US feds: 'Let's make streaming copyrighted content a FELONY'

A report by the US Department of Commerce's Internet Policy Task Force recommends that the government make the streaming of copyrighted material a felony. Currently, streaming content is a simple misdemeanor that breaches rules on violation of the public-performance right, but the report recommends upping the penalty to felony …

[User McUser]

The Task Force [calls] for Congress to enact legislation

Whew, I was worried for a minute there...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The Task Force [calls] for Congress to enact legislation

You only think that's a joke ...

[Rampant Spaniel]

Re: The Task Force [calls] for Congress to enact legislation

oh no we don't :-(

Should they manage to agree on something for once you can bet they get immunity for any 'research' they may have done or do into streaming.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The Task Force [calls] for Congress to enact legislation

I'm all for it, as long as they first pass the death penalty for any public employee or elected official which sanctions suggests or otherwise approves any violation or avoidance of the items identified in the Bill of Rights.

[Nym]

Better idea for public officials

Drug testing EVERY time they go to work. And auditing...EVERY YEAR. I'm positive it would save billions. Then we could have this big Christmas party, see...and the plods could arrest us all.

[Don Jefe]

Sad

Makes perfect sense. If illegal streaming is a felony they can get a better return on all the systems that were put in place to stop terrorism, but don't stop terrorism. No point letting them go to waste and they can't use them for misdemeanors.

I guess water boarding will be permitted too, "tell us who the other pirates are". Maybe they'll just execute you if you're smoking a joint & watching Game of Thrones simultaneously.

[LaeMing]

Re: Sad

"Maybe they'll just execute you if you're smoking a joint & watching Game of Thrones simultaneously."

Nah, there's no profit for the owners of the private prison industry in that.

[Jamie Jones]

Re: Sad

The sad thing is, that as ridiculous as this is, I'm not surprised.....

I expect the UK to follow in 3... 2... 1...

[Charles 9]

Re: Sad

"Nah, there's no profit for the owners of the private prison industry in that."

They don't need it. Many are already approaching capacity and are getting denied fresh meat by the courts on 8th Amendment grounds. Look at California.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Sad

Why not just make downloading a movie terrorism?

Two birds - one stone !

[wowfood]

Re: Sad

They've already tried that, haven't you seen the message at the beginning of a film in a cinema?

"If you watch pirated movies, you're supporting terrorism"

Erm... How is downloading a free torrent supporting terrorism? Honestly I want to know.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Sad downloading = terrorism

It's REALLY simples: monies spent on buying illegal (pirated) stuff that the terrorists are flogging down the high street of Peshawar and London (I see them (...) at every corner and tube station!) is channeled back to fund the terror operations, like buying nukes and pressure cookers. And we all know, which country of the world has a long-standing tradition of making nukes and pressure cookers. The country which harbors terrorists such as Mr Snowden, for example...

...

but.. but the people downloading illegally, don't pay a penny to the terrorists!!!! WTF?!

ehm... well, this is irrelevant, we say. AND, on top of that because by seeding free movies, the terrorist freeloaders undermine the fundamentals of our free(ish), greedy, capitalist society, leading it to, and beyond the brink of collapse (see: coyote) - thus making the terrorists win.

See? Simples.

[Daniel B.]

Re: Sad

Why not just make downloading a movie terrorism?

They already did it. A bogus research sez that terrorists get their monies from piracy. They even made an effort to tropicalize this FUD to Mexico, where we're told that piracy funds the drug cartels. Which is stupid, as the original "terrists fund themselves with piracy" was under the assumption that piracy had better margins than drug dealing... so wouldn't drug dealers just get off the drug dealing and do piracy instead?

[John Smith 19]

Re: Sad

" If illegal streaming is a felony they can get a better return on all the systems that were put in place to stop terrorism, but don't stop terrorism. "

True.

But isn't copyright infringement a civil matter? IE it's a private dispute between the copyright owners and the person doing the streaming?

This smells of more paid conslutancy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: John Smith

"paid conslutancy"

I like what you did there.

Even if it was unintentional!

[John Smith 19]

Re: John Smith

"Even if it was unintentional!"

Today's spelling mistake, tomorrow's OED entry.

It does create a certain impression of the sort of people you're dealing with.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why stop they, why not just make the use of copyrighted material a felony and let's make it retroactive. Since Chris Dodd is CEO of it, will he face the penalties?

