Re: [Nolug] IMPORTANT: State radio and TV board wants to license computer techs

From: Joey Kelly <joey_at_joeykelly.net>
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2004 14:18:12 -0500
Message-Id: <200408061418.12857.joey@joeykelly.net>

On Friday 06 August 2004 11:19 am, Brad Bendily spake:
> But the article says that they only mean to charge people who work on
> home entertainment and computers. Of course that's not what the letter
> said. So I don't think this will really be applied to all
> computer technicians. But I guess this one guy in the article will
> go to bat for the rest of us!

I don't think they care whether you ever actually connect a PC to a
television... if the PC is capable of it, they think they can license you,
regardless.

However, from the alert mail:

> Personally I think this a very broad interpretation of the law and would
> hurt the technology community if this were to be enforced. In fact, there
> is also a provision in the Act that specifically states, "the term playback
> and recording devices does not mean or include playback and recording
> devices normally designed for use as office equipment...." This seems to
> make a lot more sense when computers are involved.

Computers, according to the existing laws or code or whatever, are "office
equipment". Every office has them, most homes have them, and most people do
office tasks on them (word processing, spreadsheets, email, etc.). In my
opinion, the recent re-interpretation of the old laws will not survive a
legal challenge, based on the actual language of the law.

IANAL, but Louisiana's legal code has many things spelled out in the
constitution for a reason: to keep politicians and office wonks from shafting
the populace whenever they feel like it. I won a case against a famous family
in our state on the simple grounds that the constitution's exact language
stated that the family member could not do what he in fact tried to do to me.
The case took less than 30 minutes to be tried, and whereas the disupted
amount was $122.50, he ended up being forced to pay me over $5k --- the
penalties were written into the constitution :-)

Another angle: if a PC tech pays up, will he also be licensed to fix TVs?
Surely if the board means to keep incompetent techs from working on TVs,
licensing PC techs to do so will open the board up to all kinds of liability
when these erstwhile MCSEs hose TV after TV. Or did the board create another
class of license for PC/quasi-TV tech?

What about the existing herd of TV repairmen? Won't they rebel when their
protected market (state-licensed TV repair) is taken from them? I see this as
another valid legal challenge.

Class-action lawsuits, anyone? I'm game.

-- 
Joey Kelly
< Minister of the Gospel | Linux Consultant >
http://joeykelly.net
"I may have invented it, but Bill made it famous."
 --- David Bradley, the IBM employee that invented CTRL-ALT-DEL
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Received on 08/06/04

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