Endangered Species

Sometimes the law has favored new technologies. The VCR was saved when the Supreme Court ruled that taping off air for entertainment or time shifting constituted fair use. DVD X-Copy was killed when the courts ruled that making backup copies of DVDs you had bought violated the DMCA. The EFF has an article on Endangered Gizmos, which tells the stories of a baker's dozen devices and technologies that have been (mostly) hurt, though (occasionally) helped by the legislative climate of the time. The article itself was endangered when the EFF posted the link with a syntax error. ;)