Back in the marvelous month of March, a bright and young star was born.
I’m not talking about a new star millions of light-years away in our universe — I’m talking about right here on YouTube.
Rebecca Black’s video “Friday” ignited the online scene, going viral merely a month after it was originally uploaded.
Many people hated it, and it accumulated more than 3 million “dislikes” on YouTube.
I for one fell in love with it, annoying my friends every Friday with her majestic voice and awe-inspiring lyrics.
Unfortunately, three months and over 160 million views later, Black’s “Friday” has been pulled from YouTube with the message “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Rebecca Black.”
Talk about biting the hand that feeds, Rebecca.
However, many YouTube videos have been pulled from the popular streaming website because companies are claiming copyright infringement.
As someone who is a huge fan of the video game “Rock Band,” I used to go on YouTube to check out the new songs being released.
Yet, more and more of these videos displaying song charts were removed from YouTube thanks to a copyright claim.
To combat these claims, Google (YouTube’s owner) starting making users go to “Copyright School” for violating the site’s copyright rules.
Users had to watch a set of videos and answer a test before being allowed to post again.
When this “school” was launched back in April, I thought it was laughable at best — but boy was I wrong.
Politicians have taken notice to these copyright problems and have once again starting messing around in things they don’t understand.
Last Thursday, the “Ten Strikes” bill, formerly known as S. 978 in the United States Senate, was reviewed in the Committee on the Judiciary and has been moved forward to be considered by the Senate as a whole.
The “Ten Strikes” bill is set to help better define criminal acts of copyright violation, while also defining criminal penalties for said violation.
If the bill were to be passed, it would call for strict penalties for violators.
According to the bill, violators could be “imprisoned not more than five years for 10 or more public performances by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copyrighted works.”
What this means is if you were to record a copy of this week’s new episode of “Futurama,” upload it to YouTube and have ten or more people view it, you could go to jail for five years.
That is if the bill is passed, mind you.
While this makes sense on something as blatantly obvious as a television show or movie, it doesn’t stop there.
Say you were to go out to karaoke night at a bar with some friends, record a video of your drunken buddy butchering “Don’t Stop Believin'” and upload it to YouTube.
If that song has copyright protection — as many songs do — you could possibly face jail time according to the “Ten Strikes” bill.
This is completely ridiculous.
As much as I want to see 12-year-old kids who badly cover popular songs pulled off the Internet forever, YouTube already has an improving set of rules and procedures to deal with the situation.
There is no reason to threaten amateur singers with jail time.
This bill is absolutely ludicrous and once again proves politicians don’t understand anything about technology and only care about their own re-elections.
It’s just like when they cause a ruckus trying to ban what they claim are violent and inappropriate video games, but I digress — that’s a different column for a different day.
I hope this proposed bill won’t see the light of day — it’s absurdly stupid.
But if it does, you better start watching what you record and upload to streaming sites like YouTube or you may end up becoming a new, young star to your cell mate in prison.
Adam Arinder is a 21-year-old communication studies senior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_aarinder.
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Contact Adam Arinder at [email protected]