White House Wants New Copyright Crackdown

[Tinker]

[Najar]

Holywood gets its own Patriot act!

[YMix]

Fuck this shit.

[Mr. Perfect]

Is this serious?

[noddy]

[Mattmovies]

My first thought is one that I'm tired of thinking: Why is the White House concerning itself with this when there are much bigger issues at this very hour?

I don't think the definition of "streaming" is clearly defined here, and I wonder if they actually understand the term, or if in writing the law they are leaving a big loop hole to fill up our supermax prisons with everyone who participates in a forum favorite videos thread. And babies that dance to Prince songs, solitary confinement for them.

The confusion to me is whether the broadcaster is going to get punished, or if the audience member is getting punished. Is this, essentially, letting a movie theatre without a copyright play a movie and having the cops wait outside the theatre to arrest all the viewers (most of whom don't know they are committing a crime)? I don't have much of problem with shutting down You Tube as it is sustained on copyright infringement which is against the law already. Coming after people that go to You Tube and use the service is entrapment. Even going after the uploaders is ridiculous. If You Tube can't find a way to keep that material off, then they should be shut down until they can. Though I'm sure there's something in the contract for uploaders that deflects the blame from You Tube.

What I think this means is that the government is trying to take up more of a role in regulating copyright. Most of the time copyright holders have to find the infringers and send a cease and desist notice. Then take them to court if they don't cease. I can imagine it would be much easier to call the FBI and have them go in with machine guns, bust down their door and throw them in prison for uploading (or rewatching) Monty Python's dead parrot sketch.

[Endovelico]

How quickly the "Land of the Free" is becoming the land of the unfree...

[Caskhades]

Nothing new here. All of us are already committing an average of 10-20 federal felonies each year, according to a dude at Harvard Law School that I know.

Hope and change. Hope and change. Meanwhile, rule by special interest group to continue. As if those insane 90 year copyrights weren't enough. I guess making federal felons of 50 million Americans and, oh, about a billion foreigners is just the White House's idea of fun.

Don't worry, Ymix, I'll visit you in prison. Unless they take you to Guantanamo, since you're not a citizen and have no rights. Considering how many like you there are, I think we'll have to transform all of Cuba into a prison.

[YMix]

Oh, well, at least I'll have visitors. I'll also be able to write Mr. Perfect and confirm his opinion that Cuba looks like a prison from the inside.