Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, D-S.C., said he would introduce legislation that would make it a crime to create, sell or distribute any electronics without some sort of copyright protection technology unless companies can come up with their own standards without government intervention.

Hmm. I remember reading an article talking about this. Apparently, some companies are working on built-in copy protection in speakers so they'll fuzz or not play the music if it doesn't contain the correct signal. I can see the day when the amateur musician tries to play his home-made electric guitar (a childhood hobby of a friend of mine) and fails, because his expensive amp won't play the signal. And, how's the amateur musician supposed to distribute his music? He doesn't have access to the complex and expensive encoding software, and can't write his own because the algorithm's encrypted, and decyphering it would be illegal (remember a certain Russian in the news?) So we're left with only the big record labels able to produce and distribute music (which is a situation they would, no doubt, love.) Of course, this is the hypothesis being taken to the extreme, but remember- money talks, and the record labels have a lot of money.

This also goes for amateur film-makers as well; with all the advances made possible by digital cameras and software, the amateur movie maker suddenly finds it impossible to distribute his movies, because the software has encrypted it to be used "by one person, on one machine only."

Think this is ridiculous? Look at e-books (or rather, the lack thereof.) Many e-books have similiar encryption schemes, and can only be viewed on specific players. Nobody buys them, because once you take portability out of books, you're essentially stuck with a non-lending library. Thank god for hard copy. Pity that there's no equivilent for music and video...

This comment was edited on Mar 15, 11:23.