The Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (or CBDTPA) was a United States bill proposed in 2002 that would have prohibited any kind of technology that could be used to read digital content without digital rights management (DRM)—which prohibits copying and reading any content under copyright without permission of the copyright owner. The bill was known in early drafts as the Security Systems and Standards Certification Act (or SSSCA), and was sometimes derisively called the Consume But Don't Try Programming Act.
The CBDTPA was proposed by South Carolina senator Fritz Hollings (D-SC). Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had stated that he could "not support" the proposed legislation and, as chairman, intended to block consideration of the controversial bill. This essentially killed the bill in 2002.
Proposed penalties for violating the CBDTPA ranged from five to twenty years in prison, and fines between $50,000 and $1 million.
Richard Stallman criticized this act due to the restrictions that it would place in the immediate and long-term future on free software, dubbing the bill the "Consume But Don't Try Programming Act."
Other U.S. senators named as sponsors of the CBDTPA bill include:
- John Breaux (D-LA)
- Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
- Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
- Bill Nelson (D-FL)
- Ted Stevens (R-AK)
Famous quotes containing the words consumer, television, promotion and/or act:
“Vice is its own reward. It is virtue which, if it is to be marketed with consumer appeal, must carry Green Shield stamps.”
—Quentin Crisp (b. 1908)
“Never before has a generation of parents faced such awesome competition with the mass media for their children’s attention. While parents tout the virtues of premarital virginity, drug-free living, nonviolent resolution of social conflict, or character over physical appearance, their values are daily challenged by television soaps, rock music lyrics, tabloid headlines, and movie scenes extolling the importance of physical appearance and conformity.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)
“Parents can fail to cheer your successes as wildly as you expected, pointing out that you are sharing your Nobel Prize with a couple of other people, or that your Oscar was for supporting actress, not really for a starring role. More subtly, they can cheer your successes too wildly, forcing you into the awkward realization that your achievement of merely graduating or getting the promotion did not warrant the fireworks and brass band.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“When sins are dear to us we are too prone to slide into them again. The act of repentance itself is often sweetened with the thought that it clears our account for a repetition of the same sin.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)