issue are only a concern if they are in the self interest of the company. Freeman presents an almost diametrically opposing view in his article "A Stakeholder Theory of the Modern Corporation". Freeman's view is that companies have responsibility to benefit all stakeholders which includes employees, shareholders, vendors, and society in general.
This all begs the question as to which competitor to YouTube is paying (I mean supporting their re-election campaign...) the bill's sponsor behind the scenes. Someone wants YouTube shut down and is obviously getting this exact sort of wording put into the bill so that they can do it.
Remember, it's never about politics or even copyrights these days. It's about power and money.
Since the punishments are the same I guess I'll just take up bank robbery and mugging people instead. At least then I'll have something to show for my efforts.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Law enforcement agencies (FBI, et al.) have been quite clear that they feel it is their duty to use any law available in whatever way that they can to catch anyone they believe is breaking those laws. One test of a good bill (you know, the predecessor to a law) is how well it targets the specific behavior that is to be outlawed; many bills (that become law) fail this test. Unfortunately, when these bills become law the "intent" of the lawmakers becomes almost irrelevant - what matters is how the law enforcement agencies and the judicial system interpret them.
Allowing bills with obvious possibilities for mis-enforcement to become laws is just like taking flawed software and putting it into production. A good software release program wouldn't accept the explanation "we don't think the user will try that combination of inputs" for a flawed software component; we shouldn't accept the legal equivalent in the output from our lawmakers.
One way to think about legislators is as if they are the worst spaghetti-code lame-o programmers that you know trying to write updates to a big complex operating system. Even the most well-intentioned patches are likely to have unintended consequences (and many of the patches aren't well-intentioned, they are being put in because their friends have convinced them that the patch will be a "cool feature" that benefits less than .1% of the user base).
If a law can be "misused," it will be misused. If lawmakers pass obviously broken laws, its time to eject those lawmakers and get some new ones. Heck, someday we might even have some who know what they are doing when they are "hacking the legal code."
Why does the government get involved in auto theft? Why does the government get involved in fraud? Why does the government get involved in assault? Why does the government get involved in trespassing? Do you want to be responsible for the full cost of tracking down and prosecuting someone who committed any of those crimes against you?
I already left the U.S. because of this madness.
Dont you deserve better?
Because copyright is a major industry, and thus generates lots of tax money. Better yet, it's a net exporter, which strengthens the US in the global economy. Plus it brings political advantages - media companies carry a lot of weight in deciding who gets favorable coverage in the news and thus has an advantage in elections, so it never hurts a career to win their favor.
If the side proposing the bill vociferously denies that a bill will be put to some misuse, they have designed the bill with just this misuse in mind.
Good. Maybe people will finally start asking questions when they can't watch whatever they want online - they've certainly not cared enough to heed the multiple warnings people in the know have been shouting about for the last decade+. Instead every argument has been met with a "slippery slope" rebuff, well how far down the slope do we have to go before people realise that slippery slope might be a cliché, but sometimes it's true.
pls mod parent informative
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
They'll arrest me when they decide it's my time. (...) Meanwhile, I can do whatever I want.
This is not a lottery, that time is whenever you do something they don't want you to do. I don't mean what's illegal, for the most part they don't care unless it threatens them. In fact, quite probably things that are legal like say criticize the system, complain about injustice or demand more civil rights. Oppressive governments all love people who know to keep their head low and don't speak up, as long as you're a loyal pawn they hardly care what you do to other pawns. And don't piss off anyone with more power than you, or you will find your life on the shitlist. As long as you're a good carpet to step on, sure you can have all the freedom you want to crawl around.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I think I understand what they are trying to do, and I don't agree with how they are trying to do it.
I think they are trying to make it so sites that collect torrents, nzb, which then link to content that in infringing are suddenly liable....
I don't agree with that, and the bigger question is, what about search engines? is google suddenly liable because they indexed some content that someone has an objection to, or infringes on some copyright?
Effective boycotts are difficult to pull off. It's a reactionary, defensive move anyway. I think going on the offense would be better.
Propose our own law. And let's go straight to the top, and shoot for a Constitutional Amendment, a "Freedom of Knowledge" Amendment to match the other freedoms of religion, speech and the right to assemble and bear arms. I've tried to draft such an amendment, but there is so much ground to cover that I started getting bogged down in the details. The enemies of freedom have been very inventive. The main thing such an amendment should have is reform of copyright and patent law, which is another reason why it has to be nothing less than a Constitutional Amendment. And the particular reform? Elimination of the monopoly grants. We can set up markets to support art and science without that kind of government interference. Lot of other things could go into such an amendment, but removing the requirement to support artificial monopolies with our taxes is the main issue. We should seriously try for it, not merely use such an effort to negotiate concessions.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
New form of cyber terrorism and domestic internet havoc in 3...2...1...
Why does the government get involved in auto theft? Why does the government get involved in fraud? Why does the government get involved in assault? Why does the government get involved in trespassing? Do you want to be responsible for the full cost of tracking down and prosecuting someone who committed any of those crimes against you?
No, and the odds are low of those things happening to any one person. It's exactly the situation insurance was invented to handle.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
So a Rick Roll is a federal crime?
