Make streaming a felony: Obama The US government is proposing that "infringement by streaming" be made into a felony. That is one of a number of proposals contained in a white paper published (PDF/917KB) by the White House. The proposals also include allowing the Department of Homeland Security (that's right, intellectual property offences are now, …
Unlawful streaming becomes a felony if they redefine it as distribution rather than performance. This presumably means that legal, licensed streaming also becomes 'distribution of copyright material'.
A shiny kopeck says the distribution license is massively more expensive than the performance license. Cue an enormous shafting of internet radio by the collection agencies.....
That depends. To me, a mere native speaker of the language (*), the difference between performance and distribution is simply that after a performance you only have memories whereas after distribution you have your own copy that you can replay as often as you like. (Whether either, neither or both of these should be a felony is up to the lawmakers.)
So internet radio, per se, is performance. Any archiving of the data stream at the recipient's end would be "copying" (as in "home taping is killing music"). Streaming of the kind supported by peer-to-peer networks is distribution.
(* That's "English", not "Lawyer". Please God, let there not be anyone for whom the latter is their mother tongue.)
The Americans are quite happy to criticise various bits of the middle east for locking up political dissenters and throwing away the key, yet they're apparently relaxed (and see little contradiction) with the idea of locking up their own citizens and throwing away the key for streaming an episode of the Simpsons.
At least now those who voted for Digital Economy Act have some real world class competition for the "corporate lackey of the century" award.
Long gone are the majority of forced labor prisons. Most prisons for white collar workers are more akin to summer camps with stiffer curfews and nearly no prison actually produces any useful product of labor regardless of collar colour. Add to that, increasing prison enrollment would put a greater strain on budgets and the people covering those budgets don't have the money anyway. Most of this will undoubtedly be handled with fines, payable to everyone's least favorite Uncle, in the hopes of curtailing the current coffer conundrum.
As usual - change the law to make many more people criminals either by inventing new offences or shifting them into the criminal rather than civil code. Classic police-state dystopia type of move that. Then you can justify more budget for your investigators and if you can muddy the waters between "criminal" and "terrorist" whilst you're at it then all the better, copyright infringers are now enemies of the state and your corporate sponsors are happy!
It looks like all the control freaks in society have now openly united in their desire for a Police State. At least now they are clearly highlighting themselves as the true enemy of freedom and all societies around the world.
@"The Obama administration's white paper seems, however, to be in line with the stringent enforcement regimes it wants other countries to adopt under the so-far-secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement process."
(1) This so-far-secretive documentation (all of it) needs to be leaked in full and spread around the Internet to everyone on the planet. The fact its secretive shows they seek to work behind our backs. We need to know what our government representatives seek to do behind our backs because as our representatives, they work *for us*, not against us in secret.
(2) By reading the above sentence, you have been deemed to be in violation of copyright Thought Crime. STAY WHERE YOU ARE CITIZEN, the Thought Police have your name & address and you will picked up in due course, upon which time court room 101 will decide the best way to punish you. Part of your punishment will be to give the rich people in charge of society more of your money, thereby keeping the people in power rich and keeping you down and poor, which of course allows the rich to stay in control of society.
By the way, as this news shows, the rich also get to define what is seen as a criminal offence and guess what, yes them and their powerful friends are the ones who benefit from their ever increasing list of rules you have to follow. Also should you be found to be opposing the rules they seek to force onto you, then you will be locked up, as you are then clearly a threat (to their ability to control everyone, because others may also then see the true nature of money, power and control and also seek to argue against the two faced bastards in power).
Did we skip the tedious actual reading of the article?
It's about streaming OTHER copyright owners' works - not just streaming.
I'm pretty sure that NASA own the copyright on the stuff streamed from their cameras. Similary for C-SPAN - though streaming paint drying would be more interesting.
Admittedly, it's a headline in the Daily Fail-school of hyperbole and inaccuracy but you should take the time to read the article.
I think that we all get the bit about it being other people’s content. What’s at issue here is the shift from civil to criminal law.
If you break civil law they don’t throw you in a privately run prison filled with sex offenders and gang foot soldiers, or keep your fingerprints and DNA on file for the next gazillion years.
