Artist's Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2005
This act, also known as the "ART Act", is targeted at preventing piracy of movies and software. It specifically targets two activities: filming movies in a movie theater, and early release of movies and software before they become publicly available.
Anyone who "knowingly uses or attempts to use an audiovisual recording device to transmit or make a copy of a ... protected work... from a performance of such work in a motion picture exhibition facility..." may be imprisoned up to three years for a first time offender, and up to six years for a repeat offender, in addition to any fines that may be levied under the U.S. Criminal Code for copyright infringement. This could apply to merely taking a cell phone snapshot of a theatre screen.
With regard to unreleased works intended for public distribution (e.g., beta software or workprints), anyone who makes available a work that the copyright owner expects to distribute commercially, but is not yet distributed, shall be punished if the work is "made available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution." First time offenders can get up to three years in jail, or five if they committed the offense for financial gain. Repeat offenders can get ten years if the offense was committed for financial gain. These penalties are in addition to any penalties for violating non-disclosure agreements or trade secret law.
Read more about this topic: Family Entertainment And Copyright Act
Famous quotes containing the words artist, rights, theft, prevention and/or act:
“When I say artist I don’t mean in the narrow sense of the word—but the man who is building things—creating molding the earth—whether it be the plains of the west—or the iron ore of Penn. It’s all a big game of construction—some with a brush—some with a shovel—some choose a pen.”
—Jackson Pollock (1912–1956)
“Rights! There are no rights whatever without corresponding duties. Look at the history of the growth of our constitution, and you will see that our ancestors never upon any occasion stated, as a ground for claiming any of their privileges, an abstract right inherent in themselves; you will nowhere in our parliamentary records find the miserable sophism of the Rights of Man.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“Men are not therefore put to death, or punished for that their theft proceedeth from election; but because it was noxious and contrary to men’s preservation, and the punishment conducing to the preservation of the rest, inasmuch as to punish those that do voluntary hurt, and none else, frameth and maketh men’s wills such as men would have them.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“... if this world were anything near what it should be there would be no more need of a Book Week than there would be a of a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)
“All’s pathos now. The body that was gross,
Rank, ravenous, disgusting in the act or in repose,
All fever, filth and sweat, its bestial strength
And bestial decay, by pain and labour grows at length
Fragile and luminous.”
—Frank Templeton Prince (b. 1912)