The Electronic Frontier Foundation is hosting an event tonight to highlight "endangered gizmos," or technology products that are on the cutting edge of innovation but that could fall prey to increasingly more restrictive intellectual property laws. Basically, the Mouse and friends are leading congress around by the nose, and all sorts of crap could become hobbled or even illegal.

For instance -- want to turn your home computer into a DVR capable of recording and playing back Hi-Def broadcasts that you receive over the airwaves? Well, then get out to a store and buy an HD PCI card or external adapter (like the Elgato EyeTV), because after July 1st, it will be illegal to purchase one that doesn't respond to the "Broadcast Flag" -- a copy protection scheme that will soon be imposed upon any and all devices that output HD signal.

Tech from Slim Devices, Elgato and Slingmedia will be on display, and we've gone to these copylefter things in the past -- they may sound boring, but seriously, when you find out how scary some of these laws are, and how cool the people fighting those laws are, it won't be long before you're talking to everyone you meet about the Grokster case in the Supreme Court, or why Orin Hatch's INDUCE Act could basically cripple Silicon Valley. Free food, cash bar, and all the tech talk and IP law you can handle starting at 7:00 at 111 Minna.

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