This grants a very large amount of power to the Department of Justice by allowing them to cherrypick which cases will be pursued.
From a post of mine in another topic:
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h3261/showWho gets to decide what 'limited use' other than infringement means?
I mean, are there precedents for this or does it give them the opportunity to say, for example, that talking about video games are of 'limited use' to the public?
If that is the case, the 'other than infringement' part is able to be used, perhaps after the first time someone posts a link to something that would infringe. This means theoretically you could hire a firm to go around spamming pirate links on websites you want to be shut down; if it's as vague as it seems.
Finally: It would also make unauthorized web streaming of copyrighted content a felony with a possible penalty up to five years in prison.
Five years in prison?! Also, by 'web-streaming', is it me or is that worded strangely in a way that could be interpreted as 'streaming' either way? Thus possibly opening the door to 5 year prison terms for viewing such a 'stream.'
Also, this was a letter I wrote but didn't send,
One thing I should add is that any form of control over the internet is extremely unpopular with people who use the internet. Feel free to copy and paste the following link into your browser to see a discussion.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=96564.0In addition, while this law mentions penalties quite specifically; however the description of the crime itself is quite vague. 'Streaming' could be interpreted as not only uploads (meaning being the one person to place for instance a copywrited video for others to view online) but also downloads (meaning you are one of many people simply viewing the video)
This means that it would be extremely easy to post what are called 'blind links' (http: links disguised as something else, aka blue text links) and direct a large amount of internet traffic to infringing sites; possibly after causing the site to infringe by your own actions or through an (overseas?) third party.
In this way an interested party could not only give the justification required to remove a website they do not agree with, but ALSO by choosing their target location for the blind link, they theoretically could send (part of) that locations 'audience' or userbase to prison for five years as felons. They could also do this without being tracked by IP address as far as I'm aware, by using a program called The onion Relay. If you don't like that, blame the military as the IP system loophole was and is for their security.
Also, the wording on this section is worrying: "The DoJ or the copyright owner would be able to commence a legal action against any site they deem to have "only limited purpose or use other than infringement," and the DoJ would be allowed to demand that search engines, social networking sites and domain name services block access to the targeted site."
Not only does it give a copyright owner the right to force expensive legal fees upon any site that users could infringe on if that site has 'limited purpose', but also limited purpose is not clearly defined. If a website is made for talking about video games, and a user infringes upon it, does only being created to talk about video games define 'limited purpose?' Does a political forum have only 'limited purpose?" In addition it would allow the DoJ to cherry pick which sites with infringers would be punished or not.
Finally, I leave you with a final irony. The Congressman who supports this bill also supports loosening laws that have a side effect of allowing large entertainment corporations to pirate music from individual copywrite holders that it 'cannot determine the identities of after a reasonable search.'
http://www.opencongress.org/wiki/Orphan_works_legislationInternet identities being what they are and having become necessary to protect oneself from those who collect information, they shouldn't be able to find out a person's identity after a reasonable search, which wasn't clearly defined.
From that message board forums above:
Campaign Contributions
This is a list of the top 10 industries giving campaign contributions to Lamar Smith in 2009-2010, the most recent fundraising cycle for which we have campaign contribution data.*
Industry Individual PAC Total
TV/Movies/Music $16,650 $49,000 $65,650
Retired $59,225 $0 $59,225
Accountants $2,000 $36,500 $38,500
Lawyers/Law Firms $25,750 $12,500 $38,250
Employer Listed/Category Unknown $35,400 $0 $35,400
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $1,000 $30,500 $31,500
Insurance $11,850 $18,500 $30,350
Health Professionals $20,550 $8,750 $29,300
Oil & Gas $12,700 $16,400 $29,100
Commercial Banks $7,650 $20,500 $28,150
Also, this guy proposed this as well a few years back:
http://www.opencongress.org/wiki/Orphan_works_legislationBasically at first it sounds like a decent law, until you realize that in some cases it would allow the major music producers to pirate music from people who post their music on the internet! (probably for use as a sample, you can do all kinds of things to make music sound different much easier than it is to actually make different music)
Finally, while they might have done what they claim was a reasonable search to try to determine someone's real name, who gets to say what's reasonable or not? A judge? I probably can't afford that even if that were the case.
From above link:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Copyright law in the U.S.
Copyright law in the United States is essentially based on a “form of protection” provided to “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. These laws include a doctrine of “fair use,” which was established via the courts and specifies four factors for determining whether a use is fair: 1) the purpose and character of the use, 2) the nature of the copyrighted material, 3) the amount of the work used in proportion to the entire work and 4) the effect of the use on the value of the copyrighted work. [1] [1]
Works which are considered to be in the “public domain” indicate that no person can claim ownership rights or retain proprietary interests over a particular work. [1]
As stated above, orphan works are copyrighted works whose owners cannot be identified. Because many archivists, libraries, film restorers, artists, scholars, educators, publishers, and others simply disregard works unless they are definitively in the public domain, orphan works are often not made available to the public due to uncertainty over their copyright status (despite the fact that no one is claiming ownership of them). [1]
Movement to address problems with orphan works
Beginning in the late 1990s, interested parties and organizations representing copyright owners and users pushed for copyright reform that would address the problems of orphan works. This pressure eventually led to a challenge of the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (H.R. 1621) which extended “protection from life of the author plus fifty years to life of the author plus seventy years.” The measure, signed into law by President Clinton, included “provisions applied to works under copyright on the date of its implementation...An exception permits libraries, archives, and non-profit educational institutions to treat copyrighted works in their last twenty years of protection as if they were in the public domain for non-commercial purposes.” [1] The challenge was defeated in 2003 when the Supreme Court upheld the Bono copyright law as constitutional by a vote of 7-2 in Eldred v. Ashcroft. [1]
Mostly what would be useful to know before I send it is if 'Streaming' constitutes both uploads and downloads in the legal sense of SOPA.
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Topic: Anybody like youtube and/or online freedom? (Read 15945 times)