Obama to Fill Prisons with File Sharers Instead of Pot Smokers?

The most ridiculous provisions of the defeated SOPA are put back on the table. Obama Administration wants online streaming to be a felony.

Eric Blair

As a pro-marijuana activist, it's a joy to watch the Berlin Weed Wall come tumbling down. I even found some pleasure this week in Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement for reduced sentencing for non-violent drug offenders.

It's not everyday some liberty is yielded back to the people, however small.  Yet my joy is tempered by cynicism.

The private prison-industrial complex could not have been happy with Holder's recent announcement, but there's a strange silence. There's not a single bought-and-paid-for politician coming to the defense of longer prison terms for non-violent drug offenders. So what gives?

Surely there must be intense lobbying efforts underway to stop this.  I mean, any industry evil enough to bribe judges to throw innocent children in cages would clearly scratch and claw for every dollar of potential profit, right?

Ben Swann: NSA Using Copyright Claims to Crush Free Speech?

BenSwann.com

Can a government agency block criticism by claiming copyright infringement? Sounds a bit ridiculous but it is happening. The NSA is effectively stopping one small business owner from criticism, claiming that by using its name he has infringed on their copyright.

Can they do that?

This is a Reality Check you won’t see anywhere else.



Full transcript and research links posted below...

Fighting Back Against the 'Intellectual Property' Racket

Aaron Swartz protesting SOPA (Demand Progress)

Tony Cartalucci, Contributor

In your standard dictatorship, activists are brought out back and shot.

In the United States' crypto-dictatorship, activists are bullied by the state until they go bankrupt, are buried under a mountain of legal woes, are publicly discredited or humiliated, or as in the case of activist and Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz, made to crack under the constant pressure, and commit suicide.

While superficially the United States may seem more progressive, a dead activist bullied to death for his political views, is a dead activist - whether it was a bullet in the back of the head by SS officers, or a mountain of litigation dumped upon someone by the US Department of Justice. 

We are All Aaron Swartz.

Senators Unconcerned About Massive Consequences Of Criminalizing Embedding YouTube Videos

Image Source

Mike Masnick
TechDirt

This is really no surprise, but the same Senate Judiciary Committee that unanimously approvedthe PROTECT IP Act, despite worries from internet experts and major media about how it would break the internet, has now also unanimously approved the anti-internet streaming bill that makes it a felony to stream certain videos online -- potentially putting people in jail for embedding YouTube videos or just putting up YouTube lip synching videos.

What's really troubling here is that the media and plenty of concerned citizens have directly raised the issues about the unintended consequences of this law. And while Senators Amy Klobuchar, John Cornyn and Christopher Coons continue to insist that (of course) the law is not intended to be used against such people, they have made no move to fix the bill. Even supporters of this bill, who insisted that we were wrong about what the bill allowed, eventually conceded that our argument was accurate and that this bill could be used to put people in jail for embedding a YouTube video or doing a lip synch video.

And that's a huge, huge problem. Of course, no one thinks the bill is for that purpose directly or that it's going to be widely used for such purposes. However, the bill, as written, clearly allows law enforcement to charge people with a felony for that, assuming it meets a few other conditions. But those conditions are pretty minimal (ads on your page? you're in trouble...). The risk here of abuse is a serious risk, and it's incredibly troubling that Klobuchar, Cornyn and Coons failed to change or adapt the bill, and worse that the rest of the Senate Judiciary Committee allowed the bill to move forward in such a broken state. They were clearly made aware of problems with the bill, but directly chose not to make any changes. How do you explain that other than incompetence or corruption?

Read More at TechDirt

OPPOSE the PROTECT IP Act HERE

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Draconian Anti-Piracy Censorship Bill Passes Senate Committee

TorrentFreak

The controversial PROTECT IP Act unanimously passed the Senate Judiciary Committee today. When the PROTECT IP Act becomes law U.S. authorities and copyright holders will have the power to seize domains, block websites and censor search engines to prevent copyright infringements. Introduced just two weeks ago, the bill now heads over to the Senate for further consideration and another vote.

The U.S. Government continues to back legislation that opens the door to unprecedented Internet censorship.

Two weeks ago a group of U.S. senators proposed legislation to make it easier to crack down on so-called rogue websites, and today the Senate’s Judicial Committee unanimously approved the bill.

U.S. Gov't Starts New Round of "Pirate" Domain Seizures

Torrent Freak

US authorities have resumed 'Operation In Our Sites' and have seized several domain names associated with copyright infringement or counterfeit related crimes. Among the new targets are two sites that linked to copyrighted films hosted on third party streaming sites such as megavideo.com and veoh.com. Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has yet to officially announce the new operation.

