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EFF: This Disastrous Copyright Proposal Goes Straight to Our Naughty List:

[On December 22, 2020], Senator Thom Tillis [R-NC] launched a "discussion draft" of the so-called Digital Copyright Act. But there's nothing to discuss: the bill, if passed, would absolutely devastate the Internet.

[...] This draft bill contains so many hoops and new regulations that the only Internet companies that will be able to keep up and keep on the “right” side of the law will be the Big Tech companies, who already have the resources and, frankly, the money to do so. It also creates a pile of new ways to punish users and creators in the service of Hollywood and the big record labels. Unless we stop this proposal, DMCA reform will crush huge swaths of online expression and innovation, not to mention the competition we need to develop alternatives to the largest platforms.

Some especially important things to note:

[...] In several places in this bill—the requirements for “notice-and-staydown,” a duty for providers to monitor uploads, and development of “standard technical measures”—there are hidden filter requirements.... Filters not only do not work, they actively cause harm to legal expression. They operate on a black-and-white system of whether part of one thing matches part of another thing, not taking into account the context. So criticism, commentary, education—all of it goes out the window when a filter is in place. The only route left is not fair use but, as our whitepaper demonstrated, to edit around the filter’s requirements (or refrain from speaking altogether).

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), service providers get immunity from copyright liability if their users commit infringement if they meet certain requirements. One of those is to have a “repeat infringer policy” ... The details are left to the provider.

This draft changes that. It gives power to the Copyright Office, in consultation with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, to develop a model repeat infringer policy to act as the minimum requirement for the policies of service providers.

That’s incredibly concerning. Earlier this year, the Copyright Office [concluded] that not enough people are being punished by these policies and that a single, unsubstantiated claim of infringement should be enough to not only terminate a YouTube account but to terminate Internet access. Basically, according to the Copyright Office, your ISP—likely the only one in your area, if you’re among the majority of Americans who only have one choice for high-speed Internet—should terminate an entire household’s Internet based on copyright infringement.

Internet access is vital for participating in today’s world. An office that thinks it should be easier to cut off that access makes sense should not be in charge of determining a model repeat infringer policy.

This opinion piece is worth a read for anyone who uses the Internet and cares about its health and development.

Like many, I prefer purchasing hardware from Newegg to support their war on patent trolls.

Today, however, there seems to be a new reason to shop Newegg: Free shipping if you spend just $99,999.00.

Oh, and "restrictions apply".

Seriously, what the actual heck.