Bill S.978; What do you think?

[Salanewt]

Personally, I fail to see how laws passed in one can affect citizens of other countries, but this may be a problem for pretty much everyone. I mean, I should still be able to upload videos, as one nation can not create and enforce international laws alone. What do you think of this proposed bill?

[dwkjohn]

I think the bill is the biggest most absurd piece of bullshit I have ever heard. screw that bill. no E3 streaming no GS walkthroughs and cool hacks from Atrius and others? no way. I am starting a facebook group opposing it. (yes I actually do fb occasionally.) if youre on fb like it. I'll see how many people I can get.

[Hoopa]

Complete and utter crap. Should it pass, which I doubt, I'm sure the President would veto it. If not, we all know who's going to die first during Dec. 21, 2012...

[Daddy Poi's Oily Gorillas]

Complete and utter crap. Should it pass, which I doubt, I'm sure the President would veto it. If not, we all know who's going to die first during Dec. 21, 2012...

...how bout. "The only person who is going to die on Dec,. 21, 2012." --perfect for a myth... wouldn't you say.. In my opinion, it is kinda hard to predict the future... especially the exact day.

Anyway, there are a lot of ridiculous bills that people come up with... And you picked this one to talk about? Cool.

[leaf]

For the unititiated:

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-s978/show

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.

This might actually be worse than the DMCA. The DMCA just made it so people had to take down stuff that's allegedly infringing, whether it actually was or not. While that was a problem in its own right, being a prime source of censorship, this has the ability to completely shut down one of the most important aspects of the internet by making it into a criminal offense. This article explains the problem a lot better than I can:
http://shoryuken.com/2011/06/29/trolling-the-stream-by-ultradavid/

In short, even though streaming game content was technically already illegal, most companies didn't care or even liked that people were streaming their games. Up until now, it's only been a civil issue, so the game companies would have to be the ones to press charges, which, of course, they don't and have not. Now, if this bill gets passed, even if the game companies don't want to press charges, you can still get thrown in jail, since criminal issues are handled by the state.

Blame the MPAA once again. It seems the only laws they can advocate are ones that are bullshit of the highest order.

[Salanewt]

I picked this one because of how it relates to GSHC in an unrelated sort of way. If you think about it, several of us (including you) upload videos onto YouTube.

Most of these videos consist of game-related content, either as walkthroughs or hacking. Essentially, Youtube is comprised of video content that involves games, television, movies, music, concerts, art, tutorials, fan stuff, and so much more. It would be harder for others to find GSHC if we can not upload videos to showcase it. Not to mention that the majority of these products are generally free to access; these companies do not sell the majority of this artwork, making it free domain. Furthermore, this stuff often acts as free advertising.

Luckily for me, this proposed law would have almost nothing to do with me. That is, unless YouTube removes my videos because it treats it as international law.

[Charon]

Wow, if even the Video Game companies are against them (which makes total sense), then this is a really, really dumb move in every possible way for the law. Really, if nobody wants this to happen, then why let it? The only ones who could get hurt by a copyright infringement of video game material is the creators themselves, and even they like people giving out free advertising of the game.

Just to show how crazy copyright laws are. Ugh.

EDIT: I just noticed how only 2% of users support this bill. lmfao

EDIT EDIT:

[Sleipnir36]

I already thought the considered prohibition from the German "Chaotic Dumbass Union, CDU" against any kind of via Facebook organised party's would be already moronic, but this really shoots the bird down. If someone knows a good campaign against this kind of bullsh*t, please show the links.

[Charon]

How about using my ZIP code (48306), going onto the opencongress website (on Leaf's post), and voting down?

Screw it, I know it's not exactly honest but with a 2% approval rate I don't think it would matter at this point.

[Aile~♥]

Explain to me exactly how they get to vote this? It would effectively be an international law. They just don't get to do this!

It really isn't fair any which way, if even the companies in question don't care.

The wording of the bill is really vague and confusing. Certainly, if anyone's making money off of posting the vids (other than the streaming company), they shouldn't be. But any one video could easily be argued to be of "more than $2500 value" to the copyright holder, through some form of invincible troll logic or another.

[Daddy Poi's Oily Gorillas]

But any one video could easily be argued to be of "more than $2500 value" to the copyright holder, through some form of invincible troll logic or another.

Hehe.. And if this includes videos that last less than 5  seconds, that'd be interesting.

[Charon]

The wording of the bill is really vague and confusing. Certainly, if anyone's making money off of posting the vids (other than the streaming company), they shouldn't be. But any one video could easily be argued to be of "more than $2500 value" to the copyright holder, through some form of invincible troll logic or another.

Exactly.

Looks like we're all going to jail now, because this entire forum uses sprites from a game in 2001 and is obviously causing more than $2,500 amounts of damage (which is TINY by the way, especially for a big company that would be interested in this anyhow), especially those who use avatars of video game characters, like me, Jamie, and Role. And since Atrius's avatar is in the style of LoZ, even though it's an OC, he'll be going to jail too, because COPYRIGHT COPYRIGHT COPYRIGHT! Even though this site is probably worth less that $100 we're all still screwed because Nintendo is obviously losing revenue because of us.

I'm all for copyright, but the US has insanely tight copyright laws. That's why you don't ever see a red cross in a video game, for example -it's a copyright infringement. And what about an affectionate reference? Another copyright infringement. Its so goddamn insanely "protected" that its not even allowing for a reference without forking over a crapload of money just to be able to reference something.

[Salanewt]

I have been thinking about this bill lately, and have come to the conclusion that it would probably never become an effective law, if one at all. Considering that it would only be a US law, that would mean that people in most other countries would be able to continue doing this, including several of us. That would pretty much mean that this law can not be of any force or effect, as it would be nearly impossible to block access to "illegal content" in the US. After all, controlling the flow of online software is much harder than preventing the trafficking of drugs and illegal immigrants.

[leaf]

The problem with that logic is that if this gets passed in the US, our government will try pushing it on everyone else, too. The internet may be a difficult place to enforce things, but that is precisely why congress wants to restrict it. From their point of view (and the point of view of big media, which is what's pushing this bill), the internet is just a source of lawlessness that is cutting into businesses' profits. They don't see any other side to it, which is why we end up with so many stupid bills that anyone with a semi-working knowledge of the internet would know are bullshit. The problem is when some of these stupid bills end up getting passed into law, which all too often, they do.

[Atrius (He/Him)]

This stuff is kinda what happens when most lawmakers are at least twice as old as what they're making laws about.

[Rolina]

Two words, peeps, two words.  Say them with me:  TERM LIMITS.

This is a gross misuse of power, not only breaking the first amendment's free speech rights, but also trudging into international territory, a big no-no in intranational lawmaking.  Add on the fact that most of the companies that hold the copyrights in question are all "STOP!  WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!  I LIKE MY FREE ADVERTIZING!", particularly game devs if Kotaku is to be believed, and this law screams:  Shoot it down.