Backed by the Tennessee Cable Telecommunications Association, the bill addresses modern technologies that didn’t exist when cable theft statues were first adopted in the 1990s.

While the bill would make it a criminal offense to use such blatantly illicit devices as the “black box,” which permits the watching of cable TV free of charge, it would also give cable companies the right to deem any future computer gadgets illegal, say the bill’s critics.

Instead of listing examples of unlawful conduct, the bill would make it a criminal offense for any person to “knowingly and with the intent to defraud a communication service provider of any lawful compensation for providing a service.”

Using such broad language helps avoid the problem with previous statues, Rep. Rob Briley (D-Nashville) who is sponsoring the bill, told NashvillePost.com. By listing what is illegal, “the Telecom Theft Act of 1996 gives a roadmap to [potential culprits] to go around it. The proposed bill could make the consequences more severe for broadband theft,” he added.

“It allows the cable service providers to define what’s going to be unlawful,” Scott Lyon, attorney with Nashville law firm Beam, Miller and Rogers, said.

Lyon, who has teamed with TDFN to analyze the bill's language, said every time the group presented their concerns to the lobbyists, it saw a new revision of the bill – more of an “attempt to slap a patch on something with fundamental flaws,” he added.

TDFN, whose founders learned of the bill from an Internet posting two months after the bill was first introduced in the House, has grown frustrated with the legislative process. Last Wednesday, when the bill cleared the House judiciary committee, getting one step closer to passage, TDFN activists were not given time to present their concerns to legislators, said Luke Kanies, a programmer and TDFN member.

Briley, on the other hand, has a bone to pick with the bill’s opponents, some of whom “have been extremely abrasive to me.” Referring to last week’s hearing, he said it was just a timing conflict, not an attempt to “shut anybody up." He also suggested that activists remain on standby during the next four hearings, one of which is scheduled at the budget subcommittee this Wednesday.

“As the bill stands now, I think it has problems,” said Betty Nixon, director of government relations at Vanderbilt University, who voiced the school’s concerns last week. “The question is how you balance protecting the public interest with addressing legitimate business needs.”

Nixon said the university, which is heavily involved in software and Internet-based research, has been concerned with unintended consequences the bill might pose, such as criminalizing the day-to-day work of independent software developers who build firewalls and encryption tools.

Briley said firewall and encryption software would not be illegal under the proposed bill. Moreover, the bill in its current reading exempts local government agencies, communication service providers, and financial institutions from being targeted as potential broadband thieves. In addition, the lobbyists have offered to extend the exemption to private institutions.

Multiple exemptions lead the activists opposing the bill to believe it targets the Average Joe tinkering with multiple computer devices but paying a single cable modem fee, Lyon said. If cable companies would like to charge for every computer you hooked up to the line, it makes the $130 million in revenue loss, touted by the cable lobby in legislature, a very difficult number to deal with, Lyon added.

Tennessee is not the first state eying tougher rules on broadband Internet and telecommunications customers. Eight states have adopted similar statues, which were pitched by the Motion Picture Association of America.

“If we don’t do it now, something draconian will happen in the future,” Briley said.

Lyon said TDFN is doing its best to demonstrate to legislators that the bill is hard to navigate and, therefore, it would be best to extend the discussions into the next session. “If it passes now, all the problems will have to be sorted out in the courts,” Lyon said. “We’ll see who becomes the test case.”