SOPA died in 2012, but Obama administration wants to revive part of it

http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/05/sopa-died-in-2012-but-obama-administration-wants-to-revive-part-of-it/

by chrismjelde • 13 years ago

150 54 13 years ago

m.washingtonpost.com

elnate• 13 years ago

Isn't a felony supposed to be for serious crimes like assault?

yolonoexception• 13 years ago

Yes, hence why Obama is pushing for it to be felony. He/Hollywood wants to discourage and intimidate people at whatever level he/they can get away with so people do not stream and instead go to theatres or stream at websites they are supported by the producers. It is all about the money.

viraptor• 13 years ago

This is the part I'm really confused about. How are people supposed to know which source is authorised for distribution and which isn't? In some countries you can go to BBC iPlayer and just play some movies. In some you can't. In some you can use Hulu, in some you can't.

Basically if I google "watch Xyz online" I will get a long list of results where I'm 2 clicks away from watching Xyz - how am I supposed to know which of those are legal sources? For some movies the top result can be youtube. For others it will be watchseries.{whatever tld they use this month}. Unless everyone makes all their agreements and contracts public, I can't reasonably tell if they are allowed to redistribute.

cyphax• 13 years ago

It is, but tax evasion and fraud are also considered to be a felony which makes this somewhat less outrageous, perhaps. (Not that I think this should be considered a felony. Quite the contrary, actually.)

belorn• 13 years ago

tax evasion is an felony because its a crime against the state. All crimes against the state is considered serious by the state.

Fraud is about money, and money is issued by the state. As such, fraud is a crime against the state and thus considered as serious by the state.

If we view copyright as an granted monopoly by the state, then declaring it as a felony would follow a historical pattern. As a property hover, it does not.

rayiner3• 13 years ago

Absolutely ridiculous. There is no reason copyrights should be protected more strongly than traditional property rights. If I trespass on someone's land, it's not a felony. If I build a hotel on someone's land, it's still not a felony. The redress for copyright violations should be civil lawsuits, not criminal prosecutions.

mercurial• 13 years ago

There is no reason copyrights should be protected more strongly than traditional property rights.

There is one: lobbying.

frank_boyd• 13 years ago

Exactly. It really can't get any more obvious than that.

If we don't take money out of politics our country is going to go down for good.

alan_cx2• 13 years ago

Don't Americans have guns to protect property? I suppose in fairness Disney cant run out and wave a gun at people downloading cartoons.

Yes, its disgustingly over the top, but then, what isn't these days?

nnnnni• 13 years ago

I'm pretty sure that not all states have castle laws, though.

hga9• 13 years ago

No, actually. Outside of Texas, the exception that proves the rule, you are not allowed to use lethal force to protect property.

As I understand Texas law (which I wouldn't surprise to find judicially nullified someday, like similar Oklahoma law), you are allowed to use lethal force on someone stealing your property after a verbal warning.

Which is in no way analogous to the point you're making. US law very much does not support "self-help" as its called to redress wrongs after the fact.

rayiner3• 13 years ago

Generally, defense of property must be proportional to the harm threatened, and use of deadly force is not authorized: http://www.volokh.com/posts/1176499503.shtml (interesting blog post in the context of "hacking back").

JanneVee• 13 years ago

Let me take a guess, the lobbyist for Microsoft suggest an "improvement" that makes running pipelight (http://fds-team.de/cms/articles/2013-08/pipelight-using-silv...) also a felony.

sbjustin• 13 years ago

Is anyone really surprised? Congress and the President haven't cared about the constitution thus far, why would it be any different now? Eighth Amendment: Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted

A bit excessive? Throw the streamers in with the murderers and rapist, they'll come out better people.

alan_cx2• 13 years ago

Is this so freedom loving American big business can use the government they paid for to extradite, render, kidnap and perhaps torture dirty, thieving, terrorist, pedophile, A-Rab foreigners for downloading Breaking Bad?

mrtksn• 13 years ago

if enough crimes can be committed by sharing data online then the government would have enough incentive to hold complete control over the internet to prevent such crimes.

these people really want total control over flow of information.

throwawaykf02• 13 years ago

I haven't even read TFA but I can bet you this: the felons would be those uploading the streams, not those downloading.

How do I know this? Because copyright law targets, and always has targeted, those distributing copyrighted material without license rather than those consuming it. One of the reasons is, as a comment elsewhere makes evident [1], it is not the responsibility of the consumer to know whether goods being purchased have been legally procured.

