posted 09-10-2001 19:19            

From the article:

The proposed bill, called the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA), would mean that DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology must be incorporated into every single gizmo in your house, car, knapsack and office. Into your hard drive (CPRM, anyone?); into your CD-ROM drive; into your DVD player; into your DiskMan; into your television, and so on ad nauseum.


It would close all the irritating little loopholes in the DMCA right around the necks of consumers, where, the industry reckons, the pressure rightly belongs.


...Another glaring omission is any assurance that DRM-enabled media must be backward compatible with older hardware legally purchased; or that new, compliant hardware must be backward compatible with older digital media legally purchased.

IN GENERAL.--It is unlawful to manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any interactive digital device that does not include and utilize certified security technologies that adhere to the security systems standards adopted under section 104.

Senator ---

I find your backing of the so-called Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA) to be an outrage to the public interest and an insult towards all for which this country stands --- individual freedoms and innovation. Not only does it deny consumers the right to back-up and restore their legally-bought software and transfer it to other mediums for archival purposes, it forces those same consumers, against all laws of the free market, to buy new and decidedly more expensive hardware against their wills.

This act, along with its sister the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), are blatantly anti-technology, anti-innovation, and to use a cliche', anti-American. These are not laws for a nation founded on the ideals of a self-governing free market; they are laws for a paranoid nation, one which is afraid of the technological innovations that its people may produce for fear that it might hurt Big Business --- who can never compete with the ingenuity of unfettered and fearless individuals; individuals who are willing to explore and risk everything for the sake of bettering their world, for the sake of knowledge, for the sake of progress. The history of the technology in question is writ in the sweat and blood of innovators, men and women who poured their lives into unexplored areas because they saw the possibilities, because they saw the potential.

The very same potential of these technologies is what scares the industry today --- they want to control all emerging technologies, from creation to distribution to use, controlling their consumers at the same time. And this will only be possible with the backing of legislation such as you’re proposing, legislature that gives free license to the industry to force only their products to a choice-starved market and stifles all possible improvements and innovations. These two bills, the SSSCA and DMCA, expemplify the closed-minded and Luddite-like attitude held by those in power, both in the government and industry, who do not understand, and are indeed afraid of, new and emerging technologies.

What do you think?

posted 09-11-2001 05:29            

quote:

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Sir: I find your backing of the proposed Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA) utterly horrifying.

Have you stopped to think that while this bill would require all new hardware manufactured to support an entirely new standard of digital media, there is NO provision for backwards compatibility with older media standards - such as CDs, DVDs, etc - that were legally purchased at a prior date? I happen to own several hundred dollars' worth of LEGALLY PURCHASED DVD movies - and one single DVD player. If your bill passes and my DVD player should become damaged, I will never be able to watch my own LEGALLY PURCHASED movies again, because it will be illegal to manufacture or sell a DVD player!

This sort of draconian legislation - "unlawful to manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any interactive digital device that does not include and utilize certified security technologies that adhere to the security systems standards adopted under section 104" - reads like something out of mainland China, not the United States of America. What's next - will photocopiers be outlawed because they do not adhere to "security standards?" Tape recorders? VCRs?

As a registered voter in South Carolina, I beg you to reconsider your sponsorship of this bill, and its implied support of established industry AT THE EXPENSE OF INDIVIDUAL FREEDOMS.

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posted 09-11-2001 05:36            

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