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Comment by jml7c5 | Hacker News Reader

>Consider the absurdity of that concept. Categorizing the re-transmission of someone else's imaginary property in the same bucket as committing murder.

Printing funny green pieces of paper is a felony too. I get the rhetorical effect you're going for, but it's silly to pretend that all felonies are as severe as murder.

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One difference is a 4 year old can't accidentally counterfeit currency. However, there is a real chance that a 4 year old could post a picture.

If only prosecutors were blindfolded, administering "justice" evenly and blindly, without regard for political fallout: "It doesn't matter who posted this cat picture, they must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Oh shit, it's a 4 year old, this isn't going to make 'the land of the free' look very good."

Doesn’t justify the legislation, but I believe the streaming has to be intentional, and is directed at companies.

I haven't read the law, but I'm a priori very skeptical of "directed at" reasoning in law. After it's on the books, it will be used to go after whoever the prosecutor wants to go after, subject to their constituents and vested interests with access.

Only a couple years ago they were prosecuting teen couples for child pornography for having nudes of each other.

Although to me "categorizing the re-transmission of someone else's imaginary property in the same bucket as counterfeiting currency" also has a pretty strong rhetorical effect.

They're both pretty similar actually. With money, its just that the government owns the copyright.

If we're really going to conflate counterfeiting currency with streaming then I'll get out the ketchup and my finest silver to stick a fork in the very well-done HN.

Well the magnitude of offense is of course completely different, but counterfeiting bills is just a form of copyright infringement.

Explain a felony every time you go looking for a job. They played games like this with marijuana, we dumped people in jail or tarnished their public records. Decisions like this are not inconsequential and impact lives once codified.

Don’t play these games over streaming video sites.

Counterfeiting currency on a massive level would devalue the currency, cause hyperinflation, wipe out everybody's savings. Taking away everyone's savings and breaking the economy would probably indirectly cause a large number of suicides.

So i still think its not comparable to that either. Not to say there aren't other felonies that are probably stupid.

The free flow of information via streaming on a massive level would cut into Disney's profits. So it's much worse.

Same bucket. Not "as severe as".

> Printing funny green pieces of paper is a felony too

Exactly. End the Fed.

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