Digital TV Approaches

renard writes: "The LA Times is running a story, which I have not seen mirrored elsewhere, on how the TV manufacturers are banding together to encrypt digital television. The stated goal: you watch when - and only when - the broadcasters say you can watch. No duplication (well - maybe analog); no time-shifting. Our friend Rep. Rick Boucher raises the question of whether this will undermine consumers' fair use rights. Undermine? How about `obliterate'?" One quibble with the article - when it talks about Firewire, it actually means the Digital Transmission Content Protection spec., which is implemented over Firewire. So your television may exchange data with various other boxen via Firewire connections, but data passing over them will be encrypted and will only pass with the permission of the copyright holder.

Comments

What we should do.

[Anonymous Coward]

The B-52 really couldn't be stopped. Since taking off, they had maintained strict radio silence, and they had taken everyone by suprise.

Coming in so low that they barely avoided the buildings, the crew knew they would probably loose their lives in this run, but this bombing was important. Finally, America would have Justice! Hollywood would be a crispier than overcooked McDonald's French Fries within the hour.

Major "Kong" King teared through the sky with a passion on to what would soon be the final resting place of him and his crew. Although he did not know exactly why he was commanded to bomb this seemingly unimportant city, he knew one thing--he hated Hollywood and everything related to it. He wasn't sure why he hated Hollywood so, but it had always been that way. Even his mother and father had nurtured his hatred of this city. Soon, he would take out his anger with a devestating, multiple-megaton blast.

Sweat began to pour from King's brow.

Target? In sight.
Bay doors? Check.
Nuclear device? Armed.

His eyes narrowed with an intensity few men have ever matched. With a simple command to his navigator, he launched The Device onto the unsuspecting populace of Hollywood . Within seconds, they were burnt to such an extreme that Chernobyl would seem like a mild sunburn after a relaxing day at the beach.

In the last moments of his life, Major King thought of his mother. He went pee, then an overwhelming sense of warmth encircled him. Hollywood was no more. He was happy. And rather dead.

Re:ho hum

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish.

I've implemented 5C. You will have a very hard time breaking it in realtime. This is not a trivial protection method.

Keys are updated every 30 seconds. The initial handshake is done using Elliptic Curve Crypto, the parameters for which are kept in a document that is protected by the most amazing penalties for release that you can imagine. It's real difficult to try cracking an ECC key when you dont even know which curve the system is using as a basis for calculations.

5C allows you to revoke keys that have been compromised, on a per key basis - and each individual device gets its own key.

The danger with these systems is not the encryption method used, but the legal agreement you have to sign in order to be able to make a compliant device. The penalties for not toeing the line are enormous.

I can see some weaknesses in the current implementation, but the standard nicely leaves room for upgrades.

You might be able to break it in realtime at some point in the near future, but at a prohibitive cost in equipment. There are many shades of "break".

My view from the inside is very frightening. Companies can't afford not to support DTCP, and only because of pressure behind the scenes. Your voice means next to nothing.

Speak louder, and good luck.

(and you might want to look here: http://www.counterpane.com/mod3.html. You can look at www.dtcp.com for sanitized specs)

Re:As they have a right to do.

[Riktov]

>>>
It's illegal, and it's robbing the ones who created it by allowing you to sit around and watch it without even looking at their ads--their one source of lifeblood.
>>>

Please, someone mod that post up -- as "Funny"...

Re:As they have a right to do.

[cduffy]

No, it's not the same.

If I'm given one copy of a set of information, I see no moral issue with making as many copies as I like -- as long as I don't redistribute them. Thus, this is not at all the same as Napster or Gnutella.

I entirely agree that distributing (or accepting from others) unauthorized copies of material is wrong -- but making additional copies for your own personal use and not distributing them? This by no means violates the (original) spirit of copyright, even if it does violate the letter.

Timeshifting falls into the latter category, and thus the former; thus, I see any attempt to subvert it as dangerous.

wait 'till Nader hears this

[Wansu]

Yeah boy. If you liked what happened with Napster, you're gonna love this. I don't care whether you think present analog TV is piracy or not, this is one of the most blatantly anti-consumer policies I've ever heard tell of. My parents generation fought WWII and couldn't care less about the Napster flap but they will care about this. So will my generation. I've little doubt there will be a hue and cry once people can no longer receive analog signals. The FCC is out of touch with the citizenry on this issue. This pay-per-view, limited life license crap ain't gonna fly, particularly in light of the content they have to offer. To reiterate the point, Napster is esoteric to older Americans but TV ain't and I just can't see them settling for what the media industry wants.

