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FCC to Require Anti-Piracy Features in Digital TVs
RobTerrell writes "The FCC is now requiring that next-generation digital TVs and VCRs use anti-piracy feature so that programming can be tagged as copy-protected. " Not only will this slow HDTV adoptance even more, but it will make a lot of existing sets incompatible with formats. Thanks Uncle FCC.
Is it me, or does this look like 'Uncle Fucker' to anyone else?
But fuck it. I don't need a goddamn digital TV. I don't really need an analog one. This will just further push real creativity away from a medium that desperately needs to be replaced, and the indie film producers (think George Lucas in Love) will be the beneficiaries.
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
Seems like we've just rolled over and accepted it though.
Man, if all these big orgs don't chill out, I'm going to have a lot of T-shirts: HDTV-crack, censorware crack shirts, SDMI-crack, decss, etc.
In the immortal words of the Beastie Boys, "Something's got to give."
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
...both of them.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Yes, but now they are trying to have that decision overruled! Soon you will only be able to watch exactly what they want you to watch, and even have the gall to charge you for it! Ve Vill Kontrol the Vertical and ze Horizontal. Sometime in the near future:
Warning, coporate subject A-3451 is in violation of copyright law in sector 7 grid 9. Send an anti-pirate dispatch immediately
Its really sad when a Richard Stalman's Satire "The Right to Read" becomes closer to reality every day. He was wrong about one thing though. Its happening a lot quicker than even he predicted
Intellectual Property is Theft!
www.enthea.org
I don't know why, but this depresses me more than anything I've seen recently on the subject.
Interestingly, reminding myself that I don't watch TV doesn't seem to help. The FCC is overstepping its bounds, here, and I'm not sure there's anything we can do about it.
Ok class, now we're going to look at 20th century entertainment. Swipe your debit cards to activate your electronic books and put on your privacy goggles so only you can read the text. In the late twentieth century, there was a strange concept called "fair use." People were actually allowed to do whatever they wanted with information content they purchased. They could read, watch, or listen to it as much as they wanted, they could loan it out to friends, they could even copy it for personal use. Even television signals were fair game. All of this made the poor media giants angry because it was costing them additional sales. Finally, the government fought back against this injustice and put an end to unrestricted use of information for good. Now we live in a wonderful world where nobody can get away with not paying for every single piece of information they use every time they use it. That concludes today's lesson, you will now be charged the usual fee for any notes you have taken. Remember, if you tell anyone else about this lecture, you will be in violation of the Intellectual Property Act of 2005.
I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but, if you can't record what's broadcast, how can you prove that it ever was?
Where the US leads, the world follows. This will lead to widespread adoption if it catches on in the USA. If a government, anywhere, chooses to rewrite history so that an event 'never happened', it will be of great importance to them that news broadcasts can not be recorded.
To extend this a bit further, what if means were included to "revoke" privledges to record broadcasts after the fact, and disable existing copies? Then we'd be getting into an Orwellian nightmare.
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and its one of the best decisions i've ever made.
at first it seems like the end of the world when you dont have TV, but soon you realize that there are all sorts of other, much more useful ways to spend the 6+ hours/day that the average american is watching every day.
all of a sudden, i had time for hobbies, reading, coding, hanging out with friends... Its amazing how much time that damn thing sucks up of yours.
One of funniest things that I've come across is the reaction that I get when I tell most people that I dont have cable, and hardly ever watch TV. Most people say something along the lines of "I cant survive without TV". Kindof sad, really...
After you dont watch TV for a while, you being to realize how exploitive the advertising is, and how manipulative the programming is. My favorite example is the damn Prilosec "Purple Pill" commercial. It gives you the impression that taking this pill will save your life... when all it does is stop heartburn :-)
so... I dont exactly see myself buying one of these HDTV's.
tagline
... hi bingo
This appears to be a special case of the Trusted Client issue. There is a wonderful article on Technocrat.net entitled, Is "Trusted Client" the Wave of the Future?
