Time to start calling your federal legislators...
Andrew Kantor is becoming one of my favorite writers and columnists. His latest column for USA Today deals with proposed legislation that would put the FCC in charge of just about anything with video or audio outputs.
If this was law a few years ago, the entire digital music movement would have been stopped in its tracks. See, the RIAA fought tooth and nail against the Diamond Multimedia Rio PMP300, eventually losing in federal court. Had the DCPA been in effect, Diamond never could have made it; the FCC would have said No. (Note to purists: The Rio was not the first MP3player. That honor goes to the Eiger Labs MPMan, built by Saehan in Korea.)
No portable MP3 players would likely have meant we'd be stuck with $18 CDs and clunky players and other RIAA-approved devices.
TiVo and other digital video recorders? Forget it. The entertainment industry, through the FCC, would have said No.
USA Today: Digital Content Protection Act would be consumer disaster
Right on Andrew!
I think it's time that we consumers take the offensive. Instead of just writing our legislators asking them to please vote against this crap and then waiting for the next offensive, why not start our own grass roots lobbying effort to forever protect the Fair Use part of the copyright laws?
How about something along the lines of Dear (Fill in Legislator's title and name here),
I, a voting member of your district, am sick and tired of repeated efforts to subvert the fair use portions of the copyright laws in this country. The most recent example of which is The Digital Content Protection Act of 2006 introduced by Sen. Gordon Smith.
Obviously I, as your constituent, expect you to vote against this latest attempt to prevent me from making fair use of audio and video products I purchase. But in addition to that would like to see efforts to enact legislation that forever protects my rights to enjoy the audio and/or video products I purchase on whatever device I choose to play them on.
Thank you for your attention to this matter,
(Your name)
(Your address)
(City, State and Zip)
The name and address are very important. That lets your representative know for sure that you are in their district or state.
The copyright laws are a bargain between the owner of the intellectual property and the people that pay them (that's us). Part of that bargain gives the copyright holder certain rights (which a whole bunch of folks, probably more then few reading this are guilty of walking all over). But a bargain is a two way street. The other half of that arrangement gives we lowly consumers specific rights of fair use which include making back up copies and no restriction on its use in private.
If the The Digital Content Protection Act of 2006 gets passed, those days could well be over.
So, if this bothers you, get off your butts and spend a few minutes of quality time writing a snail mail letter to your senators and congress people. If you feel strong enough about this, feel free to spread the word. Copy this and pass it along.
Break out the computer Mrs. Whack, we got some letters to write.
If this was law a few years ago, the entire digital music movement would have been stopped in its tracks. See, the RIAA fought tooth and nail against the Diamond Multimedia Rio PMP300, eventually losing in federal court. Had the DCPA been in effect, Diamond never could have made it; the FCC would have said No. (Note to purists: The Rio was not the first MP3player. That honor goes to the Eiger Labs MPMan, built by Saehan in Korea.)
No portable MP3 players would likely have meant we'd be stuck with $18 CDs and clunky players and other RIAA-approved devices.
TiVo and other digital video recorders? Forget it. The entertainment industry, through the FCC, would have said No.
USA Today: Digital Content Protection Act would be consumer disaster
Right on Andrew!
I think it's time that we consumers take the offensive. Instead of just writing our legislators asking them to please vote against this crap and then waiting for the next offensive, why not start our own grass roots lobbying effort to forever protect the Fair Use part of the copyright laws?
How about something along the lines of Dear (Fill in Legislator's title and name here),
I, a voting member of your district, am sick and tired of repeated efforts to subvert the fair use portions of the copyright laws in this country. The most recent example of which is The Digital Content Protection Act of 2006 introduced by Sen. Gordon Smith.
Obviously I, as your constituent, expect you to vote against this latest attempt to prevent me from making fair use of audio and video products I purchase. But in addition to that would like to see efforts to enact legislation that forever protects my rights to enjoy the audio and/or video products I purchase on whatever device I choose to play them on.
Thank you for your attention to this matter,
(Your name)
(Your address)
(City, State and Zip)
The name and address are very important. That lets your representative know for sure that you are in their district or state.
The copyright laws are a bargain between the owner of the intellectual property and the people that pay them (that's us). Part of that bargain gives the copyright holder certain rights (which a whole bunch of folks, probably more then few reading this are guilty of walking all over). But a bargain is a two way street. The other half of that arrangement gives we lowly consumers specific rights of fair use which include making back up copies and no restriction on its use in private.
If the The Digital Content Protection Act of 2006 gets passed, those days could well be over.
So, if this bothers you, get off your butts and spend a few minutes of quality time writing a snail mail letter to your senators and congress people. If you feel strong enough about this, feel free to spread the word. Copy this and pass it along.
Break out the computer Mrs. Whack, we got some letters to write.