The Internet Policy Task Force (IPTF) is a branch of the US Department of Commerce. Just recently, the IPTF has published a new green paper discussing various elements of copyright. Before I dwell deeper into the more technical aspects of the paper, a brief explanation of copyright law might be in order. Copyright law, gives an author the right to do certain acts with their work, and more importantly prevents others from doing certain acts with their work. These acts include, copying, reproduction, production, and publicly performing the work. If a third party does any of these acts on a piece of work without the author’s permissions, they have committed copyright infringement.
Under current US law, the consequences for infringing copyright by publicly performing a work (without permission) is less than what one would normally suffer for infringing copyright by doing another restricted act. However, this paper by the IPTF proposes that the unauthorised public performance of a copyrighted work should result be a felony offense. The reasoning for this decision is because of the rapid increase in the unauthorised online streaming of copyrighted content. There is some uncertainty in US law as to what act an unauthorised online stream is actually conducting. It could be argued that it is merely a public performance, and others could argue that it is a reproduction. By making unauthorised public performances of copyrighted material a felony, the government is essentially covering all basis to stop online streaming.
In theory this should not be a problem However, thats not to say that there are no concerns. First and foremost the current definition of public performance under US law is arguably very broad (definition at bottom of post). As Harvard law professor Jonathan Zittrain identified, under the definition (I assume he’s specifically referring to paragraph 2) a cover song on youtube could be interpreted to be a public performance. This, coupled with the proposed change by the IPTF, could in turn could mean that a person could face serious punishment for posting a song or a cover song on youtube.
The paper also garnered significant criticism for its proposed sanctions created against secondary link posters: people or websites who do not upload a performance of the material but simply link to it. This is the type of provision that garnered SOPA a lot of opposition earlier last year.
If you want more information, please do yourself a favor and read the fantastic article on techdirt (link at bottom) which as far as I can tell was the first website to break the story.
Definition of “public performance under US legal code title 17 subsection 101:
To perform or display a work “publicly” means (1) to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered; or (2) to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of the work to a place specified by clause (1) or to the public, by means of any device or process, whether the members of the public capable of receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or in separate places and at the same time or at different times.
Sources:
Link to green paper
http://www.uspto.gov/news/publications/copyrightgreenpaper.pdf
Link to articles:
http://rt.com/usa/sopa-commerce-streaming-illegal-183/
http://www.uspto.gov/news/pr/2013/13-22.jsp
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/07/unauthorized-streaming-felony_n_3720479.html
