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All Digital TVs To Include Copy Restrictions
michael hirschorn writes: "The code would sit in the guts of your digital TV or set-top box and would essentially eat up any bit of programming deemed off limits." Deja vu. It's a recurring theme: every piece of electronics in your home will include code designed to prevent you from using it in any way that Hollywood doesn't like.
The television could work via a timestamp or something, I guess, so it knows from the encoding what time something must be played, and not show it otherwise, but that would depend on the integrity of the television's clock. How hard could it be to jack around with the television's internal date and time?
I guess I understand why they want to do this, but I don't understand what they could do to the signal to prevent it from being copied. Can somebody shed some light on this?
Nonperiodic Central Trajectory
It's actually not the TV industries fault so much as the US Government who's mandating the switch so that they can re-auction off televisions space in the spectrum to wireless companies.
They keep setting deadlines for broadcasters to go digital, and a number of them are indeed broadcasting some shows digitally, but since there's so much more content available analogly (i know, not a word), digital sets don't sell. Which makes their price high.
Once the analog is killed off, at least the price of digital sets will plummet due to huge demand, but i don't think that benefit overules the costs and headaches involved, unless the FCC has a plan in mind to replace everyone's TV's at zero cost. Which they don't.
You pay to buy a license to the movies.
And that is half the problem; the world has gone licence mad. Everyone who's selling something is looking for ways to squeeze more and more money out of people, while everyone who is buying is doing their best to pay as little as possible. The sensible thing to do, it seems to me, is to strive to strike a balance. Unfortunately, neither side seems willing to even try; in my experience, though, it's Business that is the most die-hard in its stance. Consumers tend to be a little more willing to put up and pay up.
And as for TV shows, you're getting them for free.
So what is my cable provider charging me for each month? If I don't pay, I don't get to watch the shows. No, I'm not paying per show, but I am paying to receive the channels that they're shown on. Doesn't sound like "free" to me.
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
And, as always, these devices will only hurt the average consumer who has never cost "content providers" any money at all
What? Sure you have! (Hear me out...)
The big-time pirates generally don't cost these companies much, since they sell in markets the MPAAers generally ignore due to too low sales.
No, copy restrictions exist to stop that casual copying. Your copy of the "Lion King" got trashed when your kid got curious about what was behind that little door? If you had a backup copy and don't buy a new one, that's money out of Mr. Eisner's pocket. Can't have that, thus we have Macrovision. Doesn't stop your content pirate -- even small-timers could just buy a "video stabilizer" -- but it stops your average consumer.
The RIAA knows just how much extra they made selling you the same music twice, first on vinyl and then on CDs. Now there's a new format, but they don't get a cut. Horrors! Kill it quick!
Illegal copies may be the rationalization, but let's be very clear here; it's the money that *legal* copying would keep out of their pockets that they're worried about. Ditto region coding, which exists supposedly so they can sell DVDs in the US while they're in the theaters elsewhere. So why is "Casablanca" region-coded? It's because exclusive distribution contracts keep the cash flowing in.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
This is bulls4it are they gonna take everything away.... just rip the constituion out of ol' jefferson's hand cus this is s41t why bother, don't these people know how much we mean to them..... BOYCOTT HDTV's and DVD's (promote Divix)
...I plan to. I'm sort of casually boycotting DVD now. Unless "consumers" (I hate that term; I prefer the term "individuals") indicate to these industry consortiums that they aren't going to pay up if the restrictions are too annoying (as they did with DIVX), we'll be stuck with these sorts of things.
Unfortunately, people are going to see the much higher quality, and get suckered right in. (Much in the way I expect that most slashdot geeks have DVD players now because of the much higher quality, even if they are bothered by the legal assaults on DeCSS.) (And the general public probably doesn't even know about the assaults on DeCSS; if they do, they probably have the misconception that it's a piracy issue.)
-Rob
Its amazing to think of the kind of abuse consumers will be looking at in the next few years regarding Digital TV.
1) Your old TV's won't work, but you can buy this $100-$200 box just so you can still use the damn thing. (Although the current price on tuner boxes is over $500).
2) New TV's will cost $1,500+. Please go back to 1 TV per household.
3) Now, you won't be able to use your VCR/Tivo/Anything to record shows on your hideously expensive new Digital set.
I will be surprised if there aren't eventually riots in the streets because of this. The total lack of concern for the consumer (and also for the local stations being forced to change standards) is amazing!
Anyhow, I'm glad that you said that the democracy and capitalism are linked but not the same thing. It's frightening how many people think that capitalism equals democracy.
No-one knows but those who cannot tell us.
I dunno why they are so worried in the USA.
In France there are a lot of VCR that don't record the ads. They automatically detect when ads start and stop and don't record that.
I don't know about you, but I have to pay a cable bill every month. I am certaintly not getting them for free. Further, I buy products, which are invariably advertised on the shows I watch. Hence I am paying in that way as well.
What makes you think we are getting television shows for free?
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*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
25: ten.knilrevlis@wkcuhc
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
Why should I not get a better picture because of some basterd making lame copy protection that violates my right to fair use?
Because they can?
Do you have a 'right' to access to the creative output of Movie and Television studios?
Do pornography customers have 'fair use' access to a good view of your bedroom when you're bonking your wife/girlfriend?
Hay thar.
hold on here.... are americans bad because they want to exert control over others or are they bad because they refuse to allow standards to be dictated to them ? they can't be both.
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
As stated in the linked article, devices without the copy protection circuitry will not be able to interpret the signal and will display only fuzz. Of course this will be circumvented, but it's not quite as simple as you've stated.
I just got a chill down my spine reading that article...
Why would I, as a consumer, buy a crippled piece of hardware? *tsk* *tsk* (waves finger) Don't piss off the consumer...We're the ones with the money, remember?
MP3s. I have TONS (gigs) of them. I decided that I wanted to listen to them on my stereo. I went out bought a patch cord, VOILA! Do I still buy CD's? Yup. I like the cover art. I read the credits. Am I a theif? Apparently.
Guess what? I'll probably do the same thing with digital video. I'll never rent another movie. Hell, I won't even get cable/satalite anymore. If I can get whatever I want for free - I'm there. But guess what? I'll STILL buy DVDs. If I like what I see/hear, I go buy it. Oh, and I'm still a theif.
I'm not re-broadcasting this stuff - it is for my personal enjoyment - IN MY OWN HOME. Don't tell me what I can and can't do in my own home.
And one month later, a rich, bored 13 year-old with a a hex editor, soldering iron and an EPROM programmer is going to release a "patch"
signal, noise, to me it's all the same.
But we will have to buy new TVs anyways, Not because of Copy protection, but because of the new digital TV signals our analog TVs can't recieve. And also Digital TV is just a better picture quality. But if this goes into affect and I can't record these shows what I won't be buying with my new TV is...my new VCR, my new Tivo, my new WinTV decoder card, ect... And that is why electronic manufactures care, they want you to by all the extras that go with it.
iRepairIT - iPhone, Mac, & PC Repair
I wonder why they don't sue for negative damages! Oooh.
On the other hand, I think the networks should sue the copyprotection folks for making it harder to record their shows and watch them later. The Copyprotection folks are the real ones who are cutting their revenues by cutting television watching.
Regardless of all that though the point remains that we (Europeans) have got copy-protectionless digital TV here and now.
Sure you do, until your broadcast and media companies realize the windfall of cash they can get from going pay per view. Greed is not only an American trait (although I'll admit it's more prevelant here)
Coming from an American I find it a bit whiney to moan that it's not the will of the American people, it's the government.
Actually, its the corporations that now own the government. I and my mechanic friend may do everything in our power to prevent this, but our power doesn't compare with the power of the rich corporations, who can buy the government's power to do whatever they want. We face a pretty bleak future if there is nothing we can do to stand up to a corporate owned state that can do whatever it wants to us. And you guys wonder why we want to keep our guns? It's the only form of power we still maintain. I honestly hope it never comes to a revolution but how much should we take?
Finkployd
- Pay twenty bucks to have your brother-in-law's neighbor's electrician solder in that doo-hickey that defeats your TV's copy protection.
- Read a book.
From what I've seen in the news, HDTV is catching on a lot slower than originally anticipated. The protocol, as a political compromise, requires sets to support about a dozen digital TV formats, making HDTV equipment more expensive. Broadcasters, after being granted extra bandwidth from the FCC, are salivating at all the other things they could do with that bandwidth. Consumers seem pretty satisfied with the quality of regular TV.On top of that, movie-theater owners (Loews et al.) are financially crunched because they have more theater seats than they can sell; if I were a TV-industry executive, I'd look at that news and wonder how much money I should risk to lure consumers to HDTV.
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send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
Hmm, a Sony television that will only display programming from authorized Sony studios?
I see huge First Amendment issues. But then, I am not certain that the First Amendment guarantees an audience, only the right to express oneself. There is a distinction.
All this when I was beginning to think that the digital revolution may be a great boon to independent artists.
I fear as others here have stated, that there will be regional, and by regional I mean at the city, county and state level, controls on acceptable programming. It will be a sad day when the government has control of all programming. This makes it possible - even moreso than now.
If I order pay-per-view for the next Super Heavy Weight fight, and tape it to watch the next day (Maybe I had to work) that doesn't mean I'm asking the boxers to come to my house and put on another fight for me. Nor would it mean the Packers and Broncos have to come play the Superbowl in my front yard either.
People that trade concert tapes are not promoting people to stay home and not go to concerts. You pay money to go to a concert (or go to the football stadium), and you get a live, visual, experience. Huge fans & completists that want as many concert tapes possible does not keep them from going to a conert. Ticketmaster prices might though.
Content providers are making money off of consumers. To stay in business they have to stay competitive to the consumers. They don't have the RIGHT to our money. They have to earn it, but the rewards can be high, of course. If they want to cripple their products, they shouldn't say Boo Hoo whent he consumers get mad.
If we were able to use VCR's when all TV content was "lo-fi", then why can't we use a similar type of Recording device once all TV content goes High-Quality?
Who is pushing the HDTV movement? Not me. THey are. A few years ago, they were even saying that all of our TV's would become obsolete once the change occurred. They are making all the rules, but they can't bitch and moan if the consumers complain. They work for our money.
If I want my future Tivo3 to record HDTV shows I'm not home for, why can't it record it in all it's splendor? Are they worried it'll cut into their DVD version they *might* sell? Bullshit, then add some features to it, put nice artwork on it, and do that. Or better yet, why don't they just come up with their OWN version of instant-access-online-watch-what-I-want-right-now service. They'd make a fortune. And do it now.
Rader
How do they work? I heard about one in the UK once but i`m sure it was a hoax - never saw any for sale. Not sure if advertisers would be too impressed with it.
what about taiwanese/korean manufacturers? just like they have region-free dvd players, someone's gonna make a digital tv that lets you record what you want... don't worry about it too much.
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Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
Yes, 16:9 TVs are common over here in Europe. I was staggered on a visit to the US, going into the Sony Centre in Chicago and seeing only one widescreen TV among the dozens of flash TVs on show.
The DVD zoning situation is an example of consumer power! The fact is that Region 1 DVDs are usually a far better proposition for European buyers -- they come out earlier, they're cheaper, and they generally have more extra features. The situation is gradually getting better, but for the moment region-locked players don't sell. Most manufacturers seem to get around it by putting in a backdoor, then leaking said backdoor to the net. Needless to say the DVD consortium are none too happy, but screw 'em! A number of resellers also sell chipped DVD players.
The main problem brought about by the lack of 16:9 TVs in the States is the number or R1 DVDs that are non-anamorphic widescreen. This means us European viewers have to zoom the (already low resolution NTSC) picture in order to fill our screens. DVD buyers -- insist on anamorphic widescreen.
As for importing kit to the US -- I don't expect a step-up transformer should be all that expensive. I think less than $40. I suspect if you shop around a lot of the kit will be switchable to 110v, or even auto-detect the voltage -- do check this though.
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Then you have poor reading comprehension. See the last paragraph of the article:
But, if only 1 or 2 percent of people buy HDTVs, do you really think that they will stop broadcasting in analog and lose most or all of their audience and advertising revenue? They will continue to broadcast in analog for years, simpley because they will lock out a large share of their audience if they don't.
Seriously, I doubt HDTVs have a market penetration of higher than a few percent... Especially among middle or low income families.
Josh Sisk
well don't forget about commercials....if we can record it we can skip commercials...set our TVs to start recording then start watching everything 15 minutes later (ala tivo) since a major part of the industry is commercials they want it
My Home: Apartment6
You're beaming your 13 year old daughter's cellphone conversations through my house, my property.
Why shouldn't I be able to intercept it and put up a real-audio server on my website to broadcast it to any pedophile willing to pay my subscription fees?
Hay thar.
That's right friend, it's the citizens of the USA that are trying to ram this down the world's throat. I took a break from my job as a programmer today to meet with the mechanic down the road, the coffee shop clerk, and the local firemen to discuss our further plans to control and censor digital signals around the world. Hell, all us Americans have a hand in this. I'm suprised nobody caught on to this earlier.
I believe you are making the mistake of generalizing that all Americans are behind anything an American (or for that matter Global, and last time I checked Sony was from Japan) company does. This is not an American problem, it's a corporate and government problem, so before you assume that the universally hated USA is behind this, check with the corporations in your back yard. Are they opposing this or right behind it?
Need I remind you of RIP? Do you think it's just our Government and Corporations that are tring to to censor and control things? Please, we have one of the less strict Governments when it comes to censoring the net.
Finkployd
does this mean that the bread companies will be able to make toasters that will only toast their brand of bread?
.image what this can do to the sex toy industry!
Or, Ford garage door openners, the door only opens for a Ford?
Or Vidal Sassoon hair dryers. They'll only dry hair that's been washed with Vidal Sassoon hair?
Wow. .
** Martin
What we need is a content provider that streams content on the net or makes mpeg files available for downloading and viewing at any time. The trick is how you might make money doing this, since your users could easily fast forward through any commercials and web banners seem to be a pretty weak revenue source.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Most of the electronic equipment makers are not in any way owned by americans, while still a portion of Hollywood are in some way owned/controlled by americans.
Bush seems like he is very patriotic (the word that rimes with idio...) and will probably listen the voice of Hollywood instead of some asian techies.
5{mple. People on the Internet will refuse to allow this to happen. Internet anti-DiVX campaigns which initially spammed the likes of Fox and DreamWorks (which were originally supposed to be DiVX-only houses, under contract) with enormous call volumes made sure the restrictive format was stillborn. This copy protection scheme is not going to happen, simply because the informed consumer, teamed up with the hardware makers themselves, will make it emminently clear that this "obliteration" controlware is not welcome. I'm sure that it will simply be replaced with something akin to Macrovision, which is easily overridable.
Anybody notice a trend? Corporations invoking their controls over hardware you own? Do people want to invest in a device that restricts what they watch, when they want? More importantly, why aren't our leaders squashing these oppressive ideas right away?
...someone will crack it sooner or later like they did with PSX, DVD regions, SMS (macrovision on DAT), etc.
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Moderator's essentials
Yes... brand new news.
You guys still watch TV? I thought I'd get out of touch with society after quiting cold turkey, but surprisingly few of my daily conversations revolve around TV programs. It's wonderful to have my life back again with time to do more productive and interesting things.
I wonder how much of this "industry cooperation" can be considered collusion?
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*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
25: ten.knilrevlis@wkcuhc
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
I think you're right, that this is exactly where the MPAA and cronies are intending to take us. But who, in their right mind, is going to actually pay to watch the drivel they currently broadcast? The quality of their programming is going to have to improve dramatically before I would consider giving them money for the privilege of watching it. Considering that the networks actually believe they're producing good stuff, improvement is unlikely, to say the least.
"Bite me, it's fun!" - Crowe T. Robot
You mean like Apple and the PC? Or Intel and AMD? Doesn't seem to have hurt anything. In fact the latter seems to be driving technology and preventing complacency. I consider that quite a good thing.
but I would have to pay a fortune for a mobile that would work everywhere in the US
And why is that? A tri-band phone costs about the same as any other feature laden phone out there. All three GSM frequencies. Sprint, for one, offers an International Roaming plan. Unless you're talking about lack of GSM coverage, but that's not relevant to GSM itself. The US is a much larger and sprawling country than those in Europe, there's plenty of areas in the US that have no coverage of any type, even analog cellular.
