The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, Pub. L. 109-9, 119 Stat. 218 (April 27, 2005), is a

federal Federal or foederal (archaic) may refer to: Politics General *Federal monarchy, a federation of monarchies *Federation, or ''Federal state'' (federal system), a type of government characterized by both a central (federal) government and states or ...

legislative act Legislation is the process or result of enrolling, enacting, or promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred to as ...

regarding

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...

that became law in the United States in 2005. The Act consists of two titles or subparts: Title I is called the Artist's Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2005, which increases penalties for

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, s ...

, and Title II is called the Family Movie Act of 2005, which permits the development of technology to "sanitize" potentially offensive DVD and VOD content. The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act was introduced into the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

(of the

109th United States Congress The 109th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives, from January 3, 2005 to January 3, 2007, dur ...

) on January 25, 2005 by Senator

Orrin Hatch Orrin Grant Hatch (March 22, 1934 – April 23, 2022) was an American attorney and politician who served as a United States senator from Utah from 1977 to 2019. Hatch's 42-year Senate tenure made him the longest-serving Republican U.S. senator ...

( R -

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

), and was signed into law by President

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

on April 27, 2005. The act provides theater owners and employees with both civil and criminal immunity for questioning suspected violators or detaining them while police are summoned.

Artist's Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2005

This act, also known as the "ART Act", is targeted at preventing copyright infringement 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. It permits preregistration of certain types of unpublished works if it determines that such works have a history of infringement prior to commercial distribution. The purpose of preregistration is related to potential litigation protection in view of the fact that it allows an infringement action to be brought before the authorized commercial distribution of a work and the work’s full-fledged registration. Preregistration makes possible—only upon full registration—for the copyright owner to receive statutory damages and attorneys’ fees in an infringement action. Works determined eligible for copyright preregistration are: motion pictures, sound recordings, musical compositions, literary works being prepared as books, computer programs (including videogames), and advertising or marketing photographs. 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 A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...

workprint A workprint is a rough version of a motion picture, used by the film editor(s) during the editing process. Such copies generally contain original recorded sound that will later be re-dubbed, stock footage as placeholders for missing shots or speci ...

s), 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 agreement A non-disclosure agreement (NDA) is a legal contract or part of a contract between at least two parties that outlines confidential material, knowledge, or information that the parties wish to share with one another for certain purposes, but wish ...

s or

trade secret Trade secrets are a type of intellectual property that includes formulas, practices, processes, designs, instruments, patterns, or compilations of information that have inherent economic value because they are not generally known or readily asc ...

law.

Family Movie Act of 2005

This section is an exemption of liability allowing the creation of technology that can edit a DVD or transmitted movie on the fly (during playback) and thus present a censored version of that movie. This provision arose out of a lawsuit between

ClearPlay ClearPlay is a parental control service that allows content filtering of streaming movies available on Disney+, Amazon Prime, HBOMax, Apple TV+ and Netflix. It automatically skips over or mutes undesirable content such as profanity, graphic violenc ...

, a

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

-based company that markets DVD-sanitizing technology, and a number of

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...

studios and directors. The ClearPlay technology allows a home consumer to screen out up to 14 different categories of objectionable content, such as drug use, sexual situations, or foul language. The act is codified i
17 U.S.C. 110(11)

References

External links

Text of Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005

Analysis of the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005
by

The Center for Democracy and Technology ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

Public Knowledge Public Knowledge is a non-profit Washington, D.C.-based public interest group. Founded in 2001 by David Bollier and Gigi Sohn, Public Knowledge is primarily involved in the fields of intellectual property law, competition and choice in the digita ...

* Anti-camcording law of Japan (Japanese Wikipedia) {{authority control United States federal copyright legislation Acts of the 109th United States Congress Entertainment law

Artist's Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2005

Family Movie Act of 2005

See also

References

External links