Legislation outrage?

May 4, 2005 10:29 PM

LegalFilter: after reading an editorial I'm trying to decided if I should be outraged over parts of the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 or not.

The editorial makes a big deal about possible jail time. But if I'm reading recent copyright law correctly, it would seem that jail sentences were already possible. Is the outrage just editorial ignorance, or did something happen here that I missed.

Also, I'm not sure what the whole point of the bootlegging/pre-release section of this bill is about. Weren't these actions already covered under existing copyright law? I don't understand how you could argue that copying a pre-release isn't an infringement of the copyright.

posted by sbutler to Law & Government (13 answers total)

As a general rule of thumb, if you have to labor over whether or not to be outraged, you should not be outraged. However, outrage is very much in vogue these days, on this site in particular, so if it helps you get you through your day, by all means, be outraged.
posted by xmutex at 10:32 PM on May 4, 2005

You're not reading copyright law correctly. That law you linked to says you go to jail if you copy the seal of any department or agency of the United States, not some crappy movie.

Personally, I'm outraged. Or at least, I would be, if I lived in a country that wanted to put people in jail for using bittorrent to download the new Tom Cruise movie early.
posted by Jairus at 10:48 PM on May 4, 2005

(Upon further reflection, I see that the links on the law.cornell.edu site are fucked up, and they meant to link to a different page while referencing section 506.)
posted by Jairus at 10:52 PM on May 4, 2005

Also: This new law makes it a felony to download that crappy Tom Cruise movie with BitTorrent. A felony. You know, like aggravated assault, arson, burglary, murder, and rape -- leading to lack of voting rights, firearms rights, job security, and so on.

A FELONY.

Man, the US legal system doesn't make any bones about being in the pockets of corporations, does it?
posted by Jairus at 10:55 PM on May 4, 2005

The act of distributing a not-yet-released movie online, or videotaping the movie at a theatre were already illegal. This new act simply increased the fines and punishments for these acts. In fact, the new law puts the act of copyright infringement in the same neighborhood as manslaughter, punishment-wise. Outrage might be too strong a term for some, but I think it's fairly safe to say that most people do not morally equate these two crimes.

You might also find this prior discussion in the blue about the law helpful.
posted by thewittyname at 10:55 PM on May 4, 2005

If my read is right, the new law removes the number and the value of the infringing copies from the equation. If you use bittorrent to grab a single track off a prerelease Radiohead album, and upload only one copy's worth of data, you have committed a crime just as severe as sharing that new Tom Cruise movie on a fat pipe all week long.
posted by Galvatron at 11:14 PM on May 4, 2005

Response by poster: Jarius: maybe the links aren't working, but I don't see how what I linked to applies to only to the seals of departments or agencies. In any event, I thought a felony meant any jail time under a federal law.

thewittyname: grrr... I missed that MeFi thread. Thanks. What I guess I'm confused about is that the law already read:

Any person who commits an offense under section 506 (a)(2) of title 17, United States Code—

(1) shall be imprisoned not more than 3 years, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, if the offense consists of the reproduction or distribution of 10 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of $2,500 or more;

(2) shall be imprisoned not more than 6 years, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, if the offense is a second or subsequent offense under paragraph (1); and

(3) shall be imprisoned not more than 1 year, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, if the offense consists of the reproduction or distribution of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000.

So in the case of prereleases and bootlegs they just removed the 10 copies provision and removed the liability of theater owners? I guess if I'm surprised at anything it is that we already had such punishments on the books.

On preview: thanks Galvatron! Exactly what I was confused about.
posted by sbutler at 11:18 PM on May 4, 2005

sbutler, the links I followed linked to the wrong law -- one involving only seals of agencies.

...and a felony isn't another term for jail time. It's a class of criminal act along with misdemeanours and infractions, although exact terminology varies from place to place.

If we meet in a bar and I beat you up, or I spraypaint your car, I'm almost certainly guilty of a misdemeanour. These offenses are often responded to with community service, weekend incarceration, house arrest, and so on.

A felony is a class of criminal act reserved for rape, arson, murder, sexual abuse of a child, murder, and so on. It used to be that almost all felonies were met with the death penalty or life inprisonment.

Speaking generally, if you are a felon in the US, you lose your right to vote. That's how serious it is. You also can't get work in many lines, you're forever barred from receiving any security clearance or working for 95% of govt agencies, so on and so forth.

A college kid downloading the prerelease Arcade Fire track won't get into just a bit of trouble anymore. He/she'll become a felon. It's a Very Big Deal.
posted by Jairus at 12:05 AM on May 5, 2005

Yes, you should. The key part is here:

Any person who willfully infringes a copyright shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, if the infringement was committed [...] by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution.
[...]
In this subsection, the term 'work being prepared for commercial distribution' means [...] a motion picture, if, at the time of unauthorized distribution, the motion picture [...] has not been made available in copies for sale to the general public in the United States in a format intended to permit viewing outside a motion picture exhibition facility.

Basically, it's a crime to share a movie that hasn't been released on DVD yet. Now, I think this kind of piracy is wrong, but making it a felony is unconstitutionally (probably) excessive. Generally, felons are regarded as real threat-to-society criminals, as opposed to citizens who have happened to commit a crime. It's a big black mark- you're required to disclose it when applying for a job.
posted by mkultra at 9:28 AM on May 5, 2005

If anyone is prosecuted under this, do you think they will invoke the Cruel and unusual punishments clause of the Eighth Amendment?
posted by fourstar at 10:09 AM on May 5, 2005

I don't think so, fourstar. If that didn't work for felony drug possession, it's probably not going to work for felony copyright violation. I'm afraid that the horse was let out of the "felonies are for serious crimes" barn decades ago.
posted by vorfeed at 10:28 AM on May 5, 2005

I don't know that it's that excessive -- yeah, it's a felony. Like, you know, theft. Because we're talking specifically here about pirating films that haven't been released or are in current release, it's hard to say this isn't taking money directly out of the paychecks of everyone whose income depends on the success of these films. If someone was taking money directly out of your paycheck, I assume you'd have no problem with that being a felony?
posted by dagnyscott at 10:38 AM on May 5, 2005

dagnyscott, it's easy to say that this isn't taking money directly out of the paychecks out of everyone who worked on the product. Go to bittorrent, right now, and download pre-release tracks off of the album I haven't released yet. Go do it.

Look -- I still have the same amount of money I did before. Felon.

Also -- theft is a felony where you live? Theft, not grand theft or theft over $5000?
posted by Jairus at 1:06 PM on May 5, 2005