Bill Hobbs has a story on a Tennessee version of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Apparently, the MPAA isn't satisfied with ramming federal legislation through, they want to hit the states as well.
If you use a firewall, if you archive music, if you listen to CD's on your computer, if you time shift shows off cable or satellite, if you think you have the right to wtch what you want, when you want, and that it is nobody's business what you watch, then you have a stake in stopping this legislation.
I have about 10 gigs of music files on my computer. They come from my CD collection (somewhere north of 300) and my cassette collection (also north of 300, although with some duplicates). Once I get my turntable repaired, I'll archive my albums as well. (Albums were round vinyl discs used to play prerecorded music before CD's took over the market. Ask you dad; he'll tell you all about them. Ask about 8 track tapes too.) These archives are perfectly legitimate under the fair use doctrine. It would also be legit for me to generate new CD mixes using these archives for my personal use.
However, this new legislation will require manufacturers to put security measures in place that would make it impossible. Bill has the links; contact your congress reps and senators and tell them to kill the state DMCA.
Posted by Rich at April 23, 2003 12:29 PM | TrackBack