When your kid gets hauled up before a judge for downloading a couple of music tracks, I’ll remind you of how bad life can be for people who are in the system. Say, if you want to get a scholarship to pay for college. Got a criminal conviction, too bad. Want to be a cop, work for a big company, work for a federal or state body? Want to be a school teacher. Sorry, you downloaded a Michael Jackson CD when you were a teen, so no way.
From another angle, what if the powers in the US get what they want ;- no more illegal copies.
I will laugh my socks off when they realise what they save in infringement now has to be spent on publicity as they killed word of mouth and try before you buy.
Perhaps the world will flip on its head where at the moment everyone else speaks english because they all get english speaking tv. We could all learn Spanish / Chinese / [insert language of choice here] then the US could be more redundant in TV making.
I no longer have any tv package, more out of convenience than principals so i am no longer telling my friends about some show i saw on sky tv fresh from the US.
....And anonymous bittorrent services are very affordable now.
Along with numerous other offences like hacking and sabotage of computer equipment.
Which seems to be OK for Yanks and Israelis to commit, as long as it's done somewhere like, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Columbia, Nicaragua, shall I continue ? Oh yeah, you may or may not need to be wearing a military uniform at the time.
Littering and fly tipping are also against the law, but NASA et al have left loads of junk in space.
Some of it capable of dropping on our heads.
Come on people, let's get real.
ALFAZED
"The wiretap provisions are justified by the large number of offenses for which law enforcement is already able to seek wiretaps."
Oh, ok then. Also we can already lock people up for any number of reasons, so let's just change teh law so we can do it for anything, hey we shouldn't even have to give a reason...
(Oh and I'm not a freetard; my future income will depend on us selling our work, but I see bigger problems in the world than this)
Regarding the wiretaps, will this be the point at which the normal internet starts to rapidly become the encrypted/VPN'ed internet?
I can certainly see a market for a VPN provider such as Relakks providing a linux distro that preconfigures a connection for you on installation. Live CD or, better, a USB installable one allowing for persistence.
This is a *good* thing, on the whole... it acts as a discouragement to people who might otherwise freely pass off the work of someone who might be unable to afford to sue the infringer. A minor discouragement to be sure, and one that doesn't really do enough to prevent large, rich media corporations riding roughshod over the rights of others with nothing more than an 'oh, sorry' rather than the thousands they'd happily extract from the same person were the situation reversed...
Anyway, tl;dr: in many jurisdaictions copyright infringement is a crime. See the Copyright, Designs and Patents act in the UK for example. It is not, however, theft.
But it /is/ illegal to cut someone off on the road, depending on how you do it. The exact charge varies, but in Illinois (one of the "States of the Union," a phrase you rarely here anymore) the lesser version is "improper lane usage" and is reserved for being a serious dick, and "reckless driving" is the greater version, used for when there really is no one charge that sums up all the shit you were doing wrong. :)
-d
P.S. Oh, and while I think that personal copyright infringement (vs. for money) should be a civil, not a criminal, matter, as far as I'm aware (and I could be wrong, but I was fairly certain) that hasn't been the case in the U.S.A. for quite some time.
Surely the offence is committed by the person making the copyrighted work available?
And that it that person and their server are outside of the USA?
And how does the USA check whether or not, under local laws wherever the server is based, if the person has the rights to stream?
So once again the USA seems to think that their laws are the world's laws and that we must obey their pathetic little whims.
I thought the USA was the land of the free - not the land of corporate imperialism.
And as for a world power? Give it a few more years, the USA is a debt-ridden minnow compared to the might of China.
(And I do mean that with respect....)
The entire jurisprudence of the US is based on busting the end user (ref. drug laws, prostitution laws, gambling laws, etc.) because thy don't have the kind of scratch and/or clout that the big suppliers (read: money) have.
Person w/ PC downloading infringing work: small potatoes = no money.
Entity/syndicate w/ server supplying infringing work: big macher = lotza money.
I hope I have elucidated that for you.
http://www.vision2mobile.com/news/2011/03/time-warner-cable-launches-live-tv-streaming-for.aspx
In the news today ....
