Bush Signs Law Urging Citizens To Censor At Home
from Yahoo! News

"WASHINGTON - President Bush on Wednesday signed legislation aimed at helping parents keep their children from seeing sex scenes, violence and foul language in movie DVDs."

The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act is the kind of bill that you think Hollywood would be fighting tooth and nail. A law which lets someone edit a DVD to suit their tastes? Isn't this censorship? So why aren't the big movie conglomerates crying foul?
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"In a nod to the studios, the legislation contains crackdowns on copyright infringement by explicitly providing no legal protections for those companies that sell copies of the edited movies, creating new penalties for criminals who use small videocameras to record copies of first-run films in movie theaters, and setting tough penalties for anyone caught distributing a movie or song prior to its commercial release."

Oh, I get it. In return for the government allowing censorship of their product, Hollywood is going to let the same fedcensorthugs go and hunt down anyone, heavily fine, and put in prison anyone who dares to take an interest in their product but does not shell out the money for a digitally- watermarked copy.

The entertainment industry is reeling from the financial losses of not embracing new methods of distribution, and their response is to sue their customers??? These businesses that once made huge profits selling us C&C Music Factory cassette singles are quaking in their boots because the workers now can own the means of media production. Instead of sitting like passive sheep watching or listening to their middle of the road drivel, the workers can make their own. I am no longer watching TV, seeing many movies, or buying much music, partially because everything out now sucks, and this witch hunt conducted upon the consumers is making me even less interested in supporting the distributors of said material. The whole entertainment industry paradigm as it existed in the 20th century is going to come crashing down, and if there is any justice, poor Tom Cruise won't be able to make $25 million for a few month's work any longer. I hope that some alternate forms of distribution of entertainment made by and for the workers without any Hollywood middlemen comes about, but if awiggins' recent article on Nikon's digital cameras is any indication, if I don't have the right to edit the pictures I have taken on my own goddamn camera, then the govenentertainment will soon put a stop to any unlicensed creativity.

posted by santo26 | 02:51 PM