This is critical

[alewando]

Many of you are against encrypting digital television signals because of some ephemeral notion of your "natural right" to fair use, as though fair use weren't an artifact of positive law (passed by Congress) in another act of positive law (copyright law itself). But let's assume for a moment that you're correct, that there is a fundamental right here that's being abused by the industry. I'll grant you that, if you think it'll help your case. But it won't, and I'll tell you why.

Rights aren't absolute, no matter what Ronald Dworkin tells you. Your right may trump my interest, but your right cannot trump my right; trumps cannot trump each other without reference to a hierarchy of trumps (which is lacking in this instance).

That's all well and good, you say, but how is it relavent here? What right of mine are you abridging by having this turf-war with the television industry? Why, the most fundamental right of all: the right to continue existing without molestation by other moral agents.

You see, it is critical that digital television be encrypted. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day, television signals are being broadcast from our television towers to our homes, but not just to our homes, no. Into outer space.

There is an archaeological record of our daily human experiences being broadcast to extraterrestrials as we speak. Forget Species. The greatest horror won't be when aliens get our DNA sequences; it'll be when they get our reruns. Some time in the distant future, an intrepid band of extraterrestrial warriors will reach that distant blue planet that has been polluting their atmosphere with high-frequency radio signals, and they will know exactly how to destroy us at our precise weak spots; for they will have studied the Three Stooges ("Poke 'em in the eye!") and Survivor ("Give 'em money and they'll self-immolate!").

It will be a bleak day for humanity, and I will not countenance any industry policy that allows it to transpire. It is critical that we take steps today to encrypt our television signals so that if they ever fall into enemy hands, they will appear like mindless garbage and a waste of time to try to comprehend.

Thank you.

Re:This is critical

[cpt kangarooski]

Additionally, let me point out that Fair Use is not a postive law. Fair Use is a judicial doctrine dating back to IIRC the early-mid 19th century. Congress didn't recognize it unti very recently, and _it_didn't_matter_.

Congress can certainly create statutory exceptions to copyright, and they can likely be quite arbitrary. Music in analog format can be indiscrimently copied. Movies - even on DVD - can be partially copied if the snip is for certain types of purposes. (e.g. criticism, scholarly works)

But even if Congress claimed that no fair uses were legal, and even named a number of them, such a law would be unconstitutional - the Fair Use exceptions exist regardless of what the law is, until you start mucking with the Constitution itself. It's nice to have it recgonized, and maybe even expanded, but these aren't things that can legally be taken away.

Re:This is critical

[Oniros]

By the time our TV signals reach the aliens we will all be dead from pollution :) Or maybe the sun will have gone nova.

Of course, maybe the aliens already know all about it! Didn't they get Elvis already? ;)

Re:This is critical

[PerlGeek]

LOL

+1 Funny

"It is critical that we take steps today to encrypt our television signals so that if they ever fall into enemy hands, appear like mindless garbage and a waste of time to try to comprehend."

Oh, well it must already be encrypted, then.

Re:This is critical

[Zebbers]

hehehe

Re:This is critical

[No Such Agency]

I believe that it's been determined that TV transmissions aren't of sufficient strength to reach other star systems at detectable levels. I seem to recall reading an article in some science mag (ooh, great reference, NSA!) that said that we'd have to use many times our entire planet's energy output to send a listenable radio signal to a semi-distant system (ie. not Alpha Centauri). And that's a directed beam, not just "leakage". Don't stock up on canned food yet, the aliens probably won't be coming to shut down MTV any time soon.

Re:This is critical

[Ancient Eye]

(some funny stuff, but there appears to be some serious stuff too, to which I'm responding)

Many of you are against encrypting digital television signals because of some ephemeral notion of your "natural right" to fair use, as though fair use weren't an artifact of positive law (passed by Congress) in another act of positive law (copyright law itself). But let's assume for a moment that you're correct, that there is a fundamental right here that's being abused by the industry. I'll grant you that, if you think it'll help your case. But it won't, and I'll tell you why.

Fair use is a limiatation on a government granted monopoly. Current law has -GIVEN- people the right to content they produce. John Locke says it's appropriate, I essentially agree, but the RIGHTs to copyrighted material are GRANTED by the government, not a natural extension of property law. That the Government chooses to limit that GRANT is indicitive of the Government's responsibility to it's citizenry, and what they feel is appropriate

Somebody's been watching Futurama

[Tim Macinta]

The greatest horror won't be when aliens get our DNA sequences; it'll be when they get our reruns.

