Today An Orange Grove, Tomorrow The World
by Sean Carolan

I've pulled this anecdote out in the past to illustrate how a determined corporation can get what they want by acting patiently, attracting virtually no attention until it's too late. Yes, it has to do with music, though it has as much to do with movies, television, plays, books, and just about any other creative work you'd consider publishing.

In the early-to-mid sixties, orange grove owners in central Florida began to get offers for their land - not for any great sum, mind you, and not in any way that would have seemed suspicious. Most of these growers were fairly desperate for cash, and sold their land for as little as $200 an acre.

Before anyone could react (pro or con) all the small companies that bought these groves revealed themselves to be agents of the Walt Disney Company; in fact, back then, they were in the employ of Walt himself. He reasoned, rightly, that if the whiff of his involvement were to air publicly, land values would shoot up in anticipation of some potential Disneyland-like tourist attraction (which was, in fact, his goal.)

Nobody paid much attention to local folks who kind of liked the sleepy central-Florida lifestyle that evaporated as soon as Walt Disney World opened up.

Now then, keep that in mind, metaphorically speaking, as I explain a proposed law: the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act.

Even if you managed to stay awake reading the title, you're probably thinking, "What's so bad about that? It's a law about security systems, right? Someone thinks they should have standards, and some kind of certification, right? Great, now where's my grilled cheese?"

Well, no. Y'see, the systems the law is trying to get secured is ... well ...

...every piece of electronics in your home.

Still want that grilled cheese?

If the law passes, every computer, CD player, DVD player, TV, etc., etc., will have to have a standard piece of software on it, decided on by the government, that will look for and enforce violations of copyright protection. That includes a computer you build and write the software for yourself.

It's a bit like having to invite the police over to look through your house, just to make sure you haven't got any stolen goods. You probably don't, but would you really want them coming around on a regular basis? And do you really want to pay more money for the player/computer/whatever to afford them the ability to do this?

Also important to remember: it's legal to make copies. For yourself. But this law, like the DMCA before it, tries to make it a criminal act to copy things, by making it hideously illegal to break the little piece of software put there by the government.

Let's take this hypothetical situation: I have "The Little Mermaid" on DVD. My five-year-old can't be trusted with a DVD, but a video tape's just fine. I am legally allowed to copy the movie from the DVD to the video tape, though I have to find a way to do this, since DVDs are set up to make it hard to copy them (and the DMCA made it illegal to distribute software that does that.) I can do it, though, and not because of anything I've bought; I just have a very forgiving VCR.

The new law would make me liable for a civil penalty for doing that.

Now let's say I place a copy of that on my laptop because I like to take copies of movies with me when I travel.

The presence of that on my computer, when it's connected to the Internet, would be a federal felony, with a $500,000 fine and up to five years in prison; if I do it a second time, the penalty goes up to $1,000,000 and up to ten years in prison.

That's a big penalty. Unconscionably big. A bit galling, too, since I effectively paid for the mandatory copy-protection stuff I had to break to make a copy (which is supposedly my right) in the first place.

So there's a bad law coursing through the halls of Congress. In addition to the full text linked above, there's a summary available, and a good overview at Wired News. You might consider calling or writing your local Congressperson's office and telling them how you feel about it.

You might also find it ironic (though you probably won't find it on ABC News) that the company lobbying hardest to make this law a reality is none other than Disney.

Feel free to wash down that grilled cheese with a little orange juice.

©2001 Sean Carolan