"The MPAA itself has been accused of copyright infringement. In 2007, the creator of a blogging platform called Forest Blog accused the MPAA of violating the license for the platform, which required that users link back to the Forest Blog website. The MPAA had used the platform for its own blog, but without linking back to the Forest Blog website. The MPAA subsequently took the blog offline.[91] Also in 2007, the MPAA released a software toolkit for universities to help identify cases of file sharing on campus. The software used parts of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, released under the General Public License, which stipulates that the source code of any projects using the distribution be made available to third parties. The source code for the MPAA's toolkit, however, was not made available. When the MPAA was made aware of the violation, the software toolkit was removed from their website."

[Charles 9]

Actually, they can't. Retroactive ("ex post facto" or "after the fact") laws are explicitly prohibited under Article I, Section 9 (the part that says what specific types of laws Congress can't make). Since this is part of the base Constitution and spelled out pretty clearly, all the law geeks and honest judges are familiar with it.

[Anonymous Coward]

really?

what about retroactive immunity?

[Mikel]

Why not just abolish copyright altogether?

The prisons are full enough.

[sisk]

Re: Why not just abolish copyright altogether?

Don't be silly. There're plenty of drug dealers, bank robbers, and murderers we can parole to make room for the copyright violators.

[Zombie Womble]

Jail 'em up I say, jail some sense into 'em!

"Don't be silly. There're plenty of drug dealers, bank robbers, and murderers we can parole to make room for the copyright violators."

I can't see them having an issue with that, the worst crimes imaginable are 'stealing' from rich people and exposing the crimes of our governments.

[Loyal Commenter]

Re: Why not just abolish copyright altogether?

The prisons are full enough.

Don't be silly! There's money to be made from forced labour, and at moment only a shockingly small portion of the US population is in prison - around 1 percent! Think of the profit to be made if they can manage to get that up to five, or even ten percent!

[Justicesays]

Re: Why not just abolish copyright altogether?

Lets not forget that middle class copyright violators probably have quite a bit more money in savings than your normal run of the mill criminals.

So you can get them to pay their own way as well as making them work as slaves.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/10/riverside-county-california-prisons_n_1085983.html

[Charles 9]

Re: Why not just abolish copyright altogether?

Forced labor is restricted under most state laws, plus many of them are running afoul of the FEDERAL courts, who are forcing releases due to overcrowding (IOW, they can't take in new people without kicking out other people—and turnover is bad for business).

[gnufrontier]

Chop off their hands and gouge out their eyes

Why stop with just making it a felony ? We are an insufferable species.

[BornToWin]

Re: Chop off their hands and gouge out their eyes

This isn't a bad suggestion but the bleeding hearts of the world would be aghast at proper punishment for piracy.

[John Smith 19]

Re: Chop off their hands and gouge out their eyes

"This isn't a bad suggestion but the bleeding hearts of the world would be aghast at proper punishment for piracy."

Sounded like a cube rate in the NSA.

Now just a troll.

Do not feed.

[Sureo]

The USA doesn't have enough people in prison?

[Don Jefe]

Well, with marijuana restrictions being relaxed they've got to find a new bread-and-butter revenue generator for the prison system.

[Anonymous Coward]

How about...

... making it a felony to be a corporate whore while in office?

[LaeMing]

Re: How about...

That is more of a High-Treason level offense, I feel.

[Lars]

Re: How about...

...making it a felony to give birth to children. Problem solved, nice and clean . As for being a corporate whore in office, perhaps making it a felony to marry somebody who forces you to become a corporate etc.

[MachDiamond]

Re: How about...

Can't prohibit children, they're the gateway to greater government assistance. You can't collect enough welfare without them.

[John Smith 19]

Re: How about...

"... making it a felony to be a corporate whore while in office?"

Because turkeys don't vote for Thanksgiving?

[Crisp]

Re: making it a felony to be a corporate whore while in office?

You could get american politicians under their bribery laws. Good luck finding someone to charge and prosecute them though.

[-tim]

Those without sin can cast the first cluestick?

So is it time to offer a bounty on any video of senators sinning "happy birthday" in public? That is illegal too. Maybe the folks at EFF can set up a drop box for video evidence of these law breakers.

[MacGyver]

Re: Those without sin can cast the first cluestick?