Europe will have 3G (high-speed wireless) well before the US thanks to GSM, so how can it be a bad thing
If Europe has 3G first, it won't have anything to do with GSM, as that's certainly available here.
Also GSM allows for multiple frequencies, so how can there not be frequencies for GSM but there are for three competing standards
Doesn't anybody do any research before posting? There's plenty of room for GSM, we just put it on a different frequency than Europe and Asia did.
That's odd... I don't see them digging up that cable and replacing it every 15th of the month, but sure enough, I'm paying them 30 bucks...
I don't like fish. Reverse the fish to e-mail.
I don't know if I speak for a lot of people
on here, but I don't watch much TV anymore since
the "good" shows have been replaced with
incessant drivel driven only by its need to
sell us things.
I don't have a problem if I miss TV for a day, a month, or longer. In fact, even
when the TV is on I'm not watching it...I usually think of other things.
All I really need is something truely worthy to occupy my time and some background noise (TV).
Get out of your easy chair, fix your car, read a book, help somebody who needs it, etc.
Where's the beef?
The minute someone comes out with an HDTV which can be neutered with a 'secret menu' everyone will pounce on it... ...
Same for HDVCR, HDVD or any other future Digital TV gear
As a matter of fact, in Europe, there is a thriving market of DeMacrovision and DeRegionCoding of DVD players.
I've already got my Fair Use Rights Enforcement System (SIMA CopyMaster) and am not afraid to use it
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Yes, but supposedly you are a representative democracy. Didn't you elect your representatives to do this? How come no one who stands up to corporate-government power in the US has any chance of winning elections?
Because first, the voters must find out that they exist, are running, and that they will stand up to corperations. Unfortunatly, the primary means of finding out about a cantidate are television, radio, and newspaper. All three are owned by........THE VERY SAME CORPERATIONS THEY WANT TO STAND UP TO! I'm sure you can do the math from there.
It's amusing that Sony makes region free DVD players :)
I don't believe they do: however many resellers chip Sony DVD players to remove region fixing, Macrovision etc, then sell them as new with their own warranty.
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The best analogy I can think of here is a concert.
:)
/etc/fstab dos
/dev/da1a /msdos vfat rw 0 0
Keep thinking, then.
The person(s) who own the concert venue decide who performs and when they can do it. Then they sell tickets to consumers, which are licences to listen/view the broadcast -- yes, it's a broadcast in a very general sense.
TV sets are owned by the consumer. They are the concert venue owners. If we would rather see Whose Line Is It Anyway? than Friends or whatever else is on Thursday at 8et/7ct, fine. But it is also the right of the consumer to record whatever transmissions come to the receiver.
See also fair use.
Of course with the huge anti-corporate, anti-business, anti-profit bias on Slashdot, I expect this will be a hot-button issue.
Or you could just openly admit your obsolete 18th/19th Century Laissez-Faire tendencies.
Thus sprach DrQu+xum.
# grep
DrQu+xum: Proof that the lameness filter doesn't work.
So, if the public can be convinced that 'hackers' with their illicit computer equipment are, say, a 'threat to our children', we could have similar laws targetting 'controlled technology'.
Competing standards in mobile phones do suck just like having multiple incompatible PC hardware standards would suck. I like the fact that I can go anywhere in Europe and still have my mobile work, but I would have to pay a fortune for a mobile that would work everywhere in the US. Since the next step in the industry will be mobile wireless computing and the multiple incompatible mobile standards are hindering mobile adoption in the US, you should be concerned. Europe will have 3G (high-speed wireless) well before the US thanks to GSM, so how can it be a bad thing? Also GSM allows for multiple frequencies, so how can there not be frequencies for GSM but there are for three competing standards?
Yes sure,
when smartcards will do it to the USA, you will see how easssssssssy it is to dump a smartcard ROM.
They will use Secure Authentication Modules, now it is mainly a secure chip with fuse EEPROM on die, or just a crypto smartcard.
I bought a 31 inch computer monitor from Gateway about 3 or 4 years ago. Works great. I can watch TV while I'm surfing the web from a couch across the room. Although Gateway's Destination system didn't really pan out, I still think it will be the entertainment system of the future. Why will people buy TVs when Giant monitors eventually cost the same price? (My 31 inch monitor used to sell for $999). I bet we'll all soon have 48 inch flatscreens hanging on the wall.
Besides that, Somebody will find a way arround it. Somebody has already found a way to decrypt cable TV on your computer. Check out this cool app. at Freshmeat.net
Yeah sure. I'm just going to let them waltz into my home and check my hardware for hacks.
Contracts or no, nobody comes into my house without my permission or without a legal warrant. Unless the MPAA and their ilk can get the second ammendment repealed, there's no way they can get into my home.
Then again, I already boycott and buy no movies, DVDs or players.
If you're in Region 1, maybe - but here in the UK, apparently 80% of DVD players now have region coding disabled. A non-techie friend is planning to buy a DVD player for home, and I asked what he was looking for; in the list of "must-haves", he mentioned it must have region coding disabled - something along the lines of "I'm not dumb enough to pay money for crippleware!"
Plenty of people whine about MP3 being inferior quality, and no match for a CD. I can't hear the difference, TBH - and if MP3 is so poor, why are the RIAA and co so worried about Napster? Similarly, if analogue TV is so crap, WTF have we all been paying money for it all these years?!
Basically, if digital TV is crippled in this way, I won't go for it. Here in the UK, even if I do go for digital, it'll be through a set top box - which produces a nice unprotected analogue signal for my VCR and TV. You want me to "up"grade to something, where the only "advantage" is that you can prevent me doing what I want? Forget it.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but *MY* television is a *display*, and does not have anything to do with what my TiVO/VCR/PC record, as they are hooked in-line *before* the freaking thing. How exactly is this going to work? Will I have to pair a specific TV with a specific recording device?
also:
So I have to remove my CD-R/DVD-RW drive in order to get my WinTV-Digital to work? Outrageous.
I sincerely hope this won't fly - anyone have any ideas as to how we can make our vioces heard on this? Who do we write, call, e-mail, bribe, cajole?
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
Yeah, I know that. But for the most part it seems that people are satisfied/happy to just sit there and take whatever garbage the RIAA/MPAA are willing to pull out of their collective asses. I would like to see more independent labels being successful in recording land, and more independent film makers actually getting some recognition. But since the big boys control the channels of "recognition" that's not likely to happen.
Also, you'd be suprised how easy it is to rant when you get zero sleep and dose up on caffiene. It gives you a clarity in the rant department that is much better than anything you can get through other means. Lack of sleep is always a good inspiration driver for me.
I may check out that book, although it sounds kind of familiar to me. I'll have to check my library (yes, I have quite the book collection).
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Yep. There's no reason you can't have a socialist democracy, or a capitalist dictatorship, or like America seems to be becoming, an autocratic capitalist society.
And in the same vein, people all to often assume socialism and an authoritarian government are completely linked.
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
(In a deep voice),
"Brand new for 2003, Maytag's kitchen appliance set with copy protection! They'll keep you from copying those recipes straight from your favorite cooking shows! With they're brand new unintrusive chemical makeup sensors and....."
Bah, that wasn't very funny, but it HAD to be said...
Blake
Why on Earth would the electronic manufacturers be against it? They get to force everyone to buy new TVs and they can claim it's not their fault. Win win for them.
Finkployd
Don't buy this junk. Just 'cause it's "digital" doesn't mean you got to buy it.
Only use the tools and toys you like. Nobody's twisting your arm here. It's your house, not your job.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Try copying any CDROMS lately?
I have had my TiVo for a month, and I watch a lot more TV, but see far fewer commercials because I fast forward through them. I expect if TiVo catches on that we're going to start seeing blipverts any day now.
I've had my TiVo for 7 months and while I do watch fewer commercials, I do watch *some* of them. And the ones I watch I tend to notice. NBC has been putting the TiVo Select flag on their promos and I find that I use it even if it's to check that I did have that show scheduled in To Do. I think the value to advertisers is still there.
Then again, I did watch a lot of those Amazon.Com Glee Club commercials that were on last month just for yuks (amazon dot com, say it don't spray it!), but I didn't buy a damn thing from them.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Hmph. Some people won't, but... personally, I like commercials!!! I admire the ingenuity, humor and other things in some commercials a lot. I like clever advertising - of course, I don't like boring advertising which why I do fast-forward commercials ocassionally - but some commercials I just have to watch, I never get enough of them! =)
I wish I would have one of those digital recorder things so I could make them record all commercials when I'm not around...
Next time you want to watch your favorite TV show at a friends house, I'll be laughing my ass off as you realize you've been suckered.
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"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
The worst solution by far would be to get the centralised involved. That way the government itself would, in a sense, own the right to the art. Not the artist, not the public.
Ultimately, it *does* come down to that. "IP rights" are usually granted by the government of whatever country you're in, and they reserve the right to set policy.
-lee
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
I'm a busy person, leaving the house at about 7:00 am and coming back around 8:00 pm. My point in saying this is that I don't have time to watch TV. (I only spend about 15 minutes a day on /.) And you know what? I don't care about TV, because Hollywood has been abusive for as long as I can remember.
Most obvious to me is that the quality of movies and TV shows has gone down the tubes. Rarely is a movie released in theaters that has any real intellectual value, meaning that it's worth paying some 9 dollars admission to the theater. (In the past two years, the only movie I recall actually enjoying was The Matrix. BTW, I placed the word "intellectual" in italics for a reason: the industry wants to make more money by protecting its "intellectual property." I wonder... with all the crappy movies they've released lately, what valuable property do they produce that is so intellectual?)
But aside from quality, Hollywood has been abusing copyright law, stretching it to the limit, in an effort to protect this extremely valuable property. Hollywood and various consumer electronics (and computer software) manufacturers are putting "features" into their products that prevent your fair use of the media for which you're paying. They get away with this by mentioning "pirates" who steal their valuable property and reduce their profits.
The thing that bothers me about this is not that Hollywood is cheating us. Let them! WHO CARES?! If you don't like their business practices, just don't support them! (It really annoys me that folks say, "oh, DVD takes away your rights ... region coding ... encryption ... etc" and then go and buy a DVD player and 20 movies. If you don't like their business practices, why are you supporting them?!)
So now you'll ask yourself, "sure, boycotting them would be great, but how could I possibly live without television?" The answer is: VERY EASILY. I used to watch 4 or 5 hours of TV a day. Now, I can hardly recall the last time I even turned on the TV. There is so much to do in life that I actually regret the time I wasted in front of that stupid tube. If you're sick of Hollywood's abuse of the system, do the same. The situation with fair use will only get worse before it will get better. The only way to fight this is to stop supporting them.
Please seriously consider boycotting Hollywood and the consumer electronics industry for their abuse. If, instead, you decide that the stupid shows on television are more important to you than your rights, then you will have to accept the consequences.
These were my $0.02, and were intended as a proposed solution to the problem, not as flamebait.
Fortunately the U.S's DMCA means sod all to those of us living elsewhere.
I'm sorry you feel the need to equate the entirety of the American population with a few unscrupulous corporate types. We're really not ALL that bad.
First, I am a Citizen of the U.S.
While saying ALL Americans may be unfair, I have to admit that as a whole, American corperations and government seem to be more controling, and the rest of the people as a whole seem more tolerant of it.
The MPAA would never propose any of this if they believed that even 25% of American consumers would throw out the TV and play a board game or *GASP* have a conversation rather than put up with and pay for blatantly hostile consumer electronics.
Mr. Potty-mouth rap-star can say whatever he wants and it's freedom of speech.
I can't blanket-block phone solicitations in my home because it would violate their free speech.
I can't require spammers have my permission before they fill up my HD with their BS because that violates their free speech.
I can't watch what I want to on my TV unless some company says I can.
Gotcha. So what we're saying here, is that the Soviets really did win the cold war and Josef Stalin is alive and well and in a bunker in Washington DC directing all of this.
If the technology doesn't let the people do what they want, then they don't have to buy it. I certainly won't. Dollar votes are the only ones that count anymore.
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+++ Out Of Cheese Error +++
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Digital TV is here, now, in Europe. No built in copy control. Satellite, cable and broadcast digital television.
All of the above employ Macrovision selectively -- specifically on the Pay Per View movie channels. They don't use Macrovision on other channels because they know time-shifting using a VCR is such a basic consumer expectation. By contrast, taping a PPV movie is not necessary (in the broadcaster's eyes) since you have 4 opportunities every hour to watch the film from the beginning.
Of course, Macrovision is fairly trivial to defeat -- there are off the shelf devices to do so.
At least some digital broadcasters are perfectly happy with the concept of timeshifting: Sky Digital (Rupert Murdoch's digital satellite network) is working in partnership with TiVo -- there'll be a TiVo unit released in Europe this year containing two Sky Digital decoders.
To an extent I can sympathise with content owners' desire to prevent or dissuade home recording for posterity. My wall full of Simpsons VHS home recordings probably explain why I haven't bought any of their prerecorded tapes... Mind you -- they're getting a big chunk of my money the moment they put an entire series, in order, on a DVD box set.
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+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Your generalizations about "you Americans" are obviously well thought out and insightful. Every single one of us is fascinated with censorship and control, and we are all about to go invent multiple versions of our own standards. Every man, woman, and child - none of us can rest until the monolithic army known simply as "you Americans" exerts our control over others.
I'm sorry you feel the need to equate the entirety of the American population with a few unscrupulous corporate types. We're really not ALL that bad.
"So many ways to skin a cat, and still everyone uses a great big knife."
I guess you've never heard of single chip microcontrollers with mask ROM in them, eh?
For any mass market device where security is a concern, you will NOT be able to update the ROM.
If you don't believe me, here's a quick excercize for you to complete: reprogram the embedded controller in your microwave oven so that the display is in hexadecimal units.
Hay thar.
It's amusing that Sony makes region free DVD players :)
Please note region-free players are the norm in Europe, or at least France and Switzerland. I've only seen region-free DVD players there over the christmast holidays. Also stores have shelves of region 1 DVDs as well as region 2 DVDs. Even online, check http://www.fnac.com/ for an example. Granted they are more expensive than in US stores, but at least they play on their DVD players and are available at local stores.
Once Digital TV takes off it will become harder and harder to buy non-digital equipment not fitted with these restrictions. So eventually, for the vast majority of people, it will be the choice between obtaining an information feed, and agreeing to the restrictions, or losing the ability to obtain an information feed in the first place.
That's, of course, assuming no substantial counter-media can be brought about, but that would seem unlikely at this stage.
The irony is DivX wasn't actually that bad. The consumer got to chose between a rental model and owning a copy of whatever it was they wanted to watch. The digital TV proposals are a bigger threat, as there's no suggestion that that sort of choice would be on offer.
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You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Not surprising. Of course the way around, last time, was to cut a trace on the circuit board. Are you going to make the pointy blade of my pocket knife illegal?
The time before that, you clipped the wire to a certain diode.
OK, so it probably is illegal. You're still going to have a hard time collecting all of the pocket knives and diagonal cutters out there.
Tilt at windmills. Occasionally one will fall over out of sheer surprise.
True.. it is sad, very sad.
::grin::).
::grin::).
As it is, a friend of mine lives in a city that doesn't carry Fox Kids programming (for some reason 'Animated' automatically equals 'Kids' for some reason). I taped a bunch of stuff for her including "The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot" (based on the comic book of the same name). Unfortunately the series was cancelled after a six week run. Fortunately I've got it all on tape (I just need to move them all onto ONE tape
As far as I know this series was deep sixed and I couldn't find it if I wanted to, so I'm glad I taped it (if only for the some of the lines, like the one I'm using as my SIG). The inability to do that sort of thing would infuriate me as a consumer, even though I rarely keep things I've recorded past about a week. I also found a tape filled with some of the most god-awful stuff from the 80's while cleaning out a drawer of old tapes ("Rubik the Amazing Cube" and "Teen Turbo" to name just a few... if you recognize the names then you know how bad they are
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
This is copy-protection, not view-protection. If the gov doesn't want a show viewed, they don't let it air. It's already being done.
You know, this copying pay-per-view movies argument has always struck me as kind of funny.
My dad got a DSS system about 5 years ago, and started taping the pay-per-view movies whenever he rented them. He's pretty fanatical about it, tapes and keeps every movie he buys, even if he doesn't like it. He once got mad that I didn't tape Mortal Kombat while I was home one Christmas break. It didn't matter to him that he wouldn't watch this movie if you paid him: I bought it over the DSS, he wanted it taped. Last time I checked, he probably had over 100 movies he'd recorded from the DSS and various other TV broadcasts.
