VICTORY FOR THE GOOD GUYS: The Tennessee’s “super-DMCA” bill, which would have made it a felony to attach a TiVo to your cable without permission, appears to be dead for this year:

A bill pitting telecommunications and entertainment companies against some of their customers won’t come up for a vote in the General Assembly this year, its sponsors said yesterday.

Backers said the bill was needed to update state law on the theft of cable and other telecommunications services.

Opponents — many of them computer professionals and enthusiasts who mobilized via the Internet — said no new law was needed and the measure as originally written threatened privacy and civil liberties.

A hearing on an amended version of the bill had been scheduled for Tuesday in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Instead, Sen. Curtis Person, R-Memphis, said yesterday that he will introduce a joint House-Senate resolution to send the measure to a study committee charged with reporting back to legislators by Feb. 1, 2004.

The study-committee option will allow more time for discussion, Person said, adding that his aim as the bill’s Senate sponsor was to draft a measure that would punish lawbreakers, not infringe on freedoms.

I’m very pleased. Bill Hobbs has more.

UPDATE: Slashdot has more on these bills in several states, including an amusing letter explaining that the sponsor of Oregon’s bill withdrew it after deciding he’d been scammed by the MPAA lobbyist.