More Copyright Wars

While I'm quite cognizant of the need to protect original works for the artist, the entertainment industry bears watching. The Motion Picture Association of America has been sponsoring a bill called the Intellectual Property Protection Act. Among it's provisions, as pointed out by Matthew Yglesias, was a fast-forwarding ban. Yep, no more fast-forwarding through commercials, though it would allow some limited fast-forwarding through "objectionable parts" of the movie itself.



Hmm. . . so what is the 'creative content' they're really trying to protect here?



Fortunately, the latest news indicates that the bill actually passed was the less egregious Senate version found here. Key quote:

"The bill preserves the rights of consumers to use devices like ClearPlay, which employs technology that attempts to make movies "family friendly" by automatically skipping over violence and sexual situations on-screen. Language that could have prevented the use of this technology to skip commercials was taken out."

Okay, but for how long? Can we say 'police state'?