"When it comes to iPad TV streaming, it appears that Time Warner Cable has won the race, despite Comcast Corp.’s first-to-bat announcement that its Xfinity app will soon do the same thing. TWC released TWCable TV this week, which allows live television streaming of about 30 channels to Apple’s insanely popular iPad. There are, however, some significant restrictions: The content can only be watched over Wi-Fi, and only within the home. Additionally, users have to also be subscribers to TWC’s broadband ISP service."
From cable company to international terrorist.
they won't mean streaming via established entertainment companies will they?
The plan is probably to end up with licensed services that can stream, while anything else will be considered illegal.
It's another attempt to shoehorn the old model of consuming entertainment onto the interwebs, rather than finding a way of allowing people to find and watch what they like and still get paid.
People were only happy with the previous model because there was no alternative.
Not April the 1st is it ? No, not yet ? Ah well....
I guess all administrations test the water with moronic proposals occasionally to see how far the public can be pushed. Oh and yes, I thought that quite some time ago. Being law abiding is no longer the good thing I thought it was in my childhood. It's clear that law can be good or it can be bad; and arguing that one must obey all laws regardless just encourages folk to become puppets to the government, ignoring their own 'moral compass'. And if you are inclined to rebel and stick up for your rights instead the elite controls you by passing laws you are unlikely to accept, thus making you a criminal for doing what you and many others consider to be your right, and 'fair game'. Roll on the days when we have real democracy, if it ever comes.
This sounds just like the panty-wetting tyrade the US went on about online betting - arresting the owner of one of the websites (not a US resident!) when he landed for alleged crimes committed by US citizens on his website.
Looks like they're just looking for someone else to blame and to generate more income to bail out their collapsed economy.
...actually requires permission from the performing rights owner, which you must pay for.
I say bring it on, the more ridiculous the laws, the closer we get to a 'new way' to deal with the unlimited copying capability introduced by digital media.
It really isn't theft if you don't deprive the owner of anything, and streaming is even more ethereal as there is no copy left on the receiving machine
It's the public performance that requires royalties - not just the act of perfoming it.
Sadly, these people think it's ok to do something ONCE and get paid for the rest of their (copyright) lives for a few hours work.
Imagine it was the same for plumbers - every time you flush, you have to pay a royalty. Or electricians, ......
I wonder if this will be extended so that people gaining unauthorised access to streaming networks will be said to be breaking the law too?
eg - tricking iPlayer into believing you are in the UK when you are not - and tricking Hulu to believe that you are in the states - when you are not.
Also - I am thoroughly enjoying watching Ghost Whisperer on <a_streaming_site> since Sky removed Channel One from freeview - it is now the only place I can get it.
and I enjoy watching Brothers and Sisters on <a_streaming_site> about 25 minutes after it has aired in the states - with some 78 links available to watch it on - and no hope in hell of Channel 4 actually running it.
You just prove the point at how ridiculous this is. Applying geographic territories to a network that doesn't give two damns about geography is an exercise in futility. If using a VPN or similar, then you *ARE* at that end point.
I too have used "illegal" source from time to time, often because I cannot find the media on the legitimate source (due to bad UI) or the legit source is such terrible quality.
Only two models work; 100% ad supported, 100% subscription supported (third-way being a mixture of both). That's it, nothing else will work. You know that, I know that but it does not fit the existing business model of Big Media, and rather than change that model they would rather change the world.
Their attempts are just seen to the Internet as a blockage, and we all know what the Internet does to blockages, don't we boys and girls?
Footnote: There is a fourth way, and it has been tried before with various degrees of success. Get the viewers t fund the show directly. At the moment the amounts are small, but this could be away for people to get what they want direct from the creators with some media exec snorting most of the profits up their nose.
"
I too have used "illegal" source from time to time, often because I cannot find the media on the legitimate source (due to bad UI) or the legit source is such terrible quality.
"
I'm totally with you on that one, personally I am a fan of Malcolm in the Middle which has never been released for home use (except for a NTSC DVD of series 1). Even though I am prepared to pay for DVDs of this title, I cannot and have had to download copies from the internets in order to watch them.
