Share Movies and Go To Jail

The United States Federal Government just passed the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act into law with three components having a direct impact on all music and movie consumers in the United States. It is now a federal crime to record movies with a camcorder in a movie theater. Based on federal copyright laws, this was probably already true, but now it's officially documented as such. It is now a federal crime to distribute "prerelease" works, which means no more sharing 50 Cent albums before they hit their official Tuesday release date and no more sharing movies prior to their DVD release, unless you are willing to risk jail time. The third component of the law having direct impact on consumers is an exception to copyright law making it permissible to use technology to alter the performance of a DVD to skip sections (like nude scenes and swear words). For the convoluted legalese version straight from the House of Representatives, read the bill summary of H.R. 357 For an breakdown of the sections in terms intelligible to non-lawyers, read the analysis from EFF lawyer Fred von Lohmann.

Posted by Jake

Feedback

Share Movies and Go To Jail

Recent Entries

Comments