RIAA turns against Hollings bill

[Will A. Rodger]

Nomen said:
> How does this latest development change the picture?  If there is no
> Hollings bill, does this mean that Trusted Computing will be voluntary,
> as its proponents have always claimed?  And if we no longer have such
> a threat of a mandated Trusted Computing technology, how bad is it for
> the system to be offered in a free market?

John Gilmore replied:

>The detailed RIAA statement tries to leave exactly this impression,
>but it's the usual smokescreen.  Check the sentence in their "7 policy
>principles" joint statement, principle 6:

  "...  The role of government, if needed at all, should be limited to
   enforcing compliance with voluntarily developed functional
   specifications reflecting consensus among affected interests."

>I.e. it's the same old game.  TCPA is such a voluntarily developed
>functional spec.  So is the "broadcast flag", and the HDCP copy
>protection of your video cable, and IBM's copy-protection for hard
>disk drives.  Everything is all voluntary, until some competitor
>reverse engineers one of these, and builds a product that lets the
>information get out of the little "consensus" boxes.  Consumers want
>that, but it can't be allowed to happen.  THEN the role of government
>is to eliminate that competitor by outlawing them and their product.

This is exactly correct. Wonks on both sides in DC been drawing this 
distinction quite clearly for some time. Yesterday's RIAA "concession" is 
in fact, reiteration of their established position. The only thing 
different today is MPAA now seems even further outside the mainstream of 
American legal tradition.

Will Rodger
Director Public Policy
CCIA
www.ccianet.org

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