Manny Perry, you sneaky little...
The MPAA is up to their usual trickery and sadly He-Man isn't here to stop them. In short, the MPAA is trying to tack on very unpleasant legislation to a budget bill heading to Congress soon. These bills are usually passed without much notice or review since their purpose is to help cut spending. So the MPAA stuck their little piece of legislation onto this bill in the hopes that nobody would review the bill and say, "What?!" Since you can't count on the smell of the legislation to alert the Congress or Senate, it's best if everyone can simply notify their respective representative and ask them to not pass this bill and mention that it's because of the MPAA legislation.
The MPAA hasn't suceeded in passing this particularly stinky bit in the past because, frankly, it's so unethical that the government says no everytime they see it. What it does is this:
The MPAA gets to control content you record after it has left the airwaves (particularly relevant with TiVo). They can delete your recorded programs off of your own TiVo.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050927-5354.html
The MPAA hasn't suceeded in passing this particularly stinky bit in the past because, frankly, it's so unethical that the government says no everytime they see it. What it does is this:
The MPAA gets to control content you record after it has left the airwaves (particularly relevant with TiVo). They can delete your recorded programs off of your own TiVo.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050927-5354.html