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« The NYT and Blogging | Main | Whackamole Time, Again » May 21, 2003Home Networks Growing Without Permission!Some 37 million U.S. households will have a home network by 2008, four times as many as do now, as people branch out from networking their multiple computers to connecting their networks to entertainment equipment and then, later, to household appliances, predicts Forrester Research. Of course, all of the above will be illegal in Tennessee without the permission of the cable company or telecom that provides your broadband Internet access, if legislation currently moving through the Tennessee legislature passes. Under HB 457 and SB 213, if the cable company or telecom does not expressly authorize you to connect a device to their service, the legal inference is automatically created that you intended to defraud the service provider. What follows could then be civil and/or criminal legal proceedings against you. It's all about power and money, and this legislation - written originally for sponsors Rep. Rob Briley and Sen. Curtis Person by the Motion Picture Association of America and now pushed for aggressively by only an out-of-state lawyer working as a lobbyist for the cable industry - gives the cable industry and telecommunications industry more power to extract money from your wallet. But, as Glenn Reynolds has been suggesting, it's time lawmakers, the media and the public really question whether the cable companies should be handed that much power. The Rocky Mountain News has framed the question perfectly: Did you get permission from your cable company before you bought your kids a new VCR? Did your telephone company say you could use a modem to log on to the Internet? Did your Internet service provider give written approval for your Webcam?No, you shouldn't. The sooner lawmakers get that message and kill HB 457 and SB 213, the better. The Tennessee Digital Freedom Network is battling the legislation as it continues to move through the state legislature's committee system. The House Budget Subcommittee is scheduled to take up HB 457 Today - Wednesday, May 21 - at 9:00 a.m. For previous posts on this issue, click here and follow the links. Comments
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