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Content Faction v. Tech Faction
An Anonymous reader writes: "This essay describes the current battle between two former allies in the DMCA fight - The Content Faction (Universal, MPAA, etc.) v The Tech Faction (IBM, Microsoft, etc.). It gives a great overview of what the battle is, who is taking what position, what's at stake - and how consumers are going to be taking it in the *** no matter who wins, it's just a matter of how rough it will be. "
"Back in the nineties, when we bought a movie on video, your grandma and me could watch it as many times as we wanted, without paying for it again each time. We could pause it to get up and get a soda, and we could rewind it if we missed something and it didn't cost no extra to do that."
"Wow, gramps. You mean there were no coin slots on TVs back then?"
"That's right. And if the movie was a dud, we could sell the tape at a garage sale, or give it to a friend, or even just throw it in the trash."
"Weren't you afraid you'd get arrested, grandpa?"
"They didn't arrest people for those things back then, boy. Didn't need no stinking TV license, heck, nobody didn't even have to own a TV if they didn't want to."
"When grandma gets out of prison for muting commercials, can she tell us some stories about the old days too?"