
New bill upgrades unauthorized Internet streaming to a felony - evo_9
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/new-bill-upgrades-unauthorized-internet-streaming-to-a-felony.ars
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johngalt
"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want
them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy
scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way
to rule innocent men. The only power any 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. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens?
What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can
neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a
nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system,
Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much
easier to deal with." ('Atlas Shrugged' 1957)

~~~
guelo
The fact that this law is being pursued in the interest of private
corporations, namely the music and movie industries, makes the evil government
conspiracy argument invalid.

This is about corrupt ineffective government, not evil mastermind government.

~~~
anonymoushn
I'm not sure the "evil government conspiracy" argument and the "evil
corporations conspiracy" argument are mutually exclusive. In Atlas Shrugged (I
know, it's terrible that I suggest anyone actually read that book, but bear
with me) the problem is almost exactly as you observed: Some companies are
able to write the law, and everyone else loses.

I've spent a fair amount of time around left/right libertarians and
anarchists, and it bothers me that they spend so much time debating this. One
side will say "The problem is the evil corporations," and the other will say
"The problem is that the government has too much power," but the argument is
pointless because they are both correct.

~~~
narrator
The thing is is that corporations and governments are composed of _individual
humans_ and many times their interests are intertwined.

For instance, as anyone who's studied the financial crisis knows, there are
plenty of people in the SEC who used to work for big wall street firms or got
very cushy high paid wall street jobs after they leave the SEC. Thus, the wall
street firms were not prosecuted for their possibly illegal practices during
the financial crisis.

The government vs the private sector is just a false conflict to divert your
attention away from the individual actors with lucrative ties to the
entertainment industry in the public and private sector who are driving this.

------
Construct
Making this a felony is beyond harsh. For reference, here are a few other
crimes classified as felonies:

Murder, criminal sexual conduct, manslaughter, criminal vehicular homicide,
assault, robbery (simple or aggravated), kidnapping, neglect or endangerment
of a child, solicitation of juveniles, prostitution, arson, and burglary.

And, if these senators (and their media industry supporters) are successful,
unauthorized streaming of 10 or more copyrighted works in a 180-day period.

You can't really argue that unauthorized streaming doesn't impact the
entertainment industry negatively, but it should be obvious to everyone that
the impact is not significant enough to make it a felony.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
What really stands out here is prostitution. It's the only item on the list
that punishes a consensual agreement between two adults. An agreement that
doesn't affect anyone else in any meaningful way.

~~~
beaumartinez
Prostitution isn't always "wholly" consensual; some women are forced into the
profession.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
When it's not consensual, it's a different crime and a wholly different matter
in my view.

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m_myers
This is getting ridiculous. Under current U.S. law, felons cannot vote or
carry guns; it isn't _just_ a matter of a disproportionate prison sentence and
fine.

~~~
CWuestefeld
In principle, it sounds like a good idea to prevent those bad people from
voting. But now you can see that this can actually be used as a political
weapon, to keep those you disagree with from having a voice.

~~~
Terretta
Or a gun.

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pstack
I'm reluctant to accept _any_ violation of copyright as anything more than a
_civil_ issue.

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Jach
It seems like a bunch of laws are trying to get around the "safe harbor"
clause of the DMCA. This directly threatens Google, I'd think Google would be
interested in either buying up the music and movie companies or, a much
cheaper option, buying politicians. Perhaps that's the slippery slope to an
Evil Google, but there don't seem to be many options for stopping the
insanity. They may not pass the bill this time or next time but they keep
bringing this stuff up, I can't help but think if they paperclip it to the
right other giant-bill-everyone-is-in-favor-for it'll be bound to pass
eventually.

~~~
khermitian
Perhaps a better route for google is to put their cash into a grassroots anti-
lobbyist campaign.

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tzs
Flagging, because the discussion is going nowhere, mainly because either
almost no one is reading the article before commenting, or they are reading it
but not understanding it.

To elaborate, unauthorized copying and distributing has long (decades) been a
felony if you are doing it for commercial advantage or private financial gain,
and in any 180-day period this involves copies worth more than $1000.

Look at the language Ars quotes. It talks about streaming a certain number of
copies in any 180-day period, and puts a threshold ($2500 retail value or
$5000 licenses) you have to meet in order to run afoul of the new provisions.

It sounds likely, based on the similarity to the existing felony provisions,
that these new provisions fit in with those, and thus are only covering people
who are doing illegal streaming AS A BUSINESS (and doing a good amount of
business...if the retail value of a streaming move is $5, they have to have
500 customers over six months to hit the threshold). They are not nailing
people who consume the streams (just as the felony copying and distribution
provisions don't nail the customer).

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bdhe
Is it just me, or has there been a flurry of internet-related legislation of
late. With the PSN hack still fresh on their minds I wonder how much more
legislation is yet to come. Between this, COICA and PROTECT IP, things are
starting to look bleak.

Are there similar precedents when other disruptive technologies started eating
into traditional markets (maybe the introduction of tapes or CDs, or the
telegraph and radio)?

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kevingadd
Just think of it as a job creation measure - jail lots of people for
unauthorized internet streaming, that way we'll build more private prisons and
hire corrections officers to staff them.

