From Mark Pilgrim:
CBDTPA looks destined to die a quiet death in committee. But if anything like this bill ever actually passes, our entire society will instantly turn into Cuba after the embargo, where everybody holds on to their pre-2002 technology, fixing it up year after year, decade after decade, rather than pay for new crippled technology. (In Cuba I believe it was cars in particular; for us it would be computers.)Funny, I have been considering exactly this. If all this DRM and "Secure" media gets legislated and forced upon the market, I'll likely not buy another electronic gadget for a long while, unless maybe it's a used pre-2002 device. Those, however will probably top the $1000+ range on eBay, unless resale is outlawed as well.
Forcing copy protection and "secure" media and "digital rights management" onto the market is idiocy. We don't want it. Really. It doesn't make anything nicer for us, no matter how much you use fuzzy happy words like "secure" (who's secure? me? nope. my investment in books, music, and movies goes down the drain).
And the stupid horror of it is... this will kill the market for technology toys dead. The current offering of electronic gadgetry is pretty nifty already. PCs are pretty damn fast now. I doubt the majority of people have outstripped the capabilities of the things they own now, if they have bought a PC, mp3 player, CD/DVD burner, PVR, or digital camera recently. If it turns out that all new stuff past a certain point has inconveniences and copy protection and requires more money to run and etc.. well, then I think people might just settle for what they have awhile longer. I really think that technolust and thirst for the next bigger and better thing will chill because it'd be more trouble than it's worth.
My faith in the intelligence of my fellow Americans, especially my elected officials, is teetering now. I've been pretty optimistic. I thought they'd be smart enough to realize these things by now, I never thought they'd get this far. But seeing that the RIAA, MPAA, and all the other money bloated fuckers are actually being taken seriously and not laughed off Capital Hill have me seriously worried. The government got stolen a long time ago, and I never wanted to believe it. Grr.
I just hope it hasn't slid over the cliff yet and all these bastards finally hang themselves with all the rope they've played out. I still hope that there's a sleeping giant of reason out amongst the sheep.
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