Over the past several months a series of domain name seizures by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made headlines across the Internet.

Senate bill makes illegal Internet streaming a felony

Cyber security AFP File image

Eric W. Dolan
Raw Story

Those who illegally stream live video or audio over the Internet could face up to five years in prison under legislation recently introduced to the U.S. Senate.

Ars Technica reported that Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), John Cornyn (R-TX) and Christopher Coons (D-DE) proposed a bill last week that would make “illegal streaming” of copyrighted content a felony.

Under current law, copyright infringement already carries felony penalties, but questions have been raised about whether broadcasting audio or video live over the Internet could be considered the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted works.

Streaming content has been considered a “public performance” rather than “distribution.”

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Why Righthaven’s Copyright Assignment Is A Sham – And Why It Matters

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Kurt Opsahl
EFF

For several weeks EFF and co-counsel Fenwick & West have been trying to persuade a federal district court to unseal a critical document Stephens Media produced in Righthaven v. Democratic Underground. The document, th Strategic Alliance Agreementbetween Righthaven and Stephens Media (publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal), and our accompanying supplemental brief were unsealed on Friday.

As the court explained, “Righthaven and Stephens Media have attempted to create a cottage industry of filing copyright claims, making large claims for damages and then settling claims for pennies on the dollar, with defendants who do not want to incur the costs of defending the lawsuits.” While Righthaven’s business is suing bloggers for copyright infringement, it is not a publisher. It does not produce the works that are the basis for its numerous lawsuits. Instead, it trolls the Internet, looking for news articles published by Stephens Media (Las Vegas Review-Journal) or Media News Group (Denver Post) and, when it finds them, gets the publisher to “assign” the copyright so it can file a lawsuit. At least, that was the public story.

UK Government discusses blocking copyright infringing websites

Communications Minister Ed Vaizey has held talks behind closed doors with rights holders and ISPs about introducing web blocking for sites that breach copyright

DHS in the US has already seized thousands of domains
"suspected" of violating Copyright laws.

Dinah Greek
Computer Active

The Government is considering forcing internet service providers (ISPs) to block websites that make it possible for people to illegally share copyrighted material.

Communications Minister Ed Vaizey confirmed on the Open Rights Group blog that he has been involved in behind-closed-doors discussions with copyright holders and ISPs about introducing these measures after a legal challenge from BT and Talktalk to the Digital Economy Act (DEA).

The entertainment industry wanted the law to force ISPs to write warning letters to alleged file sharers but ISPs say they fear this would breach data protection laws.

This issue is now subject to a judicial review in the High Court and the Government has put on hold the requirement for ISPs to write warning letters.

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US lawmakers to push for online piracy bill

"Blacklisting entire sites out of the domain name system" is a "reckless scheme that will undermine global Internet infrastructure and censor legitimate online speech," it (EFF) said.

Senator Patrick Leahy
© AFP/File Mandel Ngan

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Democratic and Republican members of the US Congress pledged Monday to pass legislation that would give US authorities more tools to crack down on websites engaged in piracy of movies, television shows and music and the sale of counterfeit goods.

Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he would introduce a new version "soon" of a bill designed to combat so-called "rogue websites."

A previous bill co-sponsored by Leahy, called the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 19-0 vote in November, but never made it to the Senate floor.

YouTube Accused of Censoring Controversial Content (with Video)

AFP/DDP File image

David Makarewicz, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Does YouTube make it too easy to censor a controversial video?

Anthony Lawson, producer of videos covering controversial topics, ranging from 9/11 conspiracies to Israeli treatment of Palestinians, is accusing YouTube of "censorship" after the video-sharing site took down a short documentary questioning certain facts of the Holocaust that he uploaded to his YouTube page.  At the bottom of this post is his latest video detailing his charges against YouTube.

Copyright or Censorship? (Video)

Youtube - alawson911
It is my contention that spurious accusations of copyright infringement can be used to suppress videos that are not liked, in certain circles, and that YouTube's reporting procedure favours the accuser over the accused, who is not even given the minimum amount of information necessary to be able to challenge any claim, let alone a false one -- Anthony Lawson.



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Righthaven's Bad Month Ends With Mistakenly Filed Lawsuit

Electronic Frontier Foundation

David Makarewicz, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Righthaven has once again tripped over itself while attempting to use the courts to bully a website.

This time, the target was ARS Technica, who have posted an interesting account of the lawsuit filed by Righthaven against one of its freelance writers, Eriq Gardner.  It took less than four days for Righthaven to have to withdraw the copyright infringement suit.  A copy of the Complaint can be found here.

