Copyright Infringement Bill in Senate (S.978)

Hi Webmaster,

In view of your recent post below,

//www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=1820211#i


I thought CZ readers might like to know about some current legislation being considered on the floor of the US Senate right now.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s112-978


It's a bill regarding criminal penalty provisions regarding copyright infringement ("unauthorized distribution"). A person could be jailed for up to 5 years, fined, or both, under certain parameters.

With you being CZ's webmaster, you understand how Internet marketing works. I write for the web, and maintain my own website and blogs, so I understand it, too. I know there are several moderators here on CZ who also do the same thing I do.

When I write an article, I either give it away for free, with back links to my sites, or I write for clients. I can waive the copyrights to the article, in which the content then belongs to the site owner. The site owner pays me for my time, expertise, and the rights to the article. I can, alternatively, keep the rights to the article, or rent the rights for a while, and then send my articles to other sites after a certain period of time.

Often I get requests to publish an article on someone's site. This is article marketing at its best. The more the article gets spread around, the more views it gets, and the more "authoritative" the article becomes in the "eyes" of search engines. My only stipulation is that the site owners keep the back links in the article, so interested readers can visit my site if they like.

However, if a person copy and pastes an article to a forum or website and does not keep the back links in, this is considered copyright infringement. It is theft. I know it happens all the time, but it is what it is. It is either a copyright infringement against the content writer or the site owner who paid for the article or web content.

All anyone has to do, if they want to share information on the internet, is include a link to the URL where the article came from. This used to be a common courtesy, but now with this Senate bill, it could become federal law.

I thought this might be something CZ posters might like to be aware of. :)

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