This might the long term solution for owners and defenders of intellectual property. One possible future: (1) all commercially, or at least corporately produced, data will be encrypted; and (2) a new law would require all future information display devices for different types of data (music, photographs, video, whatever) to have built-in hardware decryption.
There are those of you who will say, "so what, it has to be decrypted at some point in order to be displayed, and at that point I'll just attach a wire and run it to my VCR, CDR, TIVO, computer, etc., etc." You might be able to, but the vast, vast majority would never be able to, nor would they be inclined to void thier warranties (and perhaps risk future civil or criminal penalities) for opening their box. There is a fundemental economic and mass market difference between hardware and software means of circumventing encryption and copy control mechanisms. Software means of defeating encryption and circumventing copy control are, once discovered and implimented, themselves digitally reproduceable and easily and economically distributed over the internet. Obviously, hardware means are not.
Another possible further legal response to the threat posed by the internet to intellectual property would involve:
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
It means that you have less control over the things that you own. Your television, your VCR, you will no longer precisely "own" them, it will almost be like they belong to someone else. A television is supposed to be a simple device, it displays TV broadcasts, a VCR is supposed to be equally simple, it records and plays back TV broadcasts. They will no longer be like that. They will have restrictions that prevent you from doing anything you want with them. The first thing is to prevent you from recording certain shows so you will have to fork out the money to buy their tapes or DVDs if you want to watch it more than once (or if you have a job or other responsibility that prevents you from seeing it the first time).
Do you have any doubt that the industry will expand this and make as many shows as they can copy-protected? Forget about taping the super bowl, you have to buy the tape. The industry will increasingly push copy-protection onto as many shows and broadcasts as they can get away with. And then, who knows what may be next? When they have the power you can bet your ass they will abuse it. There are so many possible scenarios for abuse of this kind of technology it's unbelievable. You've seen what the industry has done already with DVD, certain parts of the DVD you can't skip. What if they could do that to your VCR? It's only a half skip away from this technology.
Imagine this, recording of most broadcast television is illegal (because it's copy-protected). Wouldn't it be tempting for the industry to stop selling you movies and tapes? It would be much more lucrative if they went to a "service" model where you buy / watch TV shows or movies on demand but cannot record them (or skip the commercials). Parts of the software industry are already on their way to being service oriented instead of "item" oriented. Look at microsoft's dot Net crap.
In the future you may not be able to own movies, or software, or TV shows, or music, or maybe even books. All of these things must be rented on demand with a per-use fee from the big corporations. Now, imagine that world. Imagine the sheer power the corporations would have over all us little guys. Imagine how easy censorship would be. All it would take to effectively ban a book would be for no one to be willing to offer it for use, or for the publisher who owns the copyrights to decide not to offer it. And, using your rented software owned by faceless corporation # 317, it may not even be possible to determine the existence of a "subversive book". Imagine how easy it would be to track down the people who "abuse certain software programs" or "read the wrong books", etc. The technology to do that is only this far -> || away from what is being used today. I doubt things will be that severe (at least not right away), but it could and seeing as how it would be in the interests (and profit) of the industry I would be very wary in this area of technology.
Hell, California plans to do that one better, by requiring a remote shutoff switch for cars.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
What they're trying to do is bypass it by making it so you can't record, even though you may record. Such a law is moot if there isn't any equipment capable (or in this case, all available equipment is crippled and castrated) of recording.
Up until now, the media cartels have grudgingly tolerated home recording because of quality degradation inherent in analog signals. All of a sudden "digital" comes along with the promise of infinite flawless error-corrected non-degrading copies. No tapes that wear out, no records that scratch up, no magnification of error from copy to copy. At fist they were cool with it since the equipment to write it to media large nough to hold it was beyond the means of normal people. But abruptly storage, bandwidth, compression, and processing power all caught up and turned digital media into a two way street: people could once again record their own media. Now they're all scrambling to "secure" their digital media without understanding the meaning of the word: to keep others from getting something you already have. I hate to break it to them, but they have already given or sold their stuff to us, and the only think copyright allows them to prevent us from doing is giving it to someone else. Anything else is our business.
