U.S. Congress Legalizes Piracy?

for a company called ClearPlay, at least.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...G3BCBHEI19.DTL

yeah. strange but true, they've passed something called The Family Entertainment And Copyright Act Of 2005 which increases the maximum criminal penalties for videotaping movies in cinemas & sharing pre-release copies of music/movies, but also grants a private Utah-based company called ClearPlay the right to turn a profit by selling subscriptions to their service which censors dvds on-the-fly and essentially creates a temporary pirate version of copyrighted material.

this is substantially different from the television V-chip and traditional dvd-player censoring options, as those block out entire movies & shows rather than editing them. it's different from seeing edited versions on tv, as these versions are either provided by the copyright owners or created with permission of the copyright owners. it's even different from buying a dvd and making a censored backup for your own enjoyment, because you wouldn't be doing that for financial profit. but that's really what Congress is allowing ClearPlay to do: sell edits of material which they do not hold copyrights or licenses on, without the advice or permission of the copyright owners, and without paying any royalties for the sale of these edits.

they're putting the screws to internet filesharing once again (okay, actually that part is business-as-usual... stiffer jail sentences, so what else is new?), yet at the very same time they're punch a gaping hole through copyright law in order to accomadate some morality/decency nuts from Utah. ironic and sad, but not entirely surprising either?

I thought us laws already let you cut scenes out of movies that you did not want. it was part of fair use im sure.

also that act means if you share a film before its release date you can recieve 3 years in prison and a big fine. I read a funny article on the reg about how people who commit manslaughter will get less time.

so sharing a file is now considered worse then depriving someone of life.

well, there's a distinction. if they were selling an editing tool that gives you the ability to create your own edit of the movie for non-commercial purposes, that would be fair use. but that isn't what ClearPlay does. they're selling the ability to watch THEIR edit of your dvd, so it's not an editing tool because you're not really doing the editing... it's a method by which they edit your movie remotely over the subscription service.