Where would we be if Wheel had hid her round rock in a cave instead of showing everyone how it rolls?
Who is behind these endless attempts to put people in prison for 'crimes' which most people probably don't think are crimes at all? The eternal Jew...
The eternal Jew, who never does manual labour, doesn't plant or pick crops, doesn't build houses, doesn't dig roads, doesn't work in a factory...
The eternal Jew, who controls your money supply, by counterfeiting most of the money in the world into existence, via their fraudulent fractional reserve banking system.
The eternal Jew, who controls your Congress, so democracy is just an idea in your country now...
If you don't like it, change it. Vote for someone with compatible views, or run yourself. Start petition drives or form a PAC, lobby for the rights you want. Find that too hard? Then you deserve the government you get.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
You have committed the ultimate slashdot sin, for which you must be downmodded to hell - you have introduced facts into the whine-a-thon.
If a corporation does it, does anyone there get jail time? Or is this just for citizens?
Don't we already have overcrowding in our jails? Doesn't the prison system already present a huge tax burden? this shit is way out of hand. If the media companies were more creative at adjusting to the online community, they might actually find ways to prosper rather than digging holes for themselves.
Every law made that could be abused, has been abused. There's every reason to believe this will be abused as well.
Its hard to outrun a police helicopter, even if your Maserati does do 185.
You'd think people would have learned by now to not trust any "reporting" on legislation that comes from a Slashdot story. As usual, the story grossly misrepresents what the bill actually does.
If you aren't streaming commercially, it does not apply to you. Putting a video on your Facebook page, for instance, would not be covered.
All this bill is really doing is closing a loophole in the existing provisions against commercial piracy, so that you can't get around those provisions by providing a commercial streaming service instead of a commercial copying service.
"Whenever a controversial law is proposed, and its supporters, when confronted with an egregious abuse it would permit, use a phrase along the lines of 'Perhaps in theory, but the law would never be applied in that way' - they're lying. They intend to use the law that way as early and as often as possible." http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169254&cid=14107454
Unfortunately the majority will stand by like sheep and watch the govt. make an example of you. Welcome to 2011.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p14bAe6AzhA
"The Richest Man in the World: A parable about robotics, abundance, technological change, unemployment, happiness, and a basic income."
Hopefully no one will go to jail for embedding it... :-)
By I am now suddenly nervous about this related knol I made that embeds many videos found on YouTube. :-(
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery/38e2u3s23jer/2
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
So if I post a link to a youtube vid on facebook, do *I* go to jail or does Zuckerberg? After all it's not MY webpage...
In case you wanted to write your Senator but couldn't think of anything civil to say, here's what I wrote. Feel free to use it (or not) as a starting point:
I encourage you to withdraw support for Senate bill 978 amending Section 2319 of Title 18 "CRIMINAL INFRINGEMENT OF A COPYRIGHT."
Setting aside my personal objections to criminal (as opposed to civil) liabilities for copyright infringement, this proposed amendment has the following problems:
1) Section 1 (a) 2 (A) sets an unreasonably low threshold for criminal liability. Specifically 10 public performances is, for all practical purposes, the same as 1 public performance on today's Internet. This threshold, especially when coupled with the ambiguous definition of "perform publicly" as applied to the Internet, has the practical effect of making any posting of a copyrighted work to the Internet a criminal offense. (USC 17, chapter 1, section 106)
2) Section 1 (a) 2 (B) i & ii have the combined effect of setting a floor to pricing for all copyrighted works. Copyright holders, who are granted their rights "to promote the progress of science and useful arts," are effectively required by this law to set their licensing rates at the minimums set forth in the amended code in order to assure their access to remedies under this law.
Broadly speaking, I encourage you to revisit your position on criminal copyright infringement. I believe that our copyright laws have strayed from their intended purpose to "to promote the progress of science and useful arts" and, as currently enacted, result in grave economic damage to the United States by building up an entrenched lobby of rent seekers with great economic and legal power but who make a small contribution to the common weal.
I would encourage you instead to reduce criminal (not civil) penalties for copyright infringement and also to seriously consider reducing the duration of grants of copyright to no more than 21 years.
Thank you,
Our prisons are so over crowded now, how are we going to afford to lock up an even larger percentage of the population.
I just saw an article about a state reducing drug sentences (probably a good thing considering some of the disparities there).
I know they will just make it a steep fine. So they clamp down and get some revenue to boot.
Why does the government get involved in auto theft? Why does the government get involved in fraud? Why does the government get involved in assault? Why does the government get involved in trespassing?
Why did you compare all of this to copyright infringement, something that has long since been established to be a civil crime? The only thing 'lost' would be potential profit. With all of these things, something physical was stolen/damaged. Physical evidence was probably left behind.
Compare all that to the hopelessness of trying to track copyright infringers down. It just doesn't pay off since it's such a minor thing, if you believe it is harmful at all. They're all over the world and can quite easily mask their identity, not to mention the fact that they aren't physically harming anyone or anything. It's simply not worth it. And you have no reason to believe that copyright infringers are some dangerous criminals that will threaten your life if you go after them. All of these facts put together is why I think the government shouldn't be involved in copyright infringement issues.