Didn't you hear, turns out that the "owner" of the Happy Birthday song (Sony?) can't seem to find the paperwork that says so. Turns out that it's hard to keep track of "ownership" paper work after a hundred years, maybe that is saying something about the length of copyrights.

[Eradicate all BB entrants]

Re: Those without sin can cast the first cluestick?

Your idea has merit, but should be taken further. A group of like minded people in their respective locations researching with a fine tooth comb all of these media lobbyist organisations and companies.

They will not be up to date with licensing, they do not respect the copyright of others. When details are found out redistribute around the group for them all to lodge complaints with the relevant organisations. Some blogs do make a good try with this but are usually by themselves and may not have all the required skills or resources to go further. I'm not condoning hacking, I am suggesting going through publicly available information, websites and the like. Even if it means reporting the font they use on the stupid DVD anti-piracy methods, asking them to supply the hard data that proves piracy supports terrorism. Go for stuff they would never expect, such as invoicing them for time lost having to sit through the stupid piracy adverts, if they don't pay sell it to a debt collection agency.

I am as complicit as the rest of you guys for screaming about this on forums and doing feck all about it, as a group we have the requisite skills, lets use them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "fine tooth comb"

I would very much like to see this particularly fine example of a comb used for teeth that you possess.

Personally I have always used a brush.

[ops4096]

"Content" ???

Living in orbit around Barnards Star I've got absolutely no idea what the fuss is all about. Really, why does anybody bother to watch let alone pirate ultra violent propaganda about pathological psychological cripples operating in totally unreal amoral inhuman societies ?

[Don Jefe]

Re: "Content" ???

CSPAN?

[Chris 244]

Does this apply to NASA?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/06/curiositys_sam_sings_itself_happy_birthday_for_martian_anniversary/

[tony2heads]

re: NASA

If it applied off-world we could all be in deep trouble if aliens have already copyrighted everything we can think of (perhaps even our genome)

[Charles 9]

Re: re: NASA

Besides, since it was composed for a new instrument (a roving machine) it might be considered a cover or re-composition, giving it its own copyright (it's considered fair use to apply the original in this manner). And under federal law, with only a handful of exceptions, all products of the federal government immediately become public domain.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: re: NASA

And the copyright will be good for the life of the rover+75 MARS YEARS.

[Don Jefe]

Re: re: NASA

Our first interstellar visitors will be greeted by the RIAA/MPAA!

[silent_count]

Priorities

Good to know that irrelevant things like homelessness and disease can be put aside to focus on the really important things like streaming video watsits. Just maybe if they put a little more effort into providing a good service to their audience rather than trying to find ways to prosecute them... nah. That'd never work.

[Winkypop]

Your Majesty is like a stream of bat's piss

Ahh, I mean, your proposed streaming laws are bat shit insane.

[Christian Berger]

Wouldn't that make all TV stations criminals?

I mean there's nothing in the article saying it's streaming without a license they are after. So if this is actually legislated like in the article, it would mean that there would be no "legal" streaming any more.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Government criminals

I've legally transferred many songs between my personal devices using the Internet for transport. I've also legally listened to purchased streams of copyrighted material. The NSA has surely duplicated a few of those streams without authorization and must be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

[MacGyver]

Re: Government criminals

It was technically you that was streaming that to them, so you would be the felon.

[David 45]

Bonkers

Here in the UK, I don't understand the American terms describing the degrees of "seriousness" of an alleged crime but if your lawmakers wish to waste their time on this trivial matter, when there are much more important issues to be tackled, then something is seriously wrong. It'll be a hanging offence next! This obsession with copyright and piracy matters is sheer lunacy. If the industry provided a reasonable alternative solution at an equally reasonable price, then I would imagine people would actually buy what is currently a grossly over-priced product.

[kain preacher]

Re: Bonkers

In the US being convicted of felonies mean you lose the right to vote and own guns.misdemeanor means less then a year in jail and fines not to exceed $2500. Felony convictions can bar you from entering certain countries. Misdemeanor are easy to expunge and not show up on criminal back ground check. In some states in the US employees are bared from asking about misdemeanor convictions. Unless its , DUI, Drug related, guns or domestic violence.

[relpy]

Re: Bonkers

So you lose the right to vote for streaming a video?

Woo!

Go democracy... (which is possibly the intention)

[Don Jefe]

Re: Bonkers

You don't lose your voting rights for all felonies. Mostly just the violent ones and those that directly pervert government or the course of justice.