Want to stop piracy? Convince people that copying is wrong because you honestly deserve their money and don't give them a reason to willfully rip you off because they want to see you go into bankruptcy. Hiding behind the "protecting the artists" excuse isn't working, especially when the artists don't want your protection.
Here are the comments I sent to the FCC last week. I'm disappointed they did no good. (I've reformatted the submission for viewing on Slashdot.)
Schwab
________________
Comment on Proposed Rulemaking, PP Docket No. 00-67
1. I, Leo L. Schwab, am a resident of Redwood City, CA. I am a software engineer of over 15 years professional experience and, as such, have direct experience with "copy protection" measures as employed to combat unsanctioned copying of computer software. I am also an owner and buyer of consumer electronics and computer equipment.
2. The FCC has been asked to resolve compatibility issues surrounding digital broadcast and cable television and consumer electronics equipment. My comments will focus primarily on the issue of "copy protection."
3. I urge the Commission to oppose mandating copy protection measures in consumer electronics equipment, for the following reasons:
Inherent Fragility
4. In general terms, copy protection measures operate by attemptng to distinguish between "legitimate" copies (i.e. copies manufactured by the vendor) and unsanctioned copies (as typically made on a home computer). Because computers -- and indeed all digital equipment -- are designed to copy information perfectly, making this distinction is a difficult technical challenge.
5. Many methods have been employed to attempt to make this distinction, all of which have attendant advantages and drawbacks. However, no matter which specific method is employed, they all basically introduce artificial fragility and unreliability into the system. More clearly, by introducing copy protection measures into a product or system, that product or system is by definition rendered less reliable, since it now has a deliberately introduced capacity for failure. Some copies will work, whereas others will fail, having been identified as, "illegitimate."
6. There is not, nor can there be, a 100% reliable method of distinguishing between sanctioned and unsanctioned copies. As such, all existing copy protection methods can and do yield false results, causing legitimate store-bought copies of software to fail (and allowing unsanctioned copies to operate unhindered). The reasons for the false results may be manifold: damaged distribution media, incompatible hardware, incompatible operating system software, etc.
7. Working remotely (as do cable system operators when dealing with subscribers), it is impossible to determine if such failure is due to an "honest" flaw in the hardware or distribution media, or because the user is attempting to use an unsanctioned copy. Direct examination of the system and media is necessary to make such a determination.
8. Thus, employing copy protection measures in consumer electronics will render such equipment inherently less reliable, resulting in undue inconvenience and cost to the consumer and equipment manufacturer alike.
Lack of Compelling Need
9. Until the mid-1980's or so, consumers were tremendously inconvenienced by copy protection systems. This was due not only to their fragility, but also by their preventing users from copying their software from the vendor-supplied floppy disks to internal hard disks, which were gaining popularity at the time.
10. Consumer opinion on the issue was overwhelming and adamant. Bowing to market pressure, many vendors agreed to abandon copy protection measures. This was done with much trepidation because vendors feared that, without them, individuals would make unsanctioned copies in such overwhelming numbers that the potential market for the software would be diluted to the point where even recovering development costs would be impossible. To the best of my knowledge, there is not a single instance throughout the history of the computing industry where such fears have materialized.
11. Thus, there are no historical precedents or incidents justifying a need for copy protection measures. Further, there is no credible reason to believe the situation will be different for digital content delivered via broadcast or cable systems.
Undue Burden to Consumers
12. In my experience, copy protection measures, as applied to computer software, are expensive to develop, both in terms of engineering time and resources. It is reasonable to believe that the same will be true for measures applied to digital broadcast content. These costs must be recovered somewhere. If the Commission mandates copy protection measures in consumer electronics, the consumers will solely bear not only the direct costs of their development and manufacture, but the indirect costs associated with decreased reliability.
