Quite a number of e-mails and comments on my post last week after Bush signed FECA into law. Almost all of the comments argue that I probably misunderstood the fact that filtering software in a DVD can, simply said, be swiched on and off by the user.

Fine, but I think I got that part of it. My fears and concerns do not focus on the presence of flexible filtering software, but the next step: filtering software you can't operate. And some of that is already in place, I have a number of legitimately purchased European DVDs which I can't play here as my Sony DVD player rejects them as not being Region-1. Now because of FECA, I can not go to Sony and argue that they are restricting my rights to watch something I have legally purchased. I find it hard to believe any North American content producer would want to conspire against my right to watch a collection of Pim Fortuyn interviews (which I ended up seeing by borrowing someone's Sony PlayStation) but I was effectively barred from doing so. To this, one of my readers argues:

The region coding for DVDs is an extra-legal action. The producers of the content agreed upon this standard. Short of buying a DVD player from Europe (or hacking the system), your stuck because the law is silent on this matter. In the U.S., it is a crime to 'hack' encryption. I don't know what the laws are in Canada, but if they are similar, then the law is interfering with your ability to choose as a consumer. With the filtering software for DVD players, choices are expanded without any direct interference on the producers.

As long as this software is an option, and it is confined to home/educational use, I just don't see the problem for artists. Those of a more conservative morality can filter out aspects of the culture that are offensive to them, whereas those not-so-easily offended can continue on their way.

One other reader explains:

The law expressesly only makes technologies legal when:

1) They don't create a permanent changed copy;
2) They can be turned off so that it plays normally;
3) The consumer buys an original DVD and can play it unmodified;
4) It's only used in private home viewings.

I think you're the one who is trying to "unwittingly open the door to outside regulation," by insisting that all decisions on movie content be made collectively.

To be clear, I would be the last one to argue in favor of outside regulation. The presence of filtering software is fine too as long as it meets the legal tests outlined above. The potential danger is that the filtering device may eventually, through legal or political action, lose its optional features altogether.

Finally Rogier - who initiated this whole debate who points to the danger that nanny-staters may push even further than the early stage filtering devices we are discussing today:

No amount of private, home-by-home smutfighting tools is going to make them happy. We'll be having this same discussion in ten or twenty years, after an avalanche of filtering devices will have hit the market.