[Gordon 10]

Re: Bonkers

David - its not that hard. Felony and Misdemeanor are roughly analagous to our Criminal and Civic offences - the major difference being jail time is not involved at all for civil offences but it can be for felonies.

[Bryan Maguire]

Re: Bonkers

That analogy is completely incorrect. A much better analogy is with summary and indictable offences.

[browntomatoes]

Re: Bonkers

This was the system in the England & Wales as well before 1967 so it's not really an "American term". Felonies were originally offences for which those convicted were subject to forfeiture of land and property (really this was part of the feudal system) although this was abolished during the Victorian era. Eventually the main distinction became the rules and mode of procedure for trials which made things unnecessarily complicated so effectively felonies were abolished in 1967 and all previous felonies became misdemeanours (which were then renamed).

In the same way, some American states and the Federal government retain certain other now-obsolete aspects of the English legal system - e.g. juries for civil trials (still technically available but almost never used in England except in defamation cases), the division of civil courts between courts of Equity and courts of Law (abolished in the Victorian era but still around in some US states to greater or lesser extent, notably in Delaware) and the idea of indictments being handed down by grand juries (abolished in 30s/40s in England but actually required and not merely optional for any Federal offence in the US).

[Charles 9]

Re: Bonkers

Actually, juries are guaranteed unless waived for all criminal trials by the 6th Amendment and guaranteed on request by the 7th Amendment for any civil case where at least $20 is in dispute (which back then was a decent amount of dosh).

Thankfully, since you have to actually ASK for a jury in civil matters, they usually don't push it for most matters less than $5000 (depends on the state). In return for dispensing with the jury, we use small claims courts where the judge hears both sides, asks questions, and then decides the matter pretty quickly, saving some headaches all around.

And under most American laws, we do differentiate between felonies and misdemeanors, though not by the English standard. In America, a felony is a crime where there is a certain minimum standard of punishment involved (permanent record, loss of voting privileges, minimum 1 year sentence in a proper prison instead of a jail, etc.). It's our way to informing the perp, "You REALLY messed up this time.". Misdemeanors in our book are simply those crimes that aren't serious enough to be considered felonies.

[David 45]

Re: Bonkers

Thanks folks! Either way, it all seems very OTT for alleged copyright infringement to me.

[Justicesays]

Once it makes it on the books

Expect the extradition requests to flow freely. Not just against obviously "illegal" sites, but sites that don't have streaming rights in the US, but fail to prevent an FBI agent using a VPN and pretending to be a 60 year old Dutch woman from watching it.

[Zombie Womble]

Re: Once it makes it on the books

"Expect the extradition requests to flow freely."

This was my immediate thought on reading the headline.

[localzuk]

Countries with legal services

Still have the issue of "artificial scarcity". Why do services like Netflix, LoveFilm and the like only have a small selection of movies and shows at any one time? If I go on there and want to watch Firefly, I should be able to. Not have to hope they've got it listed for 10 weeks before its replaced by Babylon 5.

The companies are still missing the point of it all - people want actual on demand viewing, not drip fed viewing.

Sure, don't put the latest blockbusters on there straight away - we all know that cinematic releases generate most money for the studios, but there's no reason whatsoever that it takes a year for them to appear.

It is simply an attempt to control how people view things again.

[Charles 9]

Re: Countries with legal services

Well, the title rotation could well go down to either storage or bandwidth issues. They may not want (less storage means less maintenance and replacement costs) or be able (ask the original producers—they still hold the final say and can dictate terms) to hold everything at one time. Also commercial internet bandwidth is metered, so if they hit a popular show that starts sapping bandwidth, they may not get enough return for the investment.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Countries with legal services

Or it could simply cost them $10k/day just to be able to have it available, plus $.50 per view.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Countries with legal services

While that business reasoning may well be valid, it really misses the point.

Looking at the big picture, it should be possible to make all content available at any time. This is what we should be heading for. Various changes will be necessary to the commercial and political landscape in order for this to happen, but really they are trivial compared to how far we have come in the past 20, 50, 100 years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally

Finally the U.S. is starting to get real about piracy. Japan has passed mandatory minimum prison time and high fines for pirates (2 yrs.), hackers and facilitators (10 yrs.), of piracy. All countries should adopt these same minimum prison sentences. While it won't stop all piracy or hacking it will at least send a lot of the scum in society to prison where they belong. This legislation has been long overdue.

