If you didn’t think that the 900 billion dollars in Porksidies was enough, the overall must-pass package also includes some other interesting hidden clauses.
Lawmakers in Congress are under fire from digital rights campaigners for embedding three controversial changes to online copyright and trademark laws into the must-pass $2.3 trillion legislative package—which includes a $1.4 trillion omnibus spending bill and a $900 billion Covid-19 relief bill—that could receive floor votes in the House and Senate as early as Monday evening.
The punitive provisions crammed into the enormous bill, warned Evan Greer of the digital rights group Fight for the Future, “threaten ordinary Internet users with up to $30,000 in fines for engaging in everyday activity such as downloading an image and re-uploading it… [or] sharing memes.”
While the citizenry had almost no time to process the actual contents of the 5,593 page legislative text, Greer said Monday afternoon that the CASE Act, Felony Streaming Act, and Trademark Modernization Act “are in fact included in the must-pass omnibus spending bill.”
As Mike Masnick explained in a piece at TechDirt on Monday:
The CASE Act will supercharge copyright trolling exactly at a time when we need to fix the law to have less trolling. And the felony streaming bill (which was only just revealed last week with no debate or discussion) includes provisions that are so confusing and vague no one is sure if it makes sites like Twitch into felons.
“The fact that these are getting added to the must-pass government funding bill is just bad government,” Masnick added. “And congressional leadership should hear about this.”
As The Verge’s Makena Kelly reported:
“The CASE Act would create a quasi-judicial tribunal of “Copyright Claims Officers” who would work to resolve infringement claims. As outlined in the bill, copyright holders could be awarded up to $30,000 if they find their creative work being shared online.
Proponents of the CASE Act, like the Copyright Alliance, argue that the bill would make it easier for independent artists to bring about copyright claims without having to endure the lengthy and expensive federal courts process. Still, critics of the bill, like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Fight for the Future, argue that the CASE Act could fine ordinary internet users for engaging in everyday online behavior like sharing memes.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/21/atrocious-congress-crams-language-criminalize-online-streaming-meme-sharing-5500