If you like YouTube, Read.

[Kimball]

I realize this isn't the place for politics, but I feel as though this is important and it affects all of us. Before you write this post off and go about your day, please hear me out.

Soon, Congress is due to vote on a bill that proposes loosely worded restrictions on copyright infringement that could make everything from uploading clips from movies and TV shows to clips of video games to lip synching over your favorite song illegal.

Here's the catch though. You are permitted to upload nine videos of infringement. The tenth one is where you cross the line from "frowned upon" to felony. Yeah, that's right. Felony.

If you have 2 minutes to visit this website and write a letter to Congressmen urging them to not let this bill slip through the cracks, please do so. It will make all the difference about the future of the internet.

http://act.demandprogress.org/act/ten_strikes/%3Freferring_akid%3Da1932571.410203.1Frn9a%26source%3Dauto-e

[k776]

So, you want to allow copyright infringement... ?

Either way, a law in NZ already passed that has peoples internet cut off permanently if someone infringes copyright just 3 times.

[Mythos_Ruler]

So, you want to allow copyright infringement... ?

Either way, a law in NZ already passed that has peoples internet cut off permanently if someone infringes copyright just 3 times.

My main beef is with patents, specifically software and gene patents, and their length (20 years in length, with multiple ways of extending it in perpetuity). Copyrights have also gotten way out of hand, lasting 120 years in some cases. There is a point where these things should become public domain. 70 years after the original author is dead is ludicrous. There is a point where copyright and patent protection stifles innovation, instead of promoting it like intended. However, those concerns are tangential to what Bob is talking about. Most people infringe on more recent works than 120 years. I think cutting off someone's internet "permanently" for 3 copyright infringements, as in NZ, is awfully draconian, and I'm not sure how that could really be enforced.

[Kimball]

So, you want to allow copyright infringement... ?

Either way, a law in NZ already passed that has peoples internet cut off permanently if someone infringes copyright just 3 times.

I think you're misunderstanding me. I'm not in support of copyright infringement, but the wording of this particular bill is so vague that it's rather all encompassing. It could potentially shut down a site like YouTube in the U.S. due to the sheer volume of the videos in violation of the regulations outlined in the proposed law. This would include any video made using a copyrighted video game (for example, any third-party game reviews, Machinima and others), and could potentially apply wherever prosecutors see fit (for example, if someone uses a faux lightsaber effect in one of their videos, that could constitute as copyright infringement under this bill).

So for that reason, that it was written rather hastily, I am in direct opposition of this bill.

[AuroN2]

Mr Kimball, i agree with your statement

anyone in the US of A should be protesting at every little thing.

Americas government has become little more than a bunch of polititians with lots of $$ playing the good boys to further their control over the country.

and no that bill was not written hastilly, that is exactly how they ant it: vague so they can abuse it.

Like the previous bill that says you cant grow crops in your back yard.

Why? Because ron paul is the only good statesman. The rest of them, including obama (who is just a smoothetalking version of George bush) Are Greedy @#$%s.