i'm sure most of you have at least heard about the Digital Millenium Copyrright Act (DMCA). the issue at hand is a set of proposed amendments to the DMCA. among other things, the new version of the act, if passed, would include these two three glaringly fucked up laws:

1: violation of the DMCA is punishable by up to 10 years in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
2: owning a device which could be used to violate copyright protections are illegal and in violation. i'm pretty sure this includes your VCR, especially if you have two of them hooked up together, but certainly your computer if you have iTunes installed.
3: publishing flaws in security/hacks is in violation of the DMCA, such that if i find a vulnerability in Windows, publishing my findings would now be a federal offense. publishing these flaws is a fundamental aspect of how our present security system works. people find bugs, notify the vendor, publish their findings, and companies rush to fix the problem.

these penalties are ridiculous. another problem with this bill is that it calls to allocate $2,000,000,000 to the FBI for funding of a new anti-piracy division.

i'm very afraid that this is going to go through. we need to do something about it! i'm posting this to urge you to contact your senators and tell them what you think of this bill. if you like legally being able to buy a cd, rip it to iTunes and put it on your iPod so you can listen to it at the gym, your right to do that is being threatened! that's fucked up!

to put this in perspective:

DMCA violation        10 years
Rape                   7 years
Child Pornography      7 years
Aggravated Assault     6 years
Shoplifting a CD       misdemeanor

www.congress.org has all of the information you need to contact your senator. simply give him a call, say that you wish to express an opinion on the DMCA and then tell them what you think. for both of my senators, it took a grand total of 7 minutes. if you're reading myspace bulletins, then you probably have enough time to go do this right now. if you don't like the phone, www.congress.org offers a free service where you type a letter to your senator and they will print it and hand fucking deliver it to him (or her). aight? you're out of excuses. please go do this.

further reading:

www.eff.org - Electronic Frontier Foundation
www.ipaction.org - Information Policy Action Committee