>The Protecting Lawful Streaming Act would apply only to commercial, for-profit streaming piracy services. The law will not sweep in normal practices by online service providers, good faith business disputes, noncommercial activities, or in any way impact individuals who access pirated streams or unwittingly stream unauthorized copies of copyrighted works. Individuals who might use pirate streaming services will not be affected.
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.
This appears to be correct from reading the (very short) text[0]. Everyone discussing this law should really read the text instead of reading whatever nonsense the media is spinning.
Here's the full text of what is being prohibited:
> PROHIBITED ACT.
> — It shall be unlawful to willfully, and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, offer or provide to the public a digital transmission service that
> (1) is primarily designed or provided for the purpose of publicly performing works protected under title 17 by means of a digital transmission without the authority of the copyright owner or the law;
> (2) has no commercially significant purpose or use other than to publicly perform works protected under title 17 by means of a digital transmission without the authority of the copyright owner or the law;
> or (3) is intentionally marketed by or at the direction of that person to promote its use in publicly performing works protected under title 17 by means of a digital transmission without the authority of the copyright owner or the law.
From my understanding, this basically means they'll go after platforms (since they are the ones doing the act of offering to the public a digital transmission service).
That's what the linked press release[1] says but looking at the wording of the bill[2] I'm not so sure it's that cut and dry:
> It shall be unlawful to will-fully, and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, offer or provide to the public a digital transmission service that...
The term "private financial gain" typically includes an individual receiving anything of value. I agree it doesn't come after the consumers of illegally streamed content but I don't think it's fair to say it only targets for-profit platforms. And it's certainly much broader than targeting "criminal organizations" as the linked (not HN) headline wrongly suggests. Someone uploading protected content in exchange for reddit gold could easily fall within this definition of criminal conduct. People who "trade" files with one another might fall within it, too. I think the linked press release is intentionally downplaying the scope.
[1] "The Protecting Lawful Streaming Act would apply only to commercial, for-profit streaming piracy services. The law will not sweep in normal practices by online service providers, good faith business disputes, noncommercial activities, or in any way impact individuals who access pirated streams or unwittingly stream unauthorized copies of copyrighted works. Individuals who might use pirate streaming services will not be affected."
The title isn't misleading. You're just providing more details than exists in the title, which is the purpose of the link, which does provide that information.
But more to the point, the most objectionable part of this isn't the specific details of the streaming changes. It's... what business does any of this have in a Coronavirus relief bill? It's preposterous.
I feel like honest legislators should really start using this process against itself. The next time there is an omnibus bill like this, insert a line that says something like "every part of the December 2020 Coronavirus relief act not directly related to Coronavirus relief is repealed" and then let it sail through with that in the same way this did. Give them a disincentive to do things this way because they'll just lose it again next year.
That's just how the press release on the sponsoring senator's web page spins it. It's essentially a combination of "don't worry if you've got nothing to hide" and "we're only going after the big bad criminals not everyday people who watch GoT once or twice".
But look at the actual text; there is enough ambiguity and opportunity here to use this as the launching pad for very questionable prosecution. If you're in a P2P network and getting free media does it qualify as a commercial enterprise and material gain?
Looking at the text of the law, I disagree. It doesn’t require that the service be commercial. The criteria are loose and broad enough that while they may appear to target platforms, they could certainly be abused by creative lawyers to target individuals.
Do you really trust that the RIAA won’t pressure prosecutors into targeting individuals? Heck, if you run a home media server, a good team of lawyers could probably convince a technologically-incompetent jury that you’re subject to this law.
>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.
My read of this proposed bill is that it's not misleading. Illegal streaming by users becoming a felony. No different than what SOPA was proposing. Willful infringement becoming a felony is their goal and they will achieve it.
Fun fact, this is how Crunchyroll started. Illegal for-profit streaming site which eventually turned legal. And now Funimation is set to buy the site for $1.175b from AT&T.
I think that is perfectly correct approach, it should not be allowed to steal someone's profit.
Although I am a bit surprised since this law also applies to movies that are not profitable. In such cases producers should be happy that someone wants to give access to them despite loosing money while doing it.
