I think it's absolutely sick that this kind of censorship(that's really what it is)/protectionism might have a chance of passing. What worries me more though is the true reasoning behind it.
I know they say you can't knit-pick things you like, but from my understanding(or at least from all that I have read online of H.R.3261), the sole reasoning behind the act is to protect copyrighted material that's on the web, and to attack websites that help spread that out. In theory, this might seem like a good idea, but there are so many side effects to this. The public can get fined or imprisoned for sharing simple copyrighted information from ordinary sites like Facebook, google, or other social networking sites. How many times have you shared a link with your friends? If those links are copyrighted, you don't have the right to share that on a networking site! That's a huge load of you know what! That's just the tip of the iceberg.
The problem with this new bill is that this is little room for tolerance. No matter how small the incident, or how large, the smaller case is as worse as the larger one.
I've shared SO many youtube videos with my friends on social networking sites that, from the punishment guidelines, I should be imprisoned for at least 200 years, and I didn't do much of anything except share a youtube video that has not been created by the original owner of the audio/video. There's no way that could be possible!
I also haven't found any mention of what kind of punishment would be given to those who have committed this new crime prior to the bill passing.
I literally haven't been in this much shock over something like this in...I don't even know when.
Please, someone tell me I'm am COMPLETELY misunderstand everything I've been reading!