Somehow, Congress' lackuster COVID-19 stimulus bill would make illegal streaming a felony
Aux Features Coronavirus
While Congress can apparently only manage to find enough funds to give Americans in need a measly $600 via their new COVID-19 stimulus bill, one senator found the time to throw in a proposal to increase the penalties for those who stream unlicensed works. Republican senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina has convinced his colleagues to throw his anti-piracy proposal into the bill that is up for a vote today. If passed, illegal streaming could carry a penalty of up to 10 years in jail, says The Hollywood Reporter.
This is not the first time Congress has tried to clamp down on illegal streaming. In 2011, Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota (the one who reportedly once ate a salad with plastic hanger) put forth a proposal similar to Tillis’ but it never moved forward after a non-profit somehow convinced people that Justin Bieber could face five years in prison if copyright laws were amended. No joke.
The major difference between Klobuchar’s and Tillis’ proposals is that the latter would target “commercial operators rather than users,” says THR—though, since the proposal was rushed into the bill, there hasn’t been a lot of time for the nuances to be analyzed.
The anti-piracy proposal is not the only entertainment-related bit of potential law that has made its way into the bill (since that’s what Congress should be spending its time doing while trying to theoretically help the millions left financial distraught thanks to the cornavirus pandemic). Also on the table is a small-claims adjudication option for copyright owners who previously had to go through an expensive federal court process to settle disputes, as well as an extension of Section 181, which THR describes as “a tax provision that allows for immediate deduction of television and film production costs up to $15 million.” The outlet reports that the incentive was scheduled to expire at the end of the month, but would now get an additional five years.
We’re all for combating piracy, but is now the time? Rather than screaming into the void about all the more pressing issues Congress could be focused on right now, we’re just gonna enjoy this guy’s remix of the song from the “Piracy. It’s A Crime” campaign.
95 Comments
Okay, I’ll stick with torrenting in that case.
Just make sure you use a VPN.
Hah! Funny thing is, I was actually using a service for awhile that would allow you to download movies from torrent sites to their cloud, where you could either stream them or download them without tripping your ISP.Only reason I quit using it was because they completely fucked the coding up at some point and it became basically useless. It’s a proxy and not a VPN, I know, but that would technically be a felony……not that it’s not a felony anyway, but 10 years is a harsh sentence. Guess we gotta pay GEO somehow, what with all the minor drug-offenders finally being defended by the public writ-large!BTW, what movie do you think would get you the worse ass-beating in a Federal pen for pirating? Or the most cred? I can’t think of the worst (probably The Waterboy), but I think you’d be considered a baller if you got busted streaming a prison-related move 3 or 4 months before it was released.
Not remotely the same thing as IPTV…SMH!
“Wait a minute. Ah want to tack on a rider to that bill: 30 million of taxpayer money to support the perverted arts.”
Religion isn’t getting enough of a bailout of tax payers money they don’t put in?
Aw. A good old-fashioned Simpsons reference. Pour one out for Disqus era AV Club.It almost makes me want to comment again (he said after waiting for the page to load for a full minute, clicking no fewer than three times to load up a reply box, and having to X out of a pop-up ad whilst he typed).Yeah, maybe not.
Are you aware of the irony of appearing in comments in order to decry them?
I’m bringing Simpsons references back.I’ve yet to decide whether they should be in Pog form, or continue with this current format.
And this is the country people were so eager to save during the election.
God, melodramatic people like you are morons.
We have to save it. It’s where I keep all my stuff!
SPOON!
“It’s where I keep the milk, and the counter, and that big bowl I have my cereal in, Arthur!”“Tick, all those things are mine.”“Exactly! And you are my closest chum, Chum!”
I starred on the assumption this was a reference to one of my favorite lines from The Tick cartoon (which ironically is an episode I cannot watch without illegally streaming or torrenting it as for some reason it was omitted from the season 2 DVD set I legitimately purchased).
I’m not saying I’m happy about it, but America’s kind of important for us Americans. Emigrating isn’t easy…
Actually, it isn’t that hard. I’ve worked in Canada and Germany as an American. You just have to get a job in the respective country and your employer will do 99% of the work for you. I’m back here in America since 2003, which maybe wasn’t the best choice, though.