Righthaven was forced to drop the case because the photo at issue (displayed above) wasn't the original image of an overly friendly patdown that was owned by the Denver Post, but rather was the black and white version of the image, which came from Righthaven's own court filing against Drudge, who subsequently settled.

Supporters of DHS Domain Name Seizures Undervalue Important Constitutional Protections

David Makarewicz, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

This site has been generally critical of recent United States policy toward copyright issues.  We have expressed discomfort with the Obama Administration's statements in support of Internet freedom, which seem to clash with a proposal to wiretap suspected infringers and the introduction of COICA legislation.

The most troubling issue has undoubtedly been the series of Government domain name seizures, through which the DHS takes the domain names of accused infringers without first giving the accused a chance to defend their site at a hearing.

Although we question the Constitutionality of the seizures, these issues deserve a vigorous debate that presents the well-reasoned arguments of all sides, including those that are convinced that the Government seizures are right and legal.  Unfortunately, last week, Terry Hart of Copyhype, who has been a vocal defender of the domain name seizures, chose to go beyond that defense to question the motives of the critics of the domain name seizures such as SitesAndBlogs.com and Techdirt.comand attempted to dismiss the importance of the Constitutional issues we have raised.

White House Wants It To Be A Felony To Stream Infringing Materials

Wikimedia Commons Image

David Makarewicz, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

One aspect of the White Paper that has grabbed headlines is the Obama Administration's recommendation that Congress clarify that felony copyright infringement includes infringement by streaming.  The current legal definition of felony copyright infringement only references "distribution" and "reproduction," which does not clearly include streaming.

There is some room to debate whether felony-level penalties (up to 10 years imprisonment) are too harsh for any intellectual property offense such as this or whether there are legitimate reasons to treat streaming different than other methods of distribution and reproduction.  However, asking Congress to clarify an unclear law is generally a reasonable request.

Obama Proposes Harsh New Copyright Laws for Internet

Do Obama's Proposed New Copyright Laws Go Too Far? (Part I)

Obama Administration IP Czar Victoria Espinel

David Makarewicz, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

On Tuesday, the White House's Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, Victoria Espinel, provided Congress with a White Paper (available for download here), outlining a series of the Obama Administration's recommended legislative changes to combat online piracy and counterfeiting.  Significantly, the recommendations include making it a felony offense to stream infringing content and giving Federal agencies wiretapping authority to obtain evidence of criminal copyright and trademark offenses.

New Proposal to Wiretap Suspected Infringers Raises Privacy Concerns

This is Part II of a series of articles analyzing specific aspects of the Obama Administration's White Paper (available for download here), recommending legislative changes to combat online piracy and counterfeiting.  Click here for if you missed our overview of the White Paper in Part I.

David Makarewicz, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

One of the most troubling recommendations in the White Paper is the Obama Administration's request for Congress to grant its enforcement agencies the power "seek a wiretap for criminal copyright and trademark offenses."  This would require Congress to amend the Wiretap Act, which does not currently include copyright and trademark infringement among the offenses that justify a privacy invasion as extreme as a wiretap.

In order to preserve the private nature of communications, the Wiretap Act (as amended by the The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986), 18 U.S.C. § 2511, makes it generally illegal for anyone, including the Government, to "intercept, any wire, oral, or electronic communication." However, the law has carved out certain exceptions to this rule under which the Government can request permission to intercept certain communications for a limited time.

Media Bloggers Association Stands Up To Copyright Troll Righthaven

It is unfortunate that Righthaven and the companies it "buys" the copyrighted property from are willing to financially wreck a person, often for mere carelessness as they are attempting to add to the public conversation.

Media Bloggers Association

David Makarewicz, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Today, the Media Bloggers Association ("MBA") filed its Reply Brief in theRighthaven, LLC v. Hyatt case.  The MBA is opposing Righthaven's attempt to convince the Nevada District Court to award it $150,000 in damages, the domain name for blogger Bill Hyatt's website (1ce.org)  and attorneys' fees.

Hyatt was sued by Righthaven last October after he allegedly copied a Las Vegas Review-Journalcolumn titled "FX's Manly Man Shows Hold Outsider Appeal."  When Hyatt did not respond to the lawsuit, he was defaulted by the court clerk's office.

A default is basically the equivalent of an admission of all liability by the defendant.  If the default is not set aside, the Court will skip the trial on the merits of the copyright claim and proceed directly to a determination of the damages against Hyatt.

5 Ways DHS Violates the Constitution with Website Domain Seizures

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