The times they are a-changin’.
This post seems to be older than 17 years—a long time on the internet. It might be outdated.
I’m actually not quite sure where to start with this one. Half of me just wants to let out a rather long string of explicatives. The other half wants to reach out and strangle Dan Glickman, president of the MPAA. This isn’t the first time, nor will be the last time, I’ve lashed out at Dano and Company (see An Open Letter to Dan Glickman). This is compiled from BoingBoing via the Electronic Frontier Foundation (whom I am now seriously considering donating to). Here goes:
Hollywood’s gearing up to introduce what is effectively “the Broadcast Flag on steroids.” Dubbed the Anal. Hole, Content Protection in the Digital Age: The Broadcast Flag, High-Definition Radio, and the Analog Hole is a piece of legislation that the MPAA is reintroducing (yes, reintroducing) to the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property.
In a nut shell, the Anal. Hole Bill would “illegal to make anything capable of digitizing video unless it either has all its outputs approved by the Hollywood studios, or is closed-source, proprietary and tamper-resistant.” This honestly makes me sick to my stomach. And I’m not just saying that. Every time I read that line, I physically start to get queasy and feel like vomiting.
To give you an idea of just how damning the Anal. Hole Bill could be, if this Bill “had been around in 1976, the VCR would have been illegal.” Ho-ly Fuck. I would apologize for my language, but I’ve literally been watching the MPAA (and RIAA for that matter) whittle away our rights for years now. This is UNACCEPTABLE! The MPAA is becoming the Catholic church of the 15th Century.
BoingBoing also points out:
Any lawmaker who supports this is an idiot. Americans will forgive a lot of sins from their elected representatives, but there’s one thing they won’t stand for and that’s breaking their TVs.
Here here!
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