In an interview this morning on Washington DC Hot 99.5 Radio, the Canadian singer affirmed that Internet users should have the right to reuse and remix music on YouTube.

Bieber said Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) should be “put away in cuffs” for sponsoring a bill that would make posting copyrighted clips a felony.

In addition Bieber made several comments during the radio appearance regarding the proposed legislation, co-sponsored by Klobuchar, “Whoever she is, she needs to know that I’m saying she needs to be locked up — put away in cuffs.”

He added, “People need to have the freedom…people need to be able to sing songs. I just think that’s ridiculous.”

And finally, when asked if he is comfortable with people posting videos singing his songs, he replied, “Are you kidding me? I check YouTube all the time and watch people singing my songs. I think it’s awesome.”

Last week we covered the Free Bieber campaign that was launched by Fight for the Future in response to the same bill.

Interestingly, although Bieber himself seems to support the cause, his lawyers have sent legal threats to try and shut it down.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In March, the White House published a white paper with several recommendations on how to make copyright law compliant with the digital age. Among other things, it suggested classifying unauthorized streaming of copyrighted material as a felony with a maximum prison sentence of 5 years.

These proposals were turned into a bill that Senators Amy Klobuchar, John Cornyn and Christopher Coons officially introduced in May. Simply said, the bill (S. 978) will make the “streaming” of copyrighted works a similar offense as “downloading” already is. On the surface this might sound logical, but in reality the implications could be disastrous.

If signed into law, hundreds of thousands of people who uploaded videos to YouTube could get into trouble. In short, everyone who shares a video which contains copyrighted material, a cover of a popular song for example, will face a maximum of 5 years in jail if the “felony streaming” bill becomes law. Justin Bieber included.

Launched today, the “Free Bieber” campaign hooks into this provoking image, and asks the public to tell Congress to vote ‘no’ to the bill. The campaign is organized by the non-profit organization Fight for the Future, which aims to counter the influential lobby of the entertainment industries.

“The main problem with the law is since copyright law is so expansive, it applies to lots of completely harmless and common things: like singing a song, dancing to background music, or posting a video of a kids’ school play, for example,” Tiffiniy Cheng, Director of Fight for the Future told TorrentFreak.

“Bieber got famous by posting unauthorized covers of popular R&B songs to YouTube. The fact that they were posted to advance his music career and the number of views on these videos means they blow past the (very low) threshold for what counts as a felony,” Cheng says.

The law requires only 10 YouTube views (performances) and a hypothetical “fair market value” of $5000. This, bundled with some commercial aspect such as running ads (or using the videos to advance one’s career), and a potential jail sentence awaits.

With the “Free Bieber” campaign, Fight for the Future hopes to bring these implications to the attention of the public.

“We think that a larger audience needs to understand the implications of this bill, and visualizing and talking about what it would be like for Justin to be in jail for this should make it completely clear,” Cheng said.

“What’s genuinely troubling is that this bill applies to a massive slice of social media activity. And if you doubt that the RIAA and MPAA would push the government to go after teenage Facebook users, remember: these are the same people who used $7,000-per-song civil penalties designed to punish large-scale commercial piracy to sue 14-year-old P2P users and their families,” she added.

Some supporters of the bill have indeed argued that YouTube users have nothing to worry about, and that the bill is mainly aimed at site owners who stream millions of copyrighted songs, movies and TV-shows. Although this sounds believable, the question would then be why the bill itself doesn’t make this distinction.

And is this new law really needed in the first place? Are current laws not sufficient?

Earlier this year the authorities arrested the owner of Channelsurfing.net, a website where links to external sports streams were listed. The site itself did not offer any streams, it merely linked to streams that were offered by third-party sites.

For linking to streams the 32-year old Brian McCarthy from Texas charged with criminal copyright infringement for “reproduction and distribution” of copyrighted material, and without the new bill he still faces 5 years in prison.

The above raises enough questions to ask Congress to take a good look at the necessity and implications of “felony streaming” bill (S. 978).

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

I also know that the Bieber has a new movie out. It’s called Never Say Never, it’s shot in glorious 3D and is apparently “half-concert, half-biographical film”. The critics, according to various reports, think that it’s pretty good, even though the New York Times said that “…at 105 minutes it’s exhausting.” Let’s face it, more than an hour and half of any teenager can wear one out, and not always in a good way either.

But it’s not all positive news I’m afraid. This week, Never Say Never had its VIP Premiere and according to reports, the event was scarred by a rampage of federal criminality.

Untold numbers of teenagers, who lined up for God-knows-how-long and paid $30 a shot for the privilege, weren’t happy with simply seeing the floppy-haired one in all His (3D) Glory. Oh no. Teenagers always want more, don’t they?

No doubt relying on the utterly poor excuse of wanting to have some memories of their day, some reportedly pointed their camera-phones and recorded the screen, blatantly driving a cart and horses through the Artist’s Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2005 in the process. Believe me, that’s some serious shit.

You can get locked up for 3 years for camming in the US. Do it twice and you’re looking at a 6 stretch. And quite right too. Let kids get away with it now and next thing you know they’ll be camming for the Scene and 2017′s Never Say Never, Ever, Ever Again Part 6 will be all over The Pirate Bay, just when Bieber needs the money most.

“Since most of the audience consisted of teenage girls with their parents, I am left to wonder what parent lets their child commit a crime? Even scarier, what kind of parent lets them do it in public?” says a concerned writer on Examiner.

“Also I wonder how can Justin’s fans call themselves true fans by stealing from the star? Sure, they are probably not going to present their illegal footage in a theater, and collect money, but it is still considered stealing just the same,” the report continues adding: “Aren’t parent’s who sit by and allowed their teens to commit this act just as guilty?”

Absolutely. That sounds like contributory infringement right there. But you know what? Despite looking high and low, there appears to have been no arrests. Not one. Considering how much money was spent by the MPAA lobbying for anti-camming laws, I have to say this is somewhat of a disappointment.

Where are the airport-style bag searches and pat downs on the way into the theater? Where were the infra-red goggles and anti-cam technologies? Why weren’t these criminals detained for a couple of days?

“I’m wearing tattoos of Justin Bieber, a T-shirt of Justin Bieber, and a necklace,” eight-year-old Audrey Danis said in one theater. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m a bigger fan than her. We listen to Justin Bieber all the time. She has a Justin Bieber room,” said her mother.

Fans? Thieves more like. And what did the Universal Cineplex in Orlando do about this. Nothing. No scandals, no pissing off the public, no arrests. Common sense being applied by the movie industry? I certainly hope not, we’ve got stories about injustices to write.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.