Petteri Pyyny
11 May 2004 14:52
A new proposed legislation change, called Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act, is about to get a Congress hearing tomorrow. The proposed bill has already made maajor Hollywood studios, record labels and other copyright owners nervous.
The bill, which is sponsored by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va) would force record labels to add labels on CDs that don't comply with strict audio CD standards, because they've been intentionally "broken" in order to make them impossible to read with computers.
Various other consumer-protecting minor proposals are in the bill, but the most significant one is the amendment to the notorious DMCA legislation. The new proposed law text states: "It shall not be a violation of this title to manufacture, distribute, or make noninfringing use of a hardware or software product capable of enabling significant noninfringing use of a copyrighted work."
This would mean that tools that circumvent copy protection, such as DeCSS and similar DVD rippers, would be legal as they assist consumers to enjoy their legal rights to make backups of the content that they own whether it has been copy protected or not.
More information:
FoxNews
Library of Congress