Senate Passes Camcorder Piracy Bill

[Up2Late]

Wed Feb 2, 2005 04:57 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People who secretly videotape movies when they are shown in theaters could go to prison for up to three years under a bill approved unanimously by the U.S. Senate.

The Senate also voted late on Tuesday to stiffen penalties for hackers and industry insiders who distribute music, movies or other copyrighted works before their official release date.

The bill also shields "family friendly" services like ClearPlay that strip violent or sexually explicit scenes from movies.

That provision is less likely to please Hollywood groups, which say such services violate their copyrighted works by altering them without permission.

(more at link)
<http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=7517991&src=rss/politicsNews>

[Occulus]

1. I see.

A business can do it, but I can't. Niiiiice.

"The bill also shields "family friendly" services like ClearPlay that strip violent or sexually explicit scenes from movies.

That provision is less likely to please Hollywood groups, which say such services violate their copyrighted works by altering them without permission."

Sigh.

[Emboldened Chimp]

2. Good news and bad news wrapped into one....

I'm glad to see they'll punish people who videotape movies and sell them--a practice I despise, but I can't believe they let 'family-friendly' groups violate the law and edit movies against a filmmaker's wishes. If they don't want to have a certain movie on their shelves, that's their prerogative, but to be allowed to violate copyrights is bullshit--it should be illegal.

[Rainbowreflect]

3. That is how I feel as well.

Stealing is stealing, just because you say your doing it for a good reason does not make it right.

[mpmusicny]

4. It's already illegal...

...to copy movies (on camcorder or otherwise) then sell them, why does it require new legislation for that? It smells to me like that was thrown to the front to disguise the true function of this bill, which is the "family friendly" crap, which should really be called "corporation-friendly"

[starroute]

5. Copyright violation is not stealing!

Would you advocate sending a college student to jail for plagiarizing the Encyclopedia Brittanica in their term paper? Or for xeroxing a chapter out of a book? That's the exact equivalent of what's being done here.

When they start being able to imprison people for what were always civil offenses -- and to enlist the government in defending the property "rights" of corporations -- we are well and truly screwed.

[noamnety]

6. There is a difference between black market and plagiarism

for school work. One cuts into the profits of the owner, the other does not.

Copyright theft is most certainly stealing, and it has been a criminal offense since 1897.

[todwest]

7. Fair Use

Copying material for a term paper falls under "fair use" and is not illegal.

Making thousands of copies of Return of the King and then selling them on the street is something else, entirely.

I do, however, agree that this is stealth legislation designed to allow narrow-minded crypto-fascists to edit films for content without the consent of the artist in question.

If this law is passed by the full congress and signed into law, it will only be a matter of time before it's struck down. The courts won't stand for it in the end. This is, of course, predicated on whether or not Monkey-Spank is allowed to continue to pack the courts freakin' lunatics.

Dems are wisely keeping their powder dry for that fight rather than shooting their load on Gonzales.

[onenote]

9. Why does the clear play legislation bother folks so much?

As I understand it, what it does is allow the use of a technology whereby information about the content of a movie is downloaded into a specialized DVD player. When the DVD is played, the consumer can choose what level of "protection" it wants. The machine then fast forwards the video or mutes the sound of certain scenes. If you want to watch the video unedited you can. Otherwise, its nothing more than an automated fast forward/mute button. If someone published a guide that said "At 3 minutes, 32 seconds into the movie, the word "fuck" is spoken" so that parents could hit mute at that point, there would be no legal issue. I'm more troubled by the idea that corporations tell people how they can watch their programming than by the idea that someone creates a tool that gives people more control over that experience. Personally, I would never use ClearPlay, but if someone wants to skip over the "dirty bits" and this helps them do it efficiently without actually altering the movie, why complain?

onenote

[AP]

8. Plagiarizing isn't the same thing as copyright infringement, and even

copying some work and turning it in as classwork probably qualifies as (ironically) educational use, or some other exception.

If a professor xeroxes readers without getting a license from the copyright holder, that is infringement, and there should be a civil remedy available.