The simple answer is to give The Vote to companies, as well as (or instead of) individuals. Let's set the stakes at one vote in any election for every employee. That way the politicians can at last "come out" and start publicly courting the corporate agenda - instead of having to do it illegitimately through bribes (sorry, I meant: campaign donations), bribes (ooops: charitable works), bribes (err, that should read: a seat on the board) and corruption (dammit: ... nope, that would just be straight corruption).
At least that way, we could see who we, ordinary people, were really up against in an election. I'm sure that if all agendas were out in the open, the traditional right-vs-left of personal politics would get kicked out of sight, when we saw where the real threats to our freedoms were.
I can't believe that the Nobel Peace prize was given to this imperialistic corporation-owned liar.
I had hoped that his election would make the US a place I would consider visiting again -- seems not.
All I can say to our American chums is sorry and I hope that you have a democratic* government again one day.
*small 'd'
He hasn't fixed a *single* problem from the Bush era, just made things progressively worse. He's a progressive, after all.
In other news:
http://blog.mises.org/16042/media-piracy-better-described-as-a-global-pricing-problem/
"Suprise! You can’t stop the flow of media piracy with every-more-draconian measures. This stunning conclusion was recently published last week by the Social Science Research Council, as a report called “Media Piracy in Emerging Economies”. The study focused on emerging economies, where media piracy is rampant, like Brazil, India, Russia, South Africa, Mexico and Bolivia. The report argues that efforts to enforce copyright law have largely failed, and that the problem of piracy is better conceived as a failure of affordable access to media in legal markets. Of course, without the state-granted monopoly on copyright, the media commodities being traded on the black market would quickly find the price the market is willing to pay."
Which is usually sold to the highest bider
Guess we now know where the $1Bn (USD) for the relection campaign is coming from!
For further details see how the US politicians blocked recomended improvements to airport security measures being introduced prior to 9/11, because the airline whined to their bought and paid for sentators and congressmen.
Just as worrying is the little note at the end about the Trans-Pacific agreement; such agreements, including some under the auspices of the WTO, often contain some rules and regulations that seem deeply at odds with fairness to the consumer, or any pesky environmental and safety rules that might get in the way of big business.
Politicians often seem far to ready to impose these potentially binding agreements on countries, with little public discussion. While people in the UK rail against the various failings of the EU, it is at least a somewhat more democratically grounded institution than organisations like the WTO, which plenty of free market fans seem quite happy to support.
Qi explained that the only way America can compete with cheap imports from Mexico is by having large parts of their manufacturing done by prisoners who can be paid around 1.50 an hour.
They make something like 36% of washing machines and nearly all licence plates, armoured vests etc.
Perhaps they need to boost their workforce by arresting anyone they can. Afterall the three strikes and your out if it is a felaney applies.
The US really are retarded.
You know things are bad when you look at a place like Afghanistan and think "you know what, compered to the bull shit that's going on in England and America, at least they are honest with them instead of the "Hey this is best for all of you and not at all because my mates who own <insert record label> are doing badly" and by badly I mean they've had to not buy their 6th, 100 billion £ yaught they where hoping for this year
At least the COICA crap bill came out from a couple of very dumb representatives. This turd is coming out of the White House!
I live in a country where selling pirated stuff now means that the Policia Federal will crack down with assaut rifles upon you and basically treat you as a terrorist. Looks like the US is following our Third-World methods...
has one term written all over him. Dumb and dumber describes our political partys. At some point the sheeple will wake up and realize a dozen people owning %99 of the wealth of a country is not smart. We had the same problem under the robber baron trusts (Getty, Carnegie, etc) a century ago. Where is Teddy Roosevelt to bust up the current trusts?
Why did the Team America Theme song play in my head when I read that article?
Trademark (F*** Yeah..)
Copyright (F*** Yeah..)
DMCA (F*** Yeah..)
Wiretaps (F*** Yeah..)
FBI (F*** Yeah..)
Guantanamo (F*** Yeah..)
Streamers your game is through cause now you have to answer too,
America, F*** Yeah
Its not that I've suddenly discovered the camaraderie of the local Tea Party but I'm getting about as fed up with Bush-lite as you lot must have been with Thatcher-lite (a.k.a. B'liar). I think what's pushed me over the edge is the treatment of Bradley Manning but things like this 'Bend over and spread 'em' attitude to corporate media (or corporate anything else come to think of it) is just too much to stomach.
