And we thought the Fritz bill was bad

Could Hollywood hack your PC?

Congress is about to consider an entertainment industry proposal that would authorize copyright holders to disable PCs used for illicit file trading. A draft bill seen by CNET News.com marks the boldest political effort to date by record labels and movie studios to disrupt peer-to-peer networks that they view as an increasingly dire threat to their bottom line.

I can just hear the media execs screaming, "Stop this techie world, we want off! No, better still, give us control."

Jerry Pournelle perchance says it best in The DRM Abyss:

The conflict between what Fritz Hollings and the people who run him want, and what Microsoft's customers want, is creating another. There are lots of people out there who think they know where all this is going. I doubt they have more or better information sources than I do: And I freely admit I don't know what's going to happen. It's not too late for Microsoft to step back from this abyss. I sure hope they think it over and decide to go another way. Microsoft did very well under its old policies. Giving the bean counters their way with customer-hostile policies is often the first sign of a slow slide to a fast collapse.

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Jerry is writing primarily about Palladium and all of Microsoft's efforts toward "security," but his references to Fritz are aimed directly at legislation designed to "protect" intellectual property rights. Only these bills don't protect those rights. They ensure that a large conglomerate from who knows where controls such property. Meanwhile, the author, the original creator/artist/craftsman, is locked out with the rest of us.