| Hollings is full of it. No, he is just very stupid and/or misled.
The Congress finds:
(1) The lack of high quality digital content continues to hinder consumer adoption of broadband Internet service and digital television products.
This is exactly backwards, and should not be used to justify this bill. It is the lack of broadband Internet service availability which constrains the development and dissemination of high-quality original digital content. Moreover, blessing only the likes of Hollywood production companies with the term "high-quality" is offensive. Countries which develop a real broadband market will notice that a "geocities distributed into households" market in original digital content develops, and that the law of large numbers suggests that some of this content will be high quality (consider the best of geocities in its prime) by anyone's standards except possibly Congress's. That highly revenue-minded organizations might not know how to take advantage of a market of millions of always-on/high-speed-connected urban households in the USA is sad, but it ignores the question: why does such a market not exist? Simple: the iLECs are strangling it off. Perhaps their interests and the Hollywoods' interests dovetail so much that we could see mergers between big content owners and last-mile owners. Then there'd be the fun choice between actively-filtered broadband ("watch all the high quality [as determined by Congress!] digital content you can pay for, and see none of that darned free stuff!") and no broadband at all, on a market-by-market basis. Cooooool! So cool, in fact, that I think that this bill is doomed because it does not go far enough to support exactly that sort of development. Sean.
Stoned koalas drooled eucalyptus spit in awe as Sean M. Doran exclaimed:
Perhaps their interests and the Hollywoods' interests dovetail so much that we could see mergers between big content owners and last-mile owners. Then there'd be the fun choice between actively-filtered broadband ("watch all the high quality [as determined by Congress!] digital content you can pay for, and see none of that darned free stuff!") and no broadband at all, on a market-by-market basis. Cooooool!
"Hollings' solution, backed by Disney, would modify personal computers to block piracy. At the hearing, an Intel executive said that Disney wanted to dictate how computers would be designed, crippling their functionality." Source: http://www.commweb.com/article/IWK20020321S0022 I should've known that Disney had a hand in this somewhere. I wonder how much they paid him?
So cool, in fact, that I think that this bill is doomed because it does not go far enough to support exactly that sort of development.
What I would like to know is, in the unlikely event that this bill passed, how is it supposed to be implemented? Particularly among the free software community, which most likely wouldn't have the resources to implement this in the timeline specified in this bill. Also, unless I have missed something, the term "digital content" doesn't seem very well defined. Does this mean that my personal, non-profit web site is "digital content?" It's painfully obvious that Mister Hollings is completely ignorant of the very technology he is attempting to legislate. How do we, as network operators, fit into the picture? Must we ensure that our customers use only approved hardware and software? If we have to make upgrades to our infrastructure, who is going to foot the bill? I suppose that Hollings doesn't know that spare cash is getting harder and harder to find in this sector. This isn't the first time that Hollings has shown his ignorance. Remember the SSSCA? http://cryptome.org/sssca.htm What a waste of skin. Jeff -- Jeff Workman | jworkman@pimpworks.org | http://www.pimpworks.org
So cool, in fact, that I think that this bill is doomed because it does not go far enough to support exactly that sort of development.
What I would like to know is, in the unlikely event that this bill passed, how is it supposed to be implemented? Particularly among the free software community, which most likely wouldn't have the resources to implement this in the timeline specified in this bill.
Which should make us suspicious that MS is involved someplace, as well. Russ (not representing cisco, of course) __________________________________ riw@cisco.com CCIE <>< Grace Alone
On Sat, Mar 23, 2002 at 07:17:55AM -0500, Russ White wrote:
Which should make us suspicious that MS is involved someplace, as well.
Microsoft is involved -- but on the other side. Steve Ballmer was one of the CEOs who signed a letter opposing Hollings' approach. See: http://www.politechbot.com/p-03195.html -Declan
On Fri, 22 Mar 2002, Sean M. Doran wrote:
| Hollings is full of it.
No, he is just very stupid and/or misled.
The unfortunate thing for us all is that these poor ignorant, misled, or simply greedy individuals are the ones making the laws. What's worse is that the ignorant, uncaring, or simply slack-jawed populace continues to reelect these individuals. :-( /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ Patrick Greenwell Asking the wrong questions is the leading cause of wrong answers \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
participants (5)
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Declan McCullagh -
Jeff Workman -
Patrick -
Russ White -
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