Could S.978 put Justin Bieber in jail?
If there is one particular bill in Congress that pits people of all political stripes against big corporations and also the politicians they fund, The Commercial Felony Streaming Act, S.978 is it. The bill would make net streaming of copyrighted content material a felony having a prison sentence of up to five years. That implies you can visit jail for posting a video to YouTube with the incorrect background music, all inside the name of guarding big media companies that do not want to update their old business designs for the age of peer-to-peer sharing.
The Commercial Felony Streaming Act, or S.978, was proposed by 3 senators in May of this year and could be introduced by the House of Representatives on Wednesday. But could the controversial bill really impact any individual who streamed or posted videos of copyrighted content to sites like YouTube?
If this bill is enacted even big-label pop stars who launched their careers undertaking covers, like Justin Bieber, could face jail time.
FightForTheFuture.Org, an organization for freedom in technological innovation, says that because copyright law is so expansive, “it applies to a lot of entirely harmless and widespread things: like singing a song, dancing to background music, or posting a video of a kids’ play.”
To produce their point, Fight for the Future launched a website today called FreeBieber.Org. The organization points out that Bieber, who got famous by posting videos of himself singing unauthorized covers of well-known R&B songs to YouTube, could visit jail under the new bill.
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