~~~
anonymoushn
We could just criminalize alcohol and tobacco (or start enforcing marijuana in
the bay...) if we wanted to do that.

~~~
younata
s/bay/state of California/

Sadly, it's true.

------
Timothee
The distinction between downloading and streaming can be considered odd from a
technical standpoint, however I do think that it's much much easier to stream
illegal content unknowingly than it is downloading it.

Basically, if you download an episode of a TV show for free, common sense
would tend to say that something is fishy: you end up with a file on your
drive forever. However, in the case of streaming, I feel like it's much less
clear.

Two scenarios: I want to watch an episode of The Office, I google "The Office
season 6 episode 3" and end up watching the episode with ads on Hulu. I can
also pay a subscription to watch any episode I want.

I then want to watch an episode of Dexter and google "Dexter season 5 episode
3" and end up watching the episode on MegaVideo with ads (for MegaVideo,
MegaUploader… mostly) and a daily limit that can be waived with a
subscription.

The first one is legal, the second one is not but a non-savvy user couldn't
really tell the difference. I don't really have a way to know that MegaVideo
doesn't pay the copyright holders with the subscriptions and ads.

~~~
harshpotatoes
If my understanding is correct, Megavideo is the person streaming the video
and you are the person watching the video, meaning Megavideo would be the one
with the felony.

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bfrog
At what point do we just call the US government what it really is, an
oligarchy.

Republics actually represent the public at large not just the wealthy and
connected.

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Luyt
That's what I call a draconian law.

 _"Draconian is an adjective meaning great severity, that derives from Draco,
an Athenian law scribe under whom small offences had heavy punishments."_

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VaedaStrike
Let's find the closest friends and relatives of these politicians who infringe
any intellectual property rights in any way and then get them on record saying
they'd readily see their own kindred hit with felony convictions.

Things like this come from people who don't understand why intellectual
property was enshrined into law in the first place.

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5l
Not that I support this in any way, but I can't quite comprehend the technical
ignorance in legal circles that has lead them to distinguish between streaming
and downloading in the first place.

~~~
anigbrowl
The definition of downloading was written into law before streaming became
widespread; likely, when the former was used to prosecute someone for
streaming copyrighted material, the defense pointed out the inadequacy of the
existing definition. There's a distinction in law between downloading in the
sense of saving something to your hard disk and just having it in RAM.
Obviously, if I go to your website and see something on my screen, I have
'downloaded' in some fashion, but if just passing through memory was
considered a download then running a program or opening a file would be
considered equivalent to making a copy.

------
sehugg
"What are you in for?"

"Karaoke."

------
mcritz
How does this idea serve to protect the American people?

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j_baker
I'm not worried. Ars Technica digs up _at least_ one of these scary bills
going through Congress each year and nothing ever comes out of it. Our
lawmakers may be in the pocket of big content, but they aren't stupid enough
to pass something as draconian as this. The real things we need to worry about
probably won't be as obviously draconian.

~~~
dexen
The repeated requests for that kind of law modification have effect of moving
the _Overton window_ [0] in the direction of stiffer IP enforcement. Even if
the bills fall flat one after another, they move the bounds of discussion
towards heavy-handed IP rules. Preparing grounds for small, creeping changes.

\----

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window>

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rglover
A bit sad. I can understand the desire to prohibit the streaming of
copyrighted material, but taking infringement of any sort (especially
streaming media) to a felony level is a bit ridiculous. This is just lobbyist
nonsense. You're elected to protect the American people, so do it.

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mkramlich
Perspective: leading the US into an unnecessary war in Iraq, under what most
reasonable people would say were trumped up claims and distorted logic, which
then directly led to 3000+ American military deaths, and a multiple of that in
Iraqi deaths..... Not a felony.

Streaming a video without authorization? Felony.

A woman claims a man (IMF chief Strauss today) forced her into some sex acts:
mere accusation causes him to be led off a plane and put into a jail cell
pending a full trial. _Before_ a fair trail, he's now in jail. Based on one
person's accusation. (Which may or may not be legitimate, or may have been a
honeypot setup, we don't know yet, and may never know.)

Several men and women claim a man (and his administration) did (the things I
claimed in my first paragraph): neither Bush or Cheney or any other top leader
ever spent time in jail to this day, nor even charged in the first place.
(Libby doesn't count, he was charged with something else, a formality.)

What's broken here?

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rorrr
Guys, it's a cheap trick. Introduce some ridiculous charges, hear the expected
outrage, tune it down a bit to the levels they wanted.

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eurohacker
you americans seem to be under attack by the oligarchs, if you havent noticed
yet

~~~
anonymoushn
I'm not sure what to do about it. Voting doesn't do anything, and hoisting the
red and black would only get me kidnapped or murdered.

~~~
younata
"hoisting the red and black"?

Google doesn't help (suggests maybe resorting to piracy, but that wouldn't
result in you getting kidnapped/murdered), so would you explain that idiom?

~~~
jussij
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_symbolism>

