It turns out that that the battle to control new technologies that allow the copying of media content hasn’t changed much in the last 25 years.
This is from 1981.

On which item have the courts rules that manufacturers and retailers be held responsible for having supplied the equipment?
Brice … Times 1981

The EFF have a great overview of the history of big business’ fight to outlaw media recording devices including the VCR, DAT tape recorders, MP3 players, PVRs, and P2P software.
Their analysis of the Sony v. Universal Studios trial is well worth the read as it is an important legal precedent for this copyright issue and a foundation on which subsequent tech v. media cases have been tried.

The Sony v. Universal thing also led to some funky testimony from Jack Valenti[1] in a US government hearing on the same issue.

I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.

Jack Valenti v. Evildoers

Jack Valenti v. Hilton – ‘No problem copying these ladies, yeah!’

Also, from Digital Freedom:

I foresee a marked deterioration in American music…and a host of other injuries to music in its artistic manifestations, by virtue—or rather by vice—of the multiplication of the various music-reproducing machines…
John Philips Sousa on the Player Piano (1906)

The public will not buy songs that it can hear almost at will by a brief manipulation of the radio dials.
Record Label Executive on FM Radio (1925)

But now we are faced with a new and very troubling assault on our fiscal security, on our very economic life and we are facing it from a thing called the videocassette recorder…
MPAA on the VCR (1982)

These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it. So it’s time to get paid for it.
Universal Music Group Chairman/CEO Doug Morris, November 10, 2006

And from South Park (via Bowling for Columbine)

I loves my gun, LOVES my gun!
South Park Whiteguy

[1] then president of the Motion Picture Association of America

Aaargh! I’ve just realised that I will be missing a revolutionary/anarchist protest in NYC tommorrow!

I will be ensconced in the comfort of an economy-class aeroplane seat, high above the atlantic, sipping on soem random fruit juice from a plastic cup while the masses SHUT DOWN WALL STREET!

NYMMAA

The New York Metro Alliance of Anarchists reports:

PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release Contact: Public Relations (718) 398-1766

POLICE MURDER PROTESTS INTENSIFY DAY OF OUTRAGE! SHUT DOWN WALL STREET!

“Black Thursday,” December 21, 2006 at 12:00PM
Chase Bldg, Liberty & Nassau St, Downtown NYC

New York – As grassroots community organizers intensify their protest against the police murder of unarmed Sean Bell and attempted murder of his unarmed friends Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, the Wall Street financial district is in the crosshairs. A “Day of Outrage” is slated for “Black Thursday” December 21, 2006 at 12 PM. The masses will assemble in front of the Chase Building at Liberty and Nassau Streets, Downtown, NYC to “Shut Down Wall Street.”

The protest was originally scheduled for Friday but intelligence sources have informed the group that the NY Stock Exchange would close early on that day for the holiday weekend. Therefore the date has been moved up to Thursday, December 21st.

“No more business as usual. Our demands are clear. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly must go! The head of the Organized Crime Bureau, Anthony Izzo must go! The cops involved in this murder must be indicted, prosecuted, and go straight to jail,” declared spokesman Omowale Clay.

The Wall Street protest will be led by the December 12th Movement and the Black Men’s Movement

I am by no means socialist in my orientation, but I would really, really have liked to be there – just to feel the activism in my suburban bones.
Who knows whether the ‘masses’ will actually show up – but my heart is with them, not because I think that they will turn the worm; just because they are DOING something. Do it!