Now, Dad's VCR is old enough that when he bought it, it was a big deal that it was a 4-head model: it's a good machine, but definitely showing it's age. I asked him one day why he didn't upgrade, pointing out that even though his still works, he could get a new one that would record in much better picture quality. He told me he really didn't care about picture quality that much: what he had was good enough for him.
The funny thing is, I don't think he probably watches any of these movies on tape. It's almost reached collection status for him. If he sees a movie on pay-per-view that he thinks is good, or has heard good things about, he rents it, tapes it, lables it, and put's it in a drawer. My mom will sometimes watch them, or they'll get pulled out if a niece or nephew comes over to borrow it, but that's about it. So in my dad's case, taping has probably added to the number of pay-per-views he's bought. Sometimes he'll rent and record shows he's not interested in, just on the off chance that someone in the family will want to watch it.
My point is, how long have people been recording TV shows, sporting events, pay-per view movies, etc? About 2 days after the VCR was invented. It hasn't hurt Hollywood one bit. Just because people will suddenly have the ability to make digitally-perfect copies doesn't mean that they'll all start their own pirating business. The vast majority will do just like my Dad does: record them, save them, and watch them once in a great while.
Hollywood, like the record industry, would do themselves a favor (and make a butt-load of money in the process) to embrace this new technology. It's not unreasonable to want payment for the product, but give your consumers viewing/listening options, and they will thank you for it.
Normally I respond to thing calmly and rationally, but in this case all that comes to mind is:
OH FOR FUCKS SAKE!
I'v had it with the governmental protection/enforcement of big-business's wishes and the ritualistic ass-raping that goes on when the two entities are so intertwined. I'm about one good molestation away from completely losing it and calling for a revolution. But the truly sad part about it is that there are only about three people in the entire nation that would be willing to get up off the couch and stop consuming the garbage they push into your head through the TV long enough to even acknowledge that an attempt was being made, let alone participate in it.
Oh god, what to do. It is assumed that every person that buys an electronic device of any kind has nothing but criminal intentions. And we must be stopped at all costs! It doesn't matter how much freedom they take away from us, because they are punishing us for the evil that we might have been able to accomplish. We are slowly being built into a societal prison the likes of which has rarely been seen. Big business and big money runs the show, with big government looking over our shoulders for them, taking big paychecks to the bank to make sure that us big, bad and nasty consumers don't get out of line and get medival on those poor hurting businesses. Well, let's do it! How many people would actually be willing to even put forth the effort it would take to get some support for a positive political candidate, or even get off their asses long enough to go vote for one if he/she existed? I doubt very many, and those that would just shrug and feel they can't do anything about the current situation. Keep shrugging and see where it takes you.
I'm often reminded of this Amazing Stories show that I saw years and years ago. Children were tested at certain ages. If they were deemed "too smart" by the government/business testing them, they were 'put to sleep' like animals. It was the only way that the people in control could guarantee that no one would get bright enough to "cause problems". How far away is that day? The powers-that-be are already going out of their way to make us stupider, and somehow lock us into their media outlets so that we are not allowed to input anything that might actually cause us to think for ourselves. How long before they "thin the herd" and remove those of us that can actually still form a cognitive thought above the level of "I must never question"?
Forgive the rant, but this garbage has got to end. Who would be willing to fight for their freedom if they needed to? Instead, we sit around, take that freedom for granted, and rush, screaming, with open arms into the pits of oppression that our forefathers fought and died to pull us out of. It's time for something major to happen. I cannot stand another day of this just sitting and watching as we rush headlong into a dictatorial system. Something needs to give. And I pray it isn't us, I feel we've given enough. But I would gladly give my life if I thought I could help gain a little freedom for my children. Braveheart I'm not, but I'm not afraid to fight if the cause and the time is right.
I'm not a violent militant person. But we really need to put some serious thought into the possibility that the only way out of this mess is revolution. Surely there are enough Americans left that believe in freedom that they would be willing to fight for it. Aren't there?
This message brought to you by heavy doses of caffiene and a complete lack of sleep.
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So let me get this straight... They're going to decrease utility and increase the price? Great plan. Too bad it won't work.
Basic economic principles show that people will soon direct their disposable income to something else. The electronics industry seems much better able to grasp this concept than the entertainment industry.Me? I say to hell with 'em. I think the overwhelming majority of new music, movies, and television is tripe anyway. It won't sadden me too much to do without.
I take drugs seriously.
In the uk you see those things sometimes, but i heard that it was just for our ITV channel, which is broadcast in different regions, so humans would notice it and play their local adverts instead of the ones coming from wherever that particular program was coming from. I guess you could use it if it were consistant. But i think using the closed-captioning idea is better.
Note that they generally requested 20th century or earlier music. That's probably the only music that in 400 years will be playable since the copyright will put the material into the public domain (we hope).
This is especially important now that I have a new baby. When she starts crying, we hit the pause button and that happens often. If it wasn't for a DVD player and a VCR, we would see anything. -------- I am in the same boat!!!
Ordinary TV's once cost several months salary. The cost of HDTV has been reduced in half, yearly. In a few years, HDTV will indeed be in the realm of affordability (and note, digital tv is different than HDTV..digital tv is the same thing as what you get through your DirecTV, or many cable systems.. receiving digital tv on a "normal" tv merely requires the use of a cheap converter box, and all of those "digital ready" TV's you see in best buy just have this converter built in)
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Recently, my Diablo CD has gotten so scratched, it occasionally boots me out with a blue screen and instructs me to insert my CD. I made a copy of it so that I could continue to play the game.
Clearly there are valid, legal uses for copying software (be it TV, CD, etc) and consumers shouldn't have to bend over backwards to take advantage of the technology they're paying for.
i want the government to tell other people how to think and act, and, most importantly, how to spend their money. i'd love a nice government enforced monopoly.
They have achieved a goal with this move, just not the one they were hoping for. They have suceeded in further alienating the people responsible for their salaries, their customers. I really watch very little TV due to the massive amount of painful stupidty (things that are so dumb they make you cringe) that runs rampant on today's TV. America's funniest home crotch-shot videos, anyone? Anyway, I was almost looking forward to when TV went digital, actually even thinking of getting cable (quite a leap for me), for discovery, sci-fi, history channel, etc. However now I think I will not. I will stick to my non-digital TV (and a small one at that, my computer monitor is larger), and my entertainment will be continue to be derived 95% from the internet, books, games, and my wife.
I can actually imagine that if the moron majority gets ahold of these things afer paying a premium (with the 'computer is a incomprehensible magic box' take on things they generally have), and finding out that they no longer have the freedom to get recordings of these psycologically damaged soap operas they are addicted to from their friends that they will be incredibly angry. At that point, with the clamping down, on americas favorite waste of time (soaps, sports, sit-coms, etc) we may actually witness the waking up of america to the erosion of their freedoms.
Not a chance. My little sister is 16. She's online every day with her friends, IM'ing away and trading MP3s on Napster. She just got a CD-RW to enable her to copy CDs and burn MP3s to disk and all that. And it's not just her - damn near the entire net-enabled population between middle school and college is having a hell of a good time trading music. You think they're going to just give that up? You think that the teenagers of the world are going to just sit back and let corporations tell them what to do? You seem to be forgetting that one of the hallmarks of youth is rebellion against whoever and whatever you're not supposed to be doing. :-)
Rather, I see a generation growing up that doesn't particularly give a damn about overly restrictive copyright laws and is going to keep on having fun and using technology to do so in ever more interesting ways. I just hope that we get people in the legislature who see this way before too long.
I always liked the think that the future would hold the readily accessible information like seen in the Next Generation series. I could vocally request a song and it would play. No 20 minute wait for a download, no prompt for credit card information. It was music, or video, or information and it was all just there. It looks like it won't happen in my lifetime then. It probably will be 400 years in the future before the economic powers that be will ease up on the rest of the world and finally come to the realization that there isn't a difference if you have 1 billion dollars, 2 billion dollars, or even a quarter of that, you're still going to live the same lifestyle. Meanwhile, the rest of the people on the planet that actually work for their money by coming up with creative solutions are nickel and dimed to death just so they can relax and enjoy some entertainment.
According to some DVD mags I've read here in the UK, yes Sony actually do make a multi region player. It's mainly intended for the asian market. Something to do with asia having 3 different regions (Japan in region 2, most of south east asia in 3 and china in 6). So you get funny things like Hong Kong in R3 and China in R6. So the whole region thing becomes a real stumbling block to selling the things - hence more pressure for multi region.
I assume that the asian market would have a preference for asian movies over hollywood ones, so without out the pressure of the hollywood studios, you get less pressure to enforce region coding. I think, to a lesser extent, this why multi-region players are quite common in Europe - the hollywood studios are too US centric to really take notice of what's going on elsewhere. If you have the money-crazed, IP loving hollywood in your own backyard then you should expect a lot of pressure for things like region coding, content 'obliteration' etc. And when hollywood do occasionally notice what's going on in Europe and try to promote these things they usually get a cold reception from European leaders - after all why help US companies exploit your own people. I think if france had it's wishes come through then hollywood would be locked out of Europe completely.
btw - While Sony do have region free players, I think most of the multi region ones sold in Europe are hacked ones
TKAt some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
They won't be watching the commercials... That's a very good point. Basic economics shows that if companies lose the ability to make shows payed for by commercials, they'll simply find another route.
I remember when cable was something relatively new. I couldn't, and still don't, understand how they can show commercials for something you pay for. I simply refuse to have cable. If we skip all commercials, and advertisers no longer pay the TV companies, then the shows will just cost us more money to watch; simple as that. And advertisers will probably then come up with better, even more annoying ways of getting our attention.
Developers: We can use your help.
Anyone have any idea if there's an email or snailmail address for someone at the FCC we can complain to? Perhaps a write-in campaign with a couple thousand people all saying that they vow to never purchase any consumer electronics containing the "obliteration code" would accomplish something. Then again, maybe not, but it's worth it to at least get the ball rolling.
seems like a reasonable idea to me, but what happens if you leave your TV on? or watch some really bad show--can i get my money back? :)
i think ultimately the TV networks (bandwidth permitting) need to move to some sort of TV-on-demand. i think that people have already shown an interest in this with Napster: i think the real drawing point to Napster is that you can have a song anytime you want to hear it. it's that immediate gradification that's important.
first off, i should note that i don't own a TV. i hate TV, i hate most of what's on it, and i hate the way it works (networks feed you the stuff when they want it). however i would watch quite often if there were TV on demand. here's how i figure it would work:
consumers would pay a monthly fee (like they do now for cable) to have access to the "basic" shows (this pays the cable provider mostly). (Movies, Sports and Porn would be more for instance). the real difference, however, is that you get to watch whatever you want whenever you want. if i sit down at the TV and want to watch "Seinfeld" for instance, i chose it from a menu, and the show "streams" to me. note that fast-forwarding would not be possible, so commercials could stay the way they are now.
now ignore the vast bandwidth requirements for just a moment, and follow me :). the ability to watch shows whenever you want completely does away with the idea of "prime time." now of course, shows would have to be "aired" at a certain time (ie, you can't watch it before 8pm on Thursday because the show hasn't been finished/released yet), but any time after that you can watch. getting rid of primetime doesn't matter though. instead of advertisement prices being based on timeslots, they're based on popularity of the shows. the added benefit of TV-on-demand is that the networks will have exact ratings of who watched what and when. not to mention the fact that advertisements can constantly be changed to suit the relative popularity of the show, and the popularity of the episode. i think both networks and advertisers would agree this is the best way to do it.
now appart from this, you'd still need to have a "just whatever's on" type of option, otherwise you'd never really know about new shows and you'd watch only what you had seen before (and eventually get very bored of it). the difference is that the TV set knows what you've watched in the past, so when you just turn on one of the "whatever" channels, it can be better tailored to what you like. everybody will like this: consumers are more likely to see TV shows they'll enjoy, and will watch TV more often (you'll hear "there's nothing on" much less often). networks are happy because people watch more TV, and they get precise ratings. advertisers are happy as they get great market research data, exact ratings and better tailored advertisements.
note that this kind of setup completely eliminates the need for VCRs or Tivo completely! network providers can still charge extra cash for "Pay Per View" events, and "specialty channels" (really just "specialty shows based on a theme") can be added to a base "package."
of course the only thing this does require is amazing amounts of bandwidth to each home. but the day that this much bandwidth is available shouldn't be too far off.
what do you guys think of a setup like this? i'd love it!
- j
The mass public is too apathetic to get off their soggy arses and demand that they receive better treatment. The hullabaloo you read on Slashdot is an extreme minority view (and even those who cry loudest will are too likely to do nothing).
The mass adult public will be disgruntled, but they'll accept it.
The *kids*, on the other hand, will grow up believing that the normal way of the world is for corporations to have ulimate control over everything.
This begins to sound like a paranoid statement, but I think there's a kernel of truth to it: Corporate America is making moves towards creating a society in which Corporate Government is the accepted norm, and in which citizens are, first and foremost, passive consumers of goods and, secondly, passive labourers in production of goods.
Indeed, it's like the old mining towns, reborn on a national scale. You work for the company and you spend your money at the company store, live in the company house and drive the company car.
We're condemning our kids.
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
What you are talking about only works if you can get everybody to agree. You can't. Cable companies already provide an upgrade path for people who don't want to buy Digital Televisions. Turn off the signal, it's fine with me. Remember though, in twenty years I'm still going to have an analog television set. The signal coming to the house will be digital, but the user watches analog.
Make it too much of a pain in the ass and and a whole industry is going to put itself out of business. Don't worry about the ideas of a few major movie studios, the truth is, they will always provide their content in the easiest to use, least inhibited viewer path because they are ruled by the almight dollar. If you take a stand in order to force a change on the part of the paying public, the paying public isn't likely to buy or watch your movies. This can be very bad for the stock of a company.
Lighten up dude. It was Christmas a couple of weeks ago.
Beware the wood elf!!!
...As in you can buy an election with enough money...
Nahh, Steve Forbes has proven this wrong at least twice now.
Copy-protection, view-protection, keep changing the semantic phrases to confuse the issue of a private citizen watching whatever they please. Free to choose, I'll let you know the choices you'll be limited to. Then make it illegal to deviate from those choices. It's called oppression.
If you look at history, most every attempt at doing something like this has failed.
Remember when they used to distribute software on disks that couldn't be copied? Did that stop people from copying software? They don't even try that anymore.
The movie industry just hasn't learned the lesson yet. VHS tapes still have a copy protect, but people copy them anyway. Look at the DVD encryption. That was eventually cracked. Between consumer's failure to buy into less features, and hackers abilities to thwart their efforts, the movie industry will eventually learn that the effort is not worth it.
They will eventually discover that it is cheaper to make a new movie than to hold on to the old ones.
In the mean time, expect more stupid ideas from Holywood.
Then again, this is the entertainment industry we're talking about. These are the same jackoffs who thought 40-bit encryption would be enough to protect their (generally worthless, come on, who would want to protect "a very brady sequel"?) intellectual property on DVDs.
- A.P.
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* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I've got icebox.com. It's only a matter of time before everyone starts going to the internet for their primary source of entertainment.
Does anyone have any technical information on the standard (like even its name)? [I N S I D E]'s description is superficial and jokey.
Ask me if I've been required to disclose any crypto keys.
My answer is to simply not buy their products, and inform others of why they shouldn't buy those products. Worked for DivX.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
I simply can't see how the benefits outweigh the costs.
What exactly are the costs? A few hundred man years to develop something that will probably be in service for the next 20? That's a drop in the bucket. The chips themselves will probably run a couple dollar a piece tops, so even if the TV or movie industry footed the bill themselves, it's still hardly amount to anything compared to the theoretical gains of increased movie rentals since people wouldn't be able to tape them off TV anymore...
(1) the additional electronics will make the sets cost more.
(2) sets without these "features" will be more desireable to consumers.
I.E. unless there is some kind of unethical/illegal conspiracy among the the established set-top box oligarchy, it would seem logical that the market would make it unprofitable to produce such a thing.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
It might be helpful to note that policies like this force you to be a crook. By implementing too many restrictive policies, the industry is actually adding fuel to the fire they're trying to put out.
