White House: Streaming Should Be a Felony, Wiretap Infringers

[nsane.forums]

The Obama administration’s IP Enforcement Coordinator, Victoria Espinel, has finally released her list of proposals for changes in intellectual property law. While there is a strong presence in her white paper for action against counterfeit pharmaceuticals, it is likely that readers’ focus will be drawn to suggested measures for cracking down on the streaming of unauthorized media.

While in some cases the former will undoubtedly endanger lives and therefore carries a considerable gravity when considering legislation, the fact that the latter is even mentioned in the same breath is an immediate cause for concern.

In respect of sites offering streaming content, Espinel voices concern that their delivery mechanism of choice could be considered, under current law, to be more akin to a public performance. For copyright holders viewing from a deterrent perspective, this lower scale offense is problematic.

It is therefore proposed that streaming – or other new technological methods serving the same purpose – should be reclassified as the “distribution of copyrighted works” and, therefore, a felony.

With this upgrading to felony comes some other perks, notably in surveillance. While the FBI and other agencies are able to tap phones, Internet connections and other methods of communication as they investigate the most serious of crimes, copyright infringement is not currently one of them. If Espinel has her way, that will change.

“Wiretap authority for these intellectual property crimes, subject to the existing legal protections that apply to wiretaps for other types of crimes, would assist U.S. law enforcement agencies to effectively investigate those offenses, including targeting organized crime and the leaders and organizers of criminal enterprises,” the paper reads.

As always, there are some concerns. While at first view the recommendations appear to be aimed at site owners (or the apparent preferred term “criminal gangs”), by classifying “streaming” as a felony there is the potential to suck in innocent victims. As streaming becomes more popular and sites utilize the upload bandwidth of viewers in order to distribute content to others (such as PPLive), do those viewers then become “streamers” too?

Then of course, one is naturally drawn to the recent case of 32-year-old Texan Bryan McCarthy, who was arrested for criminal copyright infringement for his alleged operations at ChannelSurfing.net.

McCarthy was charged with criminal copyright infringement for “reproduction and distribution” of copyrighted material, yet Southern District of New York Attorney Preet Bhara said that McCarthy “sought to profit by intercepting and then streaming live sporting events.”

So, if McCarthy “streamed” and that’s a criminal offense already, why is a change in the law required? Furthermore, it’s believed that he did not stream content, but merely embedded other people’s streams in web pages on ChannelSurfing. So streaming or not streaming, distributing or not distributing (embedding) are all criminal offenses? As usual, there are more questions than answers.

The full paper can be downloaded here.

View: Original Article

[Ambrocious]

They are already wiretapping millions of people illegally anyways. This open statement is nothing more than seeing how much they can push onto the people before the people strike back. If the people DO NOT strike back, they will keep rolling out tyranny.

"All that is needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" Edmund Burke

Posted before, but please watch this if you havent seen it yet:

[myidisbb]

now will you all in the usa do your part and help remove this sob bast

[Hottwire]

this is ridiculous, comon streaming.... seriously! get a life and if you want to stop piracy do it properly. Saying streaming is illegal and a felony, nothing will happen of it because of how many places it can be uploaded and the amount of re-ups.

Stupid idea tbh

[Ambrocious]

now will you all in the usa do your part and help remove this sob bast

Obama is simply a puppet of the new world order engineer's, just like Bush was. At this point....everyone is screwed. All we can do right now is LEARN AS MUCH AS WE CAN. Sharpen your mind and know the true enemies.

If we tried to physically remove Obama, we would be seen as terrorists. This is why I like infowars because first of all, the mind must be equipped to battle if you want to have ANY chance to win this huge battle.

[RadioActive]

This is lame on so many levels!

[kmr1684]

already known fact american dollars and people in usa power can do anything, nobody will stop them. even usa citizen can't do that, if they try there are terrorist against national interest. every hollywood company must behind this.