Or it could end up like that Futurama Episode where aliens 1,000 light years away attack because the season finale of "Single Female Lawyer" was interrupted 1,000 years ago and they wanted to see the ending. That episode was absolutely classic.

Your fair use right...

[Karpe]

has been revoked by the united corporations of America. It's bad for the economy. Get over it.

It's said how a country with such a beatiful history of defense of citizen's freedom rights is being changed by transnational conglomerates. The fact is that much of the role of the USA in the world economy is determined by these companies (You can't imagine how much intelectual property we get from you. Movies, Music, Cable TV, product brands. That means dollars flowing in your direction. Your government is pretty aware of that).

I guess that if the american citizen has to choose between it's civil rights and a good economy, he will choose the economy, afraid of losing his job. Fortunately I don't know the american citizen enough. :) Unfortunately, the decision may not be in citizen's hands, but politicians, and they will choose the economy.

Re:Your fair use right...

[bnenning]

has been revoked by the united corporations of America.

No, it has been revoked by a government that has abandoned any pretense of respecting the Constitution and the rights of the people. The MPAA can spout lies about DeCSS all they want, but it takes government action to make it illegal.

the fear

[jafac]

What we're all REALLY afraid of here, is that the stupid consumers will fall for this crap, and buy into this system. As DVD has demonstrated.

Let me give you an example of how the "stupid masses" have fucked ME over.

I like carbonated beverages.
I do not wish to ingest vast quantities of sugar and become a fat tub of goo.
I do not wish to ingest an addictive stimulant that alters my personality, gives me headaches, and makes me crave more.

Yet, the tastes of most Americans have dictated that your standard soda machine at any given restaurant has the choice:
Coke (sugar and caffeine)
Diet Coke (no sugar, but has caffeine)
Sprite (no caffeine, lots of sugar)
Water (no carbonation)

Oh, you can go to the store, and buy caffeine-free diet coke, or club soda, or diet sprite, but NONE of those are available at your basic McDonald's, Taco Bell, Burger King, etc.

So basically, I go to any fast food restaurant, and I'm screwed as far as choice goes. Even McBeer would be preferable (from the drive-thru!)

All because the MARKET has determined what choices I should have. The MARKET consists of, a colluding oligopoly of softdrink vending multinationals, and a whole lot of stupid consumers who don't know any better but pay a huge markup for products laced with addictive drugs and vast quantities of sugar. (huge markup=it costs McDonalds about a nickel for a large Coke, the cup is more expensive than the contents, but the IDIOT consumer pays over a buck).

A minor inconvenience, to be sure.

But apply these same forces to the entertainment market, and you can see where this is going.

We need to make an assumption here that is not a very pleasant one. One that goes against our ideologies. Consumers are stupid, lame, sheep that will buy anything that is crammed down their throats. The masses are stupid. They're easily brainwashed, lied to, and for the time being, have lots of money to waste.
But growing up in a democracy, and a Christian, I was raised to believe that no one person is smarter or better equipped to run things than any other, that you're supposed to love your neighbor as yourself. Anything else is elitist snobbery. Establishing classes, hierarchies or castes, is intrinsically bad.

But here we are, victims of the stupid stupid masses.
Why do you think crap like n'sync sells? Because the masses are tasteful musical geniuses? Why is Windows such a widespread OS?

I think about this crap, and I feel like I'm becoming a Socialist/Elitist.

Re:I can play too

[Defiler]

Didn't you read last week's story?

Re:Who you gonna buy, what laws you gonna allow?

[Defiler]

Actually, products that let you record DTV streams do exist:
http://www.accessdtv.com/

Digital Spoo

[Ranger]

Shades of Clockwork Orange! Viewers will be strapped into chairs with their eyes forced open to watch commercials on their shiny new digital tamperproof televisions. Only to be released long enough to earn money and buy the goods they are hawking.

It's only 1's and 0's folks. Why get upset about the greedy, power mad digital distribution cartels (e.g. RIAA & MPAA)? I say vote with your credit cards and don't buy those DTV's--even when they are your only choice.

