"Piracy or no, the DMCA tramples all over fair-use provisions in existing copyright law, provisions which have been in place for hundreds of years to protect consumers from big business."
I've been saying this stuff since before DMCA was passed. The anti-circumvention law is an overly broad law that hurts both consumers (who are legally required to put up with annoying access controls) and authors (who may not wish their works to be "protected" by access controls). It's really an excuse for the big boys to control the markets for various hardware and software by controlling the licensing terms for the access control systems.
"Its about a right consumers used to have that the entertainment lobby and their lap-dog clinton took away from us."
IMO, Clinton doesn't really deserve the blame for DMCA. According to the Library of Congress's online database, DMCA was passed in the Senate by a
unanimous vote. All Clinton could have really done is delay it.
"Well, IMO it's rather hard to justify the need for a cart back up. CDs get scratched, but unless you treat your cart like total shiat you shouldn't need one of those things. And if it breaks natually you can just return it I'm sure."
Just because you haven't experienced spontaneous hardware failure doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. And, as plenty of people can tell you, it doesn't always happen within the warranty period, let alone the store's return period. If a consumer wants to be paranoid and keep backups of everything, it's not the right of Nintendo, Sony, Sega, DVDCCA, MPAA, RIAA, or anyone else to screw with the market so that it's illegal or impractical to do so.
The truth of the matter is that they want market control - the piracy claims are just an easy way for them to look good while going after anything that threatens their control. And if you doubt that this is a control issue, go
read the actual law, noting the abundant use of the phrase "technological measure that effectively controls access". That's why Johansen was arrested - he wasn't out spreading 1337 w4r3z, he was providing ways around the access controls that allow the movie companies to put up artificial market barriers and otherwise mess with consumers in order to inflate profits.