Legal/Government
Horrific triple header in Congress: EFF appeals for help!
The EFF writes about three new bills introduced in congress:
- MPAA's Analog Hole Bill (aka the A-hole bill): This bill would require Hollywood's approval before gadget makers could create any analog video input device. To meet approval, the device would need to look for embedded watermarks and if found, not allow the user of the device to make a copy of the content. This bill is guaranteed to have chilling effects -- no private enterprise should ever have the say of what other private enterprises can and cannot do. This is unimaginably bad!
- RIAA's HD Radio Bill: All digital radio receivers would be required to support encryption and would not allow the export of content. This traps all the content in the digital radio receiver and prevents users from exercising their fair use rights. This also makes it more expensive to produce digital radio receivers and will impact the growth of these services.
- Broadcast Flag Bill: This is the dreaded Broadcast Flag that has been tossed out of Congress at least three times now. Much like a zombie, it needs killing once more.
These three laws are so atrocious that I cannot even believe that any sane group of people could put forth such a set of preposterous bills. Amazing! The only funny thing about these bills was uttered by Cory Doctorow earlier this week:
Only the MPAA would call something the A-hole bill!
Well said! So, now please head over to the EFF's Action Center to speak out about these terrible bills!
Technorati Tags: congress, legislation, mpaa, broadcast flag, riaa
Posted by Mayhem at November 4, 2005 02:48 PM