One notable example of such unprofitable movie is "Return of the Jedi", which, after 40 years, has not provided any net income. Not even one cent. I am really impressed by heroism of all those movie producers that keep working so hard even though they earn nothing.
Or maybe it is not true that those movies are not profitable, maybe, for some strange reason, law enforcement is able to track all those pesky pirates, fish them from New Zealand hideaways, but is and was not able to retrieve a single tax dollar from movie studios for the past 70 years.
That's a puzzle which is apparently somehow missed by venerable members of US Congress and Senate.
If the law is passed it will be used as a sledgehammer to stop anyone from doing something they don’t like. It opens up the possibility of being interpreted as a for-profit platform.
Locast is a non-profit platform that streams local channels. It’s been sued left and right by broadcasters. So far unsuccessfully. Is this law the next step in putting pressure on them and others?
Yes, the submitted title was "Illegal Streaming to be a felony soon". That broke the site guidelines quite badly. They ask: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." We've changed it now.
> Creating a for-profit platform with intent to do illegal streaming will be
Wasn't this already a felony? I clearly remember getting into legal problems with MPAA when I was 15 years old and made an online version of Popcorn Time, and that wasn't P2P.
They could have done it 10-15 years ago, and Youtube and YouPorn would have not skyrocketed. (it's well known that their initial growth was mostly due to illegal videos being uploaded by users).
- Everyone discussing this law should really read the text
The difficulty in doing so is a big part of the problem. As per AOC's comments on twitter yesterday, at 2PM Members of Congress got 5000 pages of bill dropped on their desk with a vote call at 4PM.
The whole thing needs to be much more transparent.
Since most if not all of these platforms are based in countries more friendly towards infringement it’s really not going to do much of anything other than be another law that gets selectively applied and abused.
My opinion is that it costs nowhere near that absurd amount. People who pirate stuff most likely will not buy the content anyways. It doesn't cost them anything if people don't want to buy their product.
This should be fun for a service like Twitch. What happens when a streamer on their platform starts playing a game with a copywritten song playing on the game's radio or background? Many times the streamers themselves are not aware that this is a crime.
This is already a problem on Twitch. Cyberpunk 2077 claimed to have a "streamer mode" where no copywritten music was played, but they didn't actually ship the feature.
It will eventually be sorted out in the contracts whereby the games get licences for whatever content: music performed in-game is 'part of the experience' etc. and/or because they are playing a game with the music artists will claim that it's an original work in it's totality.
Twitch already has mostly DRM aware content creators - I hear them talking about 'rights' quite a lot in their streams.
My issue with these copyright strikes on streams is: who will actually watch a stream just to listen to a song played in the background of a videogame with all the game sound effects and dialog and streamers talking?
It's the worst listening experience ever. It's much easier to just go to YouTube and listen to the song uploaded by an official channel.
This law requires that the service as a whole be primarily designed for or marketed to the piracy market. So there’s no real grey area, we can be confident it won’t apply to Twitch.
Family owned businesses like Disney doing their best to provide content for younger viewers and make the world a better place as well as nonprofits like the nfl and ncaa.
Exactly. I was happy to pay €10/month to DAZN when they had the streaming rights for a football league I was interested in, but then after two years they lost the rights to Sky via whom the minimum payment to get access to the same content was €30+ month. The content did not suddenly get 3x more valuable between seasons, this is just a big company being greedy. You reap what you sow and all that.
"The law will not sweep in normal practices by online service providers, good faith business disputes, noncommercial activities, or in any way impact individuals who access pirated streams or unwittingly stream unauthorized copies of copyrighted works. Individuals who might use pirate streaming services will not be affected."
Even so, why is copyright infraction criminal? This is fighting something that just doesn't need to be fought and ratchets up copyright to levels of importance that it just doesn't deserve. We need to be toning down copyright, not cranking it up.
Simple -- people who cannot afford films will stop watching or streaming sports.
Companies will lose free marketing and word of mouth.
Companies will have to work harder to persuade the populace to acquire commercial flicks/sports. Youtube and cheap magnate streaming services win. Small studios or independent film makers, lose their free marketing distribution channels (personal opinion)
Additionally, the fragmentation of streaming services just creates inconvenience and resentment among the users for having to subscribe to N different services to consume media.