…you realize Americans are completely banned from Canada and the EU right now, right? You can’t even pop into Germany for a quick pretzel these days.You’re also assuming that people all have jobs where their employer would be willing to transfer them overseas for the Hell of it. Sorry, McDonald’s isn’t going to transfer Dave from Elk Grove, IL, to Tokyo, Japan. Just not gonna happen for most people.
Thanks. I was snarking a bit, but it’s genuinely something I’m trying to do. I went to college in Italy, England, and Hong Kong, and there’s a bunch of countries I’d rather live in than the US. But I’m entry-level and having trouble finding any job at all. My brother has a job in London, but he works in tech, while my skills are much softer, writing and marketing. I figure my best shot right now is to get an online position with slightly flexible hours and go the nomad route.
A masters in Ireland gets you 2 years to work while finding sponsorship, haha
Best of luck with that at the moment you nation of pox-carriers!
If everyone who was unhappy with Trump tried that, how many people do you think would get in? They aren’t going to just let a shit ton of foreigners, no matter where they come from, come in and take up all the jobs. Their economy could not support that. IIRC, Canada—like most countries—requires that your job be something fairly specific. Like, you can’t just get a job at the gas station. You have to have some kind of knowledge, training, education, etc. to be in and not everyone has that. Even among people who went to college.Please don’t counter with, “Well, I…” because you are one case. I guarantee that, no matter what your circumstances, most people would not be able to either match your circumstances or be successful under the same circumstances.
The alternative being what exactly?
So Star Wars fans who live in countries without Disney+ will be even more screwed.
Probably not. This is an American law against American streamers. The vast majority of illegal streaming sites are housed outside of the US.
And as far as anyone can tell, I’m posting this from Germany right now…
What about YouTube? A ton of illegal streaming is done off of there, and because of the sheer volume of content uploaded each and every second, screening out all illegal content is impossible.
So what are those people supposed to do now? Just asking for a friend
No for 2 reasons.1. American laws only affect American citizens………..for now.2. This is targeting people who upload for profit, not those that actually watch it.
Yay, me & my buddy Kodi are safe!
Not going to argue that it’s odd that this legislation got slipped into this bill, but it had already had bipartisan support, it was going to happen anyway. Honestly, it still doesn’t do enough to stem the ridiculously onerous legal costs of an average person trying to defend their copyright. The small claims aspect seems silly, though I guess, we’d have to see if any legal president comes out of it.
TBF it’s not that odd that something like this got slipped in: a lot of congresspeople got some pet issues, good and bad, in there to secure their vote. This was probably included so Tillis won’t block it entirely.
Any legal what now?
Now not only are global corporations like Disney and Warner-Brothers considered “people” now…they’re average people. Like, I’d definitely sit down with Mickey Six-Pack; totally relatable dude.
Ha! Fucking autocorrect. Precedent, obviously.
S you’ve got a few typos sprinkled into this sentence:_______The anti-piracy proposal is not the only entertainment-related bit of potential law that has made its way into the bill (since that’s what Congress should be spending its time doing while trying to theoretically help the millions left financial distraught thanks to the cornavirus pandemic).
Wasn’t the whole First Step thing about not sending people to prison who really don’t belong in prison? Illegal streaming is wrong, but is it really hard time in prison wrong?
One step forward, two steps back.
Look, the United States has a ~250 year history of every problem being a nail, and prison being the hammer. It’s a hard habit to break.
Stealing is stealing, and piracy is not a victimless crime.
Of course AV Club is going to reflexively piss on this bill because, hey, it’s not perfect, cynicism is cool, and it’s hard to report on anything that’s not trending on Twitter, but another arts-related angle they could have taken is that it includes $15 billion for musical, theatrical, and cinematic venues hurt because of pandemic closures:https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/21/arts/covid-stimulus-theaters-venues.html
And a bunch of military hardware, and money for Israel, etc…
FWIW that has nothing to do with the COVID stimulus, that’s part of the omnibus spending bill the stimulus got attached to. That would have been funded whether we got $2000 or $0 checks.
“Money for Israel.” Dude fuck right off with that Antisemitic dogwhistle. Nobody’s complaining it’s going to Yemen and Egypt as well. Plus it’s money they have to spend on American companies if they want the aid.
Israel is bad and giving money to them is bad.
