(SNN Washington) The Motion Picture Association of America is working with House members to produce legislation to plug America’s analog hole.

The main fear of the MPAA is that consumers will discover their analog hole

Chief among the analog hole watchers are James Sensenbrenner and John Conyers. The two representatives have introduced a bill (H.R. 4569), that would ensure some kind of locking device covered everyone’s analog hole.

The main fear of the MPAA is that consumers will discover their analog hole and take advantage of it. The fear is that if the general public abuses their analog hole too often, some sort of damage may occur. Recently, at the Consumer Electronics Show, the MPAA offered live analog hole demos.

What seems odd is that the majority of Americans either doesn’t know of their analog hole, or have not, in the past, abused it to the point of injury. Alternately, devices preventing anything from exiting via the analog hole could prove harmful in themselves.

This is just the latest of a series of bills from the MPAA to make any kind of copying illegal. A similar bill in 2002 that would have forcibly implant devices to plug analog holes was defeated when Senators found out that, if the bill passed, they would no longer be able to tape Matlock on new VCRs.

posted by NewsBlog 5000  # Thursday, January 12, 2006