House OKs Family Entertainment and Copyright Act
House OKs Family Copyright Bill by Katie Dean
Wired 4.19.5
More details on the criminal penalties from news.com.com.com:
File-swappers who distribute a single copy of a prerelease movie on the Internet can be imprisoned for up to three years, under a bill that’s slated to become the most dramatic expansion of online piracy penalties in years.
Prison terms on tap for ‘prerelease’ pirates By Declan McCullagh
CNET 4.19.5
And Cory Doctorow’s take:
The House just passed the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, which is a classic DC compromise bill: on the one hand, it panders to the Hollywood filmocrats by promising mandatory beheading for people caught videotaping movies in theatres, and on the other, it throws the tiniest, most noncontroversial of bones to the copyfighters by legalizing tools that automatically fast-forward, audio-mask, and otherwise munge DVDs during playback, a technique largely employed by Christian companies that sell paranoid parents players that guarantee nipple-and-cussword-free playback of movies from the corner Blockbuster.
from BB