For obvious reasons everyone should vote against Bill S. 978
Idiots rule us.
I always love how people make laws for things they have no idea about.
Like this australian lady who said lately, that she has found out, and was shocked, that people share copyrighted stuff on the internet.
And she is like the media politician making laws in that sector, and realizes this only decades later.
Brilliant.
This will not get passed.
As other countries have realized who have attempted this. We shouldn’t be making laws to support old outdated business models. We should allow the business models themselves of what is successful to be the deciding factor.
There are some 48 hours uploaded per 60 seconds to youtube alone, let alone other services. There is no way to accurately persecute all of the people. We basically should just tell everyone who has the internet to go to prison for a year right now, and get it over with.
Which is weird by that link is it seems to imply that simply embedding the video is what gets you in trouble, instead of the original uploader of the video. This is alone why it won’t pass in its current state.
The worst case scenario is that they will start putting more pressure on the individuals who upload videos. But this is extremely unlikely to even happen.
Government has been making criminals out of ordinary people for a long time. Everybody are criminals nowadays, you just don’t know it yet. The police can literally arrest anyone anytime, and easily find something you’re guilty of. Everybody are guilty of breaking some obscure law.
What sort of society is it where the law criminalizes EVERYBODY? There must be something seriously wrong.
This bill is no different from a lot of other bills that have been mindlessly approved by mindless people.
Hi!
I don’t understand… There are already some laws allowing to prosecute people who use copyrighted contents without the prior consent of copyright owners, am I wrong? The entertainment industry would like to avoid civil lawsuits and directly put people into jail, wouldn’t they? It looks like the kind of law that some right wing politicians tried to adopt in France (LOPPSI 1&2, HADOPI, DADVSI).
I don’t like copyrights. In my humble opinion, it should not be allowed to put someone into jail without a real civil lawsuit. This bill seems to criminalize everybody. The existing laws are enough to “protect” the intellectual “property”, this bill goes too far and in the wrong direction.
I’m not sure if the original poster is American, but maybe someone else can explain. What surprises me here is that they want it to make it a felony. As I remember, American law divides crimes into felonies and misdemeanors (which I probably spelled wrong 
). I though that felonies were reserved for serious stuff that becomes part of your permanent criminal record, e.g. in the same category as stealing cars and assault. Making a law that turns 80% of your citizens into criminals is one thing, but this is idiotic. Can anyone confirm whether this is indeed the case?
Mr. Gol is right I’m not American.
The difference would be, as I understand it, that, NOW the copyright holder has to basically defend his copyright by himself (eg. emailing youtube: video xyz has my content, remove it). That bill would make it a government sorta deal, in which they prosecute you directly.
I can see this is an emotional topic, and might very well come to the same conclusion that this is a bad bill.
But when I see over-the-top statements like “I always love how people make laws for things they have no idea about”, and the only link is to a partisan site that seems mostly geared to riling people up, I start seeing red flags.
There is too much “hot button” pushing in politics. It would be good to see a link to the “pro” side, or a more generous or objective representation of the arguments given by the “other” side. If the cause is RIGHT and JUST, we should be able to reach that conclusion based upon reason.
[EDIT] Found this: [quote]The second bar that has to be passed for a conviction under S.978 is establishing value. The proposed bill establishes two separate measures of value: either 10 or more performances within 180 days where the total retail value (or total economic value to the infringer or copyright owner) exceeds $2,500 or where the total fair market value of licenses to offer performances would exceed $5,000.
Contrary to some of the commentary I’ve seen, these numbers — retail value, total economic value, or fair market value — can’t be pulled out of thin air. They mean what they say they mean, not whatever a copyright owner or the government wants them to mean.
Retail value is simply what an authorized version would cost at the store. Felony provisions for reproducing a copyrighted work use the same measure of value.8 So a bootlegger copying a $20 DVD would need to make 125 copies in 180 days before coming within the scope of the felony provision.
[/quote]
From here: http://www.copyhype.com/2011/07/commercial-felony-streaming-act-fud/
There are also “bars” like provisions about proving intent. So it seems some of the arguments against this bill are a bit hyped up.
Our used car is worth maybe $2500. Would stealing that be a felony or a misdemeanor?
Here’s something indirectly relevant:
EU Upset by Microsoft Warning About US Access to EU Cloud
The internet is a clustermess of cross-border information accessing and data hosting. Just because Youtube.com is a U.S. located company that doesn’t mean all their data is stored in the U.S. So, how on Earth can U.S. laws apply to data stored and accessed outside of the U.S.?
