I guess what bothers me the most is that it appears we have gone from buying the hardware, software, and being the legal owners, to only being a lease holder, allowing the true owner, "Micro$oft" to dictate what we can do with their property. I forsee in the future further erosion of our rights due to a totally paranoid industry with little brains, but deep pockets. The DMCA takes away our fundamental right to back-up a copy of a game/CD/DVD because they feel that we MAY due something illegal with it. Well, I may due something illegal with a pen, knife, gun, saw, camera, my hand... But in these cases, I only get in trouble after I did a crime. If certain organizations did more to procecute individuals (such as the RIAA is doing) then the DMCA becomes unnecessary due to stronger enforcement of the law.

Envision what may follow: Designers of cloths suing us when we cut the jeans into shorts, an unauthorized modification, a motor car company mandating that we keep the rims and colors they deem appropriate on the car we bought, so it doesn't detract from their professional appearance, publishers of books allowing to learn from the material, but prohibit teaching others what we learned, thereby possibly denying them a chance to sell more books. When will we have to pay additional licensing when my kids invite friends over to watch a movie? What if the VCR or DVD mandates a connection to the internet, and pay an additional "usage" fee for waching a movie over a limited number of times. The music industry is already moving in this direction! Look at some of the music sharing sites that mandate a $10 monthly payment "subscription", but failure to keep up the payment, revolkes use of all songs you downloaded.

Once we give up ownership of what we buy, there is no telling where it may go. I in no way advocate piracy in any form. I love my Linux, free to all, and avoid paying for the privelege to use crap. I also strongly advocate keeping our rights as consumers, even as we are forced to give up our rights as citizens to the regime in Washington.

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Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/articles/4580/19922#19922