[Dimensio]

Concern for your intellectual property does not grant you the right to lock down my computer for fear that I might infringe on your copyright.

[Jack Black]

Well, actually it does. The Congress has been passing laws like this for a long time. Buy a DAT cassette and you are paying something like $1.00 to a consortium of recording artists because you obviously are going to use that tape to copy other 'artists' music. Guilty until proven innocent.

[HiTech RedNeck]

I think the idea is that new applications and their media will need the Fritz to work. It is basically a glorified dongle. Your old applications and media will continue to work, and you can disable the Fritz but at the cost of not being able to use the new stuff.

After all this song and dance, it will STILL be possible for a pirate to rip audio and video content, even if not perfectly, because they have to be turned into analog signals before you can hear and watch them.

[Publius6961]

Concern for your intellectual property does not grant you the right to lock down my computer for fear that I might infringe on your copyright.

Agreed.
But the government is hijacked by all manner of special interest in response to wrongdoing by a few s***heads.
I reserve my anger for them, since the odds of my controlling "rent-seeking" of government by special interest /"controllers" is nil. e.g. environmentalists, anti-smokers, etc.

The thieves who choose to operate on line created the problem.

[Kevin Curry]

Concern for your intellectual property does not grant you the right to lock down my computer for fear that I might infringe on your copyright.

IOW, "Concern for your personal possessions does not grant you the right to take away MY lock-pick for fear that I might let myself in your front door and steal you blind."