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

Re: Finally

" it will at least send a lot of the scum in society to prison where they belong"

Yes, like all those nefarious 10 year old little girls using their grandparents laptop listening to subversive pop music.

I can see why you posted AC, coward.

Still, troll away little mind.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Finally

I thought he was being sarcastic.

[localzuk]

Re: Finally

Giving customers what they actually want would do a better job of reducing piracy, whilst also increasing revenues to the studios and artists...

[codejunky]

Re: Finally

@AC

I guess you missed the bit about the content not being legally available in the first place. There is no way to follow the law and to watch the content, which is the purpose of the content.

[MJI]

Re: Finally

Pirates - they should walk the plank, or blow their fishing boats out of the water

Copywrite infringers - may be tell them off.

[MJI]

Re: Finally

Wow downvoted by a moron!

Do you know what a pirate is?

Read this!!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy

[Vic]

Re: Finally

> This legislation has been long overdue.

ODFO.

Vic.

[Crisp]

I like to use VLC to stream content from my media player

Is that black helicopters I can see circling overhead?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I like to use VLC to stream content from my media player

* ARE THOSE black helicopters...?

Sheesh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Best stop watching those music videos on youtube.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds promising...

because íf 'facilitating the distribution of copyrighted material should then equally include :

- ISP's who provide access to usenet and streaming services

- You guessed it, Astra, UNS, GegaNews et all

- Makers of torrent utilities

- Torrent indexing websites

etc. Because, let's face it, these outfits actually make money off the illegal distribution of copyrighted material, unlike the lady in the US (What was hetr name ? Whammy or something ?) who shared a few songs or the toddler in Scandinavia that had dad's laptop impounded.

Honestly, and I DO mean honestly, what do all these companies provide unlimited bandwidth and capless download plans for ? Downloading emails ?

But no, as usual they will turn some poor individuals into examples fining them tens of thousands of dollars and possibly putting them in the slammer, while their cronies with the big telco, ISP and related industries continue to line their pockets.

[Pascal Monett]

Re: unlimited bandwidth and capless download plans

They can also be used to honestly download Windows patches, hotfixes for games legally acquired, and Linux distributions.

Why the fuck does every anti-piracy maniac have to reduce the Internet to only piracy ?

Don't you know that it is PORN that makes the world go round ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: unlimited bandwidth and capless download plans

You are claiming you need a 120 Mb capless internet connection for watching porn ? You must have some serious callousses in odd places.

For the record. I'm not an anti piracy maniac. In fact, I'm not any kind of maniac.

I just find it odd that all these measures that are allegedly put into place to combat piracy always seem to focus on the alleged user, and never on all the companies providing the infrastructure.

I submit that ISP's and usenet providers would record a dramatic drop in high volume subscriptions if the downloading of movies, games, tv shows and the like were taken out of the equation. And hence a substantial drop in revenue.

I therefor equally submit it is the ISP's that are the major beneficiaries of the alleged distribution of illegal content.

It is of no consequence whatsoever what I think about the use, the user or the provider. It is merely a statement of opinion which I think can be supported by traffic statistics.

And I encourage you to disagree by statement of fact. Not, however, suppositions about my character or mental health.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: unlimited bandwidth and capless download plans

Don't you think that a high-bandwidth connections would be necessary if I wanted to watch only streams from Netflix, Hulu, etc? Plus updates for the 7 computers in the house?

btw, I don't have any suppositions about your mental health, you've already demonstrated it to us.

[Zombie Womble]

Re: unlimited bandwidth and capless download plans

"You are claiming you need a 120 Mb capless internet connection for watching porn ? You must have some serious callousses in odd places.

For the record. I'm not an anti piracy maniac. In fact, I'm not any kind of maniac."

An ideal world where the internet needs only dial-up because i only ever post uninformed comments on forums and look at my bank statements.

You are not a maniac, just grossly uninformed about the current state of the internet and all the possibilities! Have you heard nothing about the marketing war over streamed television services? Even here in the UK where speeds are lagging way behind, all the major TV suppliers are desperate to win customers for their streaming services. Even Sky is frantically promoting their On Demand. so much for pirates only needing high speeds.

[Will Godfrey]

Don't panic Mr Mannering

Well, I just enjoyed some streaming music, and was watching a streaming vid last night... However both were CC licensed and as good - if not better - as the commercial stuff others seem to get.

