Slashdot Mirror
Bill Would Outlaw Digital Receiver Recorders
mjdroner writes "ZD-Net has the latest on a sweeping telecom bill in the Senate. The bill provides no support for net neutrality. The bill does, however, include a provision to authorize the FCC to outlaw digital receivers that record broadcasts. The article states that those receivers would be replaced with devices that treat anything with an audio broadcast flag as copy-protected."
Second, we could try to start our own lobbying group. Give a concentrated voice to the technically literate population
You don't need to do that. It exists.
so, even though people have been recording things on audio cassettes for decades, now that people are doing it digitally in smaller numbers (it takes some technical knowhow), all of a sudden they want to outlaw the recorders?
Yes, that's exactly what they want to do. Their reasoning being that a digital copy is (or at least can be (with lossless compression)) as good as the original whereas an analog copy is inherently lossy. With a perfect digital copy there's no need for us to re-consume the original (for additional cost), because once we have initial access to it, we can access it just as well any time we'd like. They feel threatened by this.
This sig intentionally left justified.
I think you missed the benefits of 'preferential voting'. Essentially it means:
'I'll vote for this guy, but if he doesn't get in then
I'll vote for her, but if she doesn't get in then
I'll vote for them.. etc'
To use an example from the previous US election, one could vote for (say) Ralph Nader, but preference John Kerry. (Yeah, yeah, so I'm left-of-centre). With preferential voting, you're not wasting your vote, even though Nader will probably not get in. Rather, you're sending Kerry a message that you don't really approve of his policies, but just prefer him to the Other Guy. The crux is, that your vote still goes to Kerry.
Another benefit, is that minor parties can allocate their own preferences. So one could just vote for (say) Nader, and he could negotiate his preferences with the major parties. This would give him leverage in the policy development of the major parties in the lead-up to the election. It also makes people more inclined to vote for minor parties, because they know it's not a 'wasted vote'.
That's the system we have in Australia, and I think it works really well. I think it's absolutely essential if we're to encourage multiple parties (even if they're minor parties).