YouTube Streaming Felony Charges May Soon Become A Reality If Barack Obama Gets His Way
Wednesday, August 7, 2013 21:25

(Before It's News)
 When will this insanity end? If Barack Obama has his way, sharing a song, video or show on YouTube will soon become a felony. You’ve read that correctly, a Barack Obama task force has revived a SOPA provision that will outlaw online streaming according to this story from Russia Today. This administration has gone far overboard again in its reach to criminalize the internet. Isn’t it time to POUND Congress and the White House (202-456-1111) with your phone calls? These men and women in Washington DC have forgotten that they are merely SERVANTS to WE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE! It is time that they REMEMBER!!!!!
 Sharing a song on YouTube could soon become a felony: the United State Department of Commerce is asking Congress to increase the penalties for streaming copyrighted work, reviving a provision from the failed Stop Online Piracy Act.
Opposition from the likes of Google, Wikipedia and the American Civil Liberties Union helped stop SOPA from passing in early 2012, but part of that bill could soon be back from the dead. According to a recent Commerce Department report, the office’s Internet Policy Task Force is asking Congress to reconsider a section of SOPA that could heavily penalize people for uploading select content to streaming services.
 The task force’s latest report, Copyright Policy, Creativity and Innovation in the Digital Economy, pressures Congress to consider felony convictions for people caught streaming copyrighted songs, music and movies, and some say such legislation would outlaw the practice of uploading homemade cover tunes to the World Wide Web.
 Under current law, streaming a copyrighted song or show is only a misdemeanor and not regularly enforced. Should the task force have its way, though, reproducing or distributing such material on streaming sites would open the possibility of felony charges.