Congress is working on the passage of HR2391, a clusterfuck of laws if there ever was one. Wired News has a better synopisis of various components of this bad legislation, but I was struck by this comment:
The bill would also permit people to use technology to skip objectionable content... in films, a right that consumers already have. However, under the proposed law, skipping any commercials or promotional announcements would be prohibited.
Soon they'll have us strapped to our seats with eye spreaders, ala Clockwork Orange.
Think about this if you will. This would mean that every time your kid drops in Sponge Bob and fast-forwards to his favorite part, you are liable and vulnerable to prosecution.
Add a few other questions I have:
Can advertisers really force us to watch and/or listen to commercials and promos? How would this be enforced? What element of society suffers when this enforcement goes into effect and real flesh & blood people are given authority (and paychecks) to keep us in line? Will we be forced to give up our current DVD players to be replaced with units that have no FF feature? Will we no longer be able to listen to samples of music before we buy it? How much red tape will be required to post a simple audio or video link to a website? Businesses that play the radio during business hours would be in serious trouble. TV sections of stores could not air programing to demonstrate TV sets and audio stores could not play music to demonstrate stereos without a license agreement with the copyright holder. Let your mind run wild, this is huge.
I thoroughly acknowledge that I am blowing this out of proportion to some extent, and that it is unlikely that it could ever reach a point of cops banging on your door the next time you skip the movie trailer for "Seed of Chucky", but damn! Where will all this lead?