TV was called the Boob tube a long time ago. This implied that it was somehow nourishing to fat happy couch potato babies. Soon the TV entertainment and manufacturing industries will feed us Digital Spoo with their new tool. The wise TV industry execs says "Ah, they've sucked on the analog glass tit for so long they won't even notice when we have them suck on our new digital glass... er, ah tool. Yeah, that's it tool. And they'll swallow too."

I was pretty much through watching anyway.

[monk]

If I can't frag the contestants, what's the point?
.net, you are the weakest link! BLAM!

Re:All this protections bothers me

[singularity]

So I have my local station sending out a HDTV signal into the air.
And my $3000 HDTV-ready television
And my $700 HDTV tuner.
And my $1000 Dolby Digital receiver.
And my $2000 PowerMac G4 with Firewire (or a $1000 yet-to-be-created HDTV recorder)
And I have a job during my favorite show's HDTV broadcast.

I spent all of this money and I have to watch my show in analog format?
I do not mind digital copy-protection. But, as I have said before, let me have that ONE digital copy, in all of its HDTV glory). Make copying more than once illegal, that is fine with me. But give me that one copy!*

*Yes, I realize that this will be hacked quickly. However, I am fully in support of cracking down on people that distrbute digital copies of movies. But please do not make it illegalfor me to have that one copy!

Re:well maybe analog?

[steve_bryan]

Am I missing something crucial here? You get DeCSS and that's all she wrote. All this wailing and moaning about the end of civilization seems pointless. You don't think there will be a "DeCSS" for this pathetic encrypted digital TV effort? The reason these schemes are ALWAYS cracked is that they are peddling snake oil, not because their opponents are always brilliant. It doesn't hurt that the opponents are often brilliant, but the fundamental problem is the attempt to share a secret with a few million of your closest friends and hope it doesn't get out. This is compounded by the phenomena described by Bruce Schneier. When one person successfully analyzes the scheme, that knowledge is encapsulated into software which is distributed to the rest of the world.

Re:Looking into the crystal ball

[cpt kangarooski]

I seem to believe that the punishment involved bad 80's haircuts ;)

I did rather enjoy their typewriter keyboards however. One of these days I'll pick up an old Remington or something and make one....

Re:well maybe analog?

[cpt kangarooski]

True - OTOH, there's an alternative. Deny or revoke copyrights for any work that is so 'published.' Either the holders will fall into line or they'll trust in themselves and be screwed the second someone, somehow, breaks their system. (even by just pointing the old camcorder)

There's a similar practice already in place for patent abuse.

Re:An even simpler solution

[cpt kangarooski]

Barnes is a good writer.

Anyway, can't we do both? Bringing the FCC into it for broadcasters is fine, but they can't regulate DVDs for example. And permitting a company like Sony to both own movie and record studios _and_ sell devices for which recording and copying is impossible to protect their other interests smacks of monopoly leveraging to me.

Re:Big deal !

[jjoyce]

Amen. I don't own a TV either, and I'm just as glad. It amazes me how much people I know are glued to the TV and what a TV culture we have. People are always talking about what happened on Survivor or whatever. I spend a lot more time reading, listening to music, and throwing a baseball around in the park.

I watch some TV when I'm visiting my parents and every time I see that I have been missing nothing important at all.

I see all these posts about people's freedoms. How free are people who are slaves to their TVs?

Broadcast TV generally isn't worth it anyways

[jht]

My wife and I have three TV sets in our house - a 27" in the living room, a 19" in our bedroom, and an old 13" in the guest room. All we have for cable is the basic antenna service - and that's just because our reception otherwise sucks horribly. Here's what we watch:

Most evenings, we watch either the 10PM news or the 11PM news.

About once a week, we stay up for a while and watch Letterman.

She likes the occasional cheesy drama (I believe she's currently on a "Dawson's Creek" kick), and I usually watch WWF SmackDown! on Thursdays (I can't help it - I've been a wrestling mark for years).

Besides all that, I watch some sports - I like to watch Red Sox games and I'll watch most Patriots games and the Giants when I can get them.

We also like the occasional Discovery Channel program (Steve Irwin rules!), and she and I both love the Stooges (which proves that I married the perfect woman).

Why do I bring this up? Because for one, when you add it all up, we watch so little TV on a weekly recurring basis that we could easily learn to live without it, I think. I've considered getting a widescreen TV, but I'm so pissed off at the MPAA that I haven't bought a DVD in almost a year, and I only rent them when I get free coupons from West Coast or Blockbuster. The last time we went to the theater was in February to see CTHD. So I can live with my "obsolete" TV sets just fine.

