Hello Bill S. 978. I hate you, and most of the internet does. Why, you may ask.
In short Bill S. 978 will make it illegal to stream any licensed content. It would become a crime to stream or upload movies, tv shows, music, and even video game content on the internet with out serious consequence, including fines and even jail time.
To read some of the fine print of the bill go here http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s112-978
To put this in perspective, if you have a favorite web series and they pull up an image of McDonalds for a joke. Guess what. Give us money. Or if you watch an episode of a show you missed on YouTube. Give us money and go to jail.
Some of the penalties include… Makes unauthorized web streaming of copyrighted content a felony with a possible penalty of up to 5 years in prison. Illegal streaming of copyrighted content is defined in the bill as an offense that “consists of 10 or more public performances by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copyrighted works” and has a total economic value, either to the copyright holder or the infringer, of at least $2,500.
The common counter argument is from the Copyright Fair Use Law stating…. The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author’s observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.”
So contact your local legislator, get a protest sign, or blog about it because this bill could mean big changes if it passes.
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Why am I not surprised to see Chris “The Bearded Marxist” Coons or Texas’ own John Cornyn, the head of the most elite Republican committee, co-sponsoring this bill? According to OpenCongress.org, all of the organizations supporting Bill S. 978 are either in the film-making industry, unions, or both. That’s really about all I need to know to vote in the opposite direction.
We have the Freedom of Information Act, I say we make use of it rather than pay a fine or serve a prison sentence for streaming YouTube videos. That’s my two-cents worth, anyway.
By the way, one of Cornyn’s offices is in the Providence Towers, (east building, Suite #1125) on the NW corner of Spring Valley and the Dallas North Tollway, in case anyone else here in the DFW area was interested in driving over to express their dissatisfaction in a more sincere manner than a simple phone call.
I think this is absolutely ridiculous. Instead of coming out with a bill like this why don’t we do something more productive? Like…I don’t know, maybe finally putting an end to a war that’s been going on for ten years, get communities together to focus more on ending starving people by teaching them how to be self sustaining and growing a garden, or perhaps cleaning up parks and putting an end to all the little gang bangin’ wanna be thugs, oh! or here’s one, let’s look further in depth to the Casey Anthony trial and all her falsified information given to the police, and the timeline of events and decay of the body that could easily prove that she did in fact kill her kids. I mean, those are just a few suggestions. Instead, what are we doing America? Trying to make the bigwigs in Hollywood richer off the who? Oh yeah, us!
Love how the Government is trying to do this instead of fixing the economy….
Has anybody happened to find out when this bill will be voted on?
Don’t follow me I’m following my bliss.
– http://frangnesses.blogspot.com/