On a happier note, this mistake on the part of greedy industry, while frustrating now, could actually be a great help to the revolution of free (as in freedom) intellectual-property exchange (such as free software). Many folks are likely to get upset about their fair-use freedom being hindered by Hollywood and the consumer electronics industry, and will discover the free community as a result. This would be very bad news to greedy industry (and is exactly what they deserve).
No... CDs don't offer the record industry better control. Those were just a ploy to increase profits. Wait for audio dvds. That's where they'll take to take back control. That's when they'll probably lower prices to get people to accept them quicker.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Hehe that is so "1984"... their surveillance- device-and-TV-in-one can not be turned off. And it can see everything you do. And it does broadcast propaganda from whoever was in power there! Wow this thread is 1984!
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
Not like there is anything worth watching anyway, it's mostly shite. Thats another way they've ensured I wont have to buy a TV.
Adler
Everybody denies I am a genius--but nobody ever called me one!
I'll not be purchasing any of these new TV sets,
and I'm not planning on purchasing a DVD player either.
No more CDs for me once copy protection is foisted on that medium,
and I plan to make do as best I can without any gizmos that feature a spiffy new EULA.
My Cable service has to go too, and soon "over the air" digital broadcasting as well.
I suppose my determination will be greatly tested once EULA's are required to obtain
computing machinery, a viable future situation unless the "open hardware"
effort makes significant market penetration.
Hmmm....maybe I should have held onto that old i486
oh....my!
Even now, I would really like to have a little bit of control over my Dish TV? Why can't I choose the channel's I pay my $20 a month for? I havn't looked at a single one of the five or six shopping channels, the six or seven sports channels, or the four religious channels.
On the other hand, I'd like to get the tech channel (what a geek), BBC America, and MTV2. I'd be willing to trade...
Oh well, corportations like to talk about the free market, but they certainly wouldn't like it if it got here. Imagine a world where channels had to compete for the viewer's dollar? HBO does it to a certain extent and that seems to be why they produce some cutting edge material.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
Why is this such a concern to the industry? It's debatable about whether DeCSS would be used for piracy, given how easy and cheap it is to rent movies with current technology. Are TV execs really that worried about bootleg copies of Will and Grace running amok on the 'net? Or even the next Superbowl? I simply can't see how the benefits outweigh the costs.
Huh? My Apex has better video and sound quality than the JVC I replaced with it. It does occasionally (1 in 10 discs or so) not handle a bit error very graciously (color funkiness).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Ultimately, the consumer has to bear the invasion of their rights to do what they wanna do. Consumers tolerate alot now, what with macrovision and all, but when it comes to a total restriction and worse yet, potential for monitoring of behaviors done in their own homes, consumers just won't buy. Digital TV is still a helluva long way off for mainstream consumption so I imagine that this noise will have played out before we see the first unit for sale at Best Buy. If not, DTV is the DiVX of the next decade.
...the more star systems slip through your fingers.
The hacks will be out there, just as they are for the Playstations and DC's. Sure, they'll get more complicated, but so what? We'll still defeat the protection in the small percentage of sets we control.
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
As much as I don't like this copy protection proposal, I can see where a system like this would work.
Of course, it would probably ensure that I would never own a TV, and that I really wanted to see something -- like a hockey game -- I would just head out to a bar...like I usually end up doing anyway when the playoffs are on.
Of coruse there would be hacks, but I probably wouldn't get one for the same reason that I never bought the hacked cable box or DSS dish that some acquaintances always offered to get me: it's only going to work for so long, and most of the pay-tv channels that are on (including PPV) show the same shit over and over and over...
And hey, maybe limited access to TV and/or cheapness would make people more social, which might be a good thing. I can remember as a kid my parents' "All in the Family" parties because they could get CBS on their cable system, and their friends across town couldn't. (This was in Montreal.)
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn.
"I have no idea why these gun nuts think that a few hours of practice a week will enable them and a few of their friends to stand up to a US army battalion."
I think the idea is that things can become so intolerable that entire military divisions can become sympathetic to an antigovernment cause,
as happened against the British, and as happened when the "south" divided from the "north".
If this isn't a possibility, then things aren't
intolerable enough yet, and the revolution must wait. I think it will not occur until "they" take away cable tv. As long as they have that,
they think they are free.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
As I understand this proposal, in return for upgrading my TV and VCR, i get:
If I have already invested in a TV, VCR, or video digitizer for the computer, it will be worthless in about 5 years because the FCC thinks that's a small price for me and everyone else to pay in exchange for a few million more profits for a tiny incestuous group of multi billion dollar companies.
It is worth noting that HDTV is HEAVILY dependant on early adopters who have willingly shelled out a few grand for a TV that only works on one or two channels. No doubt, the purchace was made on the presumption that in a few years, all channels would benefit from it. A TV that, as it turns out, will only display snow in a short while since none of this copy prevention crap even existed when it was bought. Evidently, these new wonders of technology were obsolete before they were even plugged in.
We are supposed to trust the 'generosity' of an industry that has ALREADY gone back on one pledge before the technology even came into existance. Considering that the MPAA has been trying to kill the VCR (and later TiVo) from day one, we are to believe that they won't decide to set the copy never bit on everything but commercials?
Tell me again why I should get my wallet out and grin?
What's to prevent companies, especially international ones, from putting backdoors in? Raite and Apex do that with their DVD players. I wouldn't be surprised if some rogue digital tv maker did the same. US laws don't apply to the whole world!
Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that, I'll be over here, looking through your stuff.
Don't you get it? We geeks don't have enough collective buying power to make a difference. All Joe Monday Night Football is going to say is Woah! Look at that resolution! Cool! And since any DVD he'll buy is region 1, he doesn't even know region coding is there and doesn't care because he's never gonna buy an import DVD.
Just wait till he gets home from a tough day on the second shift and the nice copy of the game his friend made won't play! That's the part that has to be gotten across. The many $$$ worth of new stuff you're buying is subject to becoming just so much random junk at the MPAA's whim.
Remember the craze when people found out they couldn't tape to tape record VHS rentals? Then, all of a sudden, the filters, they started flowing.
Don't be surprised if electronics shops offer this as a service. I've seen legitimate sattelite access services sit there late at night with an EEPROM encoder, cloning sattelite decryption chips, to sell for a profit. (It was NICE getting all that for free, with something that wasn't supposed to be able to happen.)
Look at MULTI REGION DVD PLAYERS too... Didn't those start out as a "hack" that turned mainstream?
krystal_blade
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
Well, if you made the mistake of agreeing to such a contract, and then didn't let them in, you would be in breach of contract. Depending on the terms, they might have the right to repossess the hardware at that point and/or might have legal standing to sue you for breach of contract.
Not that I'd sign such a contract, but that's how I'd set it up if I were a Hollywood bigwig.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
This is far more dangerous. Today it would be used by movie companies to prevent what they consider "piracy". Tomorrow it would be used to prevent you from accessing any content that the authorities don't like.
And of course - there would be a log kept about what you view and what you don't, what you keep on your HDD etc.
I used to be Hooked to the TV, but with the coming of the DVD + Region crap, I've limited my viewing to one show, Voyager. Usually when people limit their viewing to avoid the crap that is on TV, they don't choose crap as the one show they watch. Almost hypocritical.
-- nolesrule
Regardless of all that though the point remains that we (Europeans) have got copy-protectionless digital TV here and now.
Coming from an American I find it a bit whiney to moan that it's not the will of the American people, it's the government. Well let me get this straight, it's your government so you take responsibility. I thought it was in your constitution that if the government was totally despised then you could take up your arms and overthrow it. It's because of the apathy of you and your mechanic friend that you all just sit back and take it. Sorry, it doesn't wash (and RIP has got nothing to do with copy protection).
Annoying, unfair stuff from the content provider as expected, but it's pretty hard to tell what this system will actually do from this article. My favorite quote:
"If you want to watch a high definition TV program on an analog TV set, the signal will be downgraded so it's not HDTV-quality anymore."
Ohmygod. You mean I can't display 1080 lines of resolution on my old crappy TV set? No real suprise there. To watch high-res signals, you kind of need a high res display device. I don't think it's copy protection that's keeping your 10 year old RCA TV from displaying HDTV...
It seems really likely that this will happen...
Let's think about the DAT format, and the fact that every consumer-level DAT machine obeys the copy-protect bit when recording digital inputs. You can't copy DAT recordings of copy-once inputs... It's been like that for a long time. Nobody noticed, because only a few people embraced DAT.
But it's there, and it'll be there in digital TV, I will bet. I understand why the industry wants this: Greed. But I don't understand why the government has let it get this far. The consumer has rights. The government is there to protect the consumer (yes I, like the majority of the nation, voted for Gore).
If Bush had made consumer fair-use rights part of his platform, I would have overlooked that he's going to start an arms race with China, won't prosecute Microsoft when they appeal, and will try to take away my right to personal privacy... Well maybe not the last one, but Gore kinda wants to take that too...
My point is, this issue is major, because the technology is being standardized NOW. Strong action needs to be taken, and I'm not just talking about whining on Slashdot. Not just emails to congress... Physical mail. Did you contribute to their campaign? Get a friggin' appointment with them and tell them in no uncertain terms how serious this issue is.
I have personally begun accumulating shares of several equipment manufacturers... Now I have a stronger voice to them. And it's getting stronger. But I'm just one man...
The day this happens is a fine day indeed to stop watching TV. They're doing this to have more control, and to rape the consumer for more money, when all it will really accomplish is to drive people away from TV.
the programs come in to my television for free
We don't pay a fee, but advertisers do. Whenever people re-run a program without consent, the industry loses control over possible advertising revenue. The industry is just trying to protect their control for as long as possible. They did the same with audio tapes, VCRs, cd burners, and DVDs.
Is it illegal to copy them? Yes.
Do I understand their desire to maintain control? Yes.
Do I think they will lose money? Some.
Do I think it's so horrible? No.
Boycott Digital TV. Don't get digital cable. Don't get a Digital TV. Hurt the industry where it counts--in their pockets. If we don't buy the digital equipment, they can't switch to it without losing viewers. If they lose viewers, then the customers (those renting ad space) lose their audience. If the customers lose their audience, they will buy ad space in other mediums such as magazines, radio, news paper, the web, etc.
If consumers don't like this idea, which I doubt they will, the companies pushing this and many others will be hurt in the long run.
I just scrapped any plans I had of buying a digital TV!!!!!!!!!!
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
I think that some governments will like that they can prevent the consumer from viewing different shows.
I can see China having the power of blocking certain stations (even those that come from sat's )
if you see me, smile and say hello.
That's more like moving the broadcasting facility rather than moving the moving the time/place it is viewed. Of course we can't demand that they perform a concert somewhere else, but we can watch it from a different place with no inconvenience to them.
i think it's becoming more and more obvious that corporations will tample individuals' rights and desires as much as they can legally get away with. they say the tendency over time of any power structure is to become more constrictive, and that's basically why revolution ocurs, to start over. well ... i ain't suggesting we overthrow the government or anything ... but not all revolutions are violent bloody things ...
i could live a little longer in this prison
Oh yeah, competition in standards is good isn't it. I mean how could the internet work at all if everyone was forced to use the same standard to access it. (TCP/IP)
That being, rather than inserting law or enforcement between the parties, the government neatly sidesteps it, as freedom of speech. Granted there are laws here and there, but they usually are backed by some other constitutional clause, like 'for the general welfare.'
Suddenly, the government is going to allow private industry to regulate what can be seen. How about if the content producers and the media manufacturers get together and agree to only make sets that work for approved signals. Then, just so americans _have_ to have one, they make new content available only through these new means. Just like that they've bottled up what the government can't or won't.
Maybe Sony can make me a phone that can't be reached by machine dialers in boilerrooms that ring just as I'm sitting down to a big bowl of grits and a good ol Hee Haw rerun.
--
+++ Out Of Cheese Error +++
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Wrong, on point three. The Consumer Electronics Association (ie the major consumer electronics producers) are fighting this idea, they are afraid that consumers will think these copy protection schemes are completely daft and won't buy into it, thus preventing CEA members from selling any of this new expensive new digital kit. If you read the article you'd also kmow that the CEA is considering taking legal action to prevent this proposal from happening, based on the 1984 Supreme Court Betamax decision that gave the smack-down to the MPAA/broadcasters over fair use, it was the decision that confirmed that consumers have the right to time and media shift content for personal use all they want. IMO if the CEA gets this to the SC the MPAA will get handed another beating, as the controls they are seeking with this scheme go far beyound the bounds of legal copyright protection.
On a side note I can't help but wonder if Sony's internal politics are nearing a point of civil war, as a both a major consumer electronics manufactorer and a major "content" publisher the two factions must be near blows over this issue. Executive meetings must be getting pretty heated, with electronics VP's and content VP's at each others throats. I for one would love to hear from a Sony insider about how the company's culture is dealing with this particular schizophrenia...
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
Can't watch DVD. No DVD player for my Linux laptops, so I don't buy DVD products. Another side effect of copy protection schemes...
Perhaps unfortunately, one of the best ways to boycott HDTV sets and tell your friends why you are doing so.
;-)
;-), it's up to you to let them know about these problems. Write letters to all sorts of places, if you're annoyed enough. Local editorial pages, representatives, the FCC, etc.
Ever since I heard about the concept of HDTV, I have been excited about the possibility of it finally coming to fruition. It's both good and bad that HDTV is coming out now. It's good because TV signals are overdue for an upgrade, IMHO. Our analog sets of today are very much based around 1930's technology. Fortunately, there have been a lot of smaller improvements in the meantime
On the bad side, I'm not sure that our technology is quite as good as it should be for what we are trying to accomplish. I get annoyed when I see compression artifacts in DVD movies running in the several Megabit/second range. I worry that we will end up with lower video quality than we should have -- if HDTV video gets used in court at all, what would prevent us from seeing things that aren't there (or vice-versa) because of compression artifacts? Though I'm probably just paranoid on the subject.
Also, we have the problem that sparked me to write this message -- overzealous copyright holders that are all too willing to pull one over on an unsuspecting public. The same public that doesn't bother with the news, especially when it comes to technology (and they get it over TV anyway, which probably wouldn't report on itself..)
So, we have to avoid buying these sets. It's not all that hard for me, as I don't have enough money for one. We also have to inform people. If you know anyone who has been thinking about getting an HDTV (look for your buddy with the Jaguar
If things go all to hell, you may still be able to knock a station off the air by telling the FCC that the station has not been working in the public interest. I'm already planning on doing something similar to my local CBS affiliate, as they always found time in their newscasts to cover the stupid Survivor show rather than real news last fall.
--
~svoboda
~svoboda
Practice kind randomness and beautiful acts of nonsense.
Why? Because without the broadcasters and cable companies and satelite dishes, TVs have no audience. You think Sony and RCA and all those comapnies can sell a TV that can't get cable or satelite dish pickups? Not enough to make it profitable.
They don't even need to include a box that blocks out certain things... they just scramble -every- channel, and say you can't watch it unless you have a descrambler. Which also happens to block stuff out.
No more buying a Pay-Per-View wrestling match and taping it for a friend. They'll have to wait four months and pay twenty bucks for the DVD.
No more taping the Super Bowl. No more taping the last episode of your favorite show. The entire home recording industry will cease to exist.
It's all a chain... just like DVD players near-universally have region coding (because otherwise mmovie companies wouldn't put out the discs), so too will this come to pass.
Do you know how the executive branch of the United States government works. You probably think you do, but your comment lays out the breadth of your ignorance.
While there are many agencies that are under the direct control of the President, many are not. Many of the agencies are independent, which means that, once appointed to the office, the head of the agency may not be removed by the President.
This means that, while the United States will soon have a new administration, it will not have a new Federal Reserve chairman, nor will it have a new FCC chairman. There are many other offices which are independent, but these two are the most important. The only way for us to get a new head for the FCC, for example, is for them to resign or the Senate to impeach them. So, when you speak of Bush's FCC, you are mistaken, the FCC is not connected to an administration, except the one that appointed it's executive. Nor is the FCC "Republican," either, since the Senate cannot impeach the head of the FCC without strong Democratic support.
I don't know the name of every independent administration's head, nor would I expect you to, but when you try to play the pundit, reread your sixth grade civics textbook first.
Yes, I'm still a junky. Are you still a bitch?
Do pornography customers have 'fair use' access to a good view of your bedroom when you're bonking your wife/girlfriend?
If they are paying me for that right, then yes.
While the transformer wouldn't be a big deal, it would be a bit of a pain in the ass to deal with having a PAL TV in an NTSC country. I'd be more interested to see if there are cheap 16:9 TVs in Japan, as it also uses NTSC.
