Linux Journal: Linux and Politics at CES

“While the big cheeses of the consumer electronics industry make
obeisance to Big Hollywood over the issue of customer control of
PCs and entertainment devices, the mood at the Consumer Electronics
show seems to call out for a move the other way, toward
badly-needed reform for the controversial Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA). The Home Recording Rights Coalition (HRRC)
was out in the lobby to support Virginia Rep. Rick Boucher’s
Digital Media Consumers’ Rights Act, which would reform the DMCA to
allow circumvention of copy-restriction schemes for purposes other
than copyright infringement.

“In the four-year history of the DMCA, the anti-circumvention
provision of the law has been used only against developers of new
technology, never against actual copyright infringers.

“Another interest group represented at the show was the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, where Wendy Seltzer, founder of the
Chilling Effects Clearinghouse is now a staff attorney…”

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