Remember that the difference between Libya and Iraq is that Libya has our boys in there working the wells but Iraq didn't (...and we don't want to up set our majors, do we?). Freedom only applies to the flow of oil - and profits.
This appears to be Uncle Sam's Intellectually Bankrupt and Bankrupting Policy ........ http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2101-arms-and-the-man-war-profiteering-bolsters-obamas-re-election.html ....... a Recipe for Dollar Disaster and Market Meltdown could not be better written by either Fool or Idiot Savant.
Fuck that shit, homie!
Amazing that everyone hailed this boy as some kind of saint simply because a) he's not Bush and b) he's the first black president. He was bestowed with the Nobel prize - for doing what exactly, I can't even recall. It became clear long ago, though, that he's a busted flush!
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Anyone who wonders why we have severe political shifts in the House and Senate every few years only has to actually look at actions taken by either party. Yes, the people of the US want change but they aren't really looking to merely trade Halliburton for Time Warner. I'm certain the Tea Party will do well in the next few years, at least until they are in power and decide that more legislation has to be written to benefit... if I had to guess now, the Evangelical Chu... wait, doesn't everyone already know this is just astroturf laid down by the religious right under the banner of excessive gov't giveaways to corporations that don't get automatic tax immunity?
Some folks have to learn the hard way that there is a price to pay for piracy. Almost weekly we read of people being convicted for piracy yet people continue to pirate. Sending these people to prison will certainly drive the message home that piracy will not be tolerated. We have a small segment of society who just can't live within the law and that's why they build prisons. The bottomline: Be stupid, go to prison.
If no one ever broke the law we'd all be living under the yoke of oppressive regimes. Many people seem to be fooled into thinking that because we get to vote every few years that we actually have a choice and live in a 'free' society. IP and copyright laws need a serious overhaul and Obama's pronouncement has nothing to do with democracy.
In the UK people who carry knives or assault people don't even go to prison these days, can we seriously contemplate converting yet more civil misdemeanours into crimes?
So you've never so much as copied an album to tape or a CD to MP3s and put them on another playing device? You've never turned up your music a little too loud so it constitues a public broadcast? You've never so much as parked your car in a no parking zone, just for 5 mins, while you wait for a friend to finish in the shop over the road?
So when they've caught the pirates and locked them up, prisons fit to bust, what next?
Giving that DVD you don't want to a charity shop? YOURE BUSTED SON!
Selling that unwanted PC game on eBay? YOURE BUSTED SON!
Less people out working, less money in the economy, country heads down the tubes...
There is such a thing as being reasonable you know? No I don't agree with piracy, it's illegal and yes there should be punishments, but simple fining and warning is sufficient for something that does not injure or hurt anyone isn't it? So you ripped of a CD of music tracks and gave them to your mate, next thing your life is fucked for good while you do 12 months inside, lose your job, house, wife and kids!
So it's bring on the Big Brother state with you, yeah? I can't wait! Thinking bad thoughts that go against what the corps tell you you must think!
"It really isn't theft if you don't deprive the owner of anything, and streaming is even more ethereal as there is no copy left on the receiving machine"
Not necessarily. If data are sent to your computer there is no reason why they can't be stored. On one machine I can't watch youtube videos so I'm forced to download them first and then convert them to MPEG. Of course it would be simple just to record the audio (or analogue video for that matter) whilst streaming.
But the point has been made that people only have so much disposable income that the entertainment corporations can get their mitts on, so if they're forced to pay for one thing they won't be able to afford another, like live gigs.
"I can't believe that the Nobel Peace prize was given to this imperialistic corporation-owned liar".
...by the corporation-owned Nobel Prize Committee, you mean? What a shock that was. Don't forget they are the people who forced Tom Lehrer into retirement by awarding their bloody [sic] Peace Prize to Henry Kissinger. "It was at that moment that satire died," said Lehrer. "There was nothing more to say after that."
but the national agencies that are responsible for enforcing also have national security functions, so the copyright bits just got folded in with everything else when Congress unthinkingly glommed all the National Security functions into one incomprehensible and unmanageable Department.
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