I see it happening with digital game stores: my friends refuse to buy anything outside of Steam. It goes as far as not even getting free games from Epic, Ubi or GOG, because they'll have to create another account in another service.
A lot of the confusion about this has resulted from the ability of the word "streaming" to refer to both directions. The issue is not people watching a stream. Nor does the bill likely cover individual torrent/p2p users who upload works or even potentially seedboxes or services like Mega. So as far as people who are intentionally trying to pirate copyrighted works for the purpose of not buying them, the applicability is very limited. It would only apply to one of those streaming/DDL movie sites, or possible a torrent site themselves depending on the definition of "transmission service." You would have to be a fool to try and set that up from anywhere where the US could get to you anyway.
The problem, and the concern from groups like EFF, is that on the other hand people who are not really pirates (ie. their purpose is not to serve a substitute for buying the work) but who may violate copyrights in the process (ex. streamers who don't have distribution rights to music playing in the background) could be covered as long as they are in some way monetized, and it would not be hard to play this as a "major infringer" with a number of songs.
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".
What is the fate of `dl-youtube` with respect to this legislation??
I don't see any discussion in the thread - and find that the recent dust up over this type of DRM gray area use is more than correlated with this type of new legislation.
After the obligatory IANAL [1]: the fate of `dl-youtube` would be tied to your ability to construe `dl-youtube` as a digital transmission service based on §2319C.a.2.
To me seems like the the risky clauses of §2319C.a.2 are : `primary purpose` and `publicly performing`; where primary purpose is tough because their is author intent, and then the proportions of real-world usage, and `publicly performing` is actually a pointer not to common usage of the phrase, but to definitions set forth later in the document.
Truly. I purchased Murfie, and am attempting to re-build their business. It's a streaming service that leverages media people own to give them access to that content.
This feels like a targeted attack on my business plan by Disney. I can't see another reason it would be so targeted.
BUT... I believe the service I'm providing is legal and I'll fight this battle to the end.
Why are these bills 5000 page turds with all kinds of legal garbage thrown in?
I wish Congress would pass a 1 paragraph bill that does one thing: say $1000 bucks to everyone making under $75k for 3 months and dare people to vote against or veto it.
Can we please stop posting proposed legislation with highly editorialized titles? Most proposed legislation, even "bipartisan" will not go through are end up so diluted that it won't matter.
Not that it's not worth fighting but this is clearly an attempt to garner clicks/votes and we should be fighting back here.
So that's what the Congress people are up to instead of trying to help people during a pandemic. Putting in laws to reduce streaming while encouraging people to stay at home. I guess that $600 they paid people whose job they eliminated should cover their streaming bills for the year.
Newsom closing outdoor dining while allowing Hollywood to film is making more sense now. Sorry for going political on HN but this really bugs me.
In practice what will this do to streams provided by commercial services like Twitch, where someone has copyrighted music playing in the background. Or the more political streams that play other videos and even share news articles. Will that kind of stuff be shut down?
Also, It will be interesting to see how “THEY” go about picking away at Section 230.
[+] [-] chadash|5 years ago|reply
>The Protecting Lawful Streaming Act would apply only to commercial, for-profit streaming piracy services. The law will not sweep in normal practices by online service providers, good faith business disputes, noncommercial activities, or in any way impact individuals who access pirated streams or unwittingly stream unauthorized copies of copyrighted works. Individuals who might use pirate streaming services will not be affected.
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.
[+] [-] roblabla|5 years ago|reply
Here's the full text of what is being prohibited:
> PROHIBITED ACT.
> — It shall be unlawful to willfully, and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, offer or provide to the public a digital transmission service that
> (1) is primarily designed or provided for the purpose of publicly performing works protected under title 17 by means of a digital transmission without the authority of the copyright owner or the law;
> (2) has no commercially significant purpose or use other than to publicly perform works protected under title 17 by means of a digital transmission without the authority of the copyright owner or the law;
> or (3) is intentionally marketed by or at the direction of that person to promote its use in publicly performing works protected under title 17 by means of a digital transmission without the authority of the copyright owner or the law.