As for content protection, my opinon would be that it's an abuse of the privleges of copyright. (which no one is entitled to anyway, either by nature or in the US) So why not strip the copyright of protected works until such time as the copyright holder stops protecting them? Seems like a decent solution to me.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Once analog signals are turned off and replaced completly with digital (I predict 5-10 years)
Last I heard, when they were just starting to roll out digital TV, here in the UK the plan was to stop broadcasting analogue in 2 years or so; that puts it mid 2002, if memory serves me.
I don't know about the US, but I think you may be a little off at 5-10 years.
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
No one is forcing anyone to buy anything. No one owes you entertainment, or even distribution of entertainment. If enough people don't like how something is distributed AND don't use the aforementioned something, a new distribution channel will beat out the old, unpopular one.
In short, grow up and quit your bitching.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Later, the bigger brands will follow after seeing the customer demand for these friendly players/TV's.
It's incredible there are no such DVD players for sale in the USA. Are they actually prohibited by law or are the manufacturers not willing to make them because of MPAA/DVD-CCA pressure and a possible lack of customer demand since region 1 is the primary region for releases?
I don't expect this will actually be a big problem if you respect consumer rights a bit more: just don't accept it and demand something better.
Will any of this matter by time it's implemented? With Internet download speeds getting faster and faster why would people deal with the major networks crap when they can stream full screen video over there net connection?
-Al-
Will rich jerkoff corporate execs ever stop trying to rape the consumers? Will goverments ever stop trying to take away what freedoms we have left? With new laws in place such as the DMCA, the UCITA, etc etc.
:)
Corporations are just getting stupid! And for what? Afraid their multi-national 100 Billion Dollar corporation will crumble because Johnny made a digital copy of a Friend's episode and gave it to a buddy? Afraid that people will stop paying $29 for a silly 2 hour wrasslin match on PPV because sam taped an event and now just watched is over and over??? In reality, they are really hurting themselves. People will stop buying things when the new $2,000 'HDTV' set wont let them do what they can do with their current $200 set and $49 VCR- Does the industry really think people will pay that much more for less capability and a prettier picture? NOT!
Personally, I think they just drove another nail in HDTV's coffin. And if I understand the article right, these new TV streams will be encoded so that unless you have one of the new TVs with copy protection built in, you just get static. Also, it wont work with any other devices (Recievers/VCRs/Tivos/Etc) that doesnt have the device. Does that mean any existing products (including very recent HDTVs, DSS Recievers, TiVO, Replay, etc) will be obsolote and unusable? And what if this shiny new TV dies and you have to have it replaced, now your tape/tivo collection is useless? Does the movie/tv/broadcast/cable industry really think consumers wont care?? Why do they think recording-capable vcrs even exist? Just for making copies of your neice's graduation tape?
As an added note, I think the copy protected hard drive stinks too. As the technology is, all related hard drives and backup equipment/software would need to be compliant with this new 'standard'. I work for a smaller liberal arts university with a microbudget for technology. We have roughly 40 machines in our server room alone, each with at least 1 Exabyte tape drive. These specific drives run several thousand dollars a piece. Doesnt the industry even think about situations like that, where they expect everyone to make an immediate switch (its all or none with this new stuff), especially since they vow to discontinue all current non-protected hard drives?? Are they willing to pay for it, or do we have to take money away from the academics here just to afford the upgrade costs because we had to replace one server hard drive???
Personally, I have made my decision. I will not support/recommend/buy from ANY company/organization/entity that supports these laws/actions/etc. That includes any lawmakers, public officials, etc. And if any clickwrap company thinks they can just come in to my home and take anything or demand anything (proof of license, etc), they have another thing coming. Namely, an H&K MP5
There hasnt been a better time to fight for consumer rights, support open/free software, and lash out against bigbusiness raping our freedom.
This has been my first post, even though I have read slashdot for 2 years.
The sound and video eventually must go to some output device. At that point, any user can jump and record it. It might not be fast or easy but it will always be there. I don't care if the speaker and monitors decrypt at the very last instant, there is always something you can do. Worst case scenario, you can always slip a microphone in and record the music, throw a video camera in and record the video. Are they going to ban microphones and video cameras? It can't be stopped. They should only worry about mass for profit copying and maybe even mass non-profit copying. The fact is, to go after Joe Home User is a waste of money. It costs much more to try to prevent Joe from copying a movie for a friend show than the money Joe takes away when his friend doesn't buy the movie. Are they going to try to ban watching movies in groups? "Warning, Movie Player detects 5 watchers. You are only licensed for 3 watchers. Please press the BUY button to purchase more licenses and continue watching your movie. Have a nice day!" Come on...
-- soldack
If people are willing to hack their TiVo, Furby, and everything else, why not just add digital tv to that list?
For those who are too lazy to look at the website :)
Chairman William Kennard: bkennard@fcc.gov
Commissioner Susan Ness: sness@fcc.gov
Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth: hfurchtg@fcc.gov
Commissioner Michael Powell: mpowell@fcc.gov
Commissioner Gloria Tristani: gtristan@fcc.gov
1-888-225-5322 (1-888-CALL FCC) Voice: toll-free
(202) 418-0190 Headquarters Voice: toll
(888) 835-5322 TTY: toll-free
(202) 418-2555 TTY: toll
(202) 418-0232 FAX
(202) 418-2830 FAX on Demand
Kennard William E CM-CH (202) 418-1000
Mail Address:
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th St. S.W.
Washington DC 20554
Please be nice.
Maybe this is the kick in the ass necessary to unglue our eyes from the idiot box and rediscover the world around us. Of course, it will never happen and you will continue to vainly repeat each other's outrage in a useless forum like this, but this truly is an opportunity to get past one of the key catalysts in the dumbening of society.
What do you mean that I can't tape porn any more?
"I'm here for my sanity..." Train "I Am"
I bet that within my lifetime I'll see news of special military operations being carried out to "neutralize" data havens harbouring information that corporations/governments don't like the public to see.
No-one knows but those who cannot tell us.
I wonder how long it will be before we see 80's - style copy protection on software appear again?
CableLabs, the organization that proposed this to the FCC, is funded and controlled by the cable TV companies. Let your local cable TV company know what you think of their spending your money on this stuff.
Indeed, some business do appear run on the assumption that each customer is a potential thief... Ever notice the "Pay Before You Pump" sign at the gas station? Hell, I couldn't try on a pair of shoes at the mall the other day because they had this huge anti-theft device attached.
I'm not a social analyst, so I can't say where this mentality is coming from... but it's been disturbing me for sometime, now.
I also doubt that pay-per-view TV will decrease viewership due to cost consciousness. People who can't afford to fix their cars or feed their kids already "waste money" on cell phones, sattelite/cable and watch every $20 pay-per-view boxing match.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The DMCA was passed in 1998, not 2000.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
Stop buying these devices. It's that simple. These companies want to make money; they're only going to make products that people will buy. No one _needs_ a TV or a DVD player so you can opt not to buy one. Alternatively, you can also just buy a TV from overseas or somewhere that doesn't have this technology. Please remember that these companies don't owe you anything. That don't love you, they just want your money. If you think they're jerking you around, take your money elsewhere.
It's called your monitor. Last time my grandma came over, she asked me to change the channel on my monitor....
But really, with a big pipe, you can watch digital TV in almost every resolution you want. Someone just has to be smart enough to start selling cheap over-large black monitors with long enough cables to reach your living room, and a little IR remote that connects back to your computer through that same long cable.
Then come up with a napster like service provider, and your remote can let you watch whatever program you want, whenever you want. THIS is what they're afraid of. I don't see why someone starts pushing for that, somewhat like TIVO is going. Soon enough the big boys will catch on and offer their services too.
Bork!
If there was ever a way to destroy an industry, this seems like it. It appears that if the MPAA and television networks get what they want, they will seriously damage the entire VCR, and the newly growing TiVo-style device market. Along with the digital TV market, and probably television in general.
I can't say I'd be totally upset at them committing what looks like it could very well be suicide, maybe someone else would come along who doesn't worship only the almightly dollar. (in America? hahahaha not a chance)
There are just way too many restrictions they're trying to get here. I know they like the copy-never idea so they can prevent the erosion of the idea of prime-time and the like which devices like TiVo are killing, and by preventing you from taping a show for a friend, or for later, they can look toward services where they can make you PAY to watch it if you didn't catch it at the "free" time (doesn't anyone else think this would be a great marketing idea? like a 'pay archive' of shows).
There has never been any sort of problem with people "copying" shows off of TV in ways harmful to the industry. I don't see how most of those controls are justified in any manner whatsoever except looking toward future profits. Profits they might very well never get if they get their way.
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
Then maybe once people (especially the ones who won't be able to afford it) are weaned off TV by pay-per-view, thus not watching political advertising, they will vote in a more sensible manner.
I think your logic is off here. There is an important difference between the advent of digital TV and MP3: MP3 is not intended to supercede CD sound; digital TV is designed to be far better quality than traditional TV broadcasts. MP3 (as I see it) is simply a more portable format than CD--the files are smaller for use with more portable devices.
As far as "if analogue TV is so crap, WTF have we all been paying money for it all these years?!", the answer is simple: There wasn't a better alternative. When black/white TV was introduced, there were few (if any) complaints about picture quality--there were simply no other options. Yet by modern standards, the quality is unacceptable.
So in conclusion, my problem with DTV is in the control that corporations (I hate when people rag on "big evil corporations" without reason, but that's another story) have over how I use my TV. The format itself promises far greater entertainment value than traditional analog broadcasts.
Oh, I think a flat 30+ inch screen and a nice highspeed-high definition camera mounted in a black hood in front of the TV should capture every single thing they don't want me to save. :)
How are they planning to enforce this? No CD burner available today has this access control built in, and they will be usable for years to come. Even if/when CDRs do have it built in, it wouldn't be that hard to alter the drivers for it.
Easy, unless your computer is willing to have a 'conversation' with the TV assuring it that all the hardware is compliant and that the software is officially sanctioned (that is, proprietary and incapable of talking to the burner), the signal from the video out jack simply won't be readable. You'll record nothing but static.
All HDTV's are digital TV's, but not all digital TV is HDTV. Go to best buy and count the number of square-screened "digital ready" tv's. These are not HDTV, but are digital.
To use digital tv broadcasting on an old analog TV merely requires the use of a cheap converter box. Since most public tv advertising is directed at low/middle income, you can bet tv stations will give out free converters to anyone who wants one (good for PR, plus keeps their viewer numbers up for advertising..)
Converter boxes are no big deal. If anyone with a tv that just has an F-type jack (such as myself) has bought a dvd player, then you know you have to go get an RF modulator (about $30) to make it work.
Analog tv has been obsolete for several years. How long have cable converter boxes been around? DirecTV? Several years. The FCC finally made this obsolete form of broadcasting to be phased out in a few years, which is well past its useful lifetime.
-
Under the proposed plan, programs recorded from a given TV will only be viewable on that TV. So, not only will I be unable to view my recorded programs in my den if I recorded them on my living room TV, I'll also have to trash my entire library of recordings when I replace the TV I record them from.
And, as always, these devices will only hurt the average consumer who has never cost "content providers" any money at all, while the big-time "content pirates" will easily find ways around them.
But the thing I hate the most about this whole situation is that, once again, it points out that businesses think I'm a thief and should be treated like one.
8VSB HDTV broadcasts have "Conditional Access" controls built into them already. Whether you think this is good or bad ethically it sucks technically.
Right now I do not get some of the stations in my area because my set top box for HDTV is one of the first to use the Conditional access info - it is buggy and the broadcasters also have buggy software.
All of the stations that do not set the Conditianal access info come in just fine though.
When you pay for cable, you are paying in part for the cable itself, and in part for the fees of producing the show (actors, crew, producers, etc.) You are NOT paying to own a small piece of the show, no matter how you argue it. I don't understand why people still think this.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
to forget all about digital tv. why would I every buy one? yes, I know, it's supposed to replace analog & shit ... but if nobody buys it, as has happened thus far with hdtv, do you really think they'll turn off the analog channels?
sulli
RTFJ.
I can tell you from personal experience that a VCR increased the amount of television I watched. If I'm not home, I can still see the show and the commercials.
This is especially important now that I have a new baby. When she starts crying, we hit the pause button and that happens often. If it wasn't for a DVD player and a VCR, we would see anything.
While DeCSS and an array of other, semi-legal gadgest pretty much eliminated the need for chipping in Region 1 DVD players, I understand the practice was *quite* common in Region 2 DVD players and elsewhere. A quick search of Usenet or the web reveals no end of techical information for users who want to do it themselves and quite a few services who *claim* to do it for you if you're not of a mechanical bent.
One can only assume that this will become common practice with copy-protected HDTV equipment such as VCRS and other recording devices. Simply put, the market for chipping, copy-protection-defeat features has already grown so large that a break like HDTV will make Chippers into a real, competitive, albeit black-market, industry that is concerned with its customer's happiness and satisfaction.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Look at playstation games, you can't make copies of them. That is unless you have a MOD chip in your playstation. It will be the same with the digital TV's. People will find ways to circumvent the technology, and everyone will live happily ever after... :-)
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
It may finally be possible to designate "Weekend at Bernie's" a 'view never' program.
Maybe I'm missing some of the nomenclature here, but how is a digital TV different than a computer monitor? I'd sure like to hope that these TV's (or large, flatscreen digital monitors, which is what they are) have the capability to display a computer signal on them. If this is the case, then you just don't use the tuner that's in the TV and replace it with a computer with a digital out video card, and your problem is fixed.
Piracy will always be there, this is about control. Consumers are stupid, but as we saw with Divx, they aren't THAT stupid. Those digital TV's are hella expensive, and if you think I'm going to drop a few grand on something that won't do whatever the hell I want with it, then you're dead wrong, and I think a lot of people think along the same lines.
..don't panic
So you are paying for the cable.
Then why all the different price levels?
Look, I have a 3rd dan black belt with 16 years of training and I have no illusions about my ability to stand up in hand-to-hand combat with members of the armed forces.
16 years of training versus a few weeks of basic training, only a few days of which covered hand-to-hand.
Hmm. Makes me wonder how badly you've been slacking off for 16 years that some bozo who barely graduated from high school and took a three-day "try not to die in a strategically disadvantageous position" course could wallop your ass.
I have no idea why these gun nuts think that a few hours of practice a week will enable them and a few of their friends to stand up to a US army battalion.
Strange. I seem to recall the British saying the same thing about the Zulus at Isandhlwana; the Soviets saying the same thing about the mujahedeen in Afghanistan; the French Foreign Legion saying the same thing about Ho Chi Minh at Dien Bien Phu; and the American saying the same thing about Ho Chi Minh during Vietnam.
Short answer: history shows that you're amazingly, staggeringly wrong if you think insurgencies are ineffective.
But they clearly state in their products that you can't copy them. [...] You are NOT paying to own a small piece of the show, no matter how you argue it.
These aren't fundamental truths fiated from on-high; they're matters of public policy. I don't care what "they" state, and I don't care how "they" interpret my payment. I want unlimited right to copy and store shows for non-commercial use. If this conflicts with some lofty principles, I want those principles outlawed immediately. It's my goddamn country, and I want laws that serve me and the 99.999% of the population not in the "rich Hollywood slob" category. Are you trolling or forgetting that this is a democracy?
we will never know how many democritters voted for it because it was a verbal vote only
-since when did 'MTV' stand for Real World Television instead of MUSIC television?
SHUT THE HELL UP! Mr. Potty-mouth rap-star can say whatever he wants and it's freedom of speech. Of course he can, what if the government decided he couldn't say what he wanted to, would you want that? I can't blanket-block phone solicitations in my home because it would violate their free speech. It's called hanging up on someone and it's nothing to be ashamed of. I can't require spammers have my permission before they fill up my HD with their BS because that violates their free speech. Usually, the only way to get spam is if the company that's sending it out HAS your email address. Maybe if you wouldn't give it out this wouldn't happen. Sound easy enough? I can't watch what I want to on my TV unless some company says I can. Of course you can't watch what you want to on your TV! You don't make the content! They do! I want to watch a full 24 hours of swirling colors but nobody is going to broadcast it!