And how do we survive without all this broadcast media? Well, today we read books, newspapers, and magazines, work at our jobs, do fun activities together, and go places other than theaters. I get current news and weather off the Web, and it's on my own schedule, not broadcast schedules. We went on vacation a couple of months ago and survived nicely without watching TV. We'll do it again (go away with no TV) a couple of times over the summer.

My point here is that the broadcasters need us more than they seem to realize. We're not just statistics or "consumers", we're people, dammit, and if push comes to shove, and we're only allowed to partake of their media on their terms, maybe we're not the only ones who can get by without them.

Memo to the big media conglomerates: You need us a lot more than we need you. If you're smart, you'll stop pushing us. Don't piss us off too much. You may have lots of money and power, but without our eyeballs, you've got nothing.

- -Josh Turiel

Re:Broadcast TV generally isn't worth it anyways

[macsforever2001]

As for music, I'm now buying way more than ever before because I'm listening to the radio instead and hearing way more that I ever heard on MTV.

I hate to burst your bubble but the radio sucks almost as much as MTV. Whereas MTV and VH-1 are owned by one large company (Viacom ?), commercial radio is basically owned by 3 large corporations and the selections are payed for by music companies. I stopped listening years ago and only tune to NPR (National Public Radio) because it is not a commercial for manufactured crap like Britney Spears, Limp Bizkit, Slim Shady, etc. Now college radio stations are cool because they actually play music they like, not based on the dictates of corporate greed.

There was a good Salon article about this a while back.

Re:Broadcast TV generally isn't worth it anyways

[bored]

The problem where i live is that the local college radio station is the NPR node!

Re:Broadcast TV generally isn't worth it anyways

[radja]

>Why do I bring this up? Because for one, when you add it all up, we watch so little TV on a weekly recurring basis that we could easily learn to live without it

That's what I thought about 1.5 years ago. ripped out the antenna. Havent regretted it since. More and more people stopped watching TV. I won't go so far as to tell people to stop watching TV, but if you're thinking about it.. just try it.

//rdj

Re:Broadcast TV generally isn't worth it anyways

[wljones]

My experience and solutions are similar. I have tried three times to use cable TV, and torn it out every time. The cable TV people value their premium channels so much that they protect them with filters that lower their fidelity. Some offset the channel frequencies slightly to require use of their rental tuning boxes. They push pay-per-view to the exclusion of everything else, and I won't watch pay-per-view. I never used satellite or digital cable TV because they still do not offer anything worth my time and money. If I cannot get it on free TV, and it is not worth enduring commercials, then it does not exist. The distributors have already committed suicide in this household.

Re:Broadcast TV generally isn't worth it anyways

[Zimm]

TV pretty much sucks, I don't watch much TV to start with, and if the manufacturers want to restrict my use of the media further, I will watch even less. That's the beauty of this situation, no one has a gun to our heads, if you don't like it, don't buy it. Sometimes slashdot confuses me, regarding this issue, the attitude is that we all *have* to watch TV, so this really sucks. What the hell is wrong with people here. Just turn the TV off.

Re:Broadcast TV generally isn't worth it anyways

[nick_davison]

I moved out to the US in December from England. Before I moved I made my US wife promise that I could have 'five hundred channels' - it seemed to be the American dream and if I was moving 7,000 miles for her, I was going to have it.

I watched a couple of hours worth at her parents and completely gave up on the idea as it's so commercial ridden as to be unwatchable [from the point of view of an English person who's used to three three-minute commercial breaks an hour]. All of a sudden it seemed less appealing.

So, we ended up without cable. Our TV's hooked up to the VCR, though not to the aerial or any other signal. I spend about the cost of cable access on video and DVD rentals which means I get a couple of movies of my choice, with no commercials, pretty much every day (with BB's reward card, I'm unlucky if I pay for half of what I rent). All in all it seems like a pretty good deal cost/content wise.

The real rewards have been the unexpected ones. And no I'm not going to do the usual quality time I now get to spend with my favourite rubber ducky taking long baths. I'm pretty much stress free. The reality is that most highschool students aren't shooting each other, most mexicans aren't going to rob me the moment they see me, no one's been murdered, no one's been raped, the world's actually a pretty nice place. News shows need to sensationalise what's happening to keep people interested. Once you get away from the over excited reporting you realise that they present a totally skewed and totally depressing view of the world. I now read slashdot for geek news, the bbc news site for news from back home and generally get told by friends if there's anything I really should know about. As a result I get to hear about what I'm interested in without having a load of sensational crimes distorted to the point where the world seems too evil to live in (except for the MPAA *grin* slashdot sees to that).