13. If copy protection were a feature being requested by consumers, then it would be reasonable to expect consumers to pay for it. But they are not requesting it. Indeed, they are demanding the precise opposite.
14. The only organizations professing a need for copy protection are television and movie studios, and cable system operators. It therefore seems reasonable that those organizations solely bear the costs of development and deployment, and leave end-user equipment unencumbered.
Squelching Future Innovations
15. My review of proposed copy protection methods involve the use of viewers or viewing software that are "approved" by a central licensing authority under the control of film and television studios (this is currently the case with DVD playback devices, which have been licensed by the DVD Copy Control Authority). To obtain such approval, the viewing device typically may only have functionality deemed appropriate by the licensing authority, and nothing else. This functionality is typically limited to playback only, with pause, fast-forward, and rewind features (and even these are handicapped in certain circumstances). In the proposed protection schemes, any individual wishing to employ new or different functionality must first petition for and obtain approval from the licensing authority, or risk being sued.
16. One use to which an individual might put digital broadcast content is to incorporate it into their computer's "screen saver" facility. For example, images from a digital television signal could be received by a computer (possibly through a IEEE-1394 interface), mathematically transformed into a sphere, and bounced around the screen. Such use of broadcast television content is not (currently) unlawful. Indeed, it would strain credibility for content producers and broadcasters to argue such use was even unethical. As such, seeking approval from a licensing authority for such use would seem to throw an unnecessary roadblock in the path of developers conducting lawful research and development.
17. While my example is admittedly a trite one, I hope it serves to illustrate that there are non-obvious uses to which digital content may be put that are useful, interesting, beneficial to consumers, and non-infringing. Full exploration of such possibilities has yet to begin. Mandating copy protection would seriously cripple such explorations.
Not a Commission Function
18. At this point, I stray from my expertise into admittedly inexpert readings of the Commission's charter and contemporaneous intellectual property disputes. Nevertheless, I request the Commission bear with me.
19. I can find nothing in the Commission's charter that suggests it should be involved in interpreting intellectual property law. By mandating copy protection measures, the Commission will effectively serve as an interpreter of Fair Use doctrine. Fair Use is not applied in a blanket manner, but on a case-by-case basis by the Federal Courts. Moreover, the meaning of Fair Use is constantly changing as circumstances evolve and technology advances.
20. Should the Commission choose to mandate a form of blanket copy protection, it is easy to envision a future Federal Court decision declaring that consumers have Fair Use rights that extend beyond those provided by equipment containing the Commission-mandated protection measures. In practical terms, however, such a decision would be virtually moot, since the Commission's previous interpretation of Fair Use has been cast in stone (or, in this case, silicon). The Commission would then find itself in the unenviable position of having to implement the Court's order. Whatever form that took, it would be tremendously burdensome to the Commission, electronics manufacturers, and consumers.
21. Finally, my readings of intellectual property disputes show that -- if the Commission will permit the colloquialism -- the field of intellectual property law is extremely hairy bananas. It is inordinately complex, frequently self-contradictory, and its interpretation is crucially dependent on the specific circumstances of a given case. I respectfully suggest this is a field of endeavor the Commission would wish to avoid. It would take Solomonic wisdom to design a technical specification that would serve the interests of copyright holders without impacting the ever-changing Fair Use rights of consumers.
Conclusion
22. In summary, I urge the Commission to oppose mandatory copy protection measures for consumer electronics equipment because:
23. I greatly appreciate this opportunity to provide comment, and sincerely thank the Commission for its time and attention.
