SSSCA Officially Introduced to Senate
Looks, like the time has come, that alot of us have been dreading.
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WASHINGTON -- Sen. Fritz Hollings has fired the first shot in the next legal battle over Internet piracy.
The Democratic senator from South Carolina finally has introduced his copy protection legislation, ending over six months of anticipation and sharpening what has become a heated debate between Hollywood and Silicon Valley.
The bill, called the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA), prohibits the sale of any kind of electronic device -- unless that device includes copy-protection standards to be set by the federal government.
Translation: Future MP3 players, PCs, and handheld computers will no longer let you make all the copies you want.
"A lack of security has enabled significant copyright piracy which drains America's content industries to the tune of billions of dollars every year," Hollings, the powerful chairman of the Senate Commerce committee, said in a statement on Thursday.
Hollings said that "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."
That's precisely why Hollings and the five senators who joined him want to embed copy-protection controls in all PCs and consumer electronic devices. Devices manufactured before the law takes effect can be resold legally.
Once known as the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act, the CBDTPA says that all "digital media devices" sold in the United States or shipped across state lines must include copy protection mechanisms to be defined by the Federal Communications Commission.
Digital media device is defined in a breathtakingly broad way: Any hardware or software that reproduces, displays, or "retrieves or accesses" any kind of copyrighted work.
Silicon Valley lobbyists, who have objected to earlier versions of the CBDTPA, denounced it on Thursday.
"We don't think this will help consumers use technology to enjoy movies or other content more," said Rhett Dawson, the president of the Information Technology Industry Council. "In fact, if it were enacted it could stand in the way of consumers enjoying the benefits of innovation by having the government make decisions that are best left to the marketplace."
The FCC has a year from the date the president signs the CBDTPA to decide whether representatives of "digital media device manufacturers, consumer groups, and copyright owners" have reached a reasonable compromise on copy protection standards. These standards have to comply with guidelines set by CBDTPA, including being reliable, resistant to attack, upgradable, and not too expensive.
As an incentive for these negotiators to reach a deal, the FCC must send an interim progress report to Congress six months after the law is enacted, while the process is still underway.
After one year has elapsed, if the FCC concludes a reasonable agreement has been reached, the agency will approve the standards and give them the force of law. Otherwise the FCC will come up with its own standards.
One bright spot for free software advocates: Any software that implements the standards must be "based on open source code." Hardware copy-protection schemes can remain proprietary.
It does say the final "encoding rules" should take into account fair-use rights, such as making backup copies or reproducing short excerpts from books, songs, or movies. Copies of TV broadcasts made for one-time personal use at home are also permitted.
But the CBDTPA also says that with those two exceptions, owners of digital content can encode their "directions" for use, copying and reproduction.
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Well looks like i just copied this article.
Links:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51245,00.html
http://digitalmass.boston.com/news/2...rp_disney.html
http://www.politechbot.com/docs/cbdt...se.032102.html
What Hollings has to say about this:
http://www.politechbot.com/docs/cbdt...se.032102.html
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/03/2....shtml?tid=103
