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Copy-protection hysteria in the entertainment industry is driving possible changes in copyright laws that could make what is legal today illegal tomorrow. Legislation such as Senator "Fritz" Hollings' to-be-introduced Security Systems Standards and Certification Act could erode long-established "fair use" provisions that allow consumers to make compilation CDs and video recordings of favorite TV shows.

Hollings and others in the Senate (notably, California's Diane Feinstein) have swallowed Hollywood's mantra that without legal constraints on digital copying capabilities, the entertainment industry is headed for the scrapheap of history—and with it, what remains of the civilized world. Recently, a group of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists has organized what may prove to be an effective grass-roots opposition to the copy-control movement.

"Under the guise of preventing illegal copying, I believe Hollywood is using the legislative process to create new lines of business at consumer expense," Joe Kraus, founder of Excite.com and DigitalConsumer.org, recently told a US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on digital copyrights. "Their goal is to create a legal system that denies consumers their personal-use rights and then charge those consumers additional fees to recoup them."

DigitalConsumer.org seeks to educate both consumers and legislators about the benefits of "fair use" law, such as were enshrined in the Audio Home Recording Act and in the Supreme Court's 1984 Betamax ruling, in which the justices found that "time-shifting" was not a violation of US copyright law. DigitalConsumer.org details the many ways that current and proposed new laws could alter the behaviors of music and movie fans everywhere in the United States. For instance, copying a CD to a cassette tape could become as illegal as copying one to a CD-R. Captive audience? The site's authors even refer to a law that would make it illegal to make or sell DVD players that allow you to fast-forward through advertisements at the beginning of a movie!

"We believe that recent changes to copyright law have gone too far by depriving citizens of rights that they had for almost two centuries," explains the organization's overview. To combat this insanity, DigitalConsumer.org proposes a "Consumer Technology Bill of Rights" that would preserve and extend rights we have come to take for granted. DigitalConsumer.org hopes to guarantee the rights to "time-shift" content, such as recording a television or radio program for later enjoyment, and the rights to "space-shift" content, such as transferring tracks from a CD to a cassette tape, recordable CD, computer hard drive, or portable player. The group also wants to guarantee consumers' rights to make backup copies of software and other content, and to translate digital content into different formats. Under some copy-protection law, blind people would be forbidden from translating electronic books into audible forms.

"Our goal is simply to restore the balance of copyright law so that artists and creators can prosper while citizens have reasonable flexibility to use content in fair and legal ways," say DigitalConsumer.org's founders. Their site has plenty of in-depth information on the legislative problems, and an online petition you can sign.