Slashdot Mirror
Copyright [CBDTPA] Bill Universally Rejected
smcavoy writes " Globe Technology is carrying a article about the CBDTPA. "We haven't received one e-mail in support of the Hollings bill," said Judiciary Committee spokeswoman Mimi Devlin. "It seems like there's a groundswell of support from regular users." I wonder if the technology industry was pro CBDTPA, would we be hearing as many bad things about it, in the press?"
Sen. Leahy, chair of the Judiciary Committee, came down with an attack of good sense, and said that he won't let it out of committee.
It's dead... for this session at least, but you're right, we need to stay vigilant.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
That is apparently uncomfortably close to the truth. Apparently the CBDTPA is mainly intended as a stalking horse. Its proponents don't seriously hope it to pass in anything like its current form, much as they would love if it did. It seems that what they're really aiming for at present is legislation specifically to enforce their plans for digital TV; after their opening demands have been rejected, they'll barter down to that. The resulting legislation will then be praised as the product of compromise and consensus. Both sides will claim a partial victory. And the studios will have exactly what they were hoping to get. Whenever they want some more, they'll simply repeat the process. Eventually it will become politically feasible to pass something like the current CBDTPA, since it will be possible to plausibly claim that it would only tidy up all the piecemeal copy-protection acts and amendments that by then will already be law.