Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Slashdot | Senate May Rush Copyright Legislation

Slashdot | Senate May Rush Copyright Legislation: "iman1003 writes 'According to an article on Wired, the Senate may soon pass a bill labeled HR2391, a bill which lumps many other copyright bills. If passed the bill would 'would criminally punish a person who 'infringes a copyright by ... offering for distribution to the public by electronic means, with reckless disregard of the risk of further infringement.'' In addition the bill would 'permit people to use technology to skip objectionable content -- like a gory or sexually explicit scene -- in films, a right that consumers already have. However, under the proposed law, skipping any commercials or promotional announcements would be prohibited.' The bill would also punish people 'who bring a video camera into a movie theater to make a copy of the film for distribution' with up to three years imprisonment and fines. If any of this worries you please contact your Senators and Representatives and voice your concern.'"

-- Yikes... I mean, I'm all for anti-piracy efforts (even though I can also argue that software, music CD's, etc. are ridiculously overpriced, thereby encouraging piracy). But the skipping of commercials kinda wigged me out. How does that affect things like TiVo, which I use to fast-forward through ALL commercials? I never even watch live TV anymore, and therefore very rarely see any commercials. It will be interesting to see how this pans out.

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