Is 'Fair Use' in Peril?

The far-reaching Intellectual Property Protection Act would deny consumers many of the freedoms they take for granted.

Do you like fast-forwarding through commercials on a television program youve recorded? How much do you like it? Enough to go to jail if you're caught doing it? If a new copyright and intellectual property omnibus bill sitting on Congresss desk passes, that may be the choice you'll face.

How can this be possible? Because language that makes fast-forwarding through commercials illegal, no doubt inserted at the behest of lobbyists for the advertising industry, was inserted into a bill that would allow people to fast forward past objectionable sections of a recorded movie (and I bet you already thought that was OK). And thats but one, albeit scary, scenario that may come to pass if the Intellectual Property Protection Act is enacted into law. Deliberations on this legislation will be one of the tasks for the lame-duck Congress that commenced this week.

In a statement last month, Senator John McCain stated his opposition to this bill, and specifically cited the anti-commercial skipping feature: Americans have been recording TV shows and fast-forwarding through commercials for 30 years, he said. Do we really expect to throw people in jail in 2004 for behavior they've been engaged in for more than a quarter century?

Included in the legislation are eight separate bills, five of which have already passed one branch of Congress, one of which was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and two of which have merely been proposed. By lumping all the bills together and pushing the package through both houses of Congress, proponents hope to score an enormous victory for Hollywood and some content industries.

Heres more of whats included: a provision that would make it a felony to record a movie in a theater for future distribution on a peer-to-peer network. IPPA would also criminalize the currently legal act of using the sharing capacity of iTunes, Apple's popular music software program; the legislation equates that act with the indiscriminate file sharing on popular peer-to-peer programs. Currently, with iTunes, users can opt to share a playlist with others on their network. IPPA doesnt differentiate this innocuous and Apple sanctioned act from the promiscuous sharing that happens when someone makes a music collection available to five million strangers on Kazaa or Grokster.

Not surprisingly, the bill has become a focal point for very vocal parties. In favor of the legislation are groups such as the Recording Industry Association of America, the Motion Picture Association of America, and various songwriter, actor, and director organizations. We certainly support it, says Jonathan Lamy, spokesperson for the RIAA. It includes a number of things to strengthen the hand of law enforcement to combat piracy. Intellectual property theft is a national security crime. Its appropriate that the fed dedicate resources to deter and prosecute IP theft.

Against the bill stand a number of technology lobbying groups and public-interest organizations. [IPPA] is a cobbled-together package to which Congress has given inadequate attention. It is another step in Hollywood and the recording industry's campaign to exert more control over content, says Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a Washington, DC-based public interest group that aims to alert the public to fair use and consumer rights infringements, and fight those perceived infringements in Washington.

Anyone attuned to the machinations of Congress the last two years likely has become numb to the often overblown rhetoric on this issue. Both sides use hyperbole, usually in the form of calling a piece of legislation the death of an industry or the death of individual rights. The 1982 statement to a congressional committee by Jack Valenti, then head of the MPAA, that the VCR is to Hollywood what the Boston Strangler was to a woman alone still stands as the "ne plus ultra" of exaggerated claims. And civil libertarians havent met an affront that didnt equal a stake through the heart of individual rights. But IPPA demands attention not just from Hill watchers, but from regular individuals. In part because IPPA is such a broad, encompassing bill that could affect things as pedestrian as fast-forwarding a commercial, but also because with Senator Orrin Hatch a very Hollywood-friendly pol on his way out as the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to be replaced possibly by Arlen Specter, many in the Hollywood community see this as an important, last chance to get their demands made into law.

The bathroom is too dangerous anyway, they should be outlawed with this bill too.

I agree whole heartedly. I never realized how dangerous it was until I read this shocking "Expose" at American partisan .com

The Slippery Menace

by Jules Varwig

How many more must die in the cold porcelain of the household bathtub before we come to our collective senses? This all too common appliance is a proven killer. Unregulated bathtubs cause over 200,00 injuries every year. There are over 100 drownings and 70 people cooked to death in scalding bathwater each and every year. Add the suicides, falls, and deliberate murders that take place in tubs, and the death toll mounts. Sadly, children comprise 75% of the fatalities.

Many European nations have long recognized the risk inherent in bathtubs and have reduced the use of them. Yet in the United States, the bathing culture is rampant, and leads to death and suffering on a gigantic scale. There are those who claim that bath tub use is justified under certain circumstances. Some claim that bathtubs are necessary for cleanliness. Is personal vanity more important to you than a child’s safety?

Recreation is often espoused as a legitimate use of the bathtub but can be disregarded out of hand. No brief thrill is worth the cost of maintaining one of these deadly instruments of destruction in your home. Research shows that the chances of drowning or being boiled in your bathtub are greater than the chances of inducing a supermodel of the opposite sex to share it with you.

Steps should be taken at once to register tubs. Our government at present don’t even know for sure how many of these killer devices exist! Simply incorporating a few questions into the upcoming census would help authorities to determine the size of regulatory agency needed to enforce license requirements.

Many bathtubs hold up to 18 inches of water. The variety known as the "spa" or "hot tub" may hold even more, and has been implicated in cases of date rape. Some of these assault tubs can have as much as 24 inches of water and various automatic jets, whirlpools, and heaters which make them attractive to the criminal bather. Our legislature should take steps to limit all new bathtubs to holding 3 inches of water. This should reduce the chances of mass drowning significantly.

Of course, children make up the overwhelming number of bathtub victims. Even if you don’t own a bathtub, your child’s friends may have parents who are irresponsible bathers. The common sense solution is for people to use faucet locks. Faucet locks can be easily mandated by government, enforced by a new agency set up specifically with tub safety in mind, and subject to in-home inspections at households with registered bathtubs.

Regardless of any "right" claimed by the pro-bathing crowd, (a right which is never mentioned in the Constitution) precedents have already been established for bathroom fixture regulation. The Supreme Court has so far refused to hear any cases involving environmentally friendly commodes, thereby pointing out the foolishness of those who say that the government requirement of a toilet that doesn’t work is some kind of tyranny. We should continue to educate these malcontents and inform their children of the stubborn and selfish ways of their parents.

How can you get involved in insuring your children’s safety? The most important thing you can do is to eliminate your bathtub immediately. Your tub is not "necessary" to your family’s well being, and in fact is more likely to kill or injure a member of your family or a friend, than it is to drown a burglar. The benefits of eliminating your tub will be immediate and noticeable. There will be a certain air about you that says, " I did away with my bathtub and I’m safer for it." Lobby your legislators to immediately invoke new laws to insure your safety from tubs. Give them money if you have to. Write nasty letters, stage protests, and organize anti-bathing individuals to stand around in legislative chambers. You WILL be noticed. Finally, join Bathtub Sanity, the only organization dedicated to your safety from this menace. At B.S. we are constantly involved in political action, research, and public education. We even maintain a facility containing various models of assault tubs, which our staff researches and tests at considerable personal danger.

Your children deserve to be safe, no matter the inconvenience or hardship. They cry out for your protection. Would you deny them?

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