Couch potatoes need license?

[morgentau]

Is it true that in some US states (namely Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wyoming and Arkansas) you need a license for watching TV and using some other electronic devices? There was an article about this in the German magazine "Der Spiegel" (http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/politik/0,1518,248899,00.html). The article states that the corrresponding laws were induced by the MPAA and penalties were up to 25.000$ and 5 years of prison.

[jggimi]

The Der Spiegel article describes so-called "Super DCMA" laws that have been enacted in six states in the US. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org) (EFF), similar laws are pending in seven additional states.

The EFF claims that the laws enacted and pending were due to state-level lobbying efforts by the MPAA, based on a "model bill" developed by MPAA.

More details can be found in:

http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/states/200304_sdmca_eff_analysis.php