From my understanding, this basically means they'll go after platforms (since they are the ones doing the act of offering to the public a digital transmission service).
[0] https://www.tillis.senate.gov/services/files/A30B0C08-FB97-4...
[+] [-] elliekelly|5 years ago|reply
> It shall be unlawful to will-fully, and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, offer or provide to the public a digital transmission service that...
The term "private financial gain" typically includes an individual receiving anything of value. I agree it doesn't come after the consumers of illegally streamed content but I don't think it's fair to say it only targets for-profit platforms. And it's certainly much broader than targeting "criminal organizations" as the linked (not HN) headline wrongly suggests. Someone uploading protected content in exchange for reddit gold could easily fall within this definition of criminal conduct. People who "trade" files with one another might fall within it, too. I think the linked press release is intentionally downplaying the scope.
[1] "The Protecting Lawful Streaming Act would apply only to commercial, for-profit streaming piracy services. The law will not sweep in normal practices by online service providers, good faith business disputes, noncommercial activities, or in any way impact individuals who access pirated streams or unwittingly stream unauthorized copies of copyrighted works. Individuals who might use pirate streaming services will not be affected."
[2]https://www.tillis.senate.gov/services/files/A30B0C08-FB97-4...
[+] [-] AnthonyMouse|5 years ago|reply
The title isn't misleading. You're just providing more details than exists in the title, which is the purpose of the link, which does provide that information.
But more to the point, the most objectionable part of this isn't the specific details of the streaming changes. It's... what business does any of this have in a Coronavirus relief bill? It's preposterous.
I feel like honest legislators should really start using this process against itself. The next time there is an omnibus bill like this, insert a line that says something like "every part of the December 2020 Coronavirus relief act not directly related to Coronavirus relief is repealed" and then let it sail through with that in the same way this did. Give them a disincentive to do things this way because they'll just lose it again next year.
[+] [-] skeeter2020|5 years ago|reply
But look at the actual text; there is enough ambiguity and opportunity here to use this as the launching pad for very questionable prosecution. If you're in a P2P network and getting free media does it qualify as a commercial enterprise and material gain?
[+] [-] Digory|5 years ago|reply
It creates felonies like:
"Hey, if you'll chip in a few bucks, I can run a plex server for the dorm."
or
"Hey, neighbor, sure you can use my wifi to watch Netflix, if you'll pay half."
[+] [-] zenexer|5 years ago|reply
Do you really trust that the RIAA won’t pressure prosecutors into targeting individuals? Heck, if you run a home media server, a good team of lawyers could probably convince a technologically-incompetent jury that you’re subject to this law.
[+] [-] sleepysysadmin|5 years ago|reply
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 streaming by users becoming a felony. No different than what SOPA was proposing. Willful infringement becoming a felony is their goal and they will achieve it.
[+] [-] mackal|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] piokoch|5 years ago|reply
Although I am a bit surprised since this law also applies to movies that are not profitable. In such cases producers should be happy that someone wants to give access to them despite loosing money while doing it.
One notable example of such unprofitable movie is "Return of the Jedi", which, after 40 years, has not provided any net income. Not even one cent. I am really impressed by heroism of all those movie producers that keep working so hard even though they earn nothing.
Or maybe it is not true that those movies are not profitable, maybe, for some strange reason, law enforcement is able to track all those pesky pirates, fish them from New Zealand hideaways, but is and was not able to retrieve a single tax dollar from movie studios for the past 70 years.
That's a puzzle which is apparently somehow missed by venerable members of US Congress and Senate.
[+] [-] 300bps|5 years ago|reply
Locast is a non-profit platform that streams local channels. It’s been sued left and right by broadcasters. So far unsuccessfully. Is this law the next step in putting pressure on them and others?
[+] [-] 1f60c|5 years ago|reply
Hasn't this been the case since... forever?
[+] [-] dang|5 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[+] [-] milankragujevic|5 years ago|reply
Wasn't this already a felony? I clearly remember getting into legal problems with MPAA when I was 15 years old and made an online version of Popcorn Time, and that wasn't P2P.
