SB 978 is just one more bullet in a broader government effort to end the web as we know it.
In June, Senator Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., introduced SB 978, specifically “to amend the criminal penalty provision for criminal infringement of a copyright, and for other purposes.”
In lay terms, it’s the “illegal streaming bill,” and it would essentially make the streaming of any copyrighted material on the Internet a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. On paper, it sounds innocuous—copyrighted material and the Internet have a contentious history, and efforts to curb piracy have conflicted with the concept of the Internet as a free exchange for information. But SB 978 is a sweeping curtailing of Internet rights under the guise of hindering piracy, and just one more bullet in a broader government effort to end the web as we know it, and snip away at the First Amendment.
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