I am a constituent and I urge you to SERIOUSLY REVISE or outright reject S. 978, "A bill to amend the criminal penalty provision for criminal infringement of a copyright".

The videogame industry partially depends on the live performance of, creation of, and distribution of, videogame content as experienced by individual videogame users. It's a new form of word-of-mouth, something the videogame industry has relied on for decades to help boost SALES.

Unlike the movie and music industries, videogames are a non-static experience. This means that if someone watches someone else experience a videogame, they do not get anywhere remotely near the same kind of experience as the person playing. They can only get that kind of experience by playing the game themselves, something they'd have to buy the game in order to do. This is how it boosts sales.

To give a completely sterile example of how this works, let's assume someone uploads a video to YouTube of two of their friends playing tennis at the local park. Someone seeing this video who has never played tennis themselves can not get the same experience from watching that video as the people in the video playing tennis. However, having now seen the video, they stand a very good chance of thinking "That looks like fun. I want to try playing tennis for myself." The sporting goods industry just got a new customer.

There is a distinction though. If someone uploads a video of a sporting event and in doing so went to against the wishes of the management of that particular event, then while viewers of that video might consider playing tennis themselves, it's far more likely that they watch it strictly to watch the event without having to PAY to watch the event. The same cannot be said of the video of two regular people playing tennis in a park, nor can the same be said about videos of videogames. They're primarily interactive activities, not static activities.

That's not even the half of it. Did you realize this bill would also allow the government to lock up Americans for streaming videos or music online? It's so overly broad that people who post videos of their friends singing KARAOKE could be prosecuted.  This legislation is a tremendous overreach and I am deeply concerned by the danger it poses to Internet freedom.

Again, please, I urge you to SERIOUSLY REVISE or outright reject S. 978, "A bill to amend the criminal penalty provision for criminal infringement of a copyright".