Critics
Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn testified before the House Judiciary Committee (United States House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property. Oversight Hearing on "Content Protection in the Digital Age: The Broadcast Flag, High-Definition Radio, and the Analog Hole") on November 3. She stated:
"The broad, sweeping draft legislation to close the analog hole suffers from the same problem; it puts the government in the role of making industrial policy, and will severely limit consumers’ ability to make lawful uses of copyrighted content. Like the broadcast flag, the legislation mandates a one-size-fits-all technology that has not been the subject of public or even inter-industry scrutiny. The prohibitions in the legislation would require redesign of a whole range of currently legal consumer devices, including DVD recorders, personal video recorders and camcorders with video inputs. Importantly, the existence of the analog hole has been touted as a "safety valve" for making fair use of digital media products where circumventing the technological locks has been rendered illegal by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Should Congress close that hole without amending the DMCA to protect fair use, consumers' rights to access digital copyrighted works will be eroded even further.
There are better alternatives for protecting digital content than the heavy-handed technology mandates proposed here today. Those alternatives are a multi-pronged approach of consumer education, enforcement of copyright laws and use of technological tools developed in the marketplace, not mandated by government. The recent Grokster decision and the passage of the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, which you spearheaded, Mr. Chairman, are just two of several new tools that the content industry has at its disposal to protect its content."
Read more about this topic: Digital Transition Content Security Act
Famous quotes containing the word critics:
“You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you’re cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.”
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)
“Learn then what morals critics ought to show,
For ‘tis but half a judge’s task, to know.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“My idea is always to reach my generation. The wise writer ... writes for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)