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[Dostoevsky]

For those curious, it's the "pocket veto."

In short, if a President sits on a bill and does nothing then it gets auto-approved - he needs to affirmatively veto it. But, if a congress ends during the veto/approval period, then the bill dies. Congress has to formally end on January 3rd (for the new congress to begin an hour or two later the same day) [it's the fourth this year thanks to Sundays], which means anything congress passes during the very tail end of a session can expire if the President sits on it and does nothing.

(If not for the pocket veto, then congress could send a bill to the president and then promptly dissolve, effectively circumventing the option of a veto.)

As to 'veto-proof', the original margins were but the question is whether that margin will stand. Theoretically a president could make sufficient arguments in a veto statement to persuade congressional members to change their minds, but this being the modern era that doesn't really happen. Trump's hope here is to intimidate a sufficient number of House or Senate members into not defying his veto.

[da_nang]

Trump just signed the omnibus bill in the final hours.

This means the CASE Act and Felony Streaming Act are now federal law.

I have no faith in the Democrats' repealing the acts even if they win Georgia. Advancing copyright has historically enjoyed bipartisan support.

Fuck.

[scriver]

...Do I have to read up on what those do now?

[Frumple]

If you're not indulging in copyright infringement and/or streaming, probably not? They've both got problems, but the direct effect on general users as opposed to content creators or distributors of various sorts will probably be minimal, from what I understand.

Lot of room for abuse and misery for streamers and folks doing parody work and whatnot, but if you're not one of those the direct effect's likely to be small to nonexistent.

[Loud Whispers]

My favourite streamer already got banned, I don't want things to get worse for the buggers ;-;

[Starver]

ITYM "entomologists"

[Rolan7]

I'm not particularly well informed on copyright law (I listen to Leonard French but don't retain much) but the "They're unlikely to come after you or your favorite streamers, just baddies" defense makes me VERY worried.  Even though French, an actual digital copyright lawyer, basically said the same thing.

Making common practices illegal is still a problem if they are enforced with "discretion".  It makes normal people into technical criminals, subject to legal consequences if they annoy the wrong people.  We've seen this with marijuana, sodomy laws, even jaywalking.  A law that criminalizes everyone WOULD be abused despite promises of good faith.

I reckon most (many?) of the lawmakers supporting this truly expect it to only be used against bootleg services which profit directly from breaking copyright.  But there aren't guarantees for that.  Charitably, the bill was unfinished.  Practically, they've created a dangerous tool for the media conglomerates, and snuck/forced it into a life-and-death relief bill at the last second.  Your lobbying dollars at work, make a PAC if ya don't like it /s

[Zangi]

Realistically, copyright take downs are gonna go down on a vastly new level and the people going after others for copyright can now threaten the less informed and the poorer with felony charges.

[Dostoevsky]

Technically speaking the 'streaming felony' law only targets streaming services, not individual streamers.

That said, the likely outcome of this is that streaming services are going to become (even more) paranoid about their users, more copyright trolling will take place, and overall quality of life of streamers will go down.

As noted by da_nang, awful intellectual property laws are an unfortunately bipartisan thing in America.

[Frumple]

I'm not particularly well informed on copyright law (I listen to Leonard French but don't retain much) but the "They're unlikely to come after you or your favorite streamers, just baddies" defense makes me VERY worried.  Even though French, an actual digital copyright lawyer, basically said the same thing.

Just to make sure no one gets it wrong, I wouldn't even begin to say they're unlikely to come after your favorite streamers. Probably not you, specifically, if you're not participating in distribution or (not so) fair use production, but streamers are probably going to get fucked over one way or another by all this, including whatever your favorite ones are.

There's little doubt the already fairly hostile field of streaming just became more hostile. How much more is questionable, but "not" isn't on the table.

[nenjin]

Amazing how we can't reform social security after decades, but one fucking year of streaming services enjoying the most profit they ever have, and we can have new laws to protect their interests on the books.

[McTraveller]

Why is that amazing? There are far fewer voices with input into streaming laws than the topic of "reform social security."

At least (for now) I can choose to avoid directly paying Big Media.  It's not really feasible to opt out of social security.

[Lord Shonus]

...Do I have to read up on what those do now?

There are two laws in question.

The CASE act sets up what is effectively a small claims court to file copyright disputes in that is much cheaper than the standard Federal court procedure. The stated purpose of this is to make it viable for smaller content creators to seek damages because many indie studios and individual artists do not have the resources for a conventional claim. It does NOT alter what is legal or what is not legal in any way - memes, for example, will still fall under Fair Use. This special "court" will not have the power to issue subpoenas (greatly limiting who it can be used against, as "Internet User 19.202.201.002" or "Bay12Forums Member scriver" are not legal targets for a court case - you have to somehow create a proven link to a legal identity. It is also explicitly opt-out - if you are targeted by it, you can insist on going through normal Federal court.

The Felony Streaming act makes illegal streaming a Felony instead of a Misdemeanor. This places illegal streaming on the same level as providing illegal downloads, and is meant to make it practical to go after sites such as those that rebroadcast NFL games illegally while gaining a ton of money from sketchy ads. The authors of the bill specifically called out video game streaming as perfectly fine and something they were NOT targeting.

[MrRoboto75]

At least (for now) I can choose to avoid directly paying Big Media.

Big Media got far more covid recovery money than you did, and that was your tax dollars at work.

[Frumple]

The authors of the bill specifically called out video game streaming as perfectly fine and something they were NOT targeting.

Though I haven't heard of much or anything in the actual legislation that makes sure it's not targeted. The authors of the bill saying they're not targeting something means exactly piss (in the "piss on you and tell you it's raining" sense) if the bill's mechanisms are used to do so anyway, after all.