+ 10 - 11 | § ¶"Incidental" copies of media
Big business wants you to pay full licensing fees for "incidental" copies of media - this means, even if you legally own an MP3, if you happen to copy/paste it or it gets cached or so forth, you'd be legally liable. Listening to an online radio station and the program automatically creates a temporary cache? Again, you'd be liable. Put shortly, this is one of the worst bills to face Congress in awhile (and that's really saying something). It's before some subcommittee right now, and if any of the folks on the list happen to be your Congress-critter I highly encourage you to let them know how you feel about this.Some brief analysis so this merits a frontpage entry: as ridiculous as this is, it's also esoteric enough (technologically, that is: most people don't understand and don't care about what a "cache" is) that it could slip under the radar. If it does, I doubt it will be stringently enforced, firstly because it'd be impossible to do so and secondly because any attempt to do so would result in people becoming quite upset. So instead of unilateral enforcement, expect to see this as one of those things that's just piled on to the list of charges that undesirables already get in this country.
It's really a sad state of affairs when so many laws are essentially arbitrary clubs to be used by law enforcement and the government as they see fit. If you're already identified as a target of the government for whatever reason (good or bad, either way this method is wrong), you're susceptible to incredibly increased enforcement of laws and instrustion into your life. In short, this country is no longer about "equal protection under the law" - the inverse of this situation is also true, as government officials (all the way up the spectrum) tend to treat themselves and their actions as being above the law.
Admittedly this thinking is somewhat tangential to this particular law, but I think it's a pretty good example of what I'm talking about. Laws are no longer about the good of society and are instead about the good of whoever has the ear of the lawmakers (usually folks with money). Just another lesson for why, while pure communism doesn't work, capitalism isn't always so hot either...