Where this gets tricky is in Bittorrent swarms, unless you leech, each peer uploads as well as downloads content, making each user a party to the "distribution" of content. This is what enabled those famous P2P lawsuits which resulted in those fines.

People like to think of the RIAA and MPAA as stupid dinosaurs, but as comments here make it clear, they've been undeniably successful in getting people to associate "downloading" with "illegal activity".

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6249355

snsr• 13 years ago

the felons would be those uploading the streams, not those downloading

I don't think that's completely accurate. This effort would expose sites and services to secondary liability for the actions of their users.

ap22213• 13 years ago

This isn't a big surprise. The US really only has a few net-positive exports, and media products are one of the big ones (and military products, is another, iirc)

greeneggs• 13 years ago

Source? This does not pass the smell test. (And why do you qualify "net-positive exports"?)

hga9• 13 years ago

Indeed. Off the top of my head, agricultural products, civilian airplanes, jet engines and avionics, heavy machinery (Caterpillar), I'd be really surprised to learn we didn't export a lot of farm machinery, high end CPUs....

c0ur7n3y• 13 years ago

The entertainment industry is about the same size as the pet supply industry.

canadiancreed2• 13 years ago

This guy seems to be trying his damnest to piss away what good will he had at replacing an administration that was derided for pretty much the same actions.

hondje• 13 years ago

This is the time when politicians pay back their masters, before the next election gears up. This gives time between pissing people off and then having to convince them to vote for more of the same.

canadiancreed2• 13 years ago

Gives a good reason to remove term limits; keeps folks from proposing silly things like this, knowing that they won't be held accountable by the electorate as they can't run after their term is up.

Of course that takes an informed electorate, which...well that's another topic entirely.

reginaldjcooper• 13 years ago

Obama: let's just cut to the end and make using a computer a felony.

saosebastiao• 13 years ago

Why not get straight to the point and call every crime a terrorist act? Then we can have the America that Obama really wants...one where he can order anybody's murder or infinite detention at any time for any reason.

AJ007• 13 years ago

The 1980s solution to drug use in the US was simply to lock more people up longer and give local and federal law enforcement more money. This was the same response after September 11th. More laws, more money, more power.

Today we can see the results: "Police" armed with assault rifles patrol streets. Surprise visits at night by men armed with fully automatic firearms and large caliber sniper rifles is not considered abnormal. Most recently we now know all of our communications are monitored, as are our whereabouts past and present.

It would make a good science fiction movie, except the genre would be a documentary.

jwaldrip• 13 years ago

Regulating SOPA will prove to be more cost prohibitive than actually solving the real problem. The real problem is that people want to be able to get content on demand, and the problem is that media companies are unwilling to adopt new ways of delivering that content. The music industry was plagued by this same thing a decade ago, but allowing the online purchase of content either via subscription or purchase has significantly reduced music piracy. Adopting the same principals for movies and television shows across the board will undoubtably have the same effect. The fact of the matter is that until studios are willing to be more flexible with their means of distribution rather than trying to have full control, then piracy will continue to be a problem.

Zoomla2• 13 years ago

Is it still a good time to invest in jails?

TallGuyShort• 13 years ago

Can it be any clearer that he's going against the will of the people? If you have to keep resurrecting laws that have "died" and trying to sneak them through another way, it stops being democracy. It becomes a battle of who has the most persistent and over-staffed legal team.

TronPaul_• 13 years ago

Is there anywhere in the article that has a quote from the Obama administration that suggests the title of the article. All I get from reading it was that SOPA had a provision to make streaming a felony and that people fought against it. No where does it give any information about how its resurrection is being attempted.

dragontamer• 13 years ago

Link-bait article is link-baity.

The US Trademark and Patent Office is expected to take a pro-copyright stance. The "Administration" reference, refers to Eric Holder's petition to Congress here: http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/493524-AG_Holder_Ju...

>> Asked by Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) why Justice felt it needed that expanded power, Holder said that sometimes such streaming involves thousands and millions of dollars. He said that Justice wasn't looking to turn streaming from a misdemeanor to a crime, but that in some cases it needed that added power "consistent with the nature of the harm."

At most, the "Obama Administration" (specifically, Eric Holder) feels like some forms of streaming need to be punished more harshly. It seems like pirating a live performance is less punishable than pirating anything else.

carl_banks• 13 years ago

Literally over Aaron Schwartz's dead body.

SOPA died in 2012, but Obama administration wants to revive part of it

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