I have a news analysis up at News.com that, perhaps, may shed some light on what's actually going on: http://news.com.com/2100-1023-980671.html
-Declan On Wed, Jan 15, 2003 at 01:25:01AM +0100, Nomen Nescio wrote: > The New York Times is reporting at > http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/14/technology/14CND-PIRACY.html that > the Recording Industry Association of America, along with two computer > and technology industry trade groups, has agreed not to seek new > government regulations to mandate technological controls for copyright > protection. This appears to refer primarily to the Hollings bill, > the CBDTPA, which had already been struck a blow when Hollings lost his > committee chairmanship due to the Democrats losing Senate leadership. > Most observers see this latest step as being the last nail in the coffin > for the CBDTPA. > > Some months ago there were those who were predicting that Trusted > Computing technology, as embodied in the TCPA and Palladium proposals, > would be mandated by the Hollings bill. They said that all this talk of > "voluntary" implementations was just a smoke screen while the players > worked behind the scenes to pass laws that would mandate TCPA and > Palladium in their most restrictive forms. It was said that Linux would > be banned, that computers would no longer be able to run software that > we can use today. We would cease to be the real owners of our computers, > others would be "root" on them. A whole host of calamaties were forecast. [...]
