Controversial Copy Protection Law May Be Blocked
Earlier this month, Senator Fritz Hollings proposed a law which would require companies to include copy protection in all types of electronic devices, including handhelds, MP3 players, cell phones, and anything else capable of copying or storing a copyrighted file. If the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA) becomes law, all software would also have to include copy-protection methods approved by the FCC.
However, Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said yesterday that he would prevent the law from being passed this year, according to Wired
The CBDTPA has the backing of media companies who say they lose billions of dollars a year when people make illegal copies of their movies and songs.
It is strongly opposed by software makers, who would be prevented from selling or even giving away any piece of software without copyright protection built into it.
Rep. Adam Schiff announced this week he intended to propose a similar bill for the House of Representatives.
Related Information:
- U.S. Senate: Bill Summary & Status for the 107th Congress
- Wired: Anti-Copy Bill Slams Coders
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RE: 1984
RE: 1984
RE: 1984
Whatever happened to limited government anyway?
And all this while they tax you on their side so you can pay more for software on the other side.
Enjoy poverty.
We need this law
The movie industry is losing money to pirates because of DivX.
As honest consumers we need to support this bill. Disney and Eisner are correct. Support the RIAA and Hilary Rosen's initiatives.
I urge you to write to your congressman or woman to support passing this law.
RE: We need this law
But, apparently this law has many hidden power, just like our 10th Amandment did. Just imagine you want to do a research on encription, and that DMCA said your research has a possibility to break their software, so that they will charge you for a criminal law.
RE: We need this law
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.
RE: We need this law
> support passing this law.
And how much is the recording industry paying you to say this?
The music industry isn't losing money and neither is the movie industry. The movie industry has a huge advantage by the fact that content size and bandwidth issues makespiracy costly and time consuming. Quite frankly, the movie industry runs a solid act and knows how to take care of itself.
On the music industry size of things, the people (I should say lawyers) that run it are bunch of money grubbing bastards that steal from both the consumers and the musicians who write and perform the music. They coax in and oversee musicians like the mob, and on the consumer side as CD production costs have plummetted they have done zero to feed that savings back to consumers and to curb piracy. They lobby hard to add taxes onto every form of blank media you buy. The Internet has the potential to provide musicians with the opportunity to kill the sickening mob that runs the music recording industry and I hope it dies a quick and painful death.
Should we be forcing computer makers to also build systems that prevent you from running pirated software too? Maybe photocopier makers should be forced to add detection circuitry to prevent you from copying a copyright protected document. Intelligent people in industries embrace the technology and learn how to profit from it, like the movie industry did with the VCR.
There's a nice article about this on cnet too:
http://electronics.cnet.com/electronics/0-3219397-8-9508589-1.html
RE: We need this law
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.
RE: We need this law
Amen, it doesn't matter if it gets passed or not, someone will be able to hack it, then in will just be a waste
RE: We need this law
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.
RE: We need this law
RE: We need this law
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.
RE: We need this law
So you're telling me that when I make a backup of the files on my computer, I should pay the record companies.... and that makes sense WHY?
They already have a tax on it. If you go to the store you can buy "Audio CDR" media. This is more expensive because the record companies get a cut. They are otherwise the same as standard media. If you would like to pay the record companies, go right ahead.
RE: We need this 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.
RE: We need this law
RE: We need this law
RE: We need this law
> 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.
Good lord, I think CDRs are being used to backup and carry your own files everywhere and DVD-Rs are being used to replace VHS. What the **** they (you) are thinking about? Taxing on the legitimate users on the media and not on the ACT itself is ridiculous when a country has already been taxed its citizens HUGE sum of money already. (Although I'm no Canadian, my many friends are).
RE: We need this law
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.
RE: We need this law
From the business perspective, this law allows the government to effectively dictate how you create YOUR OWN PRODUCTS! It would be ILLEGAL to create software or devices that don't have an antipiracy scheme, effectively giving the government state control of your business. Not only is this an unnecessary intrusion, but it blatantly flies in the face of the spirit of our constitution!
RE: We need this law
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."
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.
fine.
it is well within ones copyright to make backup copys of an album for THEIR OWN USE. period. i own a CD, i can rip it to my ipod and listen to it that way.
RE: fine.
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.
RE: fine.
When asked, consumers were told that the prices would come down to vinyl level WHEN DEMAND AND COSTS ALLOWED.
Yeah, right. Here we 20 years later and CD pricing is STILL $14-18 an album. Given for inflation, that is a good price comparitively, but not when you realize that mere PENNIES are what these things are produced for (WAY less than vinyl costs ever were!).
Screw 'em. Make your laws, any lock can be picked. And until you come up with a plan to catch a significant portion of violaters, any protection given by the law will be as successful as a speeding ticket. Sure, you catch the occasional offender here and there but by and large the law will be worthless.
(FYI, I personally don't bootleg software or music. But I do think this type of law is a complete waste and folks that do want to pirate copyrighted works will continue to do so regardless. Oh, and the music industry's cluelessness has always been apparent, well before CD's came into the picture.)
RE: fine.
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.
RE: fine.
I find your comment hard to believe. Your comments only support the fact that people have too much temptation and that the industry must protect itself.
RE: fine.
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.
RE: fine.
That is already being done.
Living in a liberal society, it is important to ensure people don't endanger others economically, physically, and emotionally.
I fully support the proposed bill. The issue isn't about judgment. Good ethical people are already practicing sound judgment by not stealing. It's everyone else that this bill addresses.
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.
I absolutely detest the republicans and their evil pro-gun, anti-abortion hypocrisy.
RE: fine.
RE: fine.
I think it's a great idea. As long as you don't hurt others that's fine by me. I just don't want to pay for your medical care and your hearing aid.
And why should we remove "temptation" for people who shouldn't be in the gene pool?
RE: fine.
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.
RE: fine.
I thought you were FOR social welfare...
RE: fine.
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.
RE: Liberals
RE: Liberals
RE: Liberals
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.
The Library...
I can go to my local library and get a CD to listen to, or a movie to watch, or a book to read, and I don't have to buy it. In fact, frequenting the library is highly encouraged in the name of literacy.
But if I download one of these in digital form all of a sudden I'm a criminal? Why is this? That seems like a double standard.
RE: The Library...
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