Wired News has an interview with Rep. Dick Boucher (D-Va.) on his efforts to return fair-use rights to the public.

WN: Fair use is all well and good, but isn't the entertainment industry saying, "You can use this stuff, but we are not obligated to present it to you in a form that is easy to copy?"

Boucher: But ... what they are able to do ... is prevent you from using it altogether. All that a creator of digital content has to do is guard it with a very simple technical measure and ... then you may not circumvent that for any purpose. And so the creator of content can take everything to a pay-per-use (format) and that means nothing is free on the library shelf anymore.

This is why librarians so strongly support my bill, they see that coming. History teaches us that when industry has a particular power, if they can make money using that power, that's what they'll do. And in this instance, the content industry has the power to prevent any fair use of their material and I have no doubt that's exactly where they'll go.

Good luck, Rep. Boucher, you're gonna need it.