<rant>
Some thoughts on notes on the matter, after reviewing the press release:

• Clarifies that America’s historic principles of fair use – protected under Section 107 of the Copyright Act – apply to analog and digital transmissions.


Good. This has been a long time coming, and in my opinion there should never have been legislation passed, nor arrests made before a clear cut consumer-accessible definition of "fair use" were defined for the current (and rapidly changing) marketplace.


• Protects lawful consumers by permitting them to bypass technical measures that impede their rights and expectations.


This statement somewhat confused me. In a day and age where techno-jargon and legalese easily fool the voting populace, I wonder how digestible a statute that seemingly contradicts an existing one is. IANAL, but as I understood it, part of the DMCA of 2000 includes a statement saying that it is illegal for a consumer to bypass DRM measures. This statement doesn't seem to condone bypassing DRM to steal content, but if the act itself is similarly worded, it would appear to fall prey to the same problems that current laws do: who determines what impedence of rights is? I recognize that the US Constitution allows for the same rules to be applicable now as they were then, but unfortunately today there are thousands of people making millions of dollars by exploiting ambiguity in the system. The Big 5 and Hollywood still hold the power lawyers, and if the laws don't specify in writing what tromps on whose rights, they have a darn good chance of winning.


• Provides flexibility for content owners to develop new and innovative ways to protect their content and enable lawful uses.


This is why the DMCA (well, one of the reasons why) should be nullified, or at the very least overhauled. Under this legislation, they have the opportunity to do this, but they don't have to. Some people will always crack DRM, if they figure out how much more they would lose by having jerry-rigged DRM (like say, glue?) which will stop *most* people, plus the money they make back in suits suing crackers (for bypassing their DRM, in violation of the DMCA) is less than the R&D and production costs to try and create truly unbeatable DRM tech, then where's their incentive to even try to create inventive means. There's not enough accountability on the business side with current legislation.
</rant>

Overall, thank you for an excellent heads up, and after some more reviewing, I will certainly be writing my representatives, and my friends to do the same :)