Right on schedule!
I got this press release today:
Digital Media Consumers’ Rights Act Re-Introduced

The bill addresses two key provisions of the 1998 law which prohibit the circumvention of a technical protection measure guarding access to a copyrighted work even if the purpose of the circumvention is to exercise consumer Fair Use rights. The bill re-introduced this week would limit the scope of the prohibition to circumvention for the purpose of copyright infringement. Circumvention for the purpose of exercising Fair Use rights would be permitted under the legislation…
The bill also amends the provisions of the 1998 law which prohibit the manufacture, distribution or sale of technology which enables circumvention of the protection measures. Under the current law, trafficking in those technologies is a crime if the technology was primarily designed to be used for copyright infringement. Claiming that this legal standard is too subjective to give manufacturers confidence to introduce new products, the legislation would instead focus on whether or not the technology had substantial non-infringing uses. If the technology is capable of substantial non-infringing use, the manufacture, distribution, and sale of the product would be lawful under the bill they have sponsored…
Supporters of the Digital Media Consumers Rights Act include Intel, Verizon, Philips Electronics North America Corporation, Sun Microsystems, Gateway, the Consumer Electronics Association, Computer and Communications Industry Association, the Association for Computing Machinery, the Computer Research Association and a variety of trade associations representing technology companies, the American Library Association, the American Association of Universities, the National Humanities Alliance, the Digital Future Coalition, the Consumers Union, the Home Recording Rights Coalition, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, the National Writers Union and other organizations representing the public interest and the consumers of digital media.

For Immediate Release: Contact: Alyssa Mastromonaco
January 7, 2003 202-225-3861
Lawmakers Urge Protection of Fair Use
Digital Media Consumers’ Rights Act Re-Introduced
Initiating what is certain to be a contentious debate during the 108th Congress, U.S. Representatives Rick Boucher (D-VA), John Doolittle (R-CA), Spencer Bachus (R-AL) and Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) introduced on Tuesday the Digital Media Consumers’ Rights Act with the announced goal of protecting the Fair Use rights of the users of copyrighted material and, thereby enabling the consumers of digital media to make use of it in ways that enhance their personal convenience. The legislation (H.R. 107) is identical to that which Boucher and Doolittle introduced during the Fall of 2002.
Maintaining that Fair Use rights are severely threatened with respect to the consumers of digital media, the legislators propose amending a 1998 law, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was enacted at the behest of motion picture studios, the recording industry, and book publishers.
“The fair use doctrine is threatened today as never before. Historically, the nation