This one in particular:
Uber RINO Lindsey Ping
"Republican by day, Democrat by night."
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Posted on 05/14/2011 10:24:28 PM PDT by LibWhacker
I wrote earlier about how the new PROTECT IP Act guts parts of the DMCA, but as you dig deeper, it's looking even worse. The original (and now updated) article focused on the use of the term "interactive computer service," which was in a draft copy of the bill. At the last minute, that was changed instead to be "information location tool." While, at first, this may seem to be a narrower definition, there are some serious concerns that this effectively makes it illegal to link to any website that is accused of being "dedicated to infringing purposes." That's because an "information location tool" is defined under current law to be: a "directory, index, reference, pointer, or hypertext link."
Yes, you read that correctly: a link is an "information location tool" and such tools may be barred from pointing to sites deemed "dedicated to infringing" purposes. That seems like a massive breach of the First Amendment. If there is relevant information, as someone covering the news, why should I be prevented from linking?
Making matters even worse is a companion bill introduced by Senators Amy Klobuchar, John Cornyn and Christopher Coons, which would ratchet up charges for sites that stream infringing works to a felony. The specific text of the bill is not yet public, and it's likely that it just extends the "public performance" rights to section 506a of the Copyright Act (which only covers distribution and reproduction rights today). But, that leaves open a huge question of what is considered a "public performance" and how you define "streaming" in relation to a public performance. I can see it reasonably applying to a site hosting the content and streaming it... but what about an embed or a link, in which the content never touches the site in question at all? Tragically, we've already seen that the feds consider merely linking or embedding to be a form of a felony -- so it appears this bill is designed to make that even clearer, and that is really dangerous.
Put it all together, and our elected officials are now claiming that linking to something can be a felony. Yeah. Scary.
It seems that we really should highlight the list of Senators who have sponsored these bills, and who are telling you that linking to content should be considered a felony. The first bill is sponsored by:
* Patrick Leahy
* Orrin Hatch
* Chuck Grassley
* Charles Schumer
* Dianne Feinstein
* Sheldon Whitehouse
* Lindsey Graham
* Herb Kohl
* Chris Coons
* Richard Blumenthal
* Al Franken <-- Updated to include, missed him on the first pass
The latter bill is
* Amy Klobuchar
* John Cornyn
* Chris Coons, who has the distinction of sponsoring both dreadful bills
So, there you go. The Senators who think it's okay for the government to put people in jail for linking.
Next thing you know it’s ‘rehabilitation camps’ for ‘thought’ crimes.
Sheesh!
We’ve got this thing called intellectual property in the US, and the US constitution pretty much leaves it up to Congress to dictate how it is governed. Almost anything is “possible.”
To come up with a fair answer to questions like this, I think you have to use the golden rule. If you “owned” (had the governmentally granted monopoly upon) the stuff whose “piracy” (violation of government strictures upon violating your monopoly) was being facilitated through the linkage or whatever, who would you put the blame on for that situation and why? I mean there are trolls out there like Righthaven who may unfairly sting many people for trivial uses of things like old newspaper articles, but there’s also stuff that cuts into legitimate markets for software, music, movies, etc. and shouldn’t be allowed to go on.
Of course where the internet is concerned, if some Web construct is deemed illegal inside the US, moving it to a host outside the US allows it to be flaunted once more.
It makes sense if the world, in one’s opinion, should be silos miles apart.
Would you risk putting a link on your web site to some other site, if you could be charged wth a felony based on the content of that other site? Keep in mind that you have no control over the content of other sites, which can change at any time without notice. Still willing to link to other sites?
So linking to .gov sites would become a felony?
/just a little sarc
Does our government ever enact legislation to expand freedom of the citizenry?!
Perhaps it’s time to make it a prisonable offense for a sitting politician to promulgate, lobby, or otherwise support any law or legislation that makes a Constitutionally protected freedom a crime.
no
Quel surprise!
And of course, Miss Lindsey Graham is sponsoring one of them. When are south carolinians going to primary this little pansy?
Relevant to news gatherers, reporters, bloggers and basically anybody who uses twitter.
This sudden rush makes me think they are all getting heavy donations from interested parties such as the RIAA and Hollywood movie makers and software businesses and others I don’t know the names of
These hack Senators won’t lift a finger to do useful things like get a fence built on the Mexican border and to require e-verify be used by all businesses
* Patrick Leahy
* Orrin Hatch
* Chuck Grassley
* Charles Schumer
* Dianne Feinstein
* Sheldon Whitehouse
* Lindsey Graham
* Herb Kohl
* Chris Coons
* Richard Blumenthal
* Al Franken <-
They should be LIBWACKED!
Senators legislating information tech is a little like chimps playing with loaded firearms.
Agreed, ant this should come from the States, just to make sure that it does NOT imply that the federal government HAS this power...
This coming from a bunch of pigs that cheat, steal and do nothing all day while they rape the taxpayers.
Correct. They do not want anyone else doing what they have done to accumulate power and wealth.
This one in particular:
Uber RINO Lindsey Ping
"Republican by day, Democrat by night."
Want on or off this ping list?
Just FReepmail me.
the devils are scared sh!tless that the people have access to the internet and they can communicate with one another and speak their minds freely; in their wee minds, this must stp and/or at least be greatly curtailed for them to continue on and on in their pursuits...
they’re right, so far as they go...
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