Link: Techdirt: Copyright Battles Are About Controlling New Technologies.
A lot of good stuff in here:
"This will sound eerily familiar to anyone familiar with more recent copyright controversies. For more than three decades, Hollywood and the recording industry have consistently tried to use copyright law to stop any technology they didn't control. In 1992, the music industry persuaded Congress to mandate cumbersome DRM for digital audio formats, stunting the development of that technology. In 1998, the music industry unsuccessfully tried to sue the MP3 player out of existence. Also in 1998, at the behest of the copyright lobby Congress enacted the DMCA, which gave content creators unprecedented control over the design of technological devices. Hollywood has used the DMCA to effectively outlaw set-top boxes that act as DVD jukeboxes. "Of course, in every one of these cases, the copyright lobby's arguments have focused on the threat of "piracy." But when they've won, the practical result has been to give content creators the power to control the evolution of media devices. And when Hollywood and the record labels control technological progress, the results aren't pretty"
