Dragon: A Parable

The most damning thing I learned about Tom DeLay from this article (in a conservative rag, no less) was how he used the DMCA as a bargaining chip:

The following year, DeLay tried to block a major trade association, the Electronics Industry Alliance (EIA), from hiring a former Democratic congressman, Dave McCurdy, as its president. When the EIA refused to cut McCurdy loose, DeLay pulled an "I want him dead!" maneuver, removing from the House calendar a major bill backed by the EIA: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which protected intellectual property on the Internet from theft in cyberspace. It was a good, necessary, noncontroversial bill[1], and it needed only a final House vote and the president's signature to become law. Still, the EIA would not back down, and neither would DeLay. When the posturing ended, the EIA hired two GOP lobbyists - a prominent House staffer and Bob Walker, DeLay's onetime adversary for whip - and McCurdy stayed on. Only then did DeLay allow the bill to pass the House.

Son of a bitch.

[1] You know, with that in there, I probably didn't need to include the parenthetical comment about it being from a conservative rag. I could make some glib comment about not trusting people over 30, but there are now folks that old who have been around computers all their life (I'm not quite there yet, but there's been a computer in my house for as long as I can remember, at least since I was 3), and most such folks know better than to support the DMCA.

Recently, an RIAA committee hearing about why we need new laws stifling free expression to encourage creativity (specifically regarding the "Broadcast Flag") took a turn for the better after the committee chair spoke up about his new iPod. Seems he wanted to know if he could listen to songs and shows recorded from the radio on his iPod if the proposed "audio flag" was let through. With that question, the 82-year-old Senator cut through the technobabble and the RIAA guy was *not* happy by this change in procedure.

Well, EFF wrote an article about the hearing and it ended with this line: And God help the broadcast flag-makers if someone buys Senator Stevens a video iPod. My comment when I read about it in a friend's blog was, someone ought to sent up a fund to do just that. Enter iPac:


I ended up giving 1/16th of an iPod, around $20. Damn, it makes me glad when people do my ideas for me, organizing it myself is too much effort ;P.

In response to a comment on the likelyhood of there being lawsuits, I e-mailed the EFF to ask if they were looking into doing something like that. Here's the response:

Thanks for contacting us about Sony's Rootkit. Many people have written to us about the program--so please be assured that we are monitoring the issue. Please see the recent DeepLink on our site about the matter and watch our site for updates. I do know that one group in Italy is bringing a suit in this matter and that other US firms are very interesting in pursuing it as well.

So we'll see what happens.