Finally there is some good news coming out of Washington. After years of anti-consumer laws when it came to digital content, two congressmen, Rick Boucher (D-VA) and John Doolittle (R-CA) have introduced a bill called the “Freedom and Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship” or FAIR USE. The aim of this bill is to reverse some of the overly-limiting mandates of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

For years, it has been legal for a person to make a backup copy of content and even share that content with a friend. It is a legal precedent established back in the 1970′s called fair use. In 1998, lawmakers did an end around on fair use by passing the DMCA which made it illegal to circumvent Digital Rights Management of any kind.

On the face of it that doesn’t sound so bad, until you realize that the DMCA makes it illegal to put movies that you purchased on your video iPod. What? Are you serious? The DMCA breaks decades of fair use and freedom. It’s a bad law.

Enter Rick Boucher and John Doolittle. Finally two lawmakers I can believe in! Bravo men, for not taking the money of the Hollywood lobby and standing up for your constituents, the people who just want to watch the movies they own the way they want. Bravo.

It is the first time in a long time I am proud of any lawmakers. It seems trivial when compared to the war in Iraq and some of the other awful thing going on in the world, but get us out of Iraq and I will make another glowing blog entry. But until then, Congressmen Boucher and Doolittle are heroes! (If I could vote for you, I would…you listening Arkansas lawmakers?)

According to this story on CNET, Adobe is currently developing an online version of its photo editing software that is slated to be absolutely free. This is great news for a large number of people who need only a rudimentary photo editor. Almost everyone needs light editing capabilities and up until now low cost, easy-to-use photo editors have been relatively hard to come by. But, now with the majority of Americans on the net now having broadband, and bucket loads of computing power easy to come by, Adobe may just be ahead of the curve.

Adobe’s CEO Bruce Chizen told CNET the plan was to have advertisements to pay for the online version of Photoshop.

I’ve said it before, but with every new app that appears on the net, the closer we get to a world where OS and computer make really becomes commodity. PC’s have been commodity for years, and as more and more apps find their way online, even Macs become less interesting.