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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

#481

Post by infogulch »

sfkdjf9j3j wrote: post #404
infogulch wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole problem is enormous "conglomerate" bills in the first place. It's absurd that everyone is forced to evaluate and have a single opinion/vote on all these completely separate issues as a unit. How much political BS is hiding in these massive bills, quid-pro-quo, back scratching, intentionally opaque text that nobody can understand the implications of until long after it's been jammed through... its disgusting…

This framing is also sort of a misrepresentation. It's an annual government-funding bill, and it includes some money for COVID relief. All of the broader criticisms about horse trading still apply of course but those apply just as much to separate bills with informal agreements on votes. The only difference is it's really inconvenient to hold hundreds of votes in order to make sure the forestry service janitors get p…

> This framing is also sort of a misrepresentation

The title of this post is: Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming

Are you sure? Why are we passing completely new laws in our yearly budget bill? What does streaming laws have to do with paying forestry service janitors?

Maybe we wouldn't have a government shutdown emergency every year if our representatives didn't try to shoehorn their pet laws and their customers'lobbyists' favorite regulations in at the same time.

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

#482

Post by TheOperator »

nineplay wrote: post #211
caymanjim wrote: post #98

I'm disgusted by the comments on HN every time media theft is mentioned. It costs money to make movies, TV shows, and music. There are millions of people whose careers depend on it. Most of the people involved make less than your average HN media pirate. Yes, like everything else, the people at the top make more. Yes, there are shitty UIs, DRM, and absurd rules preventing fair and convenient use of media even if you…

I agree though it's one of the most genuinely unpopular opinions on the internet. People will contort themselves into knots explaining why it's perfectly OK to consume a product without paying for it - in fact, they assure us, they are doing the producers a favor. I find it pretty disheartening. Pirating is a minor vice in the grand scheme of things but something about the self-righteous defense of it suggests how ea…

Intellectual property has become grotesque and simultaneously punishes the consumers AND the authors, notably in the scientific publishing industry where you pay to publish and also pay to read while getting no real value add in the process. Criminal penalties over a plainly civil matter.

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

#483

Post by nickthemagicman »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #75
nickthemagicman wrote: post #37

Is this just lip service to entertainment industry lobbying? I mean how will this be enforced? Most torrent sites are based overseas, people can just use VPN to torrent. Even if they ban the DNS record, you can get the IP address, from a reddit forum or something. If ISP's start to ban I.P.'s then the internet is truly broken at that point. Doesn't seem practical.

From the article: > Under current law, only violations of the reproduction and distribution rights of copyright owners can be charged as felonies, while criminal infringement via streaming (or “publicly performing”) can only be charged as a misdemeanor. This is known as the streaming loophole – and it is particularly harmful to the U.S. economy because streaming has become the most common form of criminal copyright i…

Gotcha. Ok thanks. Streaming sites will have to get creative bit prob nothing they can't work around

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

#484

Post by akerl_ »

ddevault wrote: post #225
Kaveren wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's because many people don't vote or take part in political advocacy. it doesn't make society in "oligarchy". our democracy actually works really well, even with gerrymandering and some voter disenfranchisement. if all those people actually voted frequently, the policy outcomes would be a lot different. compare this to actual oligarchies where opposition parties actually can't accomplish anything because they're…

It's not because people aren't voting - it's because our votes are not equal. We don't have "one person, one vote" here - we have "one dollar, one vote", and those with more dollars get more votes. Citizen's United infamously set that in stone. Meanwhile, rampant gerrymandering, court packing, and other anti-democratic tactics have been heavily abused over the past few decades of Republican control to further erode a…

It’s not really debatable that money has an influence in US politics and elections. It’s also pretty clear that for presidential elections, votes are not equal for people living in different states. But to say “We don’t have ‘one person, one vote’” in this context is pretty blatantly false.

