October 28, 2003

Like a Bad Penny

Those folks who want to give the motion picture and cable TV industries the authority to outlaw digital video recorders like TiVo and control what devices you plug into the cable outlet haven't given up. The Tennessee Digital Freedom Network has the details on Tennessee legislative hearings scheduled for today and Wednesday. If you want to see everything I've written about the subject - and it's a long list - go here and scroll down to the weblogs section, which also lists coverage by Instapundit, Copyfight, the Business Law Weblog and other blogs. [Hat tip: Instapundit].

UPDATE: Jody L. of the Tennessee Digital Freedom Network emailed the following regarding the hearings:

I just wanted to send a reminder about the hearings going on today and tomorrow concerning the "Theft of telecommunications service", a.k.a. "Super DMCA" legislative efforts. They will be hearing from proponents of the legislation today which include Bell South, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), BMI Records, Time Warner Cable, and the Tennessee Cable Association.

Tomorrow legislators will hear from us (TNDF), American Library Association, and Radio Shack with our objections to the proposed legislation.

From the list of proponents who will present it is becoming clearer that this legislative attempt is about content control. Back in the spring the proponents abjectly denied that. Remember that Senator Person's son is on the board of one of the cable companies who initiated this legislation.

An assumption among many of the representives is that these media giants are suffering and some sort of bill is needed to remediate the harm caused them. We are trying to overturn those assumptions and convince the legislators that they are being asked in this bill to provide special market protections for companies which either operate in a monopoly, or are structured much like a cartel, thus neutralizing the threat of competition that current technologies are providing.

A lot is at stake for both consumers of information technology and these legacy media giants, that's why they are going for the throat.