Oh, goodie! The FBI is creating little fed hit squads to go after them hackers and copyright violators! I'm sure that will put one hell of a dent in most of the copying that goes on, aren't you? They'll be able to disband the SPA, because they won't need their independent police force; the software manufacturers can just use ours!
The Register is surprised but relieved that Ashcroft didn't trot out the "evil pedophiles online" defense; I suspect he didn't purely because he knew it wouldn't make him any friends with that lot; they already know better than to believe that rhetoric. (That said, if he felt that his speech would get any play outside the geekerati, you can bet that he'd have been trumpeting the "lets get the online perverts!" tune loud and clear.)
And purely as a side note ... Ashcroft concerned about software that violates civil liberties. Um. Yeah. Sure. Right. Whatever you say, Mr Atty General.
In the meantime, European media companies are pressing their governments to slap fees and fines on any piece of equipment that could conceivably be used to facilitate copyright violations or to benefit from the results thereof. Including PCs. They're pressing manufacturers to include digital protections that the consumers don't want for a variety of reasons, not including the ability to make illegal copies. They don't even like the concept that you can make legal private copies.
I suppose at some point, this copyright mess will be worked out. I would expect, frankly, that first the companies will sneak in digital protections that someone will discover only when they're trying to do something normally considered legal, and it doesn't work.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
Search entries:
12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!