Wednesday, November 17, 2004

New bill before Senate would outlaw fast-forwarding through commercials

The lame-duck session of Congress has a nasty copyright bill under consideration that would make it illegal to fast-forward through the ads and previews on movie DVDs via hardware or software. So you don't have to worry about the cops busting down your door to break your remote's FFWD button...yet. But It's not much of a stretch to think that if this bill becomes law, sooner rather than later it will be illegal to fast-forward through commercials on your TiVo or DVR. Wired has a less-biased but still informative take on the story, and you can read all the gory details at publicknowledge.org. I don't usually send letters or faxes to my congressional representatives, but this might be a good time to take action. The publicknowledge site has a link to e-mail your rep. There is an excellent chance that if the bill passes its provisions will be tied up in lawsuits for years (like the various Internet indecency laws passed in the 1990s) but why let things get that far?

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