According to this CNET article, Senators Feinstein and Biden are working with some corrupt Republicans in an attempt to stifle our constitutionally protected freedom of speech. How are they doing this? By pushing the PERFORM Act.
According to the CNET article:
The proposal says that all audio services--Webcasters included--would be obligated to implement "reasonably available and economically reasonable" copy-protection technology aimed at preventing "music theft" and restricting automatic recording.
In other words, the RIAA is trying to destroy Fair Use rights, and further limit our speech and culture. If this law passes, it will prohibit things like "podcasting", unless you can afford the high prices of DRM encoding software. It will criminalize free speech on the internet.
Senator Feinstein's statement is laughably ignorant:
"New radio services are allowing users to do more than simply listen to music. What was once a passive listening experience has turned into a forum where users can record, manipulate, collect and create personalized music libraries.
Oh really? We used to have that back in the 80's when I was a kid too. It was called a TAPE PLAYER! That was never criminalized.
Why Feinstein and Biden are doing this, I can only guess (e.g. I bet the RIAA paid their campaigns lots of money), but it's a shame they are wasting our time coming up with ways to take our free speech away, while Bush is still in office and still responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in Iraq and the U.S. Don't the senators have more pressing matters than catering to their corporate "entertainment" base? I guess the new Democratic Congress is an improvement though. The Republicans are paid off by warmongers and murderers, our guys are simply paid off by the RIAA. It's better, but still very dissapointing.