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Senate moves bill with up to $15,000 fines for sharing memes online

Renae

Renae

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Senate moves bill with up to $15,000 fines for sharing memes online - The American MirrorThe American Mirror
A bi-partisan bill working its way through Congress could drastically change how copyright claims are processed, and would create a system to impose up to $30,000 in fines on anyone who shares protected material online.
finesmeme.jpg
In other words, the Congress wants to make it easier to sue people who send a meme or post images that they didn’t create themselves, essentially a giveaway to lawyers who sue unsuspecting suckers for a living.
The Senate Judiciary Committee last week approved the “Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2019,” which “creates a voluntary small claims board within the Copyright Office that will provide copyright owners with an alternative to the expensive process of bringing copyright claims, including infringement and misrepresentation …. in federal court,” according to the Copyright Alliance.
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This should not pass, if it does it will die in the SCOTUS, if it doesn't... what a disaster.
 
Memes that use copyrighted material is theft of intellectual property

I thought stealing was bad
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Memes that use copyrighted material is theft of intellectual property

I thought stealing was bad
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I thought the point of this site was discussion of the matter at hand, not to side track with irrelevant snark. As the issue is how poorly this is written and would encourage copyright troll lawyers with little to no recourse for those accused.

But the reality is the CASE Act would significantly lower many of the legal hurdles that protect citizens from overzealous copyright lawyers in a variety of ways, from allowing claims for works that aren’t registered, to the ability to unmask alleged infringers without the same standards as federal courts, the power for the CCB to create its own rules, limited due process for claims below $5,000, and an “opt-out” approach that can be confusing for folks who can’t afford expensive lawyers.

The CASE Act also allows claimants to collect fines without showing actual harm from a copyright violation, and leaves those trapped in the system with little recourse.

“It’s true that federal litigation for small-dollar-value disputes generally isn’t practical. The federal courts impose costly, sometimes unnecessary burdens on nearly all who use them. But much of that expense comes from procedures that promote fairness, established and refined through years of use in all types of cases, not copyright infringement suits alone,” EFF reports.
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Lord Tammerlain said:
Memes that use copyrighted material is theft of intellectual property

I thought stealing was bad
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Further, let's say I filed a copyright on an image, you didn't know this image was copyrighted, you posted on DP in the humor section with some funny quip... and I sued you for 30k. You would have no recourse but to pay, and if you couldn't pay I could file liens on your property and income. You would be powerless.
 
I have wondered about all the content available on the internet. If you don’t want it used w/o compensation, maybe don’t put it out there? There are some sites that I cannot copy content from, I guess there are some barriers. It’s interesting that some major media outlets publish behind a pay-wall, but because it is now a 24/7 consumption cycle, the articles don’t stay there long. That and short attention spans.
 
Renae said:
I thought the point of this site was discussion of the matter at hand, not to side track with irrelevant snark. As the issue is how poorly this is written and would encourage copyright troll lawyers with little to no recourse for those accused.
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No doubt it is poorly written and will allow for companies to engage in trolling fines, in which they attempt to collect money from simple pictures being used


Now as to harm, using copyrighted images or characters for memes can hurt the brand image that many companies have spent in some cases millions of dollars in promoting. One meme would not do much but with thousands of memes going around the brand can be hurt. The damage per shared image would be low, but like traffic tickets high penalties are used to discourage behavior


Solution, use non copyrighted material to create memes
 
Rexedgar said:
I have wondered about all the content available on the internet. If you don’t want it used w/o compensation, maybe don’t put it out there? There are some sites that I cannot copy content from, I guess there are some barriers. It’s interesting that some major media outlets publish behind a pay-wall, but because it is now a 24/7 consumption cycle, the articles don’t stay there long. That and short attention spans.
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Lets take the meme in the OP. Toy story did not create the meme, the picture was likely a screen capture that Disney had nothing to do with. Now I doubt anyone is profiting from the OP meme, or memes from Toy story, but if Disney does not enforce copyright, it will lose the copyright to it or could (becomes public like the Happy Birthday song).
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Memes that use copyrighted material is theft of intellectual property

I thought stealing was bad
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By definition, memes are meant to be shared.


A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture—often with the aim of conveying a particular phenomenon, theme, or meaning represented by the meme
 
WCH said:
By definition, memes are meant to be shared.


