Howling Mad Over Hollings' Bill

Wired News ^ | 3/28/02 | Brad King

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Jim Dinda's apartment is a high-tech entertainment haven, but that could change if a bill that restricts how electronics devices work is passed into law.

Dinda's DSL phone line connects his entire home entertainment network. His movies, music and personal files are stored on a Windows 2000 server. He uses his Dell computer for e-mailing and Web surfing. He's teaching himself programming using a Linux server. He built a Pentium 3 with a video card that links his VCR, DVD and TiVo. The final piece is a wireless base station that allows him to roam the house with an IBM ThinkPad laptop.

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

If our rights are taken away, why buy the products? Why have the latest technological capabilities that offer nothing?

[meandog]

With the full support of Hollywood and the major music labels, Hollings introduced the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act, which would require all new hardware and software products be embedded with copy protections that limit how people are able to watch and listen to digital files.

"Der's too much viewin' goin' 'round heah'"

[Thud]

Don't have a cow.

Hollings is just shaking the money tree for campaign contributions. This is another symbol like the V-chip. Information technology is a much bigger industry than Hollywood.

[Travis McGee]

I don't think these gimmicks will be any more than tiny speed bumps for file sharers.

[lds23]

The music and television industries should be the only ones allowed to rip off artists and writers, apparently.

[Lazamataz]

Howlin Mad Over Hollings' Bill

So are you?

[Poohbah]

True enough.

There's a balance somewhere in here between the legitimate interest of copyright holders in profiting from said copyright, and consumers engaged in "fair use" copying. The problem is that no one seems to be anywhere NEAR that balance.

[Michael Costello]

It's worth noting that on the day that Hollings introduced this bill, Terry McCauliffe shook down two Hollywood moguls for $12 million.

[Squantos]

Yeah, agree.......Hollings could'nt turn on an intern much less a puter. I have taken to building my own of late after future snake eater convinced me it was the ticket to get what ya want...... Got carried away after I built small 1 gig system. Gave that one to my favorite lady (Mom :o) and have since built one for my flight sim's and one for surfing/storage of music..........now trying to convince myself to spend more for cable modem vs my current 56K dialup.... if I get a faster connection I'll be a collecting some digital tunes fer sure .

Stay Safe !

[white_wolf]

The entertainment industry, not to mention the software industry (read Microsoft), are some of the most successful prosperous industries in the world. And this WITH illegal copying. They are tripping over dollars to pick up dimes. Most people do not pirate simply because they are honest. However, i will not buy Windows XP just becuase of the new, onerous copy-protection scheme. I cannot imagine having my ability to use my computer and make my livlihood held hostage to the whims of Microsoft or anyone else.

[holden]

Having a cow isn't over-dramatization.

What the government (well, Hollings, McAuliffe, Gore, etc.) wants to do is to collect taxes (and redirect profits through their friends' ventures (with hefty kickbacks, you can be sure)) through information technology by demagoging for the rights of music moguls and big-time movie houses. The baby in that bathwater is "fair use," a right which has a long and distinguished precedent.

This type of thinking from those (LEFTISTS) in our government is very much akin to the restrictive interpretations on fair use applied by the bought-and-paid-for Lefist jurist in California who ruled against FreeRepublic's reposting of articles from the LAT, WP, and NYT. She refused to allow FR's lawyers even to bring up fair use in argumentation.

Old-style music label moguls and incredibly powerful movie houses who buy up politicians left and (a few) right are not not the only oases of talent and content. Indeed, particularly music moguls have estranged legitimate talent for many decades, through their stranglehold on retail distribution. People making freer choices through the Internet and elsewhere based on easier access to nontraditional outlets (by that I mean 100% legitimate transactions between artists and consumers) threaten the moguls' house-of-cards monopolies.

Consumers should not pay extra, lose their rights, and get less for their money in the future just to support movie/music industry fat-cat dinosaurs.

Friends, soon we shall be as the Soviets were when only those in government had access to copy machines. Such a system will not only be detrimental to hundreds of millions, but such a system will ultimately break.

HF

[Future Snake Eater]

Good Lord! Three computers! I've created a monster! LOL. Incidentally, this would-be law sucks. I still buy CDs of my favorite artists (DMB and REM) but I'm tired of buying CDs for 1 or 2 songs! MP3s are a Godsend for that ol' problem!

[Myrddin]

This strikes me as another step along that path that gave us DVD movies with one or two use unlock keys. A pay per use scheme. It's wildly popular. Not! That stupid idea is dying on the vine. Cheap DVD players that play titles unlimited times are less expensive than the units that force the pay per view scheme. Marketplace competition and volume sales make DVDs a profitable means of delivering movies. The DAT recorder industry was saddled with similar protection schemes before it had a chance to mature. It is a boutique item as a consequence. Killed in the cradle. Hollings is simply a prostitute for the Hollywood types. He'll assume room temperate before the full impact of his stupidity comes to roost for Hollywood and consumers.