[+] [-] gruez|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simonebrunozzi|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanc|5 years ago|reply
The difficulty in doing so is a big part of the problem. As per AOC's comments on twitter yesterday, at 2PM Members of Congress got 5000 pages of bill dropped on their desk with a vote call at 4PM.
The whole thing needs to be much more transparent.
[+] [-] dawnerd|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheRealDunkirk|5 years ago|reply
"One study," funded by people who also -- just by mere coincidence -- gave a lot of money to Thom Tillis' election campaign.
[+] [-] boobsbr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SamuelAdams|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonwalch|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanBC|5 years ago|reply
It's not a crime. What criminal law is being broken?
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jariel|5 years ago|reply
Twitch already has mostly DRM aware content creators - I hear them talking about 'rights' quite a lot in their streams.
[+] [-] boobsbr|5 years ago|reply
It's the worst listening experience ever. It's much easier to just go to YouTube and listen to the song uploaded by an official channel.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] SpicyLemonZest|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chadlavi|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Guest42|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sleavey|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cspada|5 years ago|reply
"The law will not sweep in normal practices by online service providers, good faith business disputes, noncommercial activities, or in any way impact individuals who access pirated streams or unwittingly stream unauthorized copies of copyrighted works. Individuals who might use pirate streaming services will not be affected."
[+] [-] __david__|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crb002|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 533474|5 years ago|reply
Companies will lose free marketing and word of mouth.
Companies will have to work harder to persuade the populace to acquire commercial flicks/sports. Youtube and cheap magnate streaming services win. Small studios or independent film makers, lose their free marketing distribution channels (personal opinion)
[+] [-] bserge|5 years ago|reply
Felony though, wow, that's just evil.
[+] [-] boobsbr|5 years ago|reply
I see it happening with digital game stores: my friends refuse to buy anything outside of Steam. It goes as far as not even getting free games from Epic, Ubi or GOG, because they'll have to create another account in another service.
[+] [-] morpheuskafka|5 years ago|reply
The problem, and the concern from groups like EFF, is that on the other hand people who are not really pirates (ie. their purpose is not to serve a substitute for buying the work) but who may violate copyrights in the process (ex. streamers who don't have distribution rights to music playing in the background) could be covered as long as they are in some way monetized, and it would not be hard to play this as a "major infringer" with a number of songs.
[+] [-] Signez|5 years ago|reply
We have that in the French Constitution and it's very useful to take down this kind of thing we call a "cavalier législatif".
[+] [-] mooreed|5 years ago|reply
I don't see any discussion in the thread - and find that the recent dust up over this type of DRM gray area use is more than correlated with this type of new legislation.
After the obligatory IANAL [1]: the fate of `dl-youtube` would be tied to your ability to construe `dl-youtube` as a digital transmission service based on §2319C.a.2.
To me seems like the the risky clauses of §2319C.a.2 are : `primary purpose` and `publicly performing`; where primary purpose is tough because their is author intent, and then the proportions of real-world usage, and `publicly performing` is actually a pointer not to common usage of the phrase, but to definitions set forth later in the document.
Read the actual law [PDF]: https://www.tillis.senate.gov/services/files/A30B0C08-FB97-4...)
[1] - I Am Not A Lawyer
[+] [-] Miner49er|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pontifier|5 years ago|reply
Truly. I purchased Murfie, and am attempting to re-build their business. It's a streaming service that leverages media people own to give them access to that content.
This feels like a targeted attack on my business plan by Disney. I can't see another reason it would be so targeted.
BUT... I believe the service I'm providing is legal and I'll fight this battle to the end.
[+] [-] univalent|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FeistyOtter|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dannykwells|5 years ago|reply
Not that it's not worth fighting but this is clearly an attempt to garner clicks/votes and we should be fighting back here.
[+] [-] snvzz|5 years ago|reply
Streaming a felony? Madness.
[+] [-] choward|5 years ago|reply
Newsom closing outdoor dining while allowing Hollywood to film is making more sense now. Sorry for going political on HN but this really bugs me.
[+] [-] exabrial|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Threeve303|5 years ago|reply
Also, It will be interesting to see how “THEY” go about picking away at Section 230.
[+] [-] WarOnPrivacy|5 years ago|reply