The Null Device

More Recording Racket perfidy: now they want the right to delete your MP3s with legal impunity; and to whit, their lobbyists have appended a rider to this effect to "anti-terrorist" legislation.

"It could lead to some really bad outcomes, like a program purposefully intended to delete MP3s that misfunctions and erases everything on a disk -- ooops," says Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "Think a repo man smashing windows and knocking down doors to pull out the 27-inch color TV when you've missed a couple of payments."

So keeping MP3s of ripped CDs is now a form of terrorism against the US economy (through the copyright industry; and we all know that what's good for the megacorporations is good for everyone, don't we, kids?), but breaking into people's Windows machines through backdoors in "secure" players and deleting their MP3s is perfectly justified? Go figure.

Mind you, the RIAA's amendment has apparently not made it through and been dropped; though it's the thought that counts. And it's a pretty fucking scary thought too.

There are no comments yet on ""