Family Entertainment and Copyright act of 2005

[wmansir]

This legislation recently became law in the US. Click here (http://www.publicknowledge.org/content/legislation/s167) for the full text.

The law has 4 major sections, #3 is the most interesting:

1. It makes using a camcorder in a theater illegal and specifies federal penalties. From what I have read this was already illegal in 24 states.

2. It dramatically increases the fines for distributing PRE-RELEASE material, to 3 years maximum, unless it was for commercial gain in which case it is 5 years max.

3. It EXEMPTS businesses and individuals from copyright violation for creating, selling and operating technology which allows a person to "make imperceptible" portions of a copyrighted work with the consent of the viewer. The exemption is void if a hard copy of the altered work is created. It also requires a disclaimer to be shown before the work to inform the viewers that the work is altered from the original.

4. It reauthorizes the National Film Preservation Board to preserve neglected films.

#1 and #2 were basically a compromise with the *AA in order to get the bill through Congress (which it did by a wide margin). The bill's target is the company ClearPlay, which was has been fighting legal battles with the MPAA over it's service which censors adult consent from DVDs during playback. This law clears them to continue to provide their service without the consent of the MPAA. The MPAA was looking to shut them down or barring that force additional licensing fees on them for the use of MPAA works.

A couple of caveats.

The obvious exclusion of hard copies means this bill does not address companies like CleanFlix, who would edit DVDs, destroy the originals, and then sell or rent the 'clean' DVDs. Also, the law is very specific about excluding the right to insert material into the work. It only covers removing material (muting, blanking out or skipping). And it only covers private viewings, but it does include transmissions to homes, not just local playback. So a device in the home censoring a broadcast is covered, but a network broadcasting a censored work without the consent of the copyright holder is not.

Now the real meat of the issue is the artist's "right" to control how his work is presented vs. the viewers ability to control what they want themselves (or their children) view.

[cyberVera]

This makes me feel, I wouldn't go to an american movie hall at all.

[Mug Funky]

actually, that cleanflix thing seems quite fair to me.

as i understand it, they are a company that essentially does DVD backup, but with modifications. i would imagine they'd have to pay for the right to do that in the first place, and have to have the product signed-off by the copyright holders before distributing them. unless the deal here is that they are already paying for the right to do this, but are now facing the prospect of paying much more.

to be honest, viewer discretion and intelligent parenting is most likely a better solution anyway :)

making camcorder-in-theatre a federal offense is a bit much though. with all their resources, surely the MPAA can file civil suit against one person with a camcorder without having to throw them in jail.

[adam]

No Mug Funky if you read the caveat section at the bottom you can see that this bill does not address the Cleanflix issue at all. Cleanflix and the like do not have any authorization whatsoever to edit and resell their edited DVDs. This issue is currently in litigation and I'd be very suprised if these companies were allowed to stay in business. They're making unauthorized copies and are selling them for profit. It doesn't get any more clear cut then that, imo.

What this bill does address is ClearPlay which manufactures devices that allow the viewer to skip certain predefined content. You use their special player and download filters for each movie from their website. You then can set the options to filter out (ie: skip R rated nudity but keep R rated violence for example.) No new copies are made, the viewer just gets to choose which sections to view, something they could already do anyway. I think its a great solution for families with younger children.

[Joe Fenton]

Originally posted by Mug Funky
making camcorder-in-theatre a federal offense is a bit much though. with all their resources, surely the MPAA can file civil suit against one person with a camcorder without having to throw them in jail.

If they file a civil suit, they pay everything themselves and get almost nothing back since the person usually has nothing. They spend several hundred thousand and get back a couple thousand. By making it a FEDERAL OFFENSE, the GOVERNMENT pays all costs to get the offender and the MPAA pays nothing. That provision is entirely about saving themselves money so they can buy yet another gold plated ivory back scratcher.

[adam]

Just make sure you don't mix up Federal and Criminal, they are not synonomous. A criminal offense can be either a federal or a state one, and the same is true for a civil offense.

If the MPAA wants to sue for money damages they will always have to file a civil suit and foot the bill, and it will always be in Federal court because Copyright Law is a Federal law. For willful infringement with large damages copyright law also imposes criminal penalties, which again in this case will be a federal offense. The MPAA can do nothing more than file the complaint though. Its up to the Federal Government to actually press charges and that rarely happens. This is all under Copyright Law.

This aspect of the bill now makes filming in a theatre or distributing prerelease material a Federal CRIMINAL offense. Previously it was only a crime in about half of the jurisdictions under state law, though it was quickly being addressed by all jurisdictions. So what this does is make it a crime in all of the US and grants the authority to prosecute to the Federal Government as opposed to the State government. Either way the MPAA has absolutely nothing to do with it and will not get a dime out of it, unless they choose to file a civil suit after the fact.