[vorbis] Re: CBDTPA (moved to [advocacy])

Thu Mar 28 08:30:38 PST 2002

Write your senators! HEre's what I sent all my customers and freinds:

I encourage you to visit the following WWW site:
http://www.vanshardware.com/articles/2002/03/020325_CBDTPA/020325_CBDTPA.htm 

which references the following articles at wired.com:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51274,00.html 

Related article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-869902.html

Then visit your Senator in your home state to express your views.
http://www.senate.gov/senators/senator_by_state.cfm
All Senators have a "contact us" link which will allow you to send them
your views.

Here's what I wrote to my Senators in Oregon. Please feel free to use it
as a BASIC outline of your response. Please don't copy it verbatim... Read
the articles above... formulate your own ideas... and let your Senators
know. 

Then... forward this message to your friends / colleagues after removing
my email address and name from it. Spread the word so our Law makers
understand and kill this ACT before it even gets off the ground!

---My letter--- 
Re: CBDTPA (Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act)

As a registered Voter in your state; Please vote against this ACT in ALL
FORMS.

The government has no right or business to dictate who/what/how I install
software in my computer. COPY PROTECTION is not a right of the copyright
holder when it is allowed to invade my personal privacy.

Don't allow big corporations / associations to dictate the laws of our
government. Government should cater to the INDIVIDUAL citizen... NOT LARGE
CORPs. Nothing in this ACT protects the citizen... it only hinders them
and give said cIrporations untold power in preventing competition and free
will.

I invite you to examine the following link:
http://www.vanshardware.com/articles/2002/03/020325_CBDTPA/020325_CBDTPA.htm
While the author is likely very biased; he does shed some light on the
issues surrounding this ACT.

John Zitterkopf

<p><p>              EE's do it 'til it Hz 8-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~John D. Zitterkopf~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
zitt at bigfoot.com           http://www.zittware.com
_____________________________________________________________________
Under US Code Title 47, Sec.227(b)(1)(C), Sec.227(a)(2)(B)These email 
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On Thu, 28 Mar 2002, Moritz Grimm wrote:

> > > who cares what the Americans do in their country ? The Chinese and many
> > > other dont care at all, and we Europeans will start to do so very soon....
> > > at least if this shit would ever pass US Senate.
> > Don't count on it. Europe becomes more USA-ish every day and USA clobber
> > every state who don't "respect" their business model. I hope not, but I
> 
> Hm, this is getting way off-topic. This act is no law, so it's not too
> late yet. The link to the article has a good rant already, so there's no
> need to repeat everything in there. We also don't need that "my country
> leet, USA suxx" crap, which appears to be trendy among some people these
> days. Apart from that, this is more of an advocacy issue, so please
> reply on the advocacy list.
> 
> I hoped that someone, who understands American law better than I do,
> could tie the connection to Ogg Vorbis and explain what would have to be
> done to be able to continue developement the way the developers wish.
> 
> I've been phantasizing a bit about a worst case scenario, where Xiph (as
> a corporation, not necessarily Monty and/or Jack personally) could
> officially move to Canada or the Netherlands to Segher or whatever, so
> Ogg Vorbis is not an American product anymore ... tricks like that might
> work. Doing so would be annoying, but little more, I guess.
> 
> But what will happen afterwards ... may no American use Ogg Vorbis
> anymore then? What about the hardware support, where Ogg still needs to
> improve a lot? Btw, what's up with MP3? The format itself also has no
> copyprotection scheme. Wouldn't that Act break all MP3 consumer
> electronics that were built until now? What will happen to mp3.com? Will
> they rename themselves to lqa.com (surely not, because MP3 is their
> business and identity - they can't even switch to, or support Ogg)? 
> 
> Obtw, here's a link for the lazy:
> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=CBDTPA&btnG=Google+Search
> Interesting, the SSSCA and the CBDTPA are the same, except that the
> CBDTPA is no draft anymore.
> 
> Regarding Ogg, the FUD involved with this Act hurts the most. Not only
> that all, who have the power (all American citizens), should actively do
> something against this bill, we should also think of being able to
> explain the usefulness and legality of Ogg Vorbis, should this bill
> become a law.
> 
> All competition of Ogg Vorbis has more financial power to deal with the
> CBDTPA, be it lobbying against it or simply paying for incorporating
> these hilarious copyprotection mechanisms. The open source community has
> to deal with it in different ways - it can't bribe politicians with
> donations for their election campaigns like the big companies, it/we
> need good arguments and the ability to adapt if things go the bad way.
> 
> One last thing about Europe, i.e. Germany - our government will run
> Linux on all its servers, beginning this year. This gives quite some
> security, since they wouldn't make the stuff on their own servers
> illegal. We'd also vote against any EU law that'd try to be like the
> CBDTPA. I also heard that the army in the Netherlands uses Linux and
> propably a lot more official institutions in other countries. So, fellow
> Europeans, no need to panic - but we SHOULD care anyways, since our
> favorite audio codec might be strongly affected by this madness.
> 
> 
> Moritz
> 
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