As mentioned in previous messages, if such a massive anti-free rights movement is going on, we still got a way out! Hollywood, the music companies, and all such media rely on us the customer. If we all simply boycott such media, and stick with the hardware we already have, and give up the brand new technology for just a few years, I'm willing to bet the industry will feel the impact. They are nothing without us, the customer, and eventually they will have to back down. The only sacrifice (unfortunately a big one) is that we can't get the latest and most hightech music/video formats but we still got our local strip clubs so what's the worry?
If broadband truly happens, certainly Kodak will be sure that we can transmit live pictures of the grandkid to old folks. Which means the borders will open for all sorts of smuggled signals. If you think there won't be Napster-equivalents-on-steroids in terms of 'file sharing' you vastly under-rate the criminal class.
... which would be silly to do since it's precisely the criminal class that's in control of the corporations that are stealing our commons. And that's the stupid criminals mostly. Friends of mine recently left television work after 20 successful years because they realized that there was no one in the industry who really had a spark of joy about what they were doing, let alone inspiration, or being people you'd want to know well.
As we know from our music videos, the way to have true fun is to go fully criminal, to go outside of the corporate spheres where you're as much a crime victim as perpetrator, to the outsider sphere where its much more fun to perpetrate. And the more the stupid criminals in the corporations achieve legal prohibitions, the more the markets open for the real dope.
Also keep in mind that digital gear means that it will soon be cheaper to produce equivalent-quality TV or movies by about a factor of 10. Add to that the greater creativity crews will have when they aren't so beholden to money to do their work, and we're not talking about a revolution, maybe, but a vast openning for a much more creative, more openly outlaw scene.
However, as a means of defense of last resort, we should form an informal programmers' union. Do you know how long the corporations can stay up if the core of their IT staff stays away from work for a few weeks? I'm not talking about cracking, just a wide outbreak of the Big Blue Flu. We should cultivate this prospect, in case the corperpetrations really go too far and we need to take the Jeffersonian step of tearing them down and starting again.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
but you can hack it to say "Pork!" and shake the the screen to the beat of any song of your chosing.
I hear a lot of talk about big business ruining things for us, and that this is another example. But you miss one thing. While the movie industry is bug, so are the consumer electronics makers. Will they willingly spend time and money to limit the functionality of their product? I think not. It's like web standards. The W3C comes out with new standards, but the browser makers don't want to break anyones page, so they leave the old stuff in.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
Sure you do, until your broadcast and media companies realize the windfall of cash they can get from going pay per view. Greed is not only an American trait (although I'll admit it's more prevelant here)
Digital TV in UK already has the ability to use copy protection - every digibox has a macrovision encoder built in. However it is only turned on for pay per view, nor is likely to be turned on for anything else in the future. How can I be so sure of this? Besides the non commercial BBC, video recording are actually included in the ratings for a programme up to three weeks after it was shown - so the commercial broadcasters still (theoretically) get paid when you watch the video recording. I say theoretically because you would have to be in one of the 4000 homes that actually create the ratings in order to have effect, but if the statistics of ratings hold true then it shouldn't matter. As for fear of Tivo's, well Sky actually have quite a hand in TiVo's UK service - providing the subscriber management and technical backend. Not only that but they are soon to release there own combind Digital Sattelite/TiVo like box.
Actually, its the corporations that now own the government. I and my mechanic friend may do everything in our power to prevent this, but our power doesn't compare with the power of the rich corporations, who can buy the government's power to do whatever they want. We face a pretty bleak future if there is nothing we can do to stand up to a corporate owned state that can do whatever it wants to us. And you guys wonder why we want to keep our guns? It's the only form of power we still maintain. I honestly hope it never comes to a revolution but how much should we take?
So your much hyped (to the point of sacred) Constitution has failed then? Really? There is nothing you can do except hold on to you gun untill revolution version 2 comes? You think the corporations can't afford bigger, better guns than average person on the street? Maybe you should actually try democracy. Thier seems to be quite a few americans on slashdot who don't like what is going, yet do nothing about it (other than complain about it to the rest of the world and/or consider moveing to canada). Organize a political movement. With so many apathetic non voters out thier it shouldn't be that hard to make a difference . So what if it is only niche - as long as it's vocal enough then people will listen - just look at the Green party in Europe. Niche they are, and while they are no where near in control thier voice is often heard and taken into account by the more mainstream groups. They certainly don't get thier own way, but at least they get some concessions in thier favour. An example here would be that while there would still be copy protection you would still have some right to make personal recordings. So no one would be entirely happy - but that's the point of compromise - better for every one to be unhappy than for one side to be happy and one side looking to violence as thier last and only recourse.
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
I think it all comes down to whether Republicans want to be more friendly to the big business of entertainment or the big business of consumer electronics. Which group gave more money to the party?
Let's wait and see what happens.
--
"How many six year olds does it take to design software?"
dinner: it's what's for beer
Hollywood is heavily democratic. He may oppose this for that reason...
Quoting Metallica on Slashdot??????
> And as for TV shows, you're getting them for
> free. What makes you think you should be able to
> copy them?
The United States Supreme Court said we could for "time-shifting" purposes. That is, I can tape anything on TV so that I can watch what I want, _when_ I want to watch it, and not when some network exec decides is the right time for me to.
Media companies can't take this away from us legally, so they are attempting to make it impossible technologically.
And with the DMCA, if we attempt to take back our rights as set forth by the USSC, we can be prosecuted for it.
Boom, it won't be illegal to tape shows, but it will be illegal to tape shows using every piece of consumer electronics on the market
Nice doublethink there, eh?
I think this is one time that we have to just put our faith in capitalism and hope somebody fills a product void.
That's assuming that tv's like this ever make it into existance. Your average computer user doesn't really know, or what to know what's going on inside the beige box, as long as it works they're happy. Not everybody uses a computer, and a great percentage of those who do see it as a glorified typewriter and so they don't pay as much attention to 1984-style computer news. Tons of people watch tv, and people like to tape stuff. There has to be a backlash, well... I hope there has to be. The tv watching population is HUGE, and while the US may have trouble because of that pesky little thing you guys call the DMCA... I don't see these restrictive access devices being very popular in a country where consumers have a legal alternative. Hopefully the rest of the world doesn't fall in line with Hollywood's plan (and the RIAA for that matter) and the States can go back to being the land of the free instead of being the land of retarded legislation.
Actuaries - making accountants look interesting since 1949
I dig Rush...I'd consider myself a member of the
"vast right wing conspiracy" as well.
Where's the beef?
It's their property, their money which made it. If they don't want you watching a movie or TV program, don't watch it. Go to the library and get the book. Read it when/where you want, it's more portable than a TV. I don't remember ever watching a TV program which was life changing. There are other things to do. Take a walk. Rather than getting a home entertainment system, buy a couple of Siberian Huskies and a sled. Try something new.
If you really don't like what they're doing, start making your own TV shows. Distribute them on the internet. When they get a following sell advertising with it, or distribute it in the way you feel is the most benefitial to mankind. Use Ogg Vorbis. Rather than complain about what they are doing come up with a plan for the right way to do it and do it.
Creating copy protected content with their schemes and granting permission to break them is one trick to stir into the mix, but I think that the DCMA will fall in another manner.
If circumventing any copy protection or use restriction on media is really illegal, then Congress has given away a huge piece of their regulatory powers to the media producers. (Because those producers can decide what use is legal and illegal.) Conservative decisions have ruled that Congress (in some cases, if they go far enough) cannot delegate such legislative powers to others. (I think the example would be one of the rulings against the EPA, or otherwise environmentally related -- I seem to remember a good one involving that attempt to get coal burning power plants in the West Virginia and Ohio area to stop producing pollution which blows into the Northeast.)
So what you have to do is find a clever liberal judge, and contrive the appropriate case to present him. If the guy is not a moron, he'll write a simple decision that says that the DCMA can't possibly mean that ALL copy protection circumvention is illegal, because then it would be unconstitutional, and use that conservative argument against delegation of legislative powers. The smart thing to do is probably not to rule the law unconstitutional, but simply to say that whatever the law means, it can't possibly mean ALL copy protection circumvention, because Congress would have known such a law was unconstitutional. Then you leave the law, the big producers, and the congressmen who voted for it in an uncomfortable limbo. Do they publically say "Yes, that's what we wanted?" Or do they come out with some weaker interpretation of the law, subject to more examination ? Probably, Congress would revisit the issue and pass some clarification that would withstand court review.
Sucks to be you. New paradigm, new rules. Some folks might do this accidently, but if this system ever saw the light of day, you just KNOW that there's be an auto-off feature after every show. So even if you started watching Wheel of Fortune and left the room, the TV would turn off once Pat's made his last lame-ass joke and said goodnight.
Part of the problem with current TV is that the only way we can say what we want is either get a Neilson box, or vote with our wallet. The latter is extremely crude: almost a binary proposition. (You like TV? Get cable. Don't? Cut your cable.) With a pay-per-show system, you get what you want, when you want, and for as long or as short as you want.
There really is way too much TV nowadays, and commercialism is going too far. I'd dearly love to see this happen, just get less exposure to the both of them.
Mr. Ska
...to go into the TV repair business... Can you imagine how many people will want to keep their old "I can watch anything - even if it's not in HDTC" televisions in working order?
-
Addlepated - punk & metal
I vote the way Alec Baldwin tells me to vote.
If Rosie O'Donnel has an opinion on gun control or capital punishment, she must be right- she's so real- don't you think?
Listen, people. You don't become rich and famous by accident. Even Andy Dick is filled to the brim with intellectual prowice.
And if you don't believe me, read this.
One, no one buys the new brain damaged equipment.
Two, everyone and their mother buys cracking equipment to circumvent this crap.
Three, in four years time the industry gives up and goes back to business as usual.
"Avast! Prepare for the rodgering!" THWACK! "Arrr.. me nards.."
It is a fundamental gurantee of fair-use that you are allowed to record a program/song in order to play it back later for personal use. This is not different than recording in one location for palayback in another. Sure, this can be abused to allow for institutional/infringing copies, but so can time-shifting.
Disallowing location-shifting entirely to ban copyright infringement in this manner also bans a substantial amount of common, non-infringing uses. The copy-never bits on broadcast material (and possibly purchased video/DVD, depending on the true legality of backup copies) also disallow fair, already established time-shifting use, and thus are illegal for that.
Furthermore, eliminating institutional pirate copies is a rather simple matter if the above copy-protection is feasible. Instead of trying to block copies entirely, simply have the chips insert a unique, continuous, and non-personally identifiable (and invisible) watermark into each copy. Should the material turn up being sold on the street corner for $2 a pop, it can be traced back to the unique chip, and eventually the person (with enough investigation) who made the illegal copies.
"Evil company X is threatening to restrict our rights! Let's all get together to stop--OOOH! SHINEY!!!" -- AC
Personally I decline to play ball. I would like digital TV, but if I'm treated like a criminal then I'll find my entertainment elsewhere. It is not necessary to be a media consumer. I repeat... you don't have to consume media. Most people will continue, and it bums me out to see the industry do this stuff, but I'll get my kicks elsewhere.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
analog is due for replacement in a few years, as per ruled by the FCC. Many (if not most) major stations are already broadcasting simultaneous analog/digital signals at this time. Turning them off requires a mere flip of the switch.
-
Why don't I start a company that will produce these products without the censorship devices? It would instantaneously put all other censorship-friendly companies out of business. Think about it: you walk into the store. You see your Sony, Magnavox, and RCA TVs on the shelf, and right next to it: MyBrand. You have a choice: buy one of the TVs that will not allow you to record many things, or buy the unrestricted TV.
What do you do?
A camera inside the TV to see how many people are in your living room watching that pay per view you invited all your friends to watch? This is just getting silly....
-----
"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad." - Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
Ah, arrogance and stupidity all in one package. How efficient of them.
Unfortunately, the offshore manufacturers will still be subject to MPAA control if they want to ship their products to the US, because the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) prohibits 'circumvention devices', and any unlicensed electronics which decode the digital bitstream would come under the prohibition. That is one reason why the MPAA and RIAA purchased the DMCA in the first place.
In the newspaper industry, advertising is sold based on CPM (cost per thousand) READERS. Not subscribers, not sales. READERS.
It is *expected* that each newspaper will have more than one reader. Whether it is Mom and Dad both reading the same paper, or the paper you leave behind on the table at McDonalds that someone else picks up.
Newspaper circulation is multiplied by an industry standard number of readers-per-paper-circulated to determine how may total readers there are and it is that number that is used to calculate the price of advertising space.
Why can't the Broadcast Media work on the same principle. Example: 10 million watch a show when broadcast. 10% record it and watch it again or share it with an average of 1 other person. This means actual viewership is 11 million. (Who's really going to go through the trouble of removing the commercials? Some will, but not many)
Also, I don't buy the premise that just because it is a "perfect" copy, it will be bootlegged.
The problem will be that the transmission signal will be different than the decoded picture signal. A completely different packet format.
It would be like trying to record a TV signal on an audio cassette recorder. Yes, you could theoretically build a recorder that handles the transmission signal, but to record a 19.3 Mb/s signal takes some skill and is beyond the reach of most people.
I work in one of these large media mega-corps. The goal of all this is to prevent the casual user from engaging in copying programs. They (I should say we), all know that there will always be ways to get around the system. If you have to actually go out and buy a Macrovision fixer, most people won't do it.
The real loophole will be through the professional TV gear. No broadcaster will allow themselves to be saddled with these handicaps and concerns. Currently, professional broadcast gear ignores SCMS and all other copy protection systems. This won't change with DTV gear.
-----
nuclear iraq bioweapon encryption cocaine korea terrorist
unicorns kick ass
--stonedcat
You can't take the sky from me.
Please tell me you're not serious.
Exactly. And since they control the government, they control the army.
That assumes that the entire army would be on the Gov't side, or the people's side, should an insurrection ever occur.
Look, I have a 3rd dan black belt with 16 years of training and I have no illusions about my ability to stand up in hand-to-hand combat with members of the armed forces. I would last a bit longer than the average Joe, but not much. I have no idea why these gun nuts think that a few hours of practice a week will enable them and a few of their friends to stand up to a US army battalion.
Vietnam comes to mind. Chechnya and Afghanistan as other examples.
They're against it because these mandated copy controls lower the value of their product, and so they will either sell fewer units, or have to sell them at a lower price.
--
"Seriously, I don't see why you should be allowed to rob me at gunpoint in your own home..."
If you're in MY house without MY permission, consider yourself lucky you don't get killed. (BTW, I don't own or condone the use of firearms).
I'll concede on the natural numbers and the speed of light. Ya got me there.
The wrong party has control of all three branches of goverenment for anything consumer-orientated to ever fly.
I'd say we should all hope that all region 2-8 discs remain of poor quality and lack the special features of the region 1 discs! Yes, I live in region 1 (which I used to refer to as North America), but I'm not trying to be elitist or anything. Think about it... when people in other parts of the world demand region 1 discs, it creates a corresponding demand for region-free players. Isn't that what we want? If all discs were of equal quality and were available in all regions, people wouldn't care so much about region-free players, and the market would vanish. Even though the only perfect solution would be to have regional restrictions declared illegal under international trade or antitrust laws, it's better to keep the noose as loose as possible. If people in the rest of the world demand region 1 discs, more power to them.
The funny thing is that all those "If you want to... , it won't." statements are totally false.
If you really WANT to do something, you WILL do it. This just makes what you have to go through to do it more difficult.
You can make a general-purpose computer do whatever YOU want it to do, so I really don't see how making a recording with a computer and copying it infinately (with non-sanctioned software of course) is technically infeasable.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
Okay, aside from finding ways to
bypass all the Orwellian crap that
seems to be intercepting almost
every a/v medium out there, is this
actually going to become a global
phenomenon? In other words,
are these TVs (and the copy-protected
harddrives) going to go everwhere
the world over?
and are all these programs going
to go "encrypted" the world
over (I know it's not necessarily
encryption... but read the list
of properties: without "breaking" it,
it might as well be encrypted)?
If not, then where is there going
to be some non-brain damaged
digital a/v equipment?
And if so, how does the MPAA/RIAA/Hollywood/
whatever/whoever intend to blanket
the whole world with this,
and the others that have been posted
to slashdot?
And how did they get this much power?
GAH.
makes me want to move to...
somewhere else. or more importantly,
somewhen else.
-Slackergod.
:wq
The worst solution by far would be to get the centralised involved. That way the government itself would, in a sense, own the right to the art. Not the artist, not the public.
No-one knows but those who cannot tell us.
..and miss Iron Chef? Never!