There’s nothing anti-semitic about saying that Netanyahu’s a corrupt piece of shit, or that the Israeli government is full of corrupt pieces of shit. In fact, it’s pretty fucking racist to just assume all white people who complain about corrupt foreign powers are bigots.OK, I’m a self-loathing white white-superemacist because I think Trump, Johnston, and Putin are all scumbags. Makes total sense!
Being against giving money to Israel so they can continue to persecute the Palestinians anti fascist, not antisemitic.
Not supporting Israel in not anti-semitic. What is Israel is doing is fucked up and their government is corrupt as hell. Trump vetoed a bill that actually got through the Senate that would actually help Yemen. Everyone seems to forget this. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/us/politics/trump-veto-yemen.html
No where did I say “Israel is 100% in the right and should get all our money.” Also, the occupation should be shut down. ALSO also, if I emigrated, they wouldn’t accept me as “Jewish enough.” But it’s suspiciously always Israel that gets called out for “human rights abuses” when none of its neighbors are exactly in the right either, and nobody seems to care that we’re giving money to the Yemen government as they starve its own citizens. Try being Jewish online (for example, here in this thread) – you mention how you like an ice cream shop in Tel Aviv near where your cousins live, and people are clamoring for you to justify your “love for genocide.”
We’re always the outsiders, always the ones sneakily “taking over” places where “we don’t belong.” Always the ones who look like we’re persecuted but actually secretly hold all the levers of power.It’s fucked up and it’s draining, and consider yourselves lucky you don’t have to deal with it on a daily basis.
Oh god you’re just an idiot and awful. These things you brought up are irrelevant, you just randomly called someone anti-semitic for thinking Israel sucks and doesn’t need our money. Israel doesn’t need our money it’s a fairly wealthy nation.
“Money for Israel” is overly vague and can definitely seem like the intent was Antisemitic.That said, Israeli leadership is outright corrupt and building an ethnostate on stolen land, and military funding specifically to Israel is a dogwhistle in itself, for both the more Islamophobic crowd as well as the Judeo-Christian “SECURE THE HOLY LAND” assholes. There’s political intent in every place they would send money, but on the best of days America shouldn’t send money to an Israeli regime as despotic as Netanyahu’s.
you’re also pissed we’re sending it to Egypt and Yemen, yes?Also Jews know that “Judeo-Christian” isn’t a thing. That’s something used by Christians to try to absolve themselves of their own anti-semitism.
It’s kind of insane to call it “not a thing.” There’s no Christianity (or Islam or Mormonism) without Abraham and Judaism. Also, I have a shit ton of elderly relatives who will gladly tell you about how we need to protect Israel for eschatological reasons. Most of the Christians I know struggle a lot more with reconciling Islam as part of their religious heritage than they do Judaism (claims that Allah is a wholly different deity that doesn’t exist but that Jews and Christians worship the same God that does exist, etc.)
I do not draw a false equivalence between money to the Egyptian/Yemeni regimes and the Israeli regimes no. Politics of any region are too complicated for the dichotomy you are trying to set up.As for “Judeo-Christian”, I used that without thinking of the baggage that comes with the term- I was trying to make a distinction between the Abrahamic religion, sans Islam. I wasn’t jumping on the alt-right murdering of the term, sorry for the confusion. To clarify, I think that the funding to specifically aid a missile defense controlled through the Israeli regime is a dogwhistle to the Islamophobic, reactionary, ethnostate-securing political base that is all-to-common of Christian or Judaic political groups/PACs/lobbies.
You know that the majority of Jews in the US (like at least 80%) are NOT aligned with the Christian fascists who want to send us to The Holy Land to die in their Armageddon, yes? As for “Judeo-Christian,” there’s more than 3 Abrahamic religions. “Judeo-Christian,” again, is something Christians invented to try to make them seem less anti-Semitic. It’s not the “alt right” who’s abused the term, it’s “moderate” Christians who’ve abused it.
Glad you admit politics are complicated. Except apparently when it comes to Israel, I guess. Then you can just set up a “good guy/bad guy” dichotomy. And Progressive and Leftist Jews who may or may not have actual family over there get caught in the crossfire.
You know that the majority of Jews in the US (like at least 80%) are NOT
aligned with the Christian fascists who want to send us to The Holy
Land to die in their Armageddon, yes?
That was never conflated in what I’ve said, you have a poor understanding of who I’m speaking about.
