FCC to Rule on Request to Limit Recording From TV

q2k and many others sent it in, and the original Inter@ctive Week story has been republished all over the place. The deal is that the MPAA and other copyrithg holders want copy protection built into VCRs and other recording devices that will keep users from recordings some shows broadcast in digital format over cable. On the other side, the Home Recording Rights Coalition, made up of consumer electronics manufacturers, wants people to be able to tape shows for later viewing (or whatever). The FCC is accepting comments on this matter through Sept. 7, and may issue a ruling as early as Sept. 14.

Comments

FCC to rule on limiting the right to rember show

[jmv]

In a move to rightly protect their copyrighted content, the MPAA asked the FCC to rule on what the viewers have the right to remember from a show. An MPAA representative have told us: "We are aware of viewers remembering great parts of a show and then telling the punch to other people. This is clearly an infringement on our copyrights. We want to have all TV's equipped with MIB flashing devices automatically activated at the end of each show."

Well, that and...

[Greyfox]

You missed a couple:

- Do you know how much of a pain in the ass it is to program these protections in? It's gonna cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars to invent some protections and some smartass kid in Sweden will break it in a week (Go smartass kids!)

- Oh, we'll see you a DVD player too, but some smartass kid already broke that (Yay smartass kids!) Rather than figure out what to do about that, they decided to start suing everyone. We've got no direction here, and it's fucking up our logistics! God that pisses us off (It's not the smartass kid's fault though.)

Re:FCC to rule on limiting the right to rember sho

[jmv]

He addeed: "Furthermore, our internal studies have clearly shown that people remembering they have seen a show are much less likely to watch it again then those who haven't seen it. The result is a big loss of revenue for the MPAA members. This new habit of remembering shows to stop watching it again must not be tolerated."

Is there a petition for this?

[paulproteus]

There needs to be a petition started for this kind of thing.

What kinds of petition campaigns have been successful online? Usually, those involving ensuring the rights of those who sign it.

The question the answer to which I would like is: Is there a petition for this sort of thing?

The following link is a direct message to the FCC. Speak. Make your voice known. Let US lawmakers know what they would do if they further hampered the rights of consumers.

http://congress.nw.dc.us/cgi-bin/oo_compose.pl?d ir=hrrc&comptype=agency&agency=112&message =101

This is amongst the utmost importance of anyone remotely interested in freedom. Free software users, especially, should be aware of this!

Speak!

-- This message posted by Konqueror.

Fair Use

[Wind_Walker]

Once again, the MPAA does all it can to throw the idea of "Fair Use" right out the window. Now, instead of attacking a new technology (i.e. DeCSS), they're attacking one of the oldest technologies out there. I remember having a VCR back in the early '80s. Whatever appeared on television was fair game for taping (well, aside from HBO and other specifically copyrighted materials).

Next, I expect to see no more radio-tape recorder hybrids. After all, the information that's being sent out through radio waves can be copied instantaneously to another media.

The MPAA has really shot itself in the foot, IMHO. Before, I could see their side of the story (albeit limitedly). A digital copy of a work (DVD, and even MP3 for the RIAA) is an exact copy. Quality is not degraded through the copying process. But now... Have any of you watched a video recording recently? I taped a TV program just last night (hope the MPAA doesn't find out about it!) and watched it this morning; the quality compared to even regular TV, much less DVDs, was terrible. Even if the feeds are coming in through digital means, VHS tapes are a horrible representation of the original.

What's more, if I buy a Pay-Per-View event, I am paying for the rights to watch that movie/event. I am not paying for 2 hours of television time; I am buying a license, and that license should entitle me to watch it whenever I want, whenever I want. This is akin to buying a computer game, watching the media it came on disintegrate, and then "acquiring" a copy from another place (this also happened to me just recently). I pray that this will not be upheld by the FCC.
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VCRs

[Dungeon Dweller]

1 Most people already have VCR's, and can record to content, unless you scramble it somehow.

2 People have been recording from TV for years, it's a good thing. Now you want to take that away to bleed us even more

3 If you're going to broadcast it, you should be prepared to at least allow people to record it. You don't own the ground lines over which this is broadcast

4 Don't you make enough money not to have to harass us even more?

Call me old fashioned...

[Pollux]

...but whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

There's a form to write the FCC...

