She Holds the Cards in the Copyright Fight is an interesting and disturbing piece in the LA Times about Marybeth Peters, the Register of Copyrights at the Library of Congress whose apparent job is to strictly interpret and enforce the DMCA strictly in favor of what amounts to Hollywood's reading of the law it also, for the most part, wrote. The gist:

Internet radio is just one of many areas of debate in which Copyright Register Peters and her office will play a big role. As the federal government's top expert on copyright law, she will have a significant influence on how people can download music, tape TV programs and copy or sell e-books.

Her agency recently declared that consumers — who are free to sell books and CDs that they have legally acquired — should have no such rights when it comes to e-books or digital music.

And the Copyright Office has denied virtually every request by librarians, educators and consumers seeking exceptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The law makes it a crime to bypass copy-protection devices in CDs, DVDs and other digital products, even to make a legally permissible copy.

Peters believes that many "fair-use" practices consumers take for granted, such as taping a TV program or copying a magazine article, need to be reevaluated in the digital age because the economic harm to copyright owners is far greater. For instance, she agrees with court rulings that Napster-style song swapping over the Internet is illegal.

"Some of the activities you tolerate in a non-digital world are because of the inefficiency of making the copy, how the copy is degraded, and the difficulty in sending copies to someone beyond yourself," Peters said. "All of those things go away in a digital environment."

At least we know what we're up against here.