What's your opinion of this guy?

[Mirror_Image]

Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings (DEM-SC)

Great statesman...or something else entirely?

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WASHINGTON -- America's programmers, engineers and sundry bit-heads have not yet figured out how much a new copyright bill will affect their livelihood.

When they do, watch for an angry Million Geek March to storm Capitol Hill.

A bill introduced this week by Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina) would roil the electronics industry by forcibly embedding copy protection into all digital devices, from MP3 players to cell phones, fax machines, digital cameras and personal computers.

But the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA) would also wreak havoc on programmers and software companies -- both those distributing code for free and those selling it.

No more than two years and seven months after the bill becomes law, the only code programmers and software firms will be able to distribute must have embedded copy-protection schemes approved by the federal government.

To put this in perspective: The CBDTPA would, if enacted in its current form, have the electrifying effect on computer professionals that the Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore did to some Democratic Party members.

Legal experts said on Friday that the CBDTPA regulates nearly any program, in source or object code, that runs on a PC or anything else with a microprocessor.

That's not just Windows media players and their brethren, as you might expect. The CBDTPA's sweeping definition of "any hardware or software" includes word processors, spreadsheets, operating systems, compilers, programming languages -- all the way down to humble Unix utilities like "cp" and "cat."

"The definition will cover just about anything that runs on your computer -- except maybe the clock," said Tom Bell, a professor at Chapman University School of Law who teaches intellectual property law.

Then Bell paused for a moment and reconsidered. "There's a risk you could say it covers things like even a digital clock program on your computer," he said.

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ERNEST F. HOLLINGS (D-SC)
Top Contributors
1 FedEx Corp $42,500
2 AT&T $33,750
3 Ness, Motley et al $32,550
4 AOL Time Warner $32,000
5 Scana Corp $31,000
6 Verner, Liipfert et al $30,508
7 News Corp $28,724
8 Philip Morris $26,050
9 Sprint Corp $25,450
10 National Assn of Broadcasters $25,000
10 Loral Spacecom $25,000
12 Medical University of South Carolina $23,200
13 Walt Disney Co $22,500
14 Lipper & Co $20,000
14 Baron & Budd $20,000
16 Robins, Kaplan et al $19,695
17 BellSouth Corp $19,080
18 Verizon Communications $17,700
19 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte $17,500
20 CBS Corp $17,382

Hmmmm...

[MOVIEGEEK]

I can see an American company wanting to protect their profits but
this would be a nightmare for international trade.
For every encryption there is a hack

[d4n13l]

I just got reading through the discussion on slashdot about this.
It is quite lengthy but has some good points:
http://slashdot.org/yro/02/03/22/2345249.shtml?tid=103

[zzyzzx]

I don't like him (or any other Democrat).
This idea sucks and is totally unimplementable.

[ChrisX]

I don't like him. Just another politician making life harder for everyone. We will have less freedom with all those copy protection devices embedded in just about everything. Going too far!

Imagine not able to play music CD's in my computer, just to listen to it. I have heard this is happening now with the CD's and not much point buying them. The copy protection would also mean no digital TV copying for time-shift viewing either.

The DVD is the same with the region area codes around the world, it is becoming irrelevant with globalisation and the Internet. It is ridiculous buying a DVD movie in another country on vacation and can't play it at home. Say, I purchased the DVD in England and I find that I can't play it in New York. So have to use a multiregion DVD player to play it. So, silly of the movie industry trying to profit.

They are all the same, their only interest is the increase their profits for their shareholders and the executives get obscene salaries. They are getting very fat, this must stop. The copy protection laws will not help anyone, the industry will be penalised with these restrictions. They will go backwards, no progress. No sale means no jobs. Wake up, America.

[homerpez]

Luckily, the man probably speaks alone... I hope.

Cooler heads tend to prevail (sometimes), and with something this powerful that would completely devistate an entire economy... nice to know G. Dubya has that ol' veto power.

I suspect if anything like this passed, very soon we'd see Chinese imports intended to bypass copy protection X, Y and Z.

I don't honestly think it'll come to that... protected CD's won't sell, protected software will be hacked, open-source will continue to be open-source... and they WON'T WIN.

[Greg12]

I would have expected them to be a Republican.

[zzyzzx]

I would have expected them to be a Republican.

It's usually old farts who don't use computers that come up with totally unworkable ideas like this. Or someone like Joe Lieberman.

[mol3000]

people like that needs to be shot.... and u right... i thought he was republican to because thats how most of them think..... who do you think is passing all these stupid laws..... just makin all REAL DEMOCRATS LOOK BAD....!!!!!!!!1

[Mirror_Image]

people like that needs to be shot.... and u right... i thought he was republican to because thats how most of them think..... who do you think is passing all these stupid laws?

In the Senate? Why, the Democrats of course - they DO control the Senate now...or didn't you catch that "teeny news tidbit".

[siaododo]

Sorry, got into wrong thread.