Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
They might as well make it a capital offense with a mandatory death penalty while they're at it.
Ah yes, the good old cat and mouse game of copyright law, making enemies of consumers. Would this mean multicast streaming is also illegal, even if you're not aware if anyone is watching? Presumably yes, but I'm sure if it is, something else will be found that skirts the law.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
This means that streaming a movie from an unauthorised source will be considered a more serious offense than vandalism, trespassing, simple assault and prostitution. Tag this one "overreaction, provoked, lobbyist, bad".
We are all criminals.
Won't this effectively make the posting of YouTube clips on websites / blogs / social media a felony also?
Sheesh.
Why not? Everything else is a felony. Heck, let's go the next step and just toss the entire population in jail.
What was the title of that book? Three Felonies a Day? By now, it's surely four or five...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
The horrible transparency of the administration's agenda is staggering: fuck civil liberties; to hell with consumer rights; let's make civil infractions criminal offenses; let's use jackboot tactics to go after marijuana users; let's viciously and vindictively persecute those who try to expose government and corporate indiscretions by siccing our most petty, pea-brained people on them; let's lie, cheat, steal, bully, badger, and spy on everyone who could possibly be a threat. Essentially, the absolute primacy of government and corporate interests over individual rights. The only ones shittier are the Republicans, but not by much.
I honestly thought Obama would be different. Fuck me, right?!
Bieber spoke out against Klobuchar’s bill, saying the senator should be “locked up—put away in cuffs” while noting he personally thinks it is “awesome” when he sees fans uploading their own covers of his songs.
If Justin Bieber is against it, how can it ever pass?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
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.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
My emails are my works, I never authorised the NSA to stream them anywhere, let's throw them all into jail.
Should stop buying American music, movies and whatever other junk they are selling. Stay on your fucking island.
Administration Seeks To Make Unauthorized Streaming A Felony
Which administration would that be?
For the sense-of-humour impaired, I'm being facetious.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Looks like the content kleptocrats are "getting their revenge in first", as it were.
"rather than the felony charges that accompany the reproduction and distribution of copyrighted material"
Such a thing should always have remained a civil matter between the copyright owners and the infringers, and for the state to get involved and come down more heavily than on even parking infringements is IMHO a perversion of justice.
More corruption, from the world's most corrupt regime.
This is clearly no in the interest of the people. Passing this legistlation, shows clearly who the ruling junta actually represents.
The Republican/Democrat Party is totally corrupt.
Only criminals will have Slingboxes.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
I believe the word "unauthorised" is being taken as read in the article, summary, and most people's brains. Also, I couldn't find mention of exactly who the new law was targeting - the stream provider or the stream audience.
They're actually exactly the same - controlled by the same bunch. Republicans push just as hard as Democrats for the criminalization of everything.
They propose to change (mostly commercial) streaming of stolen works from a misdemeanor to a felony. Nothing becomes illegal that's not already illegal. If you were allowed to stream it, you still are. Fair use isn't changed. The change is to treat streaming the same as downloading.
This bill is going to do nothing but help those Hollywood liberals that are destroying America. You want nothing to do with it.
(just trying to help kill this thing)
I am officially gone from
When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a felony. Er, nail.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Does that make me a felon? (Not counting the number of laws I have inadvertently broken in this screwed up country).
Silence is a state of mime.
So I guess money laundering is considered a misdemeanor....
This problem is a non-issue in most countries due to coalitions.
The main problem with coalitions is that the voters have to be at least somewhat politically aware, and understand corridor politics - that their party (or enough of their party) might have to vote for something they're against in order to get something even more important through.
And the politicians have to be more loyal to the party than the campaign contributors. So it would require a couple of big changes to work in the US.
The Washington Post article itself says that it's simply a recommendation by a report published by the Department of Commerce.
With any luck, it won't be acted upon. The time to worry is when it starts being pushed as a change to the law, not now.
Guns? Most people don't think things are serious enough yet, to even bother voting against these parties. Guns are way way down the "I've started giving a fuck" road from where anyone is right now.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I mean you should be able to stream for your own personal usage, but streaming to "the Internet" should be the equivalent of whatever penalty is given to someone selling pirated movies on the street corner, period.
I know it is so easy to want to decry this and claim our rights and freedoms are being violated, but I truly do not believe that anybody has a right to take someone elses work and redistribute it without permission. I am tired of the people advocating for the "right" to take a copyrighted piece of work and share it will millions of people. You do not, and never will, have that right. You did not invest millions into making the product, pay for the redistribution rights and therefore your rights and freedoms are NOT being violated here, you should be clearly penalized for breaking that law.
Please stop lumping these kinds of articles with "Freedom of Speech" or Human Rights. Its is incredibly retarded to associate this with stealing digital content. It would be the same as someone pleading that stealing a car is their human right or Freedom of Speech, but you are NEVER going to win a court case for stealing a car using those arguments. Nobody goes online and cries about how their human rights and freedoms were violated when they are thrown in jail for stealing a car.
And let's put it this way, you would only ever lend your car to family and close friends but you are not going to freely share your car with strangers, so the law should allow you to share content with friends, but not millions of strangers. I think that in all these laws there needs to be a physical analogy associated with digital content. No one was ever fined for lending a DVD to a friend, never. However make a million copies of that DVD and send it to a million people, you are clearly in violation of the law.
As long as the law is explicit about personal fair use versus mass distribution then I have no problems with it and neither should you. Sharing a streaming service with millions of strangers should be rightfully fined, to argue otherwise is pretentious and entitled and to claim it freedom of speech is retarded.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
You would seriously propose voting Republican to seek more lenient sentencing standards and a "softer" stance on crime?
Let's face it, this is one area with broad, bipartisan support -- Democrats love anything that protects Hollywood, and Republicans love anything that protects businesses in general or that shows a "tough" stance on crime. No one but the most marginalized fringe of either party would consider a vote against stronger copyright without their constituents baying at the door, like we had with SOPA, and even then it was the strong business opposition that swayed them, not the people.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").