IP Democracy: Congress Pressing "Fair Use" on Entertainment Industry

Sarah Lai Stirland has a piece in the National Journal’s Tech Daily about Hollywood’s failure to push anti-piracy schemes through Congress without a special exemption for “fair use” of copyrighted content. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX) has insisted that any such measures must be accompanied by legislation that would clarify consumers’ fair use rights to copy protected materials for non-commercial, private uses.

Barton introduced a bill, H.R. 1201, that would require companies to warn consumers if compact discs are sold with anti-piracy technologies that would affect those rights. The bill, which Hollywood and the recording industry oppose, would also amend the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act to state that bypassing copy protection mechanisms would be legal if consumers did it to exercise their fair use rights.

Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) the primary sponsor of H.R. 1201, also sits on the Judiciary Committee, which will hold hearings on November 3 on Hollywood’s pursuit of a broadcast flag protection requirement for digital video content.

Update: EFF links to a revival of Hollywood’s bid to plug the “analog hole” which covers devices designed to convert analog content into digital content. In a proposal for the hearing on Thursday, the MPAA has prepared legislative language that would impose regulation of analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), generic computing components found in scientific, medical and entertainment devices. Basically, every ADC will be controlled by a chip that will shut it down if it is asked to assist in converting copyrighted material.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on November 1, 2005 9:31 AM to IP Democracy