Here's an article about the Tennessee SDMCA fight. (The Texas SDMCA bill, SB1116, failed to pass during the legislative session just ended, thanks to the persistent efforts of EFF-Austin's Adina Levin, who'll have more to say shortly). The MPAA lobbyists are famous for quotes like this one from Van Stevenson in Tennessee: "Neither the cable companies nor the MPAA would ever attempt to outlaw legitimate consumer devices. That's just absurd." If that's the case, why does the MPAA resist attempts to revise the bill so that it's specific to the case they say they want to address? Given the legal and lobbying expertise the MPAA can and does pay for, we can't believe that the bill is accidentally vague and overreaching. [Link]

"As originally worded, the bill was so broad and vague that every citizen who legally used a communications service would've been in violation of the law," says Scott Kozicki, chairman of the Tennessee Digital Freedom Network (www.tndf.net), an ad hoc group formed to fight the legislation. (Thanks again to eagle-eyed Tom Morin for the pointer to this story.)

The bill would even make it illegal to connect your Internet service to a home network without the explicit permission of Comcast or whoever else provides your Internet service, says Luke Kanies, a local Unix consultant. In fact, you could be fined up to $10,000 a day for every device Comcast hasn't explicitly authorized, including MP3 players and even speakers and monitors, Kanies maintains.

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