COVID-19 Stimulus Bill Makes Illegal Streaming For Profit a Felony

The COVID-19 Stimulus Bill, passed Monday, makes illegal streaming for profit a felony. The Hollywood Reporter explained.

It’s been less than two weeks since Sen. Thom Tillis released his proposal to increase the penalties for those who would dare stream unlicensed works. In doing so, the North Carolina Republican flirted with danger. About a decade ago, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) made a similar proposal before it ended up dying as people worried about sending Justin Bieber to jail. (No, seriously.) But Tillis’ attempt has been winning better reviews for more narrowly tailoring the provisions toward commercial operators rather than users. That said, it’s had very little time to circulate before evidently becoming part of the spending package. If passed, illegal streaming of works including movies and music tracks could carry a penalty of up to 10 years in jail. That’s not the only change to copyright law, either. The spending bill also appears to adopt a long-discussed plan to create a small-claims adjudication system within the U.S. Copyright Office.

 

When iPhone Came to The World's Biggest Network

December 22nd is a significant date in the story of the iPhone. As Cult of Mac recalls, it was on that day in 2013 that Apple secured a deal with the world’s biggest telecom company – China mobile.

With 760 million potential iPhone customers in the offing, the deal shapes up as Apple’s most important yet for growing its brand in China. In fact, Apple CEO Tim Cooks says the country will soon become the company’s biggest market. “China is an extremely important market for Apple and our partnership with China Mobile presents us the opportunity to bring iPhone to the customers of the world’s largest network,” Cook said in a statement when the news broke. “iPhone customers in China are an enthusiastic and rapidly growing group, and we can’t think of a better way to welcome in the Chinese New Year than getting an iPhone into the hands of every China Mobile customer who wants one.”

 

Explore Your Personality With New ‘Dimensional’ App

So here’s a new app that was recently launched on the App Store. It’s called “Dimensional” and claims to help you understand your personality. One of the creators introduced it on Reddit and is answering questions about the app: “It seemed what existed out there was pseudo-science tests like MBTI that are fun but not that useful in practical terms or really scientific stuff that is hard for lay people to understand. So this is our attempt at making quality personality science useful to people.” I consider myself a skeptical person but I think this sounds interesting at the very least. Specifically, I see no mention of astrology or similar ways to introduce yourself to people as a “PB&J born under the Caprisun sign”. I plan to download it and see what it’s all about.