gettin real tired of you, internet sensationalism
My god I am tired already of all the LAJFEOW;AJFEIOW;JFEIOWJF;O;WE SOPA’S BACK DARN YOU OBAMA ADMINISTRATION!!!!!
NO. FALSE. CALM DOWN FOR A MOMENT AND HAVE YOUR FAITH IN HUMANITY RESTORED. 'Cause yo, this is a case of the internet and journalistic sensationalisms as it so often is.
Try
this article from the Future of Music Coalition! These are smart guys obviously with a vested interest in making sure the “little guy” like your average cover artist doesn’t get in trouble, so when they say this so-called “new SOPA” ain’t a problem, it ain’t a problem.
The TL;DR goes like this : NTIA, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (the guys within the Obama administration behind this thing) openly understand that going after “single” cases, like cover artists and individual file-sharers, is totally stupid all across the board. They’ve even officially admitted it doesn’t accomplish a god damn thing. They’re not going after the little guys, they’re not enabling big companies to go after the little guys— what they’re doing is evening out some legal things. See, downloading (or, in legal jargon, the reproduction and distribution of copyrighted material) is a punishable felony, but doing the same of a public performance is not. In the article’s words,
"the move to make streaming a criminal offense is meant to target large, commercial infringers—websites that illegally rebroadcast the Super Bowl online, for example—rather than burgeoning pop icons.”
Not to mention — there are Very Affordable And Convenient steps cover artists can take to procure a legal license to cover a specific song. There’s services like Limelight and the Harry Fox Agency that enable artists to do that cheaply and legally protect themselves, so even in the extremely unlikely event an asshole company did go after them, they’re protected by that piece of green paper.
Further delving into the Good News: IRL, cover artists themselves would generally not be the ones facing legal consequences, it’s their venue. If a band wants to cover a song when they book a gig? It’s on the venue to make sure the intellectual property legalities are squared away— they pays fees to enable artists to do so. This is starting to become the case online, too— The National Music Publishers Association has been working on deals with YouTube since March to protect cover artists that don’t procure aforementioned license.
So no. This is not SOPA’s second coming, this is a bunch of idiots who write for WaPo/HuffPost/the various sites that’ve been FREAKING THE CRAP OUT either not understanding how Intellectual Property law works, not doing their research, or manipulating the HELL out of their readers to create viral buzz.
Definitely keep an eye on things so nobody tries to screw with us, but please don’t contribute to the long trend of misinformation through that series of tubes that is the internet <3 Please and thanks!
