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Hey, Jack Valenti-- you suck!!

Filed under: Imported

A friend passed on a news story titled in part, "MPAA's Stealth Attack on Your Living Room". This part gets to the heart of the matter:

"Under existing law, those who have legitimately purchased communication services (e.g., cable TV, satellite, or broadband Internet services) are free to connect whatever they like to the wires they pay for, so long as they do not violate any otherwise applicable law. So, for example, you are free to connect a new TV, PC, VCR or TiVo to a cable television connection that you pay for. Similarly, you are free to connect a Wi-Fi wireless access point to your DSL line in order to share your broadband connection among several computers in your house. This freedom has encouraged technology vendors to compete and innovate in response to the demands of consumers.

"The proposed super-DMCA statutes reverse this traditional rule. Under these statutes, you would not be entitled to connect anything to your cable, satellite, or DSL line without the express permission of your service provider. The model MPAA bill accomplishes this by making it a crime to possess a device to 'receive � transmit, [or] re-transmit' any communication service without the 'express authorization' of the communication service provider. The various pending state bills include similar language.

"This provision would make you a criminal for simply connecting a TV, PC, TiVo or VCR (all of which can 'receive' communication services) to the cable TV line in your living room without your cable company's permission. It could also make you a criminal for connecting a Wi-Fi wireless gateway (which can 'retransmit' Internet traffic) to your DSL or cable modem line without the permission of your ISP. The shift proposed by these bills is radical: all technology that is not expressly permitted becomes forbidden. This would give communication service providers unprecedented control over the home entertainment and the technology marketplace. For example, your broadband ISP could force you to use only certain brands of computers, or force you to pay extra if you wanted to connect more than one computer to your DSL line. Cable and satellite TV services could forbid you from using a TiVo, or could charge you extra to connect a VCR to your TV."

There's more, and none of it is good. One especialy outrageous part of the bill is the one-sided liability concerning legal fees: if the MPAA sues you and wins, you pay your legal costs and theirs. If they lose, however, you still pay your own.

In light of the ruling the other day, which now allows the record industry to force Verizon to reveal the identities of two downloading customers, this is even worse news than it appears on the surface. Give it a look while you're still allowed to use the Internet at all.

Posted by Steve Monaco at April 29, 2003 4:00 PM

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