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
This really had me worried, so I went to the FCC site to read what they actually ruled, and I am now convinced that the linked article above is REALLY screwed up, freely mixing comments and opinions about two rulings that have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with each other
Here is the summary of what the FCC actually said concerning copy protection:
Summary of the Declaratory Ruling:
In today's Order, the Commission addressed the narrow issue of whether technology licenses requiring copy protection measures to be located within commercially available equipment are consistent with the Commission's navigation devices rules. The Order noted that the Commission's initial navigation devices Order expressly contemplated the inclusion of copy protection measures in navigation host devices and that such measures would not violate the security separation requirement. Today's Order reiterated that some measure of anti-copying encryption technology is consistent with the intent of the rules because such measures protect a gap where digital data would otherwise be available "in the clear" and subject to unrestricted digital copying.
With this controversy resolved, the Commission directed industry participants to finalize negotiations necessary to bring to fruition the goals of Section 629 and requested that industry participants submit, within 30 days of the release of the Order, a report on the status of the DFAST license, including a final version of a completed DFAST license agreement.
Although today's ruling clarified that the inclusion of some amount of copy protection within a host device does not violate the navigation devices rules, the Commission did not determine whether specific copy protection terms or technology were consistent with the rules. The Commission also concluded that no evidence was presented that reasonable home copying would be impeded by the inclusion of copy protection within host devices.
Action by the Commission September 14, 2000, by Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Declaratory Ruling (CS Docket # 97-80, FCC 00-341).
FCC Press Release
So the FCC clearly IS concerned with ensuring that "reasonable" home copying is possible, although it isn't clear from this summary what EXACTLY that means. It is also not clear to me after reading this whether the quote from Jeff Joseph is complaining about the inclusion of copy protection itself, or whether it is complaining about the loss of backward compatibility. The latter is a problem, but allowing copy protection into some devices was already decided. I'm not sure exactly what the copy protection is allowed to copy, but this ruling was covering the narrow question of exactly where in the digital decoding process that copy protection has to go.
It seems that the original linked article was mixing comments concerning TWO FCC releases; this copy protection rule clarification, and another one regarding uniform labelling rules that make it clear what "Digital Cable Ready" means: FCC ADOPTS RULES FOR LABELING OF DTV RECEIVERS. THIS is what Commissioner Ness was complaining about, not about the copy protection ruling.
In summary, this article is highly confused about the events it is reporting.
Note that I'm not disagreeing with the potential for abuse with embedded copy protection, just that I'm not sure this article had a clue. I'm also pretty certain that the FCC is not "trying to get around AHRA" as some others have said. I'd just like to understand what is really going on here, and not jump to outrageous conclusions.
Vote for Ralph Nader. I can hear you screaming already, "But he can't possibly win!" You're absolutely right. He will not win. But that DOES NOT mean that your vote is wasted. Consider:
Vote for Nader. You'll sleep better. And after a few more election cycles, you'll live better.
/\/\/\/
I have a proposal. It's not a perfect solution, but it seems better than what I've seen so far. Right now there seems to be the option of no copy controls whatsoever, or these iron fisted copy controls. What I would propose is to apply an analog world concept to the digital realm, that of copy degradation.
Rather than saying, you can't make a copy, what about having it so that you can make copies, but that those copies, in transfer are degraded. So, if you copy your DVD to your computer, it degrades it so that it's only VCR quality. That way the fear of perfect digital copies goes away and it still provides for fair use of the information.
So, if you make a copy of your Magic Digital Media Disc, your friend can play the copy on his machine at VCR quality. If he makes a copy for somebody else it gets a little worse, maybe it's only mono sound now or a bit grainy. People will still make copies, but it will create an incentive to go out and buy the originals (which is what the media companies are so pissed about).
I think the FCC and the government need to start actively defending fair use, rather than selling us down the river to these corporate gluttons. There is a middle ground if somebody will try to stake it out.
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This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Actually, I was thinking "12 year old Norwegian boy executed at the request of the FCC for publishing information describing how to disable copy protection with a paperclip, a rubber band, and an Apple ]["