Boucher's DMCRA To Get A Hearing

Found on Slashdot on Saturday, 08 May 2004
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It's been a long road since Slashdot first carried the story that Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) was speaking out about the DMCA's trampling of fair-use rights. Well, his bill (HR 107) gets a hearing this Wednesday and the multi-billion-dollar music and movie industries have called out their Big Guns to stop it. This morning an urgent message from the Professional Photographers of America arrived in my inbox characterizing Boucher's bill as 'A bill that would make it impossible for photographers to protect their work' and other lies (apparently, the RIAA and MPAA have recruited the PPA into their Axis of Evil). The alert finishes by saying that 'a strong grassroots effort combined with [our] recent lobbying efforts should be enough to keep this harmful bill locked in the subcommittee ... until Congress adjourns.' Let's give these folks a little taste of the slashdot effect and do a little 'grassroots' contacting of congresscritters ourselves.

The industry has its fingers everywhere. By influencing other groups, they try to turn proposals which seem to be dangerous to them. Despite their countless efforts and lawsuits, I am confident that they will lose in the end. The industry cannot force consumers to comply to their greedy wills.