Stephen,

In all fairness to copyright holders of any medium, if there were some way
to provide equal protection to copyright holders and consumers, that is not
a bad thing.  Even the GPL is a copyright that allows explicit rights, and
disallows others.  A valid issue is how to allow copyright holders to
specify rights, ensure that those rights to not violate consumer rights such
as Fair Use.  The problem is how these legislators are duped into taking
extreme and ignorant action by the powerful media lobbies.

One of the things mandated by the potential act appears to be open published
standards for managing digital rights, be they to a media stream or a
program binary.  Wouldn't that prevent such a debacle as the DeCSS
situation, since an Open Source implementation of such DRM technology could
be distributed freely?  If there is to be any such DRM, it must be in the
public domain, free for use without limit or cost.

The DMCA is horrendous legislation, and hopefully the Courts will strike
down large portions of it as unconstitutional.  The DMCA and SSSCA are both
knee-jerk reactions to the massive piracy caused by Napster.  Napster set in
motion a pendulum that had been fairly stable for years.  It pushed it way
too far to the side of mass piracy.  DMCA and SSSCA are just as egregious in
the opposite direction, discarding free speech, innovation, and consumer
rights.

Personally, I'm not convinced that it is entirely possible to give both
sides what they want, and I would err on the side of the consumer.  The
media industry is completely schizoid on the subject: at the same time that
Disney is the primary backer of SSSCA, Phillips is pushing the consumer's
ability to produce their own music mix.  How do you add DRM to legacy
devices?  You don't, and they must be accomodated.  It is stupid to go too
crazy about legacy formats.  If I want to steal music, not matter how
protected, all I have to do is play it, and record it on any old tape deck.

FWIW, I wonder if the SSSCA, and the philosophy underlying it, was what
caused the entire Squeak team to precipitously leave Disney.

	--- noel