Let's take a break from politics and talk about copyright. Hollywood is worried that people downloading movies from the Internet will kill their business the same way that file sharing did the music business. To prevent this they are pushing Congress to pass a new copyright law. I think that most people will be appalled when they discover that the new law prohibits skipping over ads.The broadcasters insist that there is an unwritten contract between them and the viewer that you will watch ads in exchange for receiving broadcasts.

Next they will insist that you use the bathroom during the show instead of the commercial break.

TiVo isn't waiting for this. They have their own way of making sure that you see ads.

Then there is the broadcast flag. This will be part of digital transmissions. When it is set you cannot record.

All of this is to stop the Napster Effect. The music industry saw sales fall several years in a row and blames Napster and other file sharing. But... is this justified?

Several things have happened since the recording industry's high point in the last 1990s. There has been an economic downturn. Three new game platforms came out. DVDs became mainstream and people started buying movies instead of renting them. Entertainment money comes out of the same pool. The same people who are buying PS2s and DVDs are the ones who buy most music and they seldom have separate pools of money for different purchases.

At the same time the recording industry eliminated the single and pushed CD prices over $20. The word is that most CDs have one good track. Why pay $20 for a music track when you can get an entire movie for the same money?

They also reduced the number of new CDs released each year. Granted most of these would have lost money but their proof of lost sales looks at total CDs sold. They don't talk about profits which are still high.

Still, on the surface it sounds logical. Why would people buy a CD when they can get the music through file-sharing? This theory falls flat when you consider how most music is sold - people buy it because they hear it on the radio. For free. The music companies even pay stations to play songs. So free music can sell CDs.

Anyway, hold onto your VCR and your cassette recorder. You may need them in the future.

Back to politics (sort of). I saw a junk fax today asking if you thought that the country made a mistake re-electing George Bush. They asked people to check "yes" or "no" and fax it back. They will send the results to Congress.

The fine print showed that there would be a minimum charge for voting. I wonder how many people who are outraged at the election will fall for this?