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Not all Washington lawmakers are on the Hollywood payroll. Some even risk offending Big Entertainment by upholding their sworn duty to protect their constituents' interests. Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) is such a legislator.

On October 2, the Silicon Valley congresswoman introduced the "Digital Choice and Freedom Act," a bill intended as a countermeasure to draconian copy-protection legislation being promoted by South Carolina senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings (D-SC) and congressmen Howard Berman (D-CA) and Howard Coble (R-NC). Ms. Lofgren's bill would protect consumers' rights to copy CDs, DVDs, and other digital works for personal use, but does not legalize large-scale copying or distribution of copyrighted material. The Digital Choice and Freedom Act "would not authorize someone taking their digital content and sharing it with a million of their best friends," Representative Lofgren said. The bill does not establish any new rights for consumers; rather, it simply extends into the digital realm "fair use" rights they have long enjoyed with analog video and audio tape recorders.

Representative Rick Boucher (D-VA) has introduced similar legislation. Boucher advocates technology and market solutions to piracy, as opposed to new laws that would criminalize consumers' use of legitimately purchased material. If passed, Lofgren's and Boucher's bills would amend the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which makes it a crime to circumvent technological protections built in to copyrighted works. The amended law would allow consumers to make copies for personal use.

Lofgren's and Boucher's bills were introduced with other pending legislation not likely to see a vote this year, but they will help "establish the technology industry's position" during the next congressional session, according to the October 3 edition of the San Jose Mercury-News. Hollings, Berman, et al have introduced a slew of bills that could require user behavior-monitoring chips in new electronics, allow technological attacks on suspected file-sharers, and provide stiff new penalties for anyone convicted of copyright violation.

Of Lofgren's proposed consumers' rights bill, Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) president Jack Valenti said, "If this bill were to pass, it would render ineffective, worthless, and useless any protection measure we would have in place to protect a $100 million movie. You could download a million movies a day, and no penalty for it." During the film industry's protracted campaign against the VCR in the early 1980s, the visionary Valenti described the device as the film industry's "Boston strangler." The video rental industry that emerged became an enormous source of revenue for Hollywood.

"The laws that have passed in recent years have imbalanced the historical balance between owners of copyrighted works and users of copyrighted works," Representative Boucher said in an interview October 2. "The balance has been tilted dramatically in favor of owners at the expense of users."

His bill was introduced during the same week that lawyers for the music industry were attempting to persuade US District Judge John D. Bates in Washington, DC to allow them to have the names and addresses of Verizon broadband subscribers suspected of trading music files in violation of the DMCA. Verizon has resisted the music industry's push to provide such information, saying that cooperating would put innocent customers at risk. Judge Bates has described the DMCA as unclear. "This statute is not organized as being consistent with the argument for either side," he said. He also stated that the music industry had not provided ample evidence of piracy, saying that attorneys had offered only "an allegation of infringement."