It is good to know there are some legal people out there who fight for our rights. In this particular matter it is quite interesting what position is taken here (though not new). What it comes down to is the following, either forget about copy protections or give us back the royalties we pay on blank media.
A 1992 law allows music listeners to make some personal digital copies of their music. In return, recording companies collect royalties on the blank media used for this purpose. For every digital audio tape (DAT), blank audio CD, or minidisc sold, a few cents go to record labels.
"I am particularly concerned that some of these technologies may prevent or inhibit consumer home-recording using recorders and media covered by the" Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA), Boucher wrote. "Any deliberate change to a CD by a content owner that makes (the allowed personal copies) no longer possible would appear to violate the content owner's obligations."
(...)
"If you put technology in place that prevents people from using their recording devices, then it seems that you should not be eligible for the royalty payments" under the AHRA, said Fred von Lohmann, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
If it should come down to it, the choice of paying back the royalties paid on blank media or dropping these copy protections, I wonder what the record companies would choose. But then there is still the matter of the agreements laid out in the AHRA...So I am very curious of what comes out of this. First wait for the answers to the long list questions that is filed by Boucher.
Source: C|Net
