President Signs FECA
Today, President Bush signed the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act into law.
What does this mean?
- Clandestine videotaping of movies in movie theaters is now a crime (but in nearly all cases, it already was).
- Sharing music that’s not yet out on CD or movies that aren’t yet out on DVD on the internet is now a crime (but in nearly all cases, it already was).
- Devices and services that allow parents to automatically block out the dirty parts of movies are exempt from copyright liability (but they might have escaped liability anyway, and the exemption is very narrowly written).
- It renews funding for film preservation and fixes a clerical error in the Copyright Act.
As I’ve mentioned before, this is not that bad.
What’s next on the legislative agenda? I speculate (wildly) that a heavily watered down INDUCE Act and a law patterned on the Glushko-Samuelson Clinic’s orphan works proposal will be rolled into one bill and introduced late this fall.
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