Encyclopedia > Family Entertainment and Copyright Act
A controversial law passed in the United States of America that attempts to mitigate copyright violation by targetting anyone who has even a single copy of an unreleased film, software program or music file in a shared folder, regardless of whether that file is downloaded or not. The law allows for a penalty consisting of fines and/or imprisonment of up to three years.
On the other hand, the law favored the individual right to watch DVDs as one pleases, in a limited way. That part of the act was written to quash the lawsuit by Hollywood against the ClearPlay technology.
This act was introduced into the United States Senate (of the 109th United States Congress) on January 25, 2005 by Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah. It was signed into law by President George W. Bush on April 27, 2005. Seal of the Senate The United States Senate is one of the two houses of the Congress of the United States, the other being the House of Representatives. ... The 109th United States Congress meets from January 4, 2005, to January 1, 2007. ... January 25 is the 25th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ... Orrin Grant Hatch (born March 22, 1934 in Pittsburgh) is a five-term Republican United States Senator, from Utah. ... State nickname: Beehive State Other U.S. States Capital Salt Lake City Largest city Salt Lake City Governor Jon M. Huntsman, Jr. ... Order: 43rd President of United States Vice President: Dick Cheney Term of office: January 20, 2001 – Present (His second term will end on January 20, 2009. ... April 27 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ...
Second, it modifies the criminal provisions of the CopyrightAct to impose liability on those who distribute a "prerelease" work (for everything other than movies, prerelease means what you think it does; for movies, it means anything before the DVD release).
Third, the new law creates an exception in the CopyrightAct meant to permit companies like ClearPlay to make DVD players and related technologies that are able to automatically skip and mute portions of DVDs.
After two years of heavy investments in lobbying Congress for a host of outrageous changes to copyright laws (like the Induce Act), the entertainment moguls managed to enact only a tiny sliver of their agenda, and only by granting concessions to ClearPlay.
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