The internet is in a real danger here. Accumulation of stupid laws like these only means increased probability that the internet as a whole will splinter into country based nets. If you, as a citizen of one country, wish to access data and services in another country, then you might need some sort of special access for that, perhaps a passport, and all your activity will be logged for future scrutiny.
I consider all these laws to regulate the internet as a stepping stone towards a total control.
Hi!
Thank you for this explanation. In France, we have something that allows to oppose to the use of your image, it is sometimes called “image rights” (if you know a better translation, let me know). Unfortunately, it is very often impossible to benefit of it on video sharing platforms. That is why I had to act as a copyright owner 
You can report an infringement of the intellectual property by filling a form on Youtube, then you receive a first email notification, after a few days you receive another email concerning the state of the litigation, etc… You can access to some pieces of information about the litigants only if you lodge a complaint against them.
In my humble opinion, this is enough. Copyright owners should report any use of their copyrighted contents themselves and prosecute the guilty people by their own means (which is already possible and which has been driven easier) instead of asking the State to do the tedious job for them. They potentially make some profit with their contents, they have to face their responsibilities. They have the legal tools to defend themselves.
What’s wrong with politics? It is a political subject, don’t deny it, it is not possible to reach a conclusion only based upon reason because there are opposite interests, there is no objective representation of this. I think that the guys of the other side pretend that they waste a lot of money because of copyright infringement and that it is a danger for employment too. As far as I know, some copyright owners already earn a lot of money, they have enough money to pay stock dividends to stockholders and absurdly high salaries to their bosses, they can afford paying for lawsuits. I don’t say that I possess the truth, it is only my opinion and … I like red flags ;D
I think if its on youtube, and someone can PROVE(and not just make a false claim) that there is copyright material in it.
Why can’t the content creators just take a %percentage% of the cut of youtube ads that the normal person might get. Instead of trying to destroy unique creations by deleting and removing things.
Though the funny thing of it all is.
I read an article the other week about the big media conglomerates always pushing for these “anti forward moving technology” laws.
If Microsoft, Google, Apple, and maybe IBM all joined forces. They could spend only 5% of their total value(or profit?), and BUY outright every single big media conglomerate corporation. Even though this would never happen, not only would they be unlikely to join forces, but major monopoly issues here. I could be wrong on values, or whatever but its an interesting thought if they did.
Big media corp is a drop in the bucket compared to other industries, yet they tend to have the LOUDEST voices and the most annoyingly persistent lobbyists. They are so anti-technology because they never really embrace it. They could probably be making 2-3x the money, NOT hurting the little guys, and have a significantly better public image, if they embraced the communities and modern technology and the internet.
If you want more information on what this is and who is the groups that support this bill look here:
Some may be surprised that non-big business groups are supporting this:
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Graphic Artists Guild
Screen Actors Guild
Of course emotions are part of politics. But they are also easily manipulated, that’s why I like to have more info, and react badly when molotov cocktails are being thrown about. It makes it hard to see what is REALLY going on.
Yes, why doesn’t Google just give away its income stream from ads! ??? I’ve been intrigued about the idea of having “everyone” who profits by intellectual infringement traffic, however indirectly, contribute to the compensation of the intellectual property owners (the artists, the publishers). I think this can be done in a way that is fairly transparent, and ad revenue could be a part of that. But try telling that to Google. Their “business model” rewards the devaluation of intellectual property (err, maybe more accurate is to say, the reduction of compensation costs for content) and the maximization of traffic and ad revenue.
Another interesting model is the “compulsory mechanical license” that has long been part of the music business. Once a song has been recorded and released commercially, a composer can NOT prevent others from producing covers of the song. However, anyone making a cover is obligated to pay the composer a small, set fee. I think this is all managed through the Harry Fox Agency.
The idea of creators having the onus put on them to enforce is a non-starter for me. The practical result is that only a creator that can afford a team of lawyers has a chance of protecting themselves against theft. And a lot of the theft is of the death-by-a-thousand cuts variety, a plague of locusts. Very difficult to counter with a small team. Very difficult to counter at all.
Again, I am NOT saying I support this bill. It could well be an overreach. But there are good reasons, especially for small businesses and independant creators, to hope for improvements to the status quo.