The primary reason that dollars have such an impact on elections is because dollars get spent on advertising and on canvassing and on outreach, and the impact of those things is that it gets your candidate more votes from more people who otherwise wouldn’t have bothered to vote. The way that dollars buy elections is via people voting.

There’s plenty of rational debate to be had about gerrymandering and campaign finance and a whole host of topics, but to throw our hands in the air and say that votes don’t matter is nonsense.

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

#485

Post by woofie11 »

ulisesrmzroche wrote: post #456
woofie11 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I already don't enjoy many big-budget productions. I find niche Youtubers catering to my interests to be a better use of my time -- recently, we've been binging on 3Blue1Brown. I'm also finding very little relation between production budget (which mostly goes into things like SFX) and my enjoyment. Some of my favorite films were very low budget, from Dr. Horrible to some Bruce Campbell flicks. Good writing makes a hu…

What's the point of this comment? Why does your opinion matter so much? Truth is most (practically all) people want to watch Game of Thrones and are willing to pay for it.

And that's fine. The question at hand isn't whether people will pay for GoT, but whether they'll be used as an argument to pass laws like the DMCA, which says I'm not allowed to reverse-engineer technologies in my home, or ones which put bankrupt or put college students in prison.

My claim is that if MPAA profits went down even 50%, society wouldn't be any worse off at all. On the other hand, we are worse off for DRM.

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

#486

Post by Spooky23 »

kortilla wrote: post #387
Spooky23 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Senate is a gross and antidemocratic institution, but this sort of thing is not unique to the Senate. The nature of legislative bodies is such that compromise and voting while holding your nose is a thing everywhere. The supreme power of the leadership more a symptom of the 50/50 political split, which empowers the party machinery. The legislative leadership weren’t household names at most points in time.

> The Senate is a gross and antidemocratic institution In my state the senators are democratically elected, is that not the case in yours? Or is your statement lamenting the fact that the country gives representation to states as distinct entities?

The Senate is designed to ossify politicians and stop things from happening.

One of its nadir points in terms of accomplishments was preventing anti-lynching legislation from having a floor vote for 40-50 years.

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

#488

Post by panarky »

Asooka wrote: post #476
panarky wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, offer or provide to the public a digital transmission service that If it's a peer-to-peer streaming service where media consumers also serve media to other users, then the argument could be made that users themselves are providing the "digital transmission service". There may not even be an identifiable, centralized "platform".

Could this be used to make torrenting a felony then? In the case that you're sharing a commercial work, obviously. You sharing a torrent is essentially you providing a service (being in the swarm, sending chunks), which exists entirely and only to infringe one or several copyrighted works (the files in the torrent).

The prosecution might need to demonstrate that you knew you were serving copyrighted works to others.

Your defense might be that you thought you were only a user, not a dealer with intent to distribute.

And then the prosecution will enter this HN comment into evidence, proving that you knew exactly what you were doing.

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

#489

Post by JetSpiegel »

trixie_ wrote: post #262
exabrial wrote: post #195

I blame this on reaction-ism... We don't need a law for every little thing that happens. Non-violent offenders should _never_ face jail time.

Someone steals your identity, ruins your credit, drains you bank accounts, sells your crypto/stocks - leaves you with nothing. It wasn't violent so what happens to them?

You wait one month for the next UBI and grumble on the DMV when renewing your driver's license.

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

#490

Post by JetSpiegel »

sukilot wrote: post #147
kauffj wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, other people are unilaterally making up rules and applying them to me. I would happily live in a society without IP, but am not permitted to do so. Those who support IP demand it globally, at the barrel of a gun.

All you have to do is not make copies of content the creators don't want to give to you. It costs you nothing to not infringe. Do you also want to live in a society without personal property? Can I come to your home to borrow anything you aren't using at the moment?

> All you have to do is not make copies of content the creators don't want to give to you.

Sounds good, I wonder if Kubrick wants me to see 2001, or The Shining. If he's dead, should I make copies or not?

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