what the hell is wrong with congress...

[Kakarot]

I know i shouldn't be posting political stuff, but this is ridiculous. If this bill passes im gonna rage. What do you guys think about it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hytigOSjJxc#ws

[Tesla[1up]]

I only watched the first half the video because the guy keeps on rambling about the same stuff over and over again so take this response from someone who only watched the first half of the video.

Bill writers tend to follow the "kitchen sink" philosophy when trying to propose a new bill to congress. What that means is they throw everything they can possibly throw into the bill except the kitchen sink to see how much they can get away with on a first draft.

They know that not everything they propose in the bill will make it, but it gives them a good starting point to gauge how far they need to adjust the bill in subsequent drafts, thus speeding up the process somewhat until they get to the final draft.

You can equate this to going to a pawn shop and asking $100.00 for an item that you really only expect to get $50.00 for.  You start out with a higher price then you expect to actually get in the end (Bill Writer) and the pawn broker starts out with a price that is below the fair market value for that item (Congress). You both then haggle the price up and down and finally arrive at a price that you can both live with. (The final draft of the bill) There is nothing new about this concept, it's just good old fashioned bartering in it's simplest form.

Additionally,

Watching a video of a game being played by someone else online is NOT the same thing as playing the video game itself. You cannot interact with the video in the same way you can with the game and it's not like you can rip the models / textures from the video and put them in your own games / projects so this portion of the bill is just silly and will never make it in the final but that is just my $0.02 so take it for what it's worth.

Tesla[1up]

[TurbanError]

I would like to add my two cents:

First, the bill in question can be reviewed here.  You will note, it adds to existing literature.  From reading this, it would seem the bill is doing two major things.  First, adding a harsher penalty to displaying copywritten material.  Second, it adds more emphasis on public performances of copy written material.  Games are already copy written material, they could already take you to court over displaying game play (but then we get into the discussion of the gaming medium, as various play sessions will undoubtedly not be the same).  But they won't, because that's foolish.  There are copywrites broken on the internet all the time (not just illegal downloads), but distribution of songs, artistic works, movies/media, images and trademarks that you wouldn't think twice about. 

You think just because you bought a song on itunes you can stream it from your website?  Heck, I was teching (running the audio visual) a conference at a hotel, just by chance a layer who happened to be associated with the people in charge of copywrites for the Beatles (the client wanted the white album played in the background durring lunch) happened to be in the hotel, heard the music, called his firm, found out no one had asked them, and shut us down.  Music is the worst though.  My friend was working on a student film and wanted to sample 30 seconds from some evanescence song (I don't judge his musical tastes), 2,500 $ for under a minute for just the artists, the recording company wanted more for the actual recording.  Yikes.

Copywrites are a big deal, but the only thing this seems to change is the severity of the punishment.  Its not like game developers are sending cease and desist orders to youtubers, they want there games to be popular.  Also, youtube has purchased a gigantic amount of copywrites (I believe they have everything from warnerbros too before google bought youtube).  Clearly, companies that distribute this content will have to (or may already have) bought permission to show it. Why this guy is having a cow is anyone's guess.

[J-Squared[1up]]

Copyrights. The right to copy. This is what is in issue. Copywrite would be writing a copy and may be impacted by copyrights.