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
College kids stapped for cash, give me a break, that is one of the most affluent groups in the country, most people in america don't have $30K a year to live in a country club, but most kids who go to private schools are. Don't tell me you were not warned, see Bruce Perens Napster article, he said that this exact type of thing would happen as a response to the irresponsible use of P2P piracy. Stop whining about how the man is keeping you down, stop using these devices, go outside, live life, don't like it don't support it.
Does this mean that teletubbies will be auto-banned? How about Barney, et. al? I see a great future in this. Install it NOW baby!
As more and more of our lives become digital, this will be the natural progression of things... Companies will want to squeeze as much money as possible out of us, so they will want to copyright and protect everything.
Instead of complaining about this and that will buying the product, boycott the product. People protesting the WTO and The Gap while wearing designer clothes doesn't give themselves much credibility.
Form protest groups, tell your government offical, start your own sovereign nation, but don't just read it on /. and then go out and buy one. Personally I think we should start our own Political Action Committee (PAC) (or equivalant in non-USA places) and lobby the government on behalf of /.
=-=-=-=-=
"Do you hear the Slashdotters sing,
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Oh bother.
This is a big step down a slippery slope. Soon after protecting the intrest of big corporations just how long before government gets into it? How soon before some government agency determines what can allowed to be said or seen?
We already have "Hate crimes" which is a thinly veiled attempt to criminalize anything that which the empowered (read judicial groups, or other radicals) don't like. Simply by claiming that someone who does not agree with you a spouter of hate-speech is the current method. Look at it everyday, they word their sentences in a specific method and thereby claim your racist/homophobe/etc views are obvious when you attempt to get them to clarify the issue.
Now I know the message title will provoke response as many here don't like Rush, but I hope these people understand that "limiting" what you can do in one arena is very easily broadened to include what you expect to be able to do in yours.
This is the first step towards removing the 1st amendment, let business/entertainment do it first so that people get used to limits, and voila, watch government "censors" step in and broaden it to other forms of broadcast as well.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
(Dammit. Subject line is TOO short!)
Look, people, the TV industry knows that people record shows - I don't tihnk anyone is going to set a TV show to "Record Never" or "Record Once" -- They're all aware that we tape the shows and watch them later -- they're all aware that because of that, the commercials get seen again. Its unrealistic to expect them to set all shows, or even ANY shows to "Record Never"
Its called Bad Marketing.
Movies, OTOH, I expect to be locked to Record Never. It means less piracy. Copyright protecting. That the people who own the movie can prevent you from stealing from them.
You want to watch the movie at a friends? Take it there, don't dub it. You want to watch it in the bedroom VCR - I'm sure the movie will have non-high-res play. Again, I don't expect the movie companinies to bite themselves in the ass by isolating an entire market. Not until analos TV has gone the way of the Beta VCR.
Think like executives people, not like paranoid conspiracy theorists. Sheesh.
Poor little no puppy toe!
http://quiz.ravenblack.net/blood.pl?3357354385
Does anyone remember the copy protection phase the software industry went through a decade or more ago (with key disks, etc.)?
The public didn't like it, and sales went down on copy protected products.
Just wait until the TV ratings drop, movie ticket $ales drop and the video, CD and DVD $ales drop.
And lets not forget laywers.
To whom it may concern,
Speaking as a US consumer that owns a region free player, I will be promptly returning any disk that does not work in it. The more restrictions placed, the less I will buy. Have a nice day.
The way I see it, that's really what will hurt them the most. Opinions add up to nothing when it comes to calculating the bottom line, and that's what they value most. If they start to see that the money lost from people not buying it due to restrictions is more than they are gaining from them, they'll change their minds.
However, there's not a chance in hell it will get implemented.
You are forgetting the Mighty Power (tm, patent pending) of the Broadcast industry/NAB. They cannot stream or individualize content. Your solution is great, but it would entail the demise of the entire broadcast industry.
If your system would require FCC regulation/approval at any step in the process (and it might as a content providing industry), you can bet that it would not pass muster.
"Evil company X is threatening to restrict our rights! Let's all get together to stop--OOOH! SHINEY!!!" -- AC
What kind of 'a copy protection' is it exactly? One bit somewhere in the 'header' section? Scrambled signal a'la css?
Bruce Parens said this exact thing would happen in the technocrat. But everyone seemed to ignore this guy when he preaches honesty.
"
The DVD zoning situation is an example of consumer power! The fact is that Region 1 DVDs are usually a far better proposition for European buyers -- they come out earlier, they're cheaper, and they generally have more extra features. The situation is gradually getting better, but for the moment region-locked players don't sell. Most manufacturers seem to get around it by putting in a backdoor, then leaking said backdoor to the net. Needless to say the DVD consortium are none too happy, but screw 'em! A number of resellers also sell chipped DVD players.
"
I've also come across a couple of shops who sell DVD players with statements like
"
If you buy this DVD player from us and 'enhance' it with the service of [company] at [address] then we will not invalidate your warranty
"
I'm increasingly reaching the point of view that the purpose of region coding is to prevent the Americans using non-American discs since all of the other regions already have easy access to region free players and are made aware of region coding at point of purchase.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
I sure hope your digital TV isn't at all interactive, because that'd mean it was covered by BT's patent on linking. "Oh, but that's different-- it's a corporation.
Not quite, ``Oh, but that's different...'' because the BT patent to which you refer does not apply in the UK. This may have been an oversight by BT, but it is quite possibly because the USPO is less picky about what can be patented... another symptom of US control freakery?
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
Well all thats fine as long as I can still record my pr0n from showtime and cinemax... but knowing them they would set "record never" flags on every show except for that "two fat ladies show"
Oh and the lifetime network, and Oxygen no one in there right mind would even think about recording from that program line-up....
Most European TVs these days accept both NTSC and PAL signals from DVDs, games consoles and the like. I'm not sure where you'd stand recieving analogue RF signals, but you could get around that with a VCR tuner or something. More of a worry for Americans would be that Americans use Component Video for high quality video inputs, Europe uses RGB.
--
It's good to hear that the CEA is objecting, at least. That means there's at least one industry organization that's willing to stand up to the MPAA/RIAA/etc.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
All of these issues that keep coming up are due to reliance on copyright concepts invented centuries ago.
First, we have the duration of copyright. The original concepts for this came from a world where it might take 20 years or more for a work to reach 10-20% of the population. In the connected world we live in today, a published work can be available everywhere in a single moment, whether it be digital, paper, celluloid or whatever. If the publishing megacorps passed on a reasonable percentage of the true profits to the creators of these works, and if the creators saved and invested this money properly instead of running out to pay cash for multi-million dollar homes, the succesful ones would have enough money to live on within two years, the unsuccesful would have to try again, but that's life. Instead, due to corporate theft of these profits and childish actions on the part of artists, we get the idea that artists, their children, and their children's children need continued income from these works. And of course the idea that a corporation's property will suddenly vaporize on a given date is repugnant to them and to their investors.
The second, and more important flaw in the continued application of outmoded copyright concepts is that they were birthed in a time when our consumption of copyrighted works was not mediated by machines. If a person bought a copyrighted work in 1693, they had a book or a sheet of music, and when the copyright expired there would be thousands of copies of that work available from which to draw the content for the now free and unfettered dissemination of the ideas within. Now, in the digital age, content begins to exist in forms that only machines understand. If those who create the content only do so for machines which will not create copies, and copyrights outlive the functionality of those machines, publishers can effectively insure that the content will never enter the market in the public domain.
As Thomas Jefferson wrote, "...generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices." Unfortunately, the great mass of people does not understand or care about these issues, and those who do care are the same who profit from the current system, and whose future profits will be greater as they mold copyright law to their own purposes
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Paranoid? I don't think so. We have already given up a lot of freedoms in the last century. How many people are even aware that until the 19th century there were no passports? That there were no fingerprints? In fact, that there was no police at all until the 19th century? That high taxes and duties are a relatively new invention? That copyright is new too (Was Bach afraid he'd lose income due to people copying his music? Don't think so.) Was skinny-sipping illegal in 1900? No, it was the norm. Etc.
The danger here is that this is an unstoppable progress 'in small increments'. I see that my kids already accept restrictions I stil find horrifying. In 1960, we'd have been horrified if our bosses or our government had had the right to read all our private mail at will. Now, we accept it as "neccesary to stop law infringement". In Toronto, the police just announced daily routine roadblocks from now on (allegedly to catch drink-drivers). Read Michel Foucault's "Punish and Discipline" to see how society has moved along this trend for hundreds of years, and it is not stopping as far as I can see.
My fear is, since we have been reducing freedom for hundreds of years, we will unable to stop it now. For most people, "socialisation" means accepting ever-reducing freedom. The corporate "thou shalt not use our technology in ways we do not like" is only a small part of this.
At the same time, there is also some hope. Technology has been the driving force behind much of this reduction of our freedom to move. Now, it can also be our hope. MP3, PGP, Free email, Fax, are all examples of technology increasing freedom. The Interfax news agency played a large role in bringing down communism in Russia. Informatio rules.
So what can we do? Tough question but I would say:
It may not be much, but we only get the restrictions we accept.
---
---
BDOS ERR ON A:>
Dyslexics Untie!
What's the fascination you Americans have with control and censorship? you just don't seem happy unless you're attempting to exert control over others.
Digital TV is here, now, in Europe. No built in copy control. Satellite, cable and broadcast digital television.
But, I guess you'll have to go invent your own standards and multiple versions of them if your mobile phone industry is anything to go by.
Deleted
Any attempt to implement copy protection, either through software or hardware, will immediately have the intelligence and knowledge of the worldwide Geek Collective brought to bear upon its undoing.
Don't fight this movement at all!
Don't let Hollywood know that cracks/hardware gizmos exist that would render their "proprietary/invincible copy-protection" as naked as a two-bit whore. Remember, how long did it take before DVDs were cracked?
These are words and only that. Words to placate the share holders into believing that intellectual "property" is controlled.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
Ok, but then tell me why most companies implemented region-locking?
It won't be, you're forgetting the Mickey Mouse conspiracy =)
http://mp3.com/jje
http://mp3.com/jje
"Baka." --Ruri, Mobile Battleship Nadesico
Really, when are the people who come up with these "great" ideas going to realize that the 10percent of people who it would affect anyway are just going to use the first hackjob that comes out to bypass it. And THAT WILL HAPPEN!!!! Someone will break the copy-protection and post online how to do it for $19.95 or so.....So then what good did it do for the TV maker to spend TONS of money implementing it.....
While people in the computer industry may understand what all this control by Hollywood means, I reckon that Joe Public is probably lacking the necessary information to be able to revolt against the film industry. Maybe what it takes is for some consumer group to do the equivalent of GreenPeace's leaflets campaigns infront of MacDonalds's.
I think we should encourage every TV and DVD player buyer to go into a shop and ask for a region free device, and if they say they don't have one then go away and buy elsewhere - or ask them if they know anyone who can make them region free - eventually the sales people, and thus the shops, will get the message.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I think if you were the artists involved you would think differently.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
However, there's not a chance in hell it will get implemented.
oh yes, this a know, i'm just putting down the ideal case. quite frankly i don't even give a shit, as i don't own a TV, nor to i plan to buy a TV anytime in the forseeable future. there aren't enough quality shows on TV to justify owning one.
but yeah, this whole content-delivery bullshit is a funny little battle to watch from afar ;)
- j
So, I predict this will lead to a dyslexic lobby akin in power to the NRA. They will demand and recieve research funding the likes of which haven't been seen since trinity and the scourge of dyslexia will be finally conquered.
--
The artists involved? Get a clue. The artists are just paid workers, like the people who sweep the halls. Its the people who control the distribution who control it all. And we don't want to see that control increased when it is already beyond decent levels.
Perhaps that's badly phrased but its the best I can do. What I mean is that unless they decide to use encryption, someone out there is going to build a decoder for digital TV that circumvents whatever protection they put in it, and unless the DMCA is interpreted in the harshest and most restrictive way possible, there's not going to be a great deal they can do about it because people will just be exercising their fair use rights.
Or am I wrong again?
Salocin.com
Divx being the failed Pay-Per-View DVD alternative. It had some of the same problems. The funny thing is that this new scheme seems to have even more restrictions and problems and yet lacks any of the arguably positive traits of Divx. They'd better find a damn good way to force this on people or I seriously doubt it'll fly.
I have to agree that this seems pretty suicidal. I certainly don't plan on paying any more than I do now for basic cable (and I only have that because it made my cablemodem service cheaper). I would simply give up tv completely before I'd buy into this scheme. I already only watch a couple of shows semi-regularly. I could live without those.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Why does this industry think that people would take the time and effort to copy and distribute their televisions programs?
It's a pretty strong assumption that people actually subject themselves to the original showing of most of the mind-numbing crap in the first place.
And as for TV shows, you're getting them for free. What makes you think you should be able to copy them?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
"How realistic is the worry that people might feel constrained? This is how the copy protection module will affect viewing:
Hmmm...all I see is No, No, No, No, NO, NO!. Just the way I, as a consumer, want to be treated -- like a 2-year-old.
Remind me again why I want these things...
________________
________________
Private Essayist
I assume at the factory but it might be the sellers that do it.
Deleted
His nominee as replacement for Janet Reno was one of the few people fighting FOR the rights of individuals to be able to encrypt data without being forced to turn over keys to government agencies.
Of course you won't see this on the slashdot front page, as just about everyone with editorial control has some kind of irrational fear of republicians in general and Bush in particular.
I think it all comes down to whether Republicans want to be more friendly to the big business of entertainment or the big business of consumer electronics. Which group gave more money to the party?
I work for money. I choose to use some of that money to contribute to organizations that share my goals and philosophies, and expect them to lobby on my behalf. I don't begrudge companies that do the same, so long as they are not a monopoly (in the legal sense, in which case they have some pretty tight limits on what they are allowed to do).
IMHO... Bill
Mathematically impossible requirements are technically not against policy.
because I have access to the code. It's in ROM.
Read the ROM, debug the code, burn to new ROM.
So long, copy protection.
Really, folks, this isn't even worth worrying about. It's hype for the morons at the MPAA and RIAA. They'll apparently believe anything...
"...they may harpoon us, but they ain't gonna pick us up on no radar screen!"
True, but the picture will still be superior - acquisition is extremely important - a show acquired through a hd lens, hd camera, and recorded on a hd deck, then down converted will look much better to the person at home, wether via cable or rabbit ears, than the same show acquired through a standard lens/camera/tape package, even a late model digital one. Many trade magazines, such as television broadcast, have had articles on this. The November issue had a story on WRALs experience on going digital, and the improvements from using the new equipment. (www.tvbroadcast.com)
as for the copy protection - it probably wont be in the set-top box, but in the vcr, etc. They won't be able to make the signal non-compatible with the older existing stb's. They also will probably avoid "breaking" the professional grade dtv tuners in use at commercial stations for monitoring, etc.
from the end of the article, my take is that this is a move by the mpaa to get in front of the supreme court and overturn the 1984 betamax decision - the court is much more conservative now, and more friendly to business. I don't think hollywood has a strong enough case to overturn the previous ruling, but they certainly have enough money to buy all the senators and congresspeople that they need to write laws in their favor (see dmca).
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
Other than becoming outlaws and hacking our TVs, I'm not sure whatelse can be done. With any luck, maybe this situation is being overblown a bit by the conspiracy theorists. Including me.
But I doubt it.
It's getting worse. Copy protecting will not just be an issue of you not being able to copy your favorite CDs, but it will become an invasion of privacy. In order to "enforce" their copyrighting, companies will monitor what you're doing. Sure, they'll make their mistakes such as not patenting things and the DeCSS incident (e-mail me if you want the code). However, as time goes by new formats will appear and Hollywood will stop producing for the older "non-protected" formats. You'll soon end up with movie players that decrypt the disc, encrypt the output (no in-between recorders will work), and have a TV that decrypts the input.
Of course, even with remote checking, hacks will happen. So now what do they do? They make your regster your machine, and make a license agreement that says that they can come into your house and check your equipment any time that they wish.
Think it's rediculous? Not really. All you need is a few major film companies to decide to use a particular format and refuse to publish in any other format. Either you watch their movies their way, or you don't watch them at all.
Now let us say that you get a boot-let machine and now you're going to order your favorite film, right? They'll think of that too. Each machine will have its own unique key, and in order to have anything sent to them, they'll have to call a service center, send their key and a phone number. The center calls back the number and verifies the key. Oops, now you're registered and they've got your address.
