24h to stop new copyright law: call now!

In 24 hours, the music industry may succeed at getting the obscure SIRA bill changed in committee in Congress. At issue is their plan to change copyright so that you're going to need separate licenses for "incidental" copies of digital music: copies in RAM, copies in browser caches, and so on. Changing the act this way paves the way for a ban on digital radio recording devices, and what's worse, the companies that presently sell digital music are supporting this!

Companies like Apple and Real AOL and Yahoo have signed onto these changes as a way of clearing the licenses on the music they presently sell -- even though this proposal will hurt the ability of new companies to enter the digital music market in the future.

You can stop it by contacting your Congresscritter. EFF's Action Center has information on which lawmakers are on the relevant committee, as well as some suggested things to say to your representative's office when you speak to them.

The entertainment industry has sneaked language into an obscure copyright bill that could smash Internet fair use. The law implies that licenses from copyright holders are needed for every digital copy made in the transmission of digital media -- including cached copies on servers or on your hard drive, and even temporary copies in RAM. The wording is being debated in a House Judiciary subcommittee on Wednesday. Don't let the music industry turn your cache into their cash. Check below to see if your representative is on the right committee, and call them now!

Link

Update: Danny from EFF sez, "Hey, our action center is down for 'scheduled maintenance'." Here's the IPAction link instead. -- It's back now!