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Last week, the Consumer Electronics Association sponsored a one-day seminar in Washington, D.C., called "Digital Download: Public Access to Content in a Digital World." (See story, p. 1.) As part of the drumbeat for the seminar, CEA issued in February a survey of more than 1,800 people that revealed two interesting results the entertainment industry should consider:
* 89 percent of Internet users download multimedia content and information.
* 61 percent oppose laws that prevent the usage of filesharing software such as Napster.
In releasing the report CEA president Gary Shapiro said, "We must protect the ability of technologies to evolve, especially those that allow personal, non-commercial recording. These new technologies vastly expand our collective knowledge base and ultimately benefit those most concerned - copyright owners."
We couldn't agree more. The entertainment industry, if it completely gets its way, will charge everyone every time you access one of its products. The public won't stand for it. Remember Divx? You had to buy the disk to watch a movie twice and then had to pay over and over again when you wanted to watch...