Consumer Technology Bill of Rights?

thrilliams writes "The WSJ's Walt Mossberg has a story about DigitalConsumer.org, a new lobbying group that's pressing for a Consumer Technology Bill of Rights. It would aim to protect the right to time shift and space shift media, make backups, allow for platform independence and translation between formats. Given the current DCMA/SSSCA climate, even these basic rights seem ambitious, but check them out and do what you can to support this nascent effort." There's also an NYT article on the SSSCA debate, with an unintentionally humorous quote from the head of News Corporation (which owns 20th Century Fox): "without copyright protection we will change our business models".

Comments

Rights

[Indras]

Ooh, can we lobby for the right to bear portscanners?

Place your bets

[Fucky the troll]

I predict the first ever slashdotted fax machine over at Washington.

At least they have the first step down good

[cdrudge]

"We may be stupid but we're not idiotic." - Peter Chernin, president of the News Corporation.

Step 1, Admit that you have a problem.

Re:Well

[Silver222]

The ironic thing was, I was scanning a friend's network because he asked me to check for vulnerabilities in it.

I understand. Just last week, I did the same sort of thing. Went to the doctor and mentioned to him that a friend of mine has a burning sensation when he urinates. Funny thing is, the prescription is in my name.

Re:If the tables were turned?

[Happy Monkey]

Wow. Mr. Chernin has just admitted that his network could be used for piracy! I guess we need to cripple his network to make it impossible for newscasters to read technical information.

Turnabout is fair use

[Reziac]

I note in the article, this statement:

"I believe if you say to these people, `You get us a system by Dec. 31 or we'll do it for you,' you'll be surprised at how innovative they'll become," Mr. Eisner told the lawmakers at last month's hearing.

Let's turn that around, and pretend I'm Intel for a moment:

"I believe if you say to the RIAA, `You find a new business model by Dec. 31 or we'll do it for you,' you'll be surprised at how quickly they'll adapt to current technology," Intel told the lawmakers at next month's hearing.

There, see how easy that was??

When Harry Met Sally

[kindbud]

That brought an angry retort from Andrew S. Grove, the chairman of Intel. "Is it the responsibility of the world at large to protect an industry whose business model is facing a strategic challenge?" he said in an interview. "Or is it up to the entertainment industry to adapt to a new technical reality and a new set of consumers who want to take advantage of it?"

Oh Yes! OH YES! OH YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!!

Andy's karma just went up a few notches there...