[Mister X]

residents may not possess or distribute software that can take music or video transmitted over the Internet and convert it to another format, unless they have the copyright holder's explicit permission.

(From the part about the law in Maryland)

Well according to that Windows Media Player can be the cause of someone breaking the law. Mplayer not only converts other formats to wma it aggressively solicits that action when it is installed. Plus there is the fact that it can be used to rip cds. So anybody in Maryland who installs windows and gets media player automatically is breaking the law. That's just fucked up. And you can get up to 3 years in prison.

The worst thing is that it makes absolutely no sense. The copyright holder's permission? Does that mean you have to get the permission of ALL people/corporations that hold a copyright on music or anything else? I don't have to get permission from everybody that operates a newspaper because I own a scanner that can be used to copy pages from the paper. Someone owning the copyright to a song and another person owning software that can copy that song and convert it to another form have absolutely nothing to do with each other in any logical universe. This law is far to broad to make any kind of sense. If it said that a person can't possess or distribute software that can convert a secure stream to another format without the copyright holder's permission it would make some sense. Of course it would still be ridiculously draconian but it would make some sense.

But simply specifying "music or video transmitted over the internet" is crazy. That doesn't limit the law's application to secure or licensed streams or formats. It includes ALL formats. An mpeg or mp3 that is completely legal and in the public domain or has been released by the copyright holder for free distribution would have to be lumped in with the material which is explicitly NOT licensed for free distribution or in the public domain.