[John Smith 19]

So who *are* this "Internet Policy Task Force "

Let me guess.

Big Media copyright holders.

Assorted paid conslutants to the industry.

Civil servants and Legislature staffers who are looking at some nice jobs in the industry if this goes ahead (look at the story around the DCMA clause that gives digital copyright to the recorder of the piece, not the performer).

And surprise, surprise they want stiffer penalties and the USG to become directly involved in a civil matter.

No questions about why otherwise law abiding citizens who would not hesitate to call 911 if they saw a little old lady being attacked in the street would commit this offense

And on a personal note, does the US Legislature not have some real problems to be dealing with? Like the fact the Legislature seems to be in grid lock over the budget again

thumbs down for this wasted effort.

Americans. You brought about regime change in Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq with varying degrees of success.

Perhaps it's time you had a go with your own elected representatives?

[g e]

Why not just give IP the same status as money

Then you'll cover all the grannies and 8 year olds under racketeering and counterfeiting laws.

EDIT: Obviously I refer only to the IP of the big campaign contributor-corps, not your average person on the street. That's a different kind of copyright - the sort that doesn't generate contributions to your slush funds.

[MacGyver]

So isn't listening to music "streaming of copyrighted material", and letting someone watch MY television is the same. I worry that any law they try to enact is going to not be worded well enough to only do what they want and will have weird consequences.

I don't think that there is any chance of this going through, Goggle or any other user-content service couldn't even exist in that type of environment.

If it ever does pass, I hope that every person that voted "YES" has their own 15-year old hauled off to jail with a permanent FELONY record for streaming. Imagine the criminals this will create, it will destroy the future of lots of kids, and steer them into a life of REAL crime.

I'm all for people making profit, just not at the expense of a persons entire future.

What do you expect from the people that brought us laws that make the penalty LESS severe if you kick down the projection booth door, pistol whip the projectionist, and steal the actual movie reel, instead of recording it with your crappy phone. (one get's you 10 years in prison, guess which one that is)

If it ever does pass, I hope we the people FIX it through jury-nullification.

[Phil W]

Doesn't sound wholly unreasonable to me.

As far as I can tell from the article they're talking about making it a felony to provide the content without permission, not viewing.

This change in law is to prosecute the people actually distributing something they have no right to, which is a refreshing change to the attempts to change the law or use existing law to prosecute the home user who watches the odd movie online illegally/illegitimately because they can't afford to buy it.

Downloading/streaming copyrighted material should be at worst a misdemeanor. Actually making active efforts to host a site to distribute and stream content you don't own rights to is clearly something that should be a proper crime.

The same approach as is/should be (depending on your locale) taken with drugs. Educate the end user, prosecute the distributor.

I fully expect to be downvoted by freetards here of course.

[Don Jefe]

Re: Doesn't sound wholly unreasonable to me.

It has nothing to do with being a freetard you moose dick. It is about our criminal and justice system being subverted to deal with a civil matter and Congress being controlled by private interests while real issues bog down the entire country.

[Boris the Cockroach]

Heres the reason

we dont want ISP filtering with opt outs etc etc

Because today it will be used to screen out all nasty porn filth the kiddies should'nt be allowed to see, and once its perfected, all of a sudden the filter is switched on to block torrents, and streaming of copyright material under the guise of 'helping the media business make even more money.. errr stopping pirates'

[J.G.Harston]

Huge copyright law fail

"make the streaming of copyrighted material a felony."

Err... but EVERYTHING created in the last 75ish years is copyrighted!

[J.G.Harston]

Argh!!! I'm listening to Radio 4 via the BBC's Listen Online! Quick, slam the Beeb in court!

[Anonymous Coward]

Streaming

I think what they probably meant to say was "make unlicensed streaming of copyrighted material a felony".

Which I still disagree with fundamentally. Business should not be able to manipulate the law unfairly control markets.

However, torrenting is not streaming...

I didn't even know that it was possible to stream unlicensed content. I thought everybody used torrents for that kind of thing. Which I will carry on feeling ethically justified in doing, as I pay for audio-visual entertainment where possible, reasonable and warranted.

I think that £10 a month for Spotify might be good value (still trialling, choice of tracks not as good as GrooveShark but better quality and good mobile apps).

£10-20 for a film that I might or might not like, over £50 for old series that have been shown on free TV, not so much.