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Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming

tillis.senate.gov

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Re: Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming

#241

Post by rndgermandude »

cogman10 wrote: post #207
rndgermandude wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Firstly it becomes very difficult to argue your streaming service has no 'commercially significant purpose' other than piracy when you're not making much money. It is a bit of a concern, but I see it less of a concern than you. First, we're talking criminal law here, so the state has to argue their case and prove your guilt, not you have to prove your innocence. Second, you still get 17 U.S. Code § 512 liability pro…

I think the main issue I've got with this law is the fact that current laws already seem to cover it. It doesn't make sense to me why we needed additional criminal enforcement around, of all things, media streaming. I'm really not a fan of how much our government bends over backwards to protect Disney's IP. Kim Dotcom is a great example for how much protection is already enjoyed by copyright holders. It's crazy to ex…

>The other thing that really concerns me about this is how easily it could go wrong. Music, in particular, seems to be filled with legal landmines. Imagine hosting your own webpage for your band covering pop songs. Do you now have to fear federal prosecution?

I don't see anything in the law suggesting strict liability applies, therefore the state has to also show mens rea ("guilty mind"), i.e. the act was willful (or criminally negligent). Or am I missing something?

Re: Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming

#242

Post by roblabla »

meragrin_ wrote: post #168
cbsks wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The linked pdf is 5 pages. It seems like irresponsible journalism to not just include the text in any article written about it.

But is the text of that PDF the same as the text in the monster bill?

Yes, it is. You can trivially ctrl+f it to make sure.

Re: Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming

#243

Post by JKCalhoun »

Mindwipe wrote: post #218
JKCalhoun wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Perhaps the studios should quadruple the price of streaming to recoup their losses. But of course that would send even more to piracy.... It makes you wonder if Steve Jobs was correct that people that pirate (songs, Napster back in the day) would be willing to pay for music if it was easy (iTunes) and cheap ($0.99). I'm not sure if I agree but it is an interesting foil.

> It makes you wonder if Steve Jobs was correct that people that pirate (songs, Napster back in the day) would be willing to pay for music if it was easy (iTunes) and cheap ($0.99). I'm not sure if I agree but it is an interesting foil. Steve literally proceeded to launch a software app store that had DRM out of the wazoo, so even he didn't believe it.

Good point. Although certainly the labels insisted on this.

Re: Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming

#244

Post by ttul »

hexo wrote: post #8

"Last year, one study reported that digital video piracy costs the U.S. economy $29.2 billion a year." Well, I'd say that it in fact saves $30 billion a year. People can use it to buy more important stuff - such as food.

Politicians love talking about the war on drugs using similar math. For instance, when 10kg of cocaine are seized, they report the street value of the cocaine, when in truth the wholesale value is what has been lost to the trafficker.

Similarly, pirated content does not represent lost retail sales. People who pirate content would not necessarily purchase it legitimately were it available to them.

Re: Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming

#245

Post by greggturkington »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #200
contravariant wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone seems to jump to conclusions a bit, though there's still some reason to be wary as I already see 2 ways that this would make it harder for someone to build a new streaming service. Firstly it becomes very difficult to argue your streaming service has no 'commercially significant purpose' other than piracy when you're not making much money. Secondly it gives the copyright enforcing industry a big amount of le…

It could also kill streaming DJs and the services that support them. If I play a DJ set over Twitch it could be argued that I'm doing it for profit because it's a form of self-promotion. It also means that anyone who receives a DMCA take-down suit on YouTube can be accused of illicit streaming - which puts a lot of compilation creators into a legal grey area. Not to mention creators of original music who are on the w…

You (or your venue) are paying paying royalties on the songs in your DJ set.

You're not performing without the authority of the copyright owner or the law.

Re: Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming

#246

Post by DanBC »

Isn't this already illegal in the US?

> bipartisan legislation that would punish large-scale criminal streaming services that willfully and for commercial advantage or private financial gain offer to the public illicit services dedicated to illegally streaming copyrighted material.

> The Protecting Lawful Streaming Act would apply only to commercial, for-profit streaming piracy services.

Re: Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming

#247

Post by kivlad »

Green_man wrote: post #84
mminer237 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may not be everyone, but there are a number of pirates who would buy a subscription to a legal streaming service if illegal streaming was not as easily available.

The converse relationship seems well represented by some recent digital music access like iTunes and Spotify. Many would-be customers turn to piracy when piracy is _more_ convenient than legitimate alternatives. I think movies and tv shows have become more accessible through legitimate channels, but the fragmentation of the streaming platforms certainly limits future convenience.

I see people calling for an all-in-one service for movies & TV shows, but that isn't likely to happen since the licensing and pay distribution for those work on a much different scale than music. A big reason is that in most cases at least 100x the amount of people will work on any professional video broadcast media as compared to a music album. It will continue to hinder consumer convenience, and the only halfway solution is the stream hardware giants giving you a unified interface to pick any piece of content you want and then display where it's available.

Re: Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming

#248

Post by from »

Mindwipe wrote: post #209
sleepysysadmin wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This affects platforms, not users. Illegal streaming will not be a felony. Creating a for-profit platform with intent to do illegal streaming will be. That is already a crime. It's called Commercial copyright infringement and comes with rather extreme. This is even in international law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agre... My read of this proposed bill is that it's not misleading. Illegal…

Criminal copyright infringement didn't cover streaming previously.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/pr/eight-defendants-charge...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/12/16/men-plead...

https://torrentfreak.com/movie-pirate-pleads-guilty-faces-fi...

I think it did. The Jetflicks (essentially bootleg Netflix for $10/month) founders plead guilty to criminal copyright infringement and money laundering just recently. There was also a case covered on TorrentFreak of someone in Nevada running a similar scheme who just plead guilty to criminal copyright infringement.

Re: Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming

#249

Post by elliekelly »

SommaRaikkonen wrote: post #202
elliekelly wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I envy your gift of statutory clarity. It isn't clear to me. And I can't imagine I'm the only lawyer who can spot the squishy bits of this legislation ripe for manipulation. The three paragraphs you've quoted are "or" elements. A person need only violate one of the three to be criminally liable. Paragraph 2 is broad enough to include just about anything.

Since you're a lawyer, please clarify for me one part so that I can understand. The paragraphs are presented as: 1 - condition 1; 2 - condition 2; or 3 - condition 3. Does this mean that condition 1 should be applied all the time (1 and 2 _or_ 1 and 3) or (1 or 2 or 3) in order to be liable?

As the other person commented, I read it as 1 or 2 or 3 though I'll admit this bill has exceptionally poor drafting. Typically to avoid that sort of confusion the "chapeau" would say something like "it shall be unlawful for a person to do one or more of the following" or "it shall be unlawful for a person to do (all of) the following".

You can see an example of drafting for (1 and 2) or 3 in paragraph 4 of the definitions section to give you a better idea of how the language and structure would differ in this section if it were intended to be read as (1 and 2) or (1 and 3).

Re: Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming

#250

Post by Signez »

I don't understand why the US Constitution doesn't have a way to say that you can't hide something that is not remotely related to the subject of a bill into it.

We have that in the French Constitution and it's very useful to take down this kind of thing we call a "cavalier législatif".

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