Administration Seeks To Make Unauthorized Streaming A Felony

wabrandsma writes "From the Washington Post: 'You probably remember the online outrage over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) copyright enforcement proposal. Last week, the Department of Commerce's Internet Policy Task Force released a report on digital copyright policy that endorsed one piece of the controversial proposal: making the streaming of copyrighted works a felony. As it stands now, streaming a copyrighted work over the Internet is considered a violation of the public performance right. The violation is only punishable as a misdemeanor, rather than the felony charges that accompany the reproduction and distribution of copyrighted material.'"

Comments

YouTube...?

[beaverdownunder]

Won't this effectively make the posting of YouTube clips on websites / blogs / social media a felony also?

Sheesh.

Proposal

[DarkOx]

Traditionally the copyright system was to give authors the ability to impose civil liabilities on those who infringed upon their works. It was incumbent upon them to identify who was doing the infringing and file a legal action. Their lobby has shifted this burden onto the people by criminalizing copyright violations, effective turning our public law enforcement into their own private investigators on our dime.

Sine the general public won't likely accept my libertarian view that we should simply reduce the governments capacity to engage in law enforcement to the point where it /must/ focus only on seriously disruptive crimes. Let me get out of character and propose a TAX. Its only fair after all those who use the service should pay.

How about we say: Any entity that engages in the distribution, sale, or licensing of copyrighted works in the form of recorded music, finished films and movies, software, or long form narratives for a profit shall be subject to the copyright enforcement levy; with the exception of original authors engaging in a single one time transfer of all copyright associated with a work. Entities which meet this criteria shall be required to report what part of their revenues are associated with these activities. The tax rate shall be determined by the GAO estimate of costs incurred by federal law enforcement related to copyright enforcement. The tax rate shall not be less than 1% and shall not exceed 1000% of the revenues upon which it is levied. (And get broad public support) proceeds from this tax level shall be used to provide scholarships to low income college students.

Well I think the rest of the world

[overmoderated]

Should stop buying American music, movies and whatever other junk they are selling. Stay on your fucking island.

Re:Why not?

[bfandreas]

Welcome to the eSports scene.
There are a lot of unofficial tournaments for a lot of games. So that could possibly become a felony. Let alone all those YouTube Let's Plays which are also a thing.
I'm sure they intend this for video/music, but as always our lawmakers are a decade behind everybody else.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a prime example for the overcriminalization in the US. What should be a civil case where some corp should sue a private citizen becomes a thing with a DA and a possible prison sentence.
And people wonder why prisons are overflowing...

What about personal streaming?

[wbr1]

What if I have legally obtained, copyrighted content at home and stream it to my device in another location. It is for me only, but I am streaming copyrighted works in an unauthorized manner.

Does that make me a felon? (Not counting the number of laws I have inadvertently broken in this screwed up country).