To Sam Heywood, Roger Turk and possibly others, I'm surprised you didn't hear of DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) until recently. It's not all that new, was passed and signed under Bill Clinton's presidency. FBI arrested a Russian, Dmitri Sklaryov, and the government pressed charges against him and Elcomsoft for violation of the DMCA after Dmitri Sklaryov wrote a program to get around the copy protection on Adobe's e-books. There was the issue of fair use. Russia had no laws against what Dmitri Sklaryov and Elcomsoft did.
On the TCPA, this proposed law, if passed, will make people hold on to their computers and not buy any new TCPA-compliant equipment until they really have to. More computer users will use already existing computing equipment, and it will become more difficult to sell new computers, though if the TCPA passes, there could be a run on new computers just prior to when the TCPA would become effective. Also, computing equipment would be manufactured to two standards: USA and rest of the world. I think most computing equipment is manufactured not in the USA but in eastern Asia?
