Reason

Mike Godwin's Content vs Tech Factions piece is up at Reason
One way to understand the conflict between the Content Faction and the Tech Faction is to look at how they describe their customers. For the content industries, they're "consumers." By contrast, the information technology companies talk about "users."

If you see people as consumers, you control access to what you offer, and you do everything you can to prevent theft, for the same reason supermarkets have cameras by the door and bookstores have electronic theft detectors. Allowing people to take stuff for free is inconsistent with your business model.

But if you see people as users, you want to give them more features and power at cheaper prices. The impulse to empower users was at the heart of the microcomputer revolution: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak wanted to put computing power into ordinary people's hands, and that's why they founded Apple Computer. If this is your approach -- enabling people to do new things -- it's hard to adjust to the idea of building in limitations.

This is OK as far as it goes, but what the CBDTPA is proposing isn't electronic theft detectors, it is the equivalent of mandatory confiscation by armed security guards of all bags and clothing that might be used to carry stolen goods from anyone walking within 300 feet of the mall. This would ensure no-one stole CDs from Tower Records, but it would significantly limit the numbers who would want to shop at the mall.