A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture—often with the aim of conveying a particular phenomenon, theme, or meaning represented by the meme
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Where are memes shared? Social Media Platforms.

Yes, the same platforms that want to be in the business of editorial control and censorship, when it suits them (as often as not censoring ideas and thoughts they disagree with), so these Social Media Platforms need to decide if they are true platforms, like the telcom carriers and not responsible for what people put on their platform, or, these Social Media 'Platforms' are publishers, which are liable for what people share on their platforms.

I'd just as soon want the these Social Media Platforms to behave like 'platforms', and not be on the hook for what people share on their platforms, but that'd require that these Social Media Platforms refrain from their censorship behaviors.
 
WCH said:
By definition, memes are meant to be shared.


A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture—often with the aim of conveying a particular phenomenon, theme, or meaning represented by the meme
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If you created say a short movie, and a pic from it was used for a meme, that's one thing. If I took that image, plastered it on a T-shirt and started selling it... that's another.
 
WCH said:
By definition, memes are meant to be shared.


A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture—often with the aim of conveying a particular phenomenon, theme, or meaning represented by the meme
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Certainly but when they use copyrighted material it is theft of IP. Did the meme creator get permission to use the picture for his meme?

Use original content and no issues arise.

On YouTube lots of creators have their video removed because the video game they are playing included a song in it. The video game creator payed for the song but not the YouTuber.

Lots of YouTube's now seek to get either copyright free music or can pay for it.
 
Renae said:
If you created say a short movie, and a pic from it was used for a meme, that's one thing. If I took that image, plastered it on a T-shirt and started selling it... that's another.
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I agree - seems like a basic threshold question is did the violator profit from it, and if he/she did, then I don't mind lawsuits protecting the copyright at all.
 
How did I survive into my sixties and never hear of memes until five minutes ago?
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Memes that use copyrighted material is theft of intellectual property

I thought stealing was bad
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Different people and cultures have different definitions of "intellectual property."
 
It's unenforceable. Good luck collecting fifteen grand from tens of millions of teenagers. Either way, it probably falls under fair use or parody anyway. However, it would be a great idea to be on the record voting against this nonsense, IMO.
 
Helix said:
It's unenforceable. Good luck collecting fifteen grand from tens of millions of teenagers. Either way, it probably falls under fair use or parody anyway. However, it would be a great idea to be on the record voting against this nonsense, IMO.
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Agreed. If, somehow this became law, until a judge with a brain cell shut it down it could cause headaches.
 
3leftsdoo said:
Different people and cultures have different definitions of "intellectual property."
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I put out a 4 song EP four years ago of original copy written material that I wrote. One of the songs was stolen and placed on an Indonesian Spotify by a American wanna-be music publisher that had set up an overseas pay for play scheme with material from artist that he felt had no recourse. Luckily for me, I’m aquatinted with an intellectual property attorney who did me a favor and served this guy with a couple of cease and desist letters. The skumbag got scared and shut down the whole streaming site. He was generating revenue off of art that others created. Luckily the guys American so he was easy to put the brakes on. It’s unartistic leeches that cant create anything that rationalize and justify stealing from others.
 
HenryChinaski said:
I put out a 4 song EP four years ago of original copy written material that I wrote. One of the songs was stolen and placed on an Indonesian Spotify by a American wanna-be music publisher that had set up an overseas pay for play scheme with material from artist that he felt had no recourse. Luckily for me, I’m aquatinted with an intellectual property attorney who did me a favor and served this guy with a couple of cease and desist letters. The skumbag got scared and shut down the whole streaming site. He was generating revenue off of art that others created. Luckily the guys American so he was easy to put the brakes on. It’s unartistic leeches that cant create anything that rationalize and justify stealing from others.
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^^^ Not how art works.
 
Helix said:
It's unenforceable. Good luck collecting fifteen grand from tens of millions of teenagers. Either way, it probably falls under fair use or parody anyway. However, it would be a great idea to be on the record voting against this nonsense, IMO.
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It does seem like the 'mirror' is misrepresenting things also, and stoking the fears of the gullible and misinformed.
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Memes that use copyrighted material is theft of intellectual property

I thought stealing was bad
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Im sure a $15,000 fine would cause Renae to think twice before stealing that Pixar material for his post here.
 
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