Content Faction v. Tech Faction

An Anonymous reader writes: "This essay describes the current battle between two former allies in the DMCA fight - The Content Faction (Universal, MPAA, etc.) v The Tech Faction (IBM, Microsoft, etc.). It gives a great overview of what the battle is, who is taking what position, what's at stake - and how consumers are going to be taking it in the *** no matter who wins, it's just a matter of how rough it will be. "

Re:An interesting business model....

[mummers]

Sorry, this business model is already being trialed in Northern Ireland with mixed results.

Re:constitutional amendment someday?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shovels should be outlawed, because they can be used to commit horrific bloodshed. Yet, if they were outlawed, only outlaws would own shovels. Those damn gardners are communists anyways, they shouldn't be growing their own food when the capitalists do it safely and for the good of the country.

A bleak future

[Anonymous Coward]

"Back in the nineties, when we bought a movie on video, your grandma and me could watch it as many times as we wanted, without paying for it again each time. We could pause it to get up and get a soda, and we could rewind it if we missed something and it didn't cost no extra to do that."

"Wow, gramps. You mean there were no coin slots on TVs back then?"

"That's right. And if the movie was a dud, we could sell the tape at a garage sale, or give it to a friend, or even just throw it in the trash."

"Weren't you afraid you'd get arrested, grandpa?"

"They didn't arrest people for those things back then, boy. Didn't need no stinking TV license, heck, nobody didn't even have to own a TV if they didn't want to."

"When grandma gets out of prison for muting commercials, can she tell us some stories about the old days too?"

Re:SSSCA and industry revenues' orders of magnitud

[Tackhead]

> I think we need to push three talking points: [two points listed]

Of course, there are three kinds of people in the world. Those who can count, and those who can't.