Next argument: you don't have a license on your machine. Their take: so what? We'll place a license on the film saying we can check the equipment your use to watch it, and since they've got your phone number, you're out of luck AGAIN.
Ok, so you've got your machine now, but they can't stop you from using it right? Of course they can. You've just violated their agreement by using non-approved equipment to view their materials. Next step: Court, then a fine, and jail time.
Now, please don't say they won't go that far because nobody will buy it. Give it five years and at this rate people will become apathetic. It's like the book "Animal Farm". You slowly ween them of their food/rights, and then they don't notice. And don't expect people to not go with it just because of the fact that they don't like it. Just wait 'till all the blockbusters are licensed like this. It's their way or the highway - agian.
Be afraid...be very afraid...
Like Karma doesn't matter...
Moderators: -1, nested, oldest first!
SIG: HUP
I am most unimpressed with the progress of CATV.
Forty years ago before CATV existed, signals were broadcast through the air. Ads were stuffed in your face, but that paid for the broadcasting expenses. No problem.
Then CATV arrived, and you had to pay for access. OK, now the broadcasting expenses are paid for by the consumer. But the ads were still there.
Cable channels such as MTV began commercial-free (I'm showing my age here), then it was barraged with ads.
The shopping channels? Ads, ads, ads.
Then CATV classifies certain channels as "premium", which you had to cough up more dough to view. Those have ads too!
I grew up on one or two minute commercial interruptions for every ten minutes of programming. More and more channels are showing 4, 5, *6* minutes of commercials! I clocked one show that interrupted five minutes of program with five minutes of commercials!
Then, depending on your local CATV provider, late night programming on the lower VHF channels were replaced with "infomercials". Hello, didn't I pay for access to the content of that channel...?
Yes, the argument can be made that the ads provide revenue for the independent CATV channels and the cable subscription pays for the distribution, but the amount of advertising is rather overwhelming!
Now DigCATV promises hundreds of channels - for what, more ads shoved in my face? And now the digital CATV industry wants to control what I watch and when I watch it, and whether I can record it? I don't like where this is heading.
Any wonder why I started my TV-free life this year?
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
This would have the effect of requiring the broadcasters to play unique ads. Hey, that's a great idea. You know those superbowl ads people will download because they like watching them!
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
The more restrictions you place on a product, the less valuable it will be to consumers, and the less money they'll pay for it.
On the other hand, the less restrictions you place on a product, the more valuable it is to consumers, but you tend to sell less volume.
By pushing the further restrictions down our throats, they're taking a risk that the market won't care. Chances are the market WILL care -- VHS tapes, TIVO and TV are the norm these days and we're probably not going to change.
Look at DVD's -- the massive restrictions (region encoding, CSS, etc) haven't stopped them from taking off, even among the geeks because of the better quality of sound, picture, and extras.
Will DigitalTV have enough bells and whistles to wean people off of fair use? Probably not.
Despite the alarmist views of how this will lead to the end of the world, it won't. In fact, a lot of this comes down to economics (read the book "Information Rules" by Shapiro and Varian for a good understanding of the "mainstream" view of the economics of information and intellectual property).. they own their movies and TV Programming, and they can choose how to distribute it -- but they've rarely (not since the "time shifting" supreme court case) been caught in a market that (en masse) revolts on the restrictions. They need a blunt reminder (billions of dollars in lost revenue will do..)
-Stu
Clinton/Gore did some 'major league' fundraising in Silicon Valley in 92 and 96, but then completly failed to listen to their contributors, and instead acted as the law enforcement and national security communities' and of course Hollywood's lapdog on data privacy and ownership issues.
(Athough Dianne Feinstein, Northern California's political darling has been far worse than even Clinton on these things.)
Only late in 1999 did they realize that Bush was out fundraising them in the Valley did they figure out why. Certain policies changed, but Bush had made his promises, so it was probably too late. Now we'll see if Bush lives up to it, or backs down to the paranoia set just as Clinton did.
(FYI, I'm not a republican.)
It sounds to me like this is just another challenge for the hackers.
Let's see. They scramble cable channels and video busters are sold. They encrypt DVD's and the encryption is broken and released on Linux. They go after Napster and someone develops a non-server version.
This is just one more step in the cat and mouse game....
All these businesses are trying to do is make money, and take over our lives in the process. Surely they ought to be able to do that without Slashdotters calling for Big Government to step in? After all, we all still have a choice - we can keep our jobs, know what others are talking about, and have access to the critical information we need to run our daily lives while signing away every right we have to some profit-motived organisation, or we can just not buy these things. Sounds fair to me. What's the problem?
--
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
People can refuse to buy the new technology -- someone will keep making the older tech.
The DVD makers could refuse to do region coding -- if the movie makers didn't put stuff on DVD, they'd lose money.
If the TV producers don't want to put coding on -- they have a captive audience. (pun intended) -- the Television makers don't EXIST without producers, etc, etc.
Poor little no puppy toe!
http://quiz.ravenblack.net/blood.pl?3357354385
Ever seen the price on one of those HDTV's? Costco is selling them for $10,000. Sure, they'll come down, but they have a long way to go. Even a ten-fold drop is still more than I am willing to pay. About $250.00 is all I'm willing to pay for a decent TV. I've seen HDTV and the touched up promotional DVD's they play on the demo HDTV sets. It is not so dramatic that it would cause me to pay for a whole new system.
Honestly the picture is not *that* different from a regular TV. Sure, the detail is so good you can read the plays from a quarterback's wristband, it's just not that big of a deal. If they actually go through with this, it will lessen my already empty desire to obtain one of these things.
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*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
25: ten.knilrevlis@wkcuhc
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
The article pointed out an interesting fact: way back in the early eighties, there was that lawsuit legalizing the taping of TV shows by VCRS (yeah, they were BetaMAX, which is another story altogether). There was a comment already made in this discussion that the MPAA is concerened about people recording and redistributing shows, particularly pay-per-view shows.
The main concern here, however, is that recording a show in HDTV format (like 1080i res) is ridiculously good quality. When I record a show on my VCR at home, there is a noticeable loss of quality. With an HDTV recording, there would be no loss of quality, nor would there be any generational loss from multiple copies made.
I believe that quality of recording is as much a concern of the MPAA as is the content recorded.
We've been on the same one since TV started: stations/networks buy shows, broadcast them for free, and get revenue by selling commercial time during said shows. The more popular the show, the more they can charge for ad space (just look at the Superbowl).
Well, fuck it. Here's what I propose: EVERYONE gets a cable into their home. Zero monthly fee. Nada, zip. Don't turn the TV on and you never pay a penny. What happens instead? The cable provider instead acts like a library, but with user fees. You want to watch a show? You pay for it - say, $0.25 for a Simpsons rerun. Want as many Simpons episodes as you can handle? Buy a subscription for $3.00/month.
This will do a few things:
- Instantly weed out the shitty shows that never get bought.
- Eliminate the need for commercials, as you're paying directly for the show.
- Reduce the amount of time us couch potatos waste in front of the boob tube. We'll be more conscious (espeicially if we get a runny tally of our monthly bill) of how much TV we watch, and what we watch. No more 3am informercial surfing.
To introduce new shows, they'd have to have a couple "free unlimited use" channels going, or otherwise we'd eventually end up watching nothing but news and reruns. Maybe those channels can have commercials, and you get a rebate for each 15 minutes of commercials you watch (or something like that).Ah, TV that I control with my wallet. THAT would be great.
Mr. Ska
I dunno, it seems likely that once word of mouth spreads ("Hey, my JVC/Panasonic/RCA DTV doesn't record Star Trek: Mysteries!") they won't be able to sell very well, whereas any old analogue TVs would still sell like hotcakes...
Or *monitors* hooked up to digital converters, to TiVO like devices, with the ability to record, stream, and copy, will become all the rage.
I mean, there's no reason for Sony to not sell a 30" monitor and a $40 DTV adaptor for the PC/monitor, right?
Unless these guys are pressuring and targeting folks like ATI and Pinnacle, etc, PCs should still have the capability to recieve channels and view TV...
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
I have recently discovered that cable boxes break the user happiness rule. Instead of programming a VCR to records several shows for the week, the cable box forces an extreme amount of pain and tribulation on the innocent viewer. The cable box must be set to the proper channel, the VCR must be set to the proper channel, another show cannot be watched, and, the final nail in the users head, sequential shows on different channels cannot be recorded.
Why do we have to pay for the privilege to be brutalized by our machines? A show that cannot be recorded is useless to me. I understand the business model, and I understand the corporate pressures. On the other hand cable is already very difficult to use. Do they really think even more user hostility they will help them succeed?
[ob Microsoft rant] On the other hand, this is the Microsoft strategy, and it certainly seems to have worked.
Where can I find such a PC card?
Only if they use the high-definition formats. Standard-definition digital TV is a small, incremental improvement over analog TV, rather than the giant leap that HDTV is.
So far, the broadcasters who were given digital TV broadcast licenses are looking at other things to do with the bandwidth. They probably would like to have 4 channels of SDTV rather than 1 channel of HDTV. Unfortunately, in the great bandwidth giveaway, there was no stipulation that high-definition must be used. That, more than anything else, is preventing HDTV from taking off.
Free Hans!
Republicans are not likely to listen to Hollywood.
Hollywood=evil, child-corrupting, exploiting, anti-christian corporate juggernaut from hell.
Hollywood had it's ear in the white house for 8 years. It's all over for them.
Watch the bloodletting as Republicans enact all kinds of silly censorship regulations, and eliminate all funding for public broadcasting.
(exception to my generalization: REAGAN was the greatest friend Hollywood ever had - when he deregulated the industry, he single-handedly helped them build the Death Star they have today)
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
oh yeah, don't forget that when you turn off your TV, and open a book, you're being a sucker punk ass bitch for the multinational oligopoly that is the publishing industry.
Soon, all books will be electronic, pay-per-read on proprietary devices only.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Many journalists have pointed out that Bush' new ministers mostly are from the big old industrial type of businesses (e.g. oil-industry) and therefore have very little knowledge about IT. They will probably listen to the most powerful lobbyists, i.e. Hollywood and the big businesses.
But there is no fee to pay with TV, the programs come in to my television for free. I don't see how this has anything to do with this issue.
When did American companies completely stop trusting people? Obviously VCRs and cassette tapes didn't have this problem, neither did CDs really (of course the W.O.R.M. drive was exceedingly expensive back then). So what has happened? If one thinks about the logistics of piracy, if someone pirates something from a friend they probably weren't going to purchase it anyway, so while they have technically committed a crime, they really haven't hurt the producer, for the producer never would have had their money anyway. In my opinion, if something is sent out over the airwaves, and any ol' receiver will pick it up, it's fair use to record it and play it back later, on multiple devices. It's not fair use to take it and make a public exhibition of it, or to sell it, but how many people are going to do that, seriously? I don't, I doubt many others are planning on it either.
It looks like if this passes, many of us are going to stick with our older Super VHS decks for a long, long time, as well as our LaserDiscs and BetaMax tapes... I don't want to have to deal with corporate america trying to force another EULA down my throat.
"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
that's the wildlife channel... Eeeewwww....
I donate all spillover Karma to the charity of my choice... Ada was still a babe despite what people may say...
All this to stop piracy, and yet the piracy which hurts the industry will continue, unabated.
I don't think this will happen.
Why? Who is more powerfull lobby group? Sony, Panasonic and the other eletronic equipment makers or Hollywood? If the eletronic equipment makers are agaist it then there is a good chance it is not going to happen. They will simply poorly implement the whole copy-protection schemes or not at all.
Bush and his idiots friends don't know anything about this stuff and they don't care much for Hollywood either. I personally think this is a slamdunk for the eletronics makers.
Linux O Muerte!
Where is the beef?
P2P Anonymous Distributed Web Search: http://www.yacy.net/
I understand what this implies for a tv-addict such as most users around.
I personally don't own a TV set and I don't intend to ever acquire one as this is so mind-occupying that it would definitely prevent me from being productive.
My personal problem is that they intend to merge the Internet with their TV-network so that you'd actually have to pay for each of these even if you don't want one.
There's also this copy protection thing which could have disastrous effects if it can't be enabled on demand by the TV broadcasting company:
According to the GNUArt philosophy, you can broadcast free Art which anybody could copy and modify for his own needs.
What I'd dislike would be the impossibility for this Free Art License to be honoured because of such practices.
So, my point is : OK. If it's your stuff and you don't want people to copy it, then you can copy-protect it. But if it is intended to remain Free, then you don't have the right to block its diffusion as it is not yours.
--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
I think the main fight over this will take place on-line and the general population will not take much notice. Once someone isn't able to what what they want when they want all of this madness will stop.
"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."
"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."
-- Ernest Hemingway
Dude, fostering consumerism and conformity has been sort of the unstated goal of American society for a loooooong time (e.g. public schools were essentially founded in this country for two reasons: a) to enable Mom and Dad to work in a factory, and b) to turn Son and Daughter into obedient worker/consumers). If anything, you could argue that America of today is less consumerist than it was 50 years ago (and we have "those dirty hippies" and beatniks to thank for that, by and large).
--
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
It is my understanding that we could have the close equivalent of HDTV with current equipment simply by changing broadcasting from interlaced transmission (each signal sends every odd scan line then comes back and sends every even scan line) to non-interlaced. No new channel space, no expensive hardware and so on and so forth.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
I refuse to buy any device that contains any intentionally inflicted functional limitations. Its really quite simple.
All women want is honesty, if you can fake that, you're in.
This will be crackable if there is sufficient motivation. The obstacle that will then hinder the development, distribution, and use of devices/software that defeats it will be DMCA.
And I think I know a way to beat DMCA legally.
The trick is not just for hackers to crack the protection, but to adopt it. DMCA's definition of circumvention is to bypass without authorization. If you have authorization, you're not circumventing.
Assuming that there are no legal obstacles (e.g. patents) that prevent Joe Schmoe from creating copy protected content, then Joe Schmoe can release his home movies in this format, and explicitly grant everyone the right to defeat his protection. In other words, he creates a file that has a "don't copy" bit set, and then as the copyright owner, he tells everyone that they are allowed to copy it. This will castrate DMCA. And it will cause tools that copy the file but ignore the don't-copy bit, to not necessarily be devices that bypass without authorization.
The real catch will be that there may be legal barriers to creating copy protected content, such that the only legal way to do it would be to sign an agreement where the copyright owner agrees to follow certain rules. (Similar to how someone who publishes a CSS-protected DVD must get a license from DVDCCA. (Ah, but must they really, since CSS' workings are no longer a secret?)) But in order for this to happen with FCC-blessed standard for television, FCC will have to do something that is blatantly corrupt: they will have to give a monopoly to a private organization. When they do this, it must be fought and more importantly: exposed to the public eye.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
However, if Mr Public can't tape the SuperBowl or the re-showing of the last episode of MASH, I reckon there'll be a riot. There is no way that these 'copyright protection' techniques will ever make there way into wide spread use.
I cannot imagine many other countries in the world agreeing to these terms. They only protect the interest of the major American companies. That'll ensure that there are easy work-arounds like there are with DVD players now.
On a slightly different tack, have the studios and networks forgotten about the idea of word of mouth? Thats what makes or breaks a TV show. Shows like the X-Files,which was a pretty off beat show when it started (and arguably still is), would never have flourised without the VCR. Its one of the few shows I ever bother taping and so do my friends. Imagine if you missed an episode, but couldn't tape it because of the new restrictions. I probably would have not bothered watching anymore.
Perhaps the TV and movie directors of the future will have to take this into account in the future. Don't make the plot too complex, otherwise people won't be able to follow it if they miss an episode. That would be sad!
Independence Limited.
Freedom of...
Choice is made for you my friend.
Freedom of...
Speech is words that they will bend.
Freedom no longer frees you.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
First of all, I'm sure these are not the end all copy protection methods by any means as I'm sure the local neighbourhood computer wiz will break it or the market will come up with something (similar to the ModChip for Playstation, don;t fret on the analogy). Illegal media does and will always exist to our benefit.
In the end, if they choose to implement such things, it will be their choice and we will just have to deal with it. Now if they decide to start reporting my illegal usage through my own device, then we may some issues. As I said this stuff really doesn't worry me too much...it will keep the average person away, but we will return to the days when only a few could attain the illegal product. Remember BBS and stuff - not everyone hooked up on those. Nowadays, illegal media is public...and that's the problem.