Right now there are heavy talks about Protect IP Act which is a bill that is going through the Senate, this bill is being backed by the RIAA, Movie industry and other media owning outlets. In this article I will be describing to you what this bill could mean to you. If you are a creator of web content, a blogger, a person who creates YouTube video’s singing remakes of artist music. This bill has some tremendous stopping power and it gives it all to the US Government, and the music and movie industry. Yes that’s right the movie and music industry. They are telling the government that the reason the industry is losing out on so much money is due to online piracy, and they want it stopped so they can make more money on their movies and music sales.
So let’s think about the music industry for a second, is there really a music industry anymore? No because so many people have gone the indie route by producing and creating their own mini labels and starting through YouTube by releasing their own music. If Protect IP Act succeeds then these indie artists will not have a chance due to the major record labels shutting them down for potential copyright infringement and intellectual property. So this mean’s we wouldn’t have Justin Beiber, Grayson Chance, The Shaytards, Dave Days, CTFxC, iJustine and other Youtubers would never have been able to get noticed and make their way into the internet stardom because the owner of the things they are creating parodies of would have contacted the government and had them removed from the internet, or make them pay a fine to the owners of the item.
The movie industry does have a foot to stand on when it comes to online piracy, as movies are among the most pirated items on the internet. It is in 3rd place behind software and music. But this could easily be combated by giving incentives to movie goers/ purchasers by including a digital copy with every purchase of a dvd/bluray disc. So people wouldn’t need to resort to stealing movies from the internet, and another thing that would help them out could be the rate they are charging movie theaters to rent their movies so they would not have to pass the charge onto the consumer. The rates they charge the cinemas keep going up and up, and in turn people are starting to wait for disc releases to purchase a movie by this time the reviews have already come out for the movie and they lose out on even more revenue. I know when it comes to movies in theaters I will not spend my money on something unless it has been out for a couple of weeks so I can get a feel of what other people think of the movie. So I can decide if I am wasting my money or not. So I think it is not the internet that is actually causing the movie industries problems, but the industry it self.
Here is what Wikipedia says about Protect IP Act
The PROTECT IP Act defines infringement as distribution of illegal copies, counterfeit goods or anti-DRM technology, and infringement exists if “facts or circumstances suggest [the site] is used, primarily as a means for engaging in, enabling, or facilitating the activities described”. The bill says it does not alter existing substantive trademark or copyright law.
The bill provides for “enhancing enforcement against rogue websites operated and registered overseas”, and authorizes the United States Department of Justice to seek a court order in rem against websites dedicated to infringing activities themselves, if through due diligence an individual owner or operator cannot be located. The bill requires the Attorney General to serve notice to the defendant. Once the court issues an order, it could then be served on financial transaction providers, Internet advertising services, Internet service providers, and information location tools to require them to stop financial transactions with the rogue site and stop linking to it. The term “information location tool” is borrowed from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and is understood to refer to search engines, but could cover other sites that link to content.
“ The Protect IP Act says that an “information location tool shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, to remove or disable access to the Internet site associated with the domain name set forth in the order”. In addition, it must delete all hyperlinks to the offending “Internet site”. ” Nonauthoritative domain name servers would be ordered to take technically feasible and reasonable steps to prevent the domain name from resolving to the IP address of a website that had been found by the court to be “dedicated to infringing activities.” The website could still be reached by its IP address, but links or users that used the website’s domain name would not reach it. Also search engines—such as the already protesting Google—would be ordered to “(i) remove or disable access to the Internet site associated with the domain name set forth in the [court] order; or (ii) not serve a hypertext link to such Internet site.” Furthermore, trademark and copyright holders who have been harmed by the activities of a website dedicated to infringing activities would be able to apply for a court injunction against the domain name to compel financial transaction providers and Internet advertising services to stop processing transactions to and placing ads on the website, but would not be able to obtain the domain name remedies available to the Attorney General.
I would encourage you to write your Senator and recommend they do not vote for the Protect IP Act as it will take away your 1st Amendment rights on the internet and give the control over to the Music and Movie industry.
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