Hi,
Few "news" sites are reporting it, but attached to the government spending bill this year is perhaps one of the most corrupt backroom deals in awhile.
For years, Congress failed to pass the CASE Act or the felony streaming law because they are wildly unpopular and achieve the goals of rich special interest groups that caused the web shutdown protests over SOPA/PIPA several years ago.
In particular, the CASE Act is heinous because Congress has created an inferior arbitration system in the Copyright Office where people can be sued for up to $30,000 a pop, perhaps for something as minor as downloading a jpeg image from a website and uploading it somewhere else. This is substantially similar to the criminal meme law in the EU.
Perhaps it's time for everyone to surf on a VPN, otherwise they risk finding themselves sanctioned by some unaccountable arbitration lawyers, far from where they live, over something that most people would say is fair use.
Congress has spent years shredding the concept of the public domain, and the long march towards turning the once open web into a corporate cesspit of DRM and copyright lawsuits continues.
Ryan F. (Waukegan, IL)