As for “Judeo-Christian,” there’s more than 3 Abrahamic religions.
“Judeo-Christian,” again, is something Christians invented to try to
make them seem less anti-Semitic. It’s not the “alt right” who’s abused
the term, it’s “moderate” Christians who’ve abused it.
That’s outright a lie. The internet is full of the history of the term, and its corruption over the years. You are either disingenuous to make the claim, or confused.
Glad you admit politics are complicated. Except apparently when it comes to Israel, I guess.
Then you can just set up a “good guy/bad guy” dichotomy. And
Progressive and Leftist Jews who may or may not have actual family over
there get caught in the crossfire.
It’s certainly complicated, and I’ve specified just that- I’ll be entertained to see how you can distort what I’ve said until now as a “good guy/bad guy” dichotomy. Unlike you, I don’t portray the Israeli ethnostate in one light- but it’s clear-cut that the Israeli government is not synonymous with the Israeli people, the Israeli government is corrupt and committing atrocities they should be held accountable for, and the US government shouldn’t be tacking bills to the relief measure to help corrupt fascists have more missiles. I get that you seem intent on misreading anything I’m writing, no matter how plainly I lay it out for you, so fire away with whatever disingenuous distortion you’ve got.
The term “Judeo-Christian” was born corrupt and always will be corrupt. I mean, you can think I’m wrong about it, and that’s ok. You do you.Of course everything you just said at the end is much more complicated than saying, without context, “Israel shouldn’t get our money.” But when progressives and leftists say in the same breath, “we get $600 checks and the border wall and Israel get a billion dollars,” that’s creating a false dichotomy that puts international aid to one corrupt country (which, wrt both foreign and domestic US policy, pretty much just makes us comfortable bedfellows) and funding of a xenophobic useless border wall on one side, and actual aid to poor U.S. citizens on the other. It’s more subtle than calling someone a Big-Nose K*** but it’s still hurtful.
Speaking of, apparently the Israeli government just collapsed AGAIN and they’re having their 4th election in 2 years. But sure, they’re the masterminds controlling everyone’s money and power.
I initially said that “money for Israel” isn’t a proper way to frame issues with this bill, and leads to misinterpretation:
“Money for Israel” is overly vague and can definitely seem like the intent was Antisemitic
The specific issue is on using the stimulus to push funding for military resources for a shitty regime that further displaces people, is storied in pushing out Palestine business and replacing with Israeli goods, controlling Palestinian citizen’s movement, shooting reporters, and displacing people from their homes. The USA should not be trying to fund a missile defense for that regime. If it was economic aid to help Israeli people in need, I’d have no concern over that. I’ve never said
we get $600 checks and the border wall and Israel get a billion dollars.
This framing you have of me saying that or
they’re the masterminds controlling everyone’s money and power.
is just a weak defense of your argument, that you have to pull accusations of bigotry from thin air to defend the Israeli ethnostate getting more rockets.
Didn’t say they should get more rockets. DID say it’s suspicious this is the pet cause “progressives” consistently pick out when protesting military aid. Like, we’re trying to be your allies ffs.
Well, I don’t really give a shit what progressives do, and unless you’re part of the Israeli government, or a member of a Israeli-interest PAC, nothing I’ve said is directed at you. You are consistently looking at what I say about other groups and painting it as if it’s an attack on you or Jewish people altogether, and nothing I’ve said is in regard to that. There are two things I’ve mentioned that I don’t support:-the ideology that there’s a “birthright” to steal land
-the groups that further that ideologyNeither of those things represent the Jewish people ethnically, culturally, or religiously, so I haven’t and won’t have anything bad to say about the Jewish people. That said, fuck everything and everyone involved in the two points mentioned.
Man, just fuck off. None of us have time for this dumb bullshit.
To be fair I think people involved in the performing arts do indeed have time for this ‘dumb bullshit’.
sadly, we all have nothing but time, since mostly everyone is unemployed now, and afraid to leave their home in case the landlord changes the locks, and lost their cars to the repo man. Time to sit around, broke, thinking about how little relief is coming to Americans, just enough to buy a fire stick and begin downloading illegal movies since we cant pay the actual cable bill ever again.
But hey, that 600 will pay for like 3 months of internet and tv, so thanks USA!!!
