There's a fascinating campaign under way by IPac, a nonpartisan group dedicated to preserving individual freedom through balanced intellectual property policy.

Last week, the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Senate Committee held a hearing on the "Broadcast" and "Audio" flags which would give copyright owners the ability to veto new technologies if their paranoia prevents them from seeing how the technologies would result in more money for them. In the hearing, a couple of senators (including Alaska's 82 year old Ted Stevens) had the insight to question whether the flags would inhibit their own reasonable and otherwise legal use of their own personal iPods, asking such questions as "if I record 3 songs off the radio today, would I be able to listen to just one of them tomorrow?" (He wouldn't.)

As evidenced by the nonsensical and consumer-abusing legislation of the past, most Senators are clueless about what fair use is and do not properly understand the value of copyrights as a tool to foster creativity. Stevens' insightful question has prompted IPac to launch a campaign to buy every Senator an iPod in hopes that (a) they will actually use it, and (b) that it is in the interest of both media producers and consumers to preserve reasonable rights of consumers.

I doubt it will work, but I hope I'm wrong. Spending $30,000 for 100 iPods is a small price to pay if it results in reasonable copyright policy.