[GLLUG] [OT] Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act

[Eric T. Roach]

Several things about this bill are very unclear to me, but it doesn't seem to
prohibit domestic distribution of free software - it just requires that it have
government approved anti-copying protection embedded in it.  The software must
be created in the first place, and whatever method is used will surely be
available to create more.  Just re-create it with whatever copy protection
scheme that is required - that isn't copying.  In addition, it seems to me that
one of the very first pieces of open software published would be a program to
allow an individual to publish any program running on their processor (complete
with a government approved embedded anti-copying protection system).  I find it
hard to believe that NSA would allow any unbreakable consumer encryption system
(if such a thing could be concocted) to be mandated.  There is also the issue
of creating back ups - perhaps Fritz is really a communist out to destroy our
economy by slowly degrading our disaster recovery capability.

The requirement that prohibits the sale of any software that allows the
reproduction of "copyrighted works" means that as printing presses wear out
they must be replaced with models that do not use software.  Perhaps
calligraphy will be making a comeback.  Obviously, computer animation programs
are right out, as are scanners and printers with embedded microcode.  Copy
machines?

I agree that this is the kind of goofy idea that technical ignoramuses often
devise, but I'm not sure that legislation can be written in such a way as to
have any serious effect.  It seems not only goofy, but infeasible.

Don Chorman wrote:

> Hello all,
>     I just thought that I would come out of lurking to see if any of you
> have had heard of the CBDTPA bill. I'm not sure, but I think that Ben Pfaff
> (sp) mentioned this bill, a while back. From what I have read, this bill is
> pretty scary. According to what I have read at wired.com, this bill would
> allow regulation for pretty much any software (open source too), and
> hardware. The article below, is where I read this.
>
> http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51274,00.html
>
>  The title of the bill seems like a red herring, since little of the bill
> actually has much to do with TV and cable internet (atleast in my opinion).
> Do you folks think that something like this could actually get passed into
> law? I would like to write my legislators, but I never really written them
> before, and I not sure whom I should address.
>
> Don
>
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