On November 19, 2014, the White House repeated its view that large-scale illegal willful streaming of copyrighted movies, music, and television on the Internet should be a felony.  The statement, issued by Alex Niejelow, chief of staff to the U.S. Intellectual Property Coordinator and Director for Cybersecurity Policy on the National Security Council, explained the Administration’s belief that “federal criminal law should be modernized to include felony criminal penalties for those who engage in large-scale streaming of illegal, infringing content in the same way laws already on the books do for reproduction and distribution of infringing content.”  The White House also cautioned that it does not support “Congress enacting criminal sanctions against people who upload their own, non-commercial performances of other artists’ works on Tumblr, against the content creators making your favorite mashup on YouTube,” or against the users of these services.  The announcement came in response to two petitions on the White House’s website that urge the Administration to refrain from any new intellectual property laws that would create additional criminal penalties for online media sharing.  The full White House statement is available at: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/protecting-our-artists-and-entrepreneurs-innovation-economy