ElementalDragon said:
uuh.... probably not.... but they/we really wouldn't have much of a choice if this crap goes through, would they/we? the general public usually doesn't get much say in what the RIAA/MPAA says and does. look at the one thing before.... think Sony had some kind of copy protection that installed some kinda software once the CD was put in your computer... that other guy figured out that you could bypass that if you held in the Shift key or somethin when you put the disc in..... shortly after he had a lawsuit on his hands.....
If they're going to try to sue someone for holding down the shift key, to avoid getting a root kit suruptisiously installed on their PC, let them... Oh yes, the only thing holding the shift key down does, is bypasses autoplay, so it means they were using autoplay to install it. And oh yes, it's possible to disable that altogether by editing the registry also...
There does come a point though, that a law can end up becomming so extreme, that it's totally unenforceable. And an unenforceable law mise well be no law whatsoever, cause without the ability to enforce it, there really isn't anything to hold people to it, if they chose not to obey...
Same thing came up in the Griswald case, (which really was the predicessor to, and was the first place the 4th Amendement and privacy was argued together, not Roe v. Wade which came several years after). This is what happened:
A given state passed a law which made it illegal for married couples to use contraception, in the privacy of their own bedroom. The problem with this is, how would a cop know if married couples are using contraception in the privacy of their own bedroom, unless the police should position themselves to watch married people having sex?
Anyhow, when one person got charged, they successfully appealed it up to the US Supreme Court. The justices of the High Court wanted to know just that, "how would you know..." In the end they concluded that the very concept of the police invading the sanctity of a married couple's own private bedroom is inherently abhorent and disgusting to the utter most degree... With a comment to the effect of "isn't anything sacred anymore", argued that for the police to invade the bedroom in this manner is intollerable, and short of this that law against contraceptive use is impossible to enforce. Without being able to enforce it, you mise well not even have it... The Supreme Court then caste it out as unconstitutional, and made the first claim in history relating the 4th amendment to privacy (in this case the privacy of the bedroom of married couples, against the search for contraceptive use), as well as casting it out for being an unenforceable law.
In this case, searching people in this manner, would mean having to keep track of how things get to the iPod. Just watch, if they put DRM in software to disable this, someone might create a portable CD reader type device, which makes the use of one's PC, to get stuff onto the iPod, unecessary altogether. Just have a small cube, containing a CD drive and the minimum stuff to copy it, and 1 port to plug an iPod into. Make it in a foreign nation, with no extradition treaty with the US or anything of the sort, and market it abroad