Unwise Hollywood laws hurting U.S. industry

The world plainly needs UNCRIPPLED TV's, VCR's, DVR's, COMPUTERS, CELL PHONES, and AUDIO/VIDEO players. Hollywood has been using its huge WAR CHEST to influence unwise legislation preventing U.S. companies from creating these needed products. If the U.S. cannot create them, then other countries will soon DOMINATE the prized, and strategic High-Tech computer, audio/video, and telecommunications electronics industries. There are also military and national security implications to this negative outcome.

Once we lose these prized markets, we may never be able to regain them. Not only because the leaders in these industries have enormous trend-setting powers, and patent profit advantages, but also because other countries play by different rules than we do. They do not share their technology as eagerly as we do. This is because we export many of our manufacturing and assembly jobs to other countries, who use our wage disparity to gain technology access. If we want our High-Tech products assembled in China, then we have to share our technology with them. But the reverse is NOT true. Once other countries take-the-lead, the sharing stops. They have already taken over hundreds of High-Tech industries, including those that make most cell phones, cameras, radios, computer Motherboards, memory modules, and other computer support chips. We have no hope of bringing these technologies back under U.S. control. We still have a small lead in many technology industries, but that will soon change, if Hollywood has it's way.

The Music Industry, Hollywood, and Microsoft want to believe that if you have a large enough WAR CHEST you can actually cause Congress to hold back the hands-of-time! History wisely taught us that the manufacturers of BUGGY WHIPS took a real beating, (pun intended) when the automobile was invented. Congress didn't, and shouldn't have created laws to impede the progress of automobile manufacturing. Instead, the leather works companies that had been making buggy whips, began to retool, and adapted to make leather upholstery for the newly popular automobiles, which made them even more money than before. Those companies who failed to adapt soon found themselves out-of-touch with the evolving marketplace and suffered financially.

The Music Industry, and Hollywood are acting like spoiled little children. They are whining and begging Congress to halt the wheels-of-progress so they will not have to adapt to the evolving markets. They have also enlisted the help of Microsoft to design an elaborate, complex, and impractical software system named Vista, to CRIPPLE the personal computers that they so desperately fear. If they would embrace technology, and stop clinging hopelessly to their outdated marketing strategies, they would soon realize that there is plenty of money to be made WITHOUT CRIPPLING new technology. Hollywood needn't fear the future, because adapted marketing strategies will automatically define themselves!

All technology devices are converging into broadband Internet connected gadgets that will access their media "On-Demand". It is foolish to worry about the SAVING, or SHARING of media, since soon it will be so widely available that it will seem unthinkable to save your own copy, when you can instantly access it again On-Demand any time you like. You will have such a huge selection of widely diverse On-Demand media to choose from, that individual collections will seem unwieldy, and tiresome to create or maintain.

All broadband customers already pay their service providers a monthly fee, so all that remains is for industry to see that a PIECE of that access fee is apportioned to the proper Copyright Holder linearly proportional to the bandwidth-time used to convey that “On-Demand Copyrighted Work”. With this simple, elegant, system in-place, the self adjusting price rules of supply and demand are maintained, everyone is happy, and everyone makes money. All parties concerned, are proportionately compensated according to the popularity and success of their contributions to the new entertainment industry.

It is obvious, and inevitable, that this solution to the media and copyright controversy will ultimately prevail. The Music Industry, Hollywood, and Congress will eventually be forced to see the wisdom of this elegant solution. It is the only way that the free market economy will be allowed to thrive, and it will ensure that no-one is motivated to fear or retard the development of new ideas or technologies. I have given this issue considerable thought, and I have come to the inescapable conclusion that the problem with Hollywood, Microsoft, and the Music Industry is that they believe they can actually force the world to continue buying and selling BUGGY WHIPS.

Congress has already passed the horrific DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) which violates countless judicially established policies and fair-use principles that have been RESPECTED for GENERATIONS. The DMCA law is already being widely abused to punish innovators and developers of new technology across the land. Their are hundreds of cases where the DMCA has been abused to harass and unfairly persecute innocent innovators. This law is way too strong, in its language, and far to easy to use as a persecution tool. It's abusers unjustly wield this law in a “Guilty-'Til-Proven- Innocent” fashion to freeze-up High-Tech businesses, often until they go bankrupt. Many High-Tech companies have been forced to move overseas to avoid frivolous persecution by this unreasonable, short-sighted law. If the DMCA is not revised to pull some of its teeth, or if new laws being demanded by Hollywood are added, then eventually ALL High-Tech commerce will be driven out of our HOSTILE U.S. environment, and into the hands of our foreign competitors.

More than 90 percent of the people in the United States are HONEST law abiding citizens, who would never dream of abusing technology to illegally propagate copyrighted material. Those dishonest citizens who would already break the existing laws will obviously break any additional laws that are passed, so MORE LAWS are not going to help anyone. These facts, combined with the knowledge that soon all media will be streamed On-Demand where its royalties are paid automatically, make these punitive short-sighted laws requested by Hollywood and the Music Industry seem foolish at best, and quite possibly dangerous to our future well-being and national security.