Here's another stupidity act from our Optical Media Board or OMB, they want hard disks to be registered because hard disks are magnetic components at it covers the Republic Act No. 9239, also known as the Optical Media Act of 2003. And they are proposing for an executive order that hard disks in all internet cafe in the Philippines should be registered to them. (read the news below)
I know the OMB are working hard to fight and control the spread of piracy and pornography in the streets of Manila, and now they are trying to propose something that can affect everyone, and it will just start only in internet cafe, and later on, their Optical Media Act of 2003 will also cover outside the net cafe industry and it will cover all offices, personal computers and businesses.
If ever the law will be approved, I can see that computers with hard disks will be gone and everyone will run in RAM or solid state disc computers, just like those netbooks.And OMB just ruined everyone's work and business just like what they did last 2004 were they confiscated all those digital CDs of students and people who boarded the MRT and LRT, even that the materials are for personal use and contains projects and homework, they say that the digital CD are covered in their so called media act law.What happen was students got failing grades and their teachers didn't believe on them that their CD containing data for their thesis are gone, which made them to submit it late. And other graphic designers and freelancers lost a lot of data during the massive confiscation of CD back in 2004.
I just found this news in a mailing list and it was an alarming act by the OMB to organize a stupid law. So what's next? register our USB drives ? passport drives ?
photo above by Air Force One
Internet café owners oppose OMB proposal to register hard disks
An organization of Internet shops in the country has expressed its opposition to a proposal by the Optical Media Board (OMB) to require the registration of hard disks in computers used by Internet cafe operators.
Gener Luis Morada, national advocacy officer of I-Cafe Pilipinas, said in a press statement that the OMB is currently in the process of drafting an executive order for the disk registration.
Morada said OMB executive director Cyrus Valenzuela disclosed the agency’s plan during the final deliberation of the implementing rules and regulations of the Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009 in Tagaytay City recently. The workshop was facilitated by the Department of Social Work and Development.
Valenzuela argued that since hard disks have magnetic components, then it falls under the control of the OMB based on Republic Act No. 9239, also known as the Optical Media Act of 2003.
Ed Zafra, a representative of I-Cafe Pilipinas who participated in the workshop, said the OMB’s proposal, if its pushes through, will set a “dangerous precedent" that may be expanded outside of the Internet café industry.
“We were quite surprised of the statements made by Executive Director Valenzuela. If it is true, then it would bring the ICT industry as a whole back to the Ice Age," Zafra said in the same statement.
He added: “In a country where the business community is already burdened by red tape and over regulation, such an imposition by the OMB would hamper growth and mean an additional burden on their operations." -- Melvin G. Calimag, GMANews.TV
source: http://www.gmanews.tv/story/188709/internet-caf-owners-oppose-omb-proposal-to-register-hard-disks
