Want Justin Bieber in jail? Sign the Jail Bieber petition! (By popular demand)
He's an American Canadian teen pop celebrity who got discovered on
the internet. For more information than you could possibly want, visit
wikipedia or ask a 7 year old. Seriously, any 7 year old. On the planet.
Both Democrats and Republicans usually go along with the music and movie companies, even Republicans from conservative places where "Hollywood" is a dirty word. Funny, that. It's because they're scared of the lobbyists' money and they think voters don't care.
This is a video of child celebrity Justin Bieber singing "With You" by the artist Chris Brown. YouTube videos like this one were what made him famous. Tons of kids do this for fun, and many now-popular artists got started in this same way.
Copyright law is so extreme, just singing somebody else's song in public could be infringement. Because he and his mother posted the videos (which often included copyrighted backing recordings) to advance his music career, it's commercial infringement. And a new bill would make this a felony.
The maximum sentence would be five-years, just for singing a cover! Other online video "crimes" could include: videos of a school play, a professional baseball game, or videos with incidental background music (even just a ringtone). Nuts, right?
The music and movie companies'. In their eyes, stricter copyright law = more $$. They liked when people paid $18 for their plastic discs rather than watching wonderful stuff made by people online. They tried to ban the VCR and they'd like to turn the internet into a movie store.
Should we stop putting videos of our kids and families singing songs on the internet? Of course not! But if we don't stop laws like this, innocent people are needlessly going to get hurt.
Any law that could give Justin Bieber 5 years in jail for singing covers on Youtube goes way too far. But the only way Congress will listen? Sheer numbers. Luckily, this particular law is so extreme, anyone can see it's a bad idea. So share as much as you possibly can--the more signers, the stronger the message.
Want to produce your own video? We've got a few assets to help you out:
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