Perhaps the worst law passed by any government recently is the DMCA. Sure, it passed back in the late 90's, so calling it recent is something of a stretch - but the bad effects are still piling up. The DMCA didn't just regulate how copyrighted material could be used - it outlawed entire categories of real (and potential) products. A good example? The ReplayTVs we have in our living room and family room. Both offer internet sharing of content (effectively useless due to bandwidth issues) and commercial skip. The manufacturer was driven out of business by the wolf pack of lawyers sent by the MPAA - out to make sure that I watch every commercial that comes my way.

That's hardly the only example. Consider DVDs - As the IEEE says:

You're likewise out of luck if you're looking to buy software that lets you copy a DVD onto your laptop's hard drive; it's no longer for sale, at least not in the United States. Even if you want to put the movie you bought onto a pocket-size video and game console, such as Sony's PlayStation Portable, which allows users to watch video stored on flash memory or a miniature hard drive, you can't legally do so, because you'd have to “rip,” or decode, it to make the transfer—and the studios claim that this action violates the DMCA. When you rip a CD, be it to an audiotape or an MP3 file, you're not breaking any laws. But to rip a DVD you need to somehow get around the encryption technology built into a standard disc, and since such circumvention is forbidden by the DMCA, if you rip a DVD, you are breaking a law. Under the DMCA, legality doesn't depend on how the copy will be used but rather on the means by which the digital content is copied.

You have to ask yourself - why can you rip a CD and put it on an iPod, while you can't rip a DVD and put it on the video iPod? Are the two so different? The RIAA would love to make CDs the only way to listen to music, and put them under the same regime DVDs are under. Fortunately, that's probably not possible anymore - but video continues to get locked down - the "broadcast flag" might not be designed to piss off customers, but it will sure have that effect. Imagine - you set your DVR to record the latest episodes of "Dr. Who" - you don't get around to watching it for a few weeks, as other things come up - and *poof* - the DVR will have helpfully blown the content away, and not because of any settings you put in for how long to hold onto the content. Joy.

The basic problem is that copyright has been turned on its head. It's supposed to be a short term incentive that will encourage creative works. Instead, it's been turned into a long term lockbox for corporate icons (Mickey Mouse, anyone?). It's high time to drop the copyright terms back to something reasonable, and stop beating the end customer of content until morale improves.

Go ahead and read the entire IEEE piece - it's worth the time.