2099 I searched Google for S.978, which brought me to a .gov site which showed the bill. I don't know if this is a permanent link, but:
S.978 (edit: Link should work now)
For all intents and purposes, this is basically just a DIFF. As in, this bill describes how the law is going to be changed, via the addition of bullet points, deletion of bullet points, modification of text, etc.
This bill modifies two things:
Section 2319 of Title 18 of the United States Code
Section 506 of Title 17 of the United States Code
(Again, I don't know if these are permanent links, but you can easily find them if you do a Google search like I did.)
17:506 (specifically section (a), which concerns this bill) basically defines what constitutes copyright infringement.
18:2319 defines the various punishments for the various crimes in 17:506.
The first thing to note is section (b)(1) of the bill. The current law states
by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution.
so the modification would be:
by the distribution or public performance of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution.
In summary, "If you knew it was copyrighted and put it on youtube (or megaupload, etc) [or streamed it live via ustream, livestream, etc, by this bill], you're infringing copyright."
Are there not already videos of gameplay on youtube? Does anyone give a flip? If you stream games live on livestream or whatever, you're just as liable as if you put it up on youtube. Given that nobody seems to care about gameplay videos on youtube, I would have to guess that nobody's going to care about gameplay streams on livestream. (More on this in a bit)
Section (b)(2) of the bill updates (3)(A) of 17:506, which defines what the phrase "work being prepared for commercial distribution" means, to include "public performances". None the less:
(3) Definition.— In this subsection, the term “work being prepared for commercial distribution” means—
(A) a computer program, a musical work, a motion picture or other audiovisual work, or a sound recording, if, at the time of unauthorized distribution or public performance—
(i) the copyright owner has a reasonable expectation of commercial distribution; and
(ii) the copies or phonorecords of the work have not been commercially distributed; or (B) a motion picture, if, at the time of unauthorized distribution or public performance, the motion picture—
(i) has been made available for viewing in a motion picture exhibition facility; and
(ii) has not been made available in copies for sale to the general public in the United States in a format intended to permit viewing outside a motion picture exhibition facility.
Please note that these laws are already in effect right now, the only thing this bill does is add "public performance" to these.
This is why people don't care if you have gameplay videos on youtube. If you look at (3)(A), it says "something that was intended to be distributed commercially, but wasn't distributed yet at the time it was streamed or shared." So if you worked at Bethesda and were working on Skyrim, and you posted a video on youtube of you playing Skyrim before it was revealed at E3, or you streamed gameplay of Skyrim before it was revealed at E3, you'd be infringing copyright. However, once Skyrim comes out, you can put gameplay videos all over youtube and livestream and you'll be fine.
(3)(B) is just stuff that applies specifically to movies, we all know what this says, but now you can't stream your movies on streaming sites either.
The rest of the bill just goes on to add a punishment for public performances of copyright infringing materials, in addition to the punishments already present for reproduction and distribution.
Guys, your LPs are safe, your video game streams are safe, stop overreacting.
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Nice to have good information on it, the only thing I could really find was paranoid ranting.
