On Thu, Jul 18, 2002 at 07:45:26PM -0700, jamesd@echeque.com wrote:

In the end, the camel has to be wholly in the tent, with programmer licensing, a ban on the sale of new general purpose computers to unauthorized people, (expect a spate of television shows with demonic computer salemen whose lust for profit empowers international terrorists) and a ban on unauthorized possession of programming tools, or else the camel has to be wholly out of the tent, meaning a free hand to break such inconveniences as regional encoding on DVDs.

I hate to inject my silly voice into such august debate, but it is both possible and there is precedent (in respect to other consumer electronic gear) for legislating restrictions on consumer PCs in the hands of the general public without controlling or restricting PCs used for business, commercial, scientific, or technical purposes. Thus the pro-DRM argument that says that DRM will never be legislated because of the magnitude of the impact to the economy conveniantly ignores the possibility of a bill that restricts new PCs sold for home use by ordinary consumers but allows all the computers in the business economy to function without TCPA or DRM if they choose. This would, of course, satisfy almost all the content cartels realistic needs and would only force consumers to upgrade to the closed boxes if they wanted the new content, not force wholesale replacements of offices full of PCs. And yet it could result in a world in which it was illegal to offer software or hardware to the general public that was not DRM'd or allow the general public complete access to their networked machines even for personal use only. -- Dave Emery N1PRE, die@die.com DIE Consulting, Weston, Mass. PGP fingerprint = 2047/4D7B08D1 DE 6E E1 CC 1F 1D 96 E2 5D 27 BD B0 24 88 C3 18