United States Senator Thom Tillis has introduced a piece of legislation that could turnTwitchand YouTube streamers into felons. The North Carolina-based Republican is attempting to attach a measure onto a federal omnibus bill that makes unauthorized streaming of content, such as music clips, something that could lead to jailingTwitchusers.
The full text of Tillis' amendment isn’t known yet, but it is expected to be similar to the text in the SOPA/PIPA bills filed in 2012 that led to unprecedented internet protests. The video game industry might be at the center of this kind of legislation because of recentTwitch DMCA takedown controversies, but it’s far from the only one affected. YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter users would all face the possibility of prison.
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Katharine Trendacosta, Executive Director of Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an online civil liberties organization, told The American Prospect that Tillis' amendment would have achilling effect on Twitch users' expressionwith other streamers. She added that performers find it hard enough to express themselves when it comes to DMCA takedowns and those types of measures. The idea they could go to jail will only make things more challenging and more frightening.
Other civil liberty advocates believe fear is a feature and not a bug. In November, Tillis won a hard-fought re-election campaign, beating his opponent by just two percent of the vote. Towards the end of his race, the senator received a surge of contributions from Political Action Committees (PACs) affiliated with entertainment companies and trade groups that lobby Congress for aggressivecopyright enforcement on Twitch streamersand other internet users.
The list of companies on the donor list for Tillis and the PACs that supported him are a “who’s who” of firms lobbying for stricter control of copyrighted material, including Sony, Universal, Comcast, and Viacom. EFF leadership thinks these corporations already have an undue amount of influence over howcompanies like Twitch even deal with smaller streamersplaying just a few seconds' worth of copyrighted music or video.
While similar efforts to Tillis’s in the SOPA/PIPA bills eventually failed because of massive online pushback, experts are worried about the felony inclusions forTwitch, and other streamershave a better chance of passing this time around. The North Carolina Republican is attempting to attach his amendment to the federal omnibus bill because it’s one that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree needs to pass. It’s doubtful anyone in congress would have the wherewithal to sink the larger bill to protect Twitch users.
