For years now, people such as myself have been speculating about the possible outcomes of the four-way battle among fans, copyright holders, artists, and technology companies over the future of music in the Internet age. But as recent developments have brought the battlefront closer to Washington, D.C., we may start witnessing decisions by well-meaning yet technologically underinformed policymakers that could shape the rest of human cultural development--not to mention the music and movie businesses. But perhaps it's too early in the column for such lofty thoughts. First, let's take one moment to get the basics straight about what's going on in Washington.

In the red trunks…
For the last couple years, Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Virginia) has been advocating a revision of the DMCA, a 1998 law that prohibits the circumvention of copyright protection for any reason--even for educational, scientific, or personal purposes. Boucher and others in his corner can't stand the fact that the rights we have in the analog world might not carry over to the digital realm due to the entertainment industry's fear-based corporate lobbying. Copy-protected CDs steal every citizen's right to fair use--such as making a mix tape for the car or recording a TV show for later viewing--of the media that he or she has legally purchased.

And in the blue trunks…
In the other corner, we have Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings (D-South Carolina), who just introduced a bill dubbed the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act, which forces technology and consumer manufacturers to make only equipment that cannot play media files that are not authorized by the corporations that are pulling Fritz's strings. That means that every computer and MP3 player in the world today would suddenly be categorized as illegal. Would the new music regulators force us to march into town squares and dump our noncompliant equipment onto a big fire, à la book burnings? Or would it be a subtler yet equally effective scheme, such as forcing ISPs to require new authentication so that older PCs without the mandated technology would effectively be barred from the Net?

Back in January 2001, the same thing almost happened (see this column for details), but the proposal was turned down. Hollings's bill will most likely be rejected too, but I see it as a harbinger of things to come. Because trading networks themselves are growing more untouchable by the day, the music industry, its lobbyists, and our government will either have to attack ISPs or consumer hardware manufacturers if they want to end file sharing. For now, ISPs can hide behind the ISP Safe Harbor Act. Therefore, it's not surprising that the record industry is attacking consumers and their computers directly, building corporate-friendly rules into their code and enforcing those rules with the noncircumvention clause of the DMCA, which has already been proven to be a fairly effective tool for thwarting fair use and free speech.

I don't want artists to stop making high-quality movies and music due to lack of financial incentive, and most people probably agree with me. But I also don't want to be branded a felon for using computers and the Internet for what they have been designed to do: store, copy, transmit, process, and display information. Isn't it funny how the same business interests that champion the free market and technological progress as the natural and correct direction for the human race suddenly change their minds when these same inevitable forces happen to work against them? (Well, at least it would be funny if it weren't so utterly terrifying.) Why would we adopt even more repressive tactics than the Chinese government, which is frequently criticized for censoring the Internet?

Next stop: dystopia
We could end up living in a world where those who want to use computers in ways not sanctioned by big businesses are forced underground. A second Internet could emerge, which wouldn't require authentication of your hardware. We'd also scour hidden flea markets and secret Internet auctions in order to find computer hardware that was uncrippled by lawmakers and corporations--risky activity because, according to Hollings's bill, it'd be illegal to traffic in unauthorized hardware between state lines. If, hypothetically, you couldn't find your 2002 MP3 player when it was time to throw it on the fire in the town square, would the police throw you in federal prison if they located it wedged between the backseat of your car as you drove into the next state? It sounds insane, but that's what the bill calls for.

Of course, proponents of Hollings's bill argue that the SDMI failed, file sharing is eroding our precious entertainment industry, and that the free market fails to accommodate advances in technology. But you have to look only at the bottled-water industry to see the flaw in this argument. It's a massive market--even Coca-Cola has its own brand of bottled water called Dasani. Even though plumbing has been around since Menes's reign in Egypt 5,000 years ago and water flows freely out of taps everywhere, we spend billions a year on bottled water. Why? Because the content in the bottle is purer and more trustworthy (or so we believe) than what comes out of the tap. Carrying this analogy over to digital music, why should we make everyone continue to pay for bottled water just because plumbing was invented? You never know what you're getting through the Internet's pipes: viruses, poorly encoded or falsely named music files, hacking attempts, or even the acknowledged theft of your personal information. When you buy a CD, you know what you're getting--or at least you did until the major labels started trying to sell us screwy discs.

Ebert says: Two thumbs down
When even Roger Ebert is boycotting Universal Music, you know that something's wrong--and it could get much, much worse. Don't believe the man in the suit when he tells you that your music and movies will go away unless you pass these laws. The government, which is perpetrating arguments that are based on faulty logic, will turn technology into something more fascist than free. People will always make music for countless reasons: to attract the opposite sex, to gain noteriety, or just because it feels good to strum a guitar, scratch a record, or belt out a perfect lyric. Likewise, people will always listen to music, just as they have since some caveman banged stones together in a way that pleased the tribe. It's the second caveman that we have to watch out for, the one who walked up and told the tribe that only the stones he licensed would be permitted. That second caveman was lying, and so are Sen. "Fritz" Hollings and his ilk.