Thread: White House: Streaming Should be a Felony, Wiretap Infringers

President Obama’s so-called “IP Czar” Victoria Espinel yesterday delivered a 20-page white paper containing her recommendations for future legislation, calling on Congress to make changes in order to make it easier to clamp down on copyright infringement. Among the recommendations are calls to turn streaming into a felony alongside authority to wiretap in copyright cases. 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. http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/defa...hite_paper.pdf Source: http://torrentfreak.com/white-house-...ingers-110316/

I like how they want to protect intellectual property rights by infringing on liberty and privacy with wire taps.

I seriously doubt anyone in D.C has ever read the constitution.

I'm sorry to all americans but your government is fu**ing dangerous.

The next step for them will be asking for extradition for mass infringers.

I'm getting very sick of how draconian our American copyright laws are getting. It's so corrupt, and it's so ignorant.

Originally Posted by lennie

I'm getting very sick of how draconian our American copyright laws are getting. It's so corrupt, and it's so ignorant.

To be fair, pirating is corrupt . Define draconian... I don't think this involves torture of any kind or things of that nature. I believe in freedom of speech and information and etc as much as the next person, but governments can't allow this. End of story. They can't break their own laws can they? And, not to now go against everything you've said entirely, but this is quite the opposite of ignorant. They are taking more notice of piracy and trying to stop it even more.

When Bush was imposing wiretaps for possible TERRORISM people were up in arms. But I have a feeling that because saint Obama is thinking of doing this, people are gonna on their knees with their mouths open supporting this.

I'm not an American but my government takes it's queues from them so it won't be long before we get similar or worse.

My government doesn't seem to think for themselves, the americans pass laws and we do the same...
When it was normal laws it didn't bother me but now that we are talking about the internet, what the americans do will eventually affect all of us...

The statement ''America controls the internet'' is becoming more and more true...