People are starving and being evicted from their homes dipshit. $600 is barely going to cover anything and yet it’s perfectly fine to dump millions to overthrow Venezuela and the army can buy more milssles?Go fuck yourself!
OH NOES NEOLIBERALIZM tell me about the dronez now
So you’re saying, for once, the AV Club is on topic? /jk
A) Anyone starving is likely unemployed…which means they’re now getting 11 weeks of $300 a week from the Fed, on top of any state pandemic programs. That’s STILL not enough, but the folks huffing and puffing about the $600 haven’t actually been unemployed during the pandemic.B) That $33m to fuck with VZ literally amounts to $0.10, if you divide it among every American.
Why do you comment on the AV Club when you hate the AV Club?
Concentration on the parts of the “relief” bill that aren’t “relief” is a perfectly fine thing to do. Adding poison to the “relief” bill is not.
So it’s meant to increase the punishment of the people who upload/host copyrighted material that is streamed, or the people who watch said streams?
Several billion for each branch of the military and a cool $500M for Israel, who has Medicare For All.So on brand for this country
You know who really makes a killing when a stimulus package gets signed a week before Christmas. Loan sharks. I already last a payday loan place with a sign about how they can get you your stimulus money TODAY! I’m sure at a nice heathy 50% interest rate or more. I’m sure most of our lawmakers are so removed from normal America that they don’t realize that the moment they sign that paper, American do not instantly get the cash
50%? Try 600%. Not joking.
Oh, dude, that’s one DEPRESSING rabbit hole to dive down. An illuminating one, though.
“We’re all for combating piracy,”this is such a cool website lmao
I feel like this is just a dumb attempt to try and recover some of the tens, if not hundreds, of millions that were wrongfully sent out to non-US citizens and people with dual citizenship living outside the United States during the first stimulus bill because of the painfully flawed system by which those checks were determined. To say nothing of the field day scammers and identity thieves had on it as well.
“Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota (the one who reportedly once ate a salad with plastic hanger)…”It was a plastic comb, not a hanger, and she did it to spite an underling who couldn’t find her a fork with which to eat her salad. She’s a shitty boss, not looney tunes crazy. Okay, she might be crazy, but the gist of the incident is that she’s a shity, abusive boss.
That sounds crazy, though
a shitty boss drops a partially botched project on you and guilts you into working the weekend to fix it.
a crazy shitty boss throws heavy objects at you over a minor mistakes
klobuchar is in the second category
Can we please stop saying “Congress” when the real villain is the GOP? Ffs, if it were the Right and Left wings of the Democrats, we’d have at WORST means-tested $2000/month. Mitch McTurtle-Scrote thinks it’s funny that families are starving to death. There’s no negotiating with terrorists.
Remember how Nancy Pelosi admitted she blocked an earlier stimulus that would have gotten us all $1,200 again because she didn’t want Trump to get credit fro it? Sure, Republicans may be fucking terrible, but their being shitty does not at all preclude the Democrats from also being shitty
A $1200 check without PUA support is wayyy fucking worse than this bill…and would have been used by the GOP to justify not passing this bill.It’s really easy to tell which folks haven’t been unemployed during the pandemic.
No, dude, they’re not at all equal. This “both sides” bullshit is what got us all where we are right now.
You really believe that? https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-heroes-act-skinny-bill-pelo/fact-checknancy-pelosi-did-notblock-stimulus-check-fromtrump-on-condition-that-he-gave-1-trillion-to-illegal-immigrants-idUSKBN26K39O
“We’re all for combating piracy”Alright bootlicker.
We’re all for combating piracy
Cool. Now I feel like a real bad ass!
Plastic comb. Now we have hackers monitor Tillis’ computers until we can bust him for watching GBBO through reddit. Felons can’t serve in Congress while serving ten years, right?
I don’t understand the way bills are written in the US, it seems like there is no such thing as let’s say in Canada the CERB which was created to help people get 2000 a month during the pandemic. Instead it seems that any idea for any kind of spending has to be include 100’s of unrelated items. The more I hear the more I think the Eddie Murphy movie The Distinguished Gentleman wasn’t too far fetched.
I wonder if this is related to things like Hamilton and Formula 1 races being on pornhub and other sites. There was an article just recently about how pornhub changed their setup so that won’t happen.
How about a focus on crimes that actually hurt other people?
There is nothing immoral about making copies.