Comments on: Controversial Copy Protection Law May Be Blocked

It is important to enforce copy protection on all digital media. If that's an inconvenience to consumers, tough luck. You consumers brought this on. If it wasn't for consumer's rampant disrespect for copyright laws, this bill would be unnecessary.

I fully support putting locks on hard drives, CD-ROMs, and DVD-ROMs to prevent illicit copying of copyrighted material. There has to be respect for artists' rights.

I agree for the most part.

People need to pay their fair share to support copyright laws and protect the media industry.

I think the Canadian bill of heavily taxing CDR and DVD-R would be a good idea.

I don't have any problems with adding up to $5 per CDR as a compensation to copyright infringement.

We have to pay our fair share.

If this comes to pass, hacking will simply move to a more sophisticated level.

How 'bout reasonable prices for stuff.

When cigarette prices got out of control, people bought so much boot leg tabacco that the Canadian Gov't had no choice but to lower taxes. Same for American prohibition. No different here. Reasonable prices for music, movies and theatre, and the piracy problem, by and large would disappear.

What's the big deal with putting copy protection on media and hardware? It's not going to make your life any harder if you're honest.

And a tax on media is no big deal. How many CDRs do you use anyway? A $2-$3 tax is reasonable to me.

I agree with the other poster. Paying our fair share is only proper. The only people who would disagree are right wingers.

Not at all true. If your computer CD player won't play your audio CD, and that is all you are wanting to do --it is going to make it not only harder, but maybe impossible. The problem with implementation of this law is it will take away "fair use" rights, the kind of rights we enjoy presently with VCRs and mix tapes. It makes "honest people" criminals as well as the pirates, and will make everything digital "harder" ... not to mention, it won't keep the pirates from pirating.

Breaking copyright law is already illegal. Making computer manufacturers include mandated limits is only going to drive our computer and electronics costs up, add inconvenience to honest and practical uses of our media, and make hackers work just a little harder to do what they will continue to do anyway.

It's a miserable bill that should not become law.

When DMCA was passed, it was championed as a protection for digital content and the studios promised innovative and new content since it was was now illegal to circumvent said protection. What new and innovative stuff have you seen from Hollywood lately? All I've seen it loss of our rights to take things apart academically (case of the SDMI and Prof Felton) as well as throwing non-US citizens in jail for making a problem perfectly legal in their home country.

As as a worker in the computer industry, who deals with backing up lots of souce code, binary code, and building CDs, a heavy tax is neither useful nor welcome. I don't believe taxing of blank CDRs is good, cause it's going to affect other sectors that just the consumer-burn-a-music-cd type.

I'll finish this off with a concept that seems to be sorely lacking in practice now. The government that governs best, governs least.

Yes, and I would suggest you learn a little about how the music industry works so you understand who is actually doing the stealing. The recording industry to be blunt is more evil than Microsoft. At least MS tries to treat it's consumers fairly and is good to their employees. MS is just rough on their competitors. In contrast, the music industry is the exact opposite. The companies work together to shaft musicians and performers in their contracts, fix prices for consumers, and in the meantime spend millions if not billions of dollars lobbying government to keep their evil regime in place.

Hmm..."right wingers" as you call them, generally support the Constitution and our personal liberties. They typically are the opposite of..ahem...COMMUNISTS. Since you seem to hold a deep loathing for "right wingers" in addition to supporting higher taxes and draconian government measures, one can only assume the same about you. Do us all a favor and move to China.

If you want to know why CDs are so expensive, it is because all the money is going to the old fat-cat lawyers and execs in the music industry who don't know how to run a competitive business. Ask the all musicians that get screwed by them, they'll tell you it is true too.

Have you made a CDR copy of a music CD for a friend? Have you ripped off MP3s from the Internet?

Well, if you have, you've stolen.

People have very low ethics these days. It is in the best interest of liberal people to enforce copy protection at the media and hardware level.

It is better to take away the temptation.

Ok, and let's modify your car so that it is impossible to speed. Let's strip away your freedom to use your judgment for anything, you know.. just to take away the temptation. Independent thought could be dangerous.

I think you need to catch up with the rest of your flock.

For all those who say "I think we should pay a fee for each disc" do us all a favor, go to a local small business, see if they have a CD-RW drive for backing up their data, and ask THEM how many discs they use in a month? CD-R/RW are cheap enough to allow businesses to maintain their records, and keep their data safe from hardware failure. You wanna kill all of the small guys???

I'm gonna go now, because this is a topic that hits WAY too close what I believe is important. The small businesses.

Yes, the INDUSTRY must protect ITSELF. It should NOT be co-opting government to intrude on businesses and individuals to do it for them.

>"People by nature will always take the easy way out. Laziness and stealing are human nature. Hence, from a liberal point of view, it is important to curtail this and remove the temptation. That's what liberalism and social welfare is about. This bill is being pushed by democrats not the evil republicans."

Just because human nature leans towards certain tendencies doesn't mean that people don't have the intellectual capacity to resist that and do what is right. It is important to curtail CRIME, not TEMPTATION. By your line of reasoning, it would be a crime to think, and that truly is what liberalism is all about - control of every detail of people's lives. It's not hard to believe that this bill is being pushed by Dems, since they lost touch with reality long ago. It's interesting to note that in the last 50 years this is the group of people who have continually assaulted peoples' freedoms while simultaneously committing some of the most heinous crimes while in office, along with blatant abuses of powers that are given "by the consent of the governed". People want guns because without them they are unarmed victims, both of criminals and of a heavily armed government the moment it decides to become abusive. Many people (the majority in just about every survey)don't want abortion on demand because they consider it to be murder. If you want to be disarmed and have your children killed off, then I suggest a relocation. Get out out of our America and move to China or Cuba where you will be much more welcome.

Good thing that the liberal point of view is winning all over the world.

In fact, there is very little difference between moderate democrats and republicans. They all espouse good healthy taxation and tight laws to control the populace. With the whole world spiraling out of control, this is the future. Everyone needs to pay their fair share.