Hi,

On 10 Sep 2001, at 11:51, David Lawler Christiansen (NT) wrote:
> Microsoft would *not* have a field day with this, even though it might
> benefit us in the short term.  Microsoft (in general) hates it when
> government attempts to interfere with the software industry.  This law
> would do exactly that.  If you don't believe me, consider this: the

Austrian IT related media published following this summer:

WinXP will be shipped with software integrated, that will make it 
impossible to reproduce music files (like MP3) that have no 
copyprotection even when 3rd party software players are installed 
(resulting in a cry from the MP3 community that they will not use 
XP). Market observers said companies should not upgrade to XP 
anywhere soon. If I understood it correctly, with such laws, older 
versions of windows (and other OS!) would become illegal, forcing 
people to upgrade to XP and its hated registration sheme. To my 
understanding, public available sourcees would become illegal too, 
as they allow the deactivation of the copyprotection parts.

The music industry announced, that several hundreds of thousands 
CDs with a copyprotection system had been sold the last year that 
should make digital copies have a dramatic quality loss. (This is 
illegal in europe, as many countries allow copies of copyrighted 
material for private use.)

Probably as a reaction, the music industry wanted the european 
union to generally prohibit the individuals rights for private copies.

So this makes sense to me.

mike