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S. 968 PROTECT IP Act (PIPA)

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kat:
Not 100% sure how the US law currently stands but there's a bit of a brouhaha being caused by some proposed legislation passing through US Congress that has repercussions outside of it's borders. Previously most action taken against copyright infringement has been on those operating under the auspices of the US, i.e. domain name managed by the US based ICANN (.con et-al).

In the Protect IP Act of 2011 authority is given to the Attorney General to pursue infringements directly overseas and/or where the US has no claim of jurisdiction;

--- Quote ---(a) Commencement of an Action-
   (1) IN PERSONAM- The Attorney General may commence an in personam action against--
       (A) a registrant of a nondomestic domain name used by an Internet site dedicated to infringing activities; or
       (B) an owner or operator of an Internet site dedicated to infringing activities accessed through a nondomestic domain name.
--- End quote ---

What this essentially means is that the US can veto any National Sovereignty and take direct action against a "person" bypassing their own territorial legal system. So yeah... hmm. There's more to this but I've not read the entire proposal yet. In combination with the previous posting about 'upgrading' infringements from "civil" to "criminal" it's going to mean a few rather large corporations stifling 'creativity' rather than protect it (as S. 968's title suggests it's for). All pretty serious stuff for us creators that don't have the deep pockets require to protect our little corners of the Internet ;o)

Further reference

* Overview of S. 968 PROTECT IP Act of 2011
* Full text of S. 968--112th Congress: Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011.
* TITLE 17, CHAPTER 5, § 501. Infringement of copyright. Sets out what constitutes "infringement" of copyright

ratty redemption:
kat, if it's the same bill you were talking about, then the youtube pro gamer darksydephil has recently posted a rant about this on his channel. most of the videos i watch online now are his, and i sure would be depressed if videos like his playthroughs were stopped, as not only have they replaced my desire to watch tv most days but they are also good research for my games design.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hytigOSjJxc

kat:
Yeah it is. He got a couple of things 'wrong' in his rant though. It's not "inadvertent" and politicians aren't "out of touch with reality", they know exactly what this will do because the lobbyists have told them what will happen if they don't change the law (he did suggest that in passing, heh)  ;)

There was one slight error though, I need to double check this but the penalties aren't based on uploads per-say but rather the number of 'broadcasts' - that's the whole point about this bill, it's all about penalising what the language refers to as "public broadcasts" and that's defined as views/people iirc.

There's also this. Although he didn't mention this (as he's American), the European Union is also quietly working on something similar - I've not yet researched it but I have seen one or two references to it. The whole thing is pretty much part of this whole United Nations overhaul on International Copyright that protects those with the deepest pockets and sadly, it's not a 'conspiracy theory' either.

It's all pretty nasty stuff.

ratty redemption:
thanks kat, and understood i think.

i didn't previously read the links you had previously posted but i have just read this page posted by phil's gaming friend who is also a us copyright lawyer, as mentioned in phil's vid. he seems to think the bill will go ahead.

http://shoryuken.com/2011/06/29/trolling-the-stream-by-ultradavid/

and agreed, this is terrible news.

kat:
I'm still reading but if you look up at the previous post where it mentions the "Protect IP Act", he writes his article (so far) based on just the one law. If PIA gets enacted what he mentions as being a *civil* crime will be a criminal one - the two laws together are basically the Dinner scene from the God Father, the baseball bat welding mod boss is the government, and we are the guy getting hit in the head.

This is a lot bigger than people think it is and it's being changed from multiple points of (coordinated?) attack, it's no coincidence that Apple recently got a patent that allows it's devices to be disabled through infrared signals; or Microsoft recently being awarded a patent that 'snoops' on VoIP to check packet contents. It is all part of a broader 'plan' to gain control over the Internet and kill 'free speech' (I mean that in a very broad sense of people being able to use the Internet as a medium of expression rather than just 'politicised' content).

Google and YouTube won't care either, they'll continue doing what they doing and strip audio from videos or strip video leaving only audio commentary. Or they'll just remove material simply based on received requests (no need for DMCA if these laws get passed).

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