[juneau-lug] Re: Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act of 2002

  • From: "JBarber" <barber@xxxxxxx>
  • To: <juneau-lug@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 18:22:48 -0900

<b><rant></b>
Oh what the hell, we can live with only one OS, after all, MS is not a
monopoly right!  %^$*&^%%$&^%&^%$*^%%^$*%
I guess that SOB has been playing Golf with Mr. Gates down in Redmond!!  Why
don't we, as Alaska Linux users, get all the other LUGS together and write
him a letter?  Anybody want to?
<b></rant></b>



 -----Original Message-----
From:   juneau-lug-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:juneau-lug-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]  On Behalf Of James Zuelow
Sent:   Thursday, March 21, 2002 5:36 PM
To:     juneau-lug@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject:        [juneau-lug] Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion
Act of 2002


This is what Senator Stevens has been up to:

http://www.politechbot.com/docs/cbdtpa/hollings.cbdtpa.release.032102.html

"..any device that can legitimately play, copy, or electronically transmit
one or more categories of media also can be misused for illegal copyright
infringement, unless special protection technologies are incorporated into
such a device..."

The bill defines a digital device as just about anything, including
software or components of software.  This would apply to such things as
the Gimp, or even the Linux kernel - they would be illegal without a US
Deptartment of Commerce approved copy protection scheme that can not be
removed.

Given that all open-source software has source code available, defeating
such a scheme would be trivial.  The obvious conclusion is that
open-source software would itself become illegal, as there would be no way
to force end users to comply with the bill.

<RANT>

I find Senator Steven's apparent proposition that we are all guilty of
intent to commit copyright violation until proven otherwise interesting.
Those of you that enjoy hunting in the fall can take an interesting
intellectual exersise and replace "digital device" with "firearm" and
"copyright violation" with "personal injury".  Or a better example,
replace "digital device" with "motor vehicle" and "copyright violation"
with "personal injury" - unless you can prove your car is absolutely
incapable of harming another person (say, should the operator accidentally
drink too much), it should be taken away.

Forget learning about computers, get a taxi driver's license.  There's
more of a future in that.

</RANT>

Cheers,

James


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