[AugstWest]

...at this url.

This is just plain *wrong*. The MPAA is trying SO hard to take advantage of the digital age to take away our rights to record and archive our own media.

We need to beware reasoning like "We want to make sure that [the device] has the ability to provide copy protection, but it doesn't mean all product running into the box won't be able to be copied" -- this kind of vague, "honor system"-based lingo doesn't limit what they can later decide to do with the technology. Once it is in place, they can do whatever they want with it.

Honestly, the MPAA frightens me.

Re:I'm not seeing how this would affect...

[gammatron]

There won't be any hacks out "shortly after it came out"... what they are proposing would all be done in hardware, and from the looks of it, with encryption (as opposed to the current macrovision scheme). It would take a hardware device capable of decoding the data then outputting an unencrypted video data stream to the VCR or other device, unless you can re-program you VCR, which seems unlikely at best.

This differs significantly from Macrovision-type copy protections, which insert an anomoly into the analog video signal (usually a pulsing pure white signal outside of the visible screen area or else a munged colorburst) - TVs are able to display the picture fine, but the anomoly screws up the VCR and the signal that gets recorded either exhibits a large pulsing of the brightness value or else has a rainbow-type artifact smeared across it; either way, its pretty un-viewable. This scheme wouldn't let the TV display anything unless it had the decoding circuitry built in (read the article about how it potentially renders current HDTV equipment useless). This cicuitry would never be put into VCRs, which means they'll never be able to record this stuff. The MPAA and its thugs won't allow the construction of external set-top boxes to decode this data, either, since the output could easily be diverted to a recording device.

It is possible that someone will be able to write a DeCSS-type program for this scheme, but the MPAA et al have probably learned their lesson and won't make it so easy this time.
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One rather blatant lie

[Coward, Anonymous]

[The MPAA] believes an open signal to a VCR would make the risk of widespread copying of hot movies far outweigh the potential profit from broadcasting the material.

If this were true, there wouldn't be any movie studios which would put movies out on pay per view. The fact that they do put them out on pay per view shows that they think the risk of loss from widespread copying is less than the potential profit from broadcasting it (unless their goal with pay per view is to lose money, if that is the case then the MPAA is correct).

I wouldn't be so sure of that...

[Greyfox]

The FCC and the court system are both bound by the laws Congress passes. If the FCC says consumers do have the right to record TV shows, the MPAA can still lobby Congress to have a law passed to limit the consumer's rights.

The courts would have to abide by that law unless it conflicts with the Constitution. I don't recall that there's a whole lot in the Constitution on the subject of IP law (I could be mistaken; IANAL and it's been a while since I've read it.)

While your congressman knows that voting yes to such a thing would make him somewhat less popular with his constituents, the RIAA and MPAA have a lot of money to sling around, and your congressman can be sneaky in a variety of ways in order to reduce the danger that he'll be accountable for such a vote. Which is probably how a good bit of the erosion of the constitution and the rights of the people has occurred over the years.

Of course, the ultimate power still rests with the people. A jury charged with prosecuting a case stemming from these laws could refuse to convict the defendant under such a law. Betting on jury nullification to save your ass isn't particularly safe, but it may end up being the final refuge against laws some company has bought from Congress.

The enemy of the enemy is not your friend.

[isaac]

Remember kids, the HRRC, despite its warm-fuzzy name, is about the interests of electronics manufacturers. Don't think for a minute that your best interests are represented by either side here.

The HRRC is only concerned about the MPAA's proposals inasmuch as they might

• Make existing sets obsolete, burning their most profitable sector of early-adopters or (probably) forcing recalls.
  
• Drive down demand for VCRs (anyone who believes that even marginally-desirable programming won't be copy protected is fooling themselves. No more taping "The Simpsons"... but for only $29.95 you can buy three episodes on DVD!)

Given that the MPAA/networks won't budge on the copy-protection point, I'm not surprised the issue has gone to the FCC to decide.

And as a licensed amateur radio operator (KC4TQP), I can tell you the FCC is the fox guarding the consumer henhouse. If a consumer-friendly ruling comes down from the FCC, it will be purely coincidental.

-Isaac

if this capability were there...

[Barbarian]

..I can see in certain controlled societies (Russia? China?) that news broadcasts would be unrecordable, so that people could not bring up inconsistencies later.

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