As for music, I'm now buying way more than ever before because I'm listening to the radio instead and hearing way more that I ever heard on MTV.

So, for me, the quality of life improvement isn't the extra time, it's that I get a way less depressing view of the world and can actually target what I want, not what some executive at Fox decides I want.

As has been said before, the viewer enters in to a trade with the TV company. Every time they up the number of commercials, they make it harder to copy content, they up the costs, degrade the service, they push the customer one step closer to considering the options and, more and more, once people have considered the options they're saying "Thanks but no thanks."

If TV companies want to continue, they need to realise they need to make the customer feel they're getting what they want. Traditionally that's been with more captivating shows (Weakest Link may be drivel but it's addictive drivel) but they seem to be scraping the bottom of the barrel on that at the moment. Soon, if they wish to survive, they'll have to address other means and that may actually be to backtrack and offer better terms.

When will they ever learn?

[Kiwi]

When will the manufacturers ever learn that putting strong copy protection in to consumer devices simply does not work. It does not work because the first people who will adopt a new technology are the technology-savvy users, users who do not want to be told by the big media companies how they are allowed to use their technology.

DAT died for anything but professional (read: Not copy protected) use in the early 90s. DIVX's failure is well known among the Slashdot crowd. Don't think for one second that DVD would have caught on the way it has if mod chips to defeat region coding were not so readily available. CPRM caused such an uproar that it was forced to be stopped, despite the refusal of many major media outlets (ZDNet, news.com, etc.) to discuss CPRM.

I do not see digital TV replacing analog TV until a form of digital TV without the onerous restrictions becomes available.

- Sam

Re:When will they ever learn?

[t]

Personally I can't wait! I've been wanting Digital TV to come out with serious copy protections for awhile now. Why you ask? Because the sooner it is here the sooner it will implode. The sooner all the dipshit ceo's will realize that they've gotta do what the consumers want. Maybe this is the push that the US population needs to cause everyone to get a life.

Re:When will they ever learn?

[outlier]

When will the manufacturers ever learn that putting strong copy protection in to consumer devices simply does not work. It does not work because the first people who will adopt a new technology are the technology-savvy users, users who do not want to be told by the big media companies how they are allowed to use their technology.

[snip]

Don't think for one second that DVD would have caught on the way it has if mod chips to defeat region coding were not so readily available.

I think you'd be surprised at how few early adopters can actually circumvent DVD region coding.

While it would be great if people would stand up against schemes that infringe against fair use, the fact is that the lure of better image quality, coupled with wacky outtakes, interviews with the director, movie trailers, and never-before-seen behind the scenes footage was strong enough to build a critical mass of DVD users -- most of whom CANNOT excercise their fair use rights on materials the OWN.

By buying legislation like the DMCA, the MPAA and others have succeeded in overruling the Supreme Court's fair use decision.

Re:When will they ever learn?

[lizrd]

Don't think for one second that DVD would have caught on the way it has if mod chips to defeat region coding were not so readily available.

DVDs caught on because the restrictions that are put on them are ones that most people will never notice. I can honestly say that I have never had any problems with either CSS encryption or region coding while attempting to watch a DVD movie that I have purchased. And why would I have had problems? I'm perfectly willing to accept the fact that to watch a new type of media I need to purchase a new player. I did that and hooked it up to my TV and stereo and it just works. It has never crossed my mind that it might be in any way convenient for me to purchase DVDs in another continent so I've never had a problem with the region coding. What it comes down to is that when used in the way that over 99% of all people will use a DVD movie (at least those who live in the US and speak only English) there is very little reason why you'd ever find a problem with either Region Coding or CSS and that is why people have adopted this technology. The limits on the technology just aren't in the realm that most people will ever notice.

It's going to be a really different matter if people can't record the game that they have to miss or that episode of Friends or what ever. Most people are very used to being able to tape a TV show that they're going to miss and aren't going to be willing to give that up to get a better picture.

________________________

Re:When will they ever learn?

[SubtleNuance]

i agree - but in this arms race of hacker vs. transnational - the transnatinals are buying laws to make us all criminals... sooner or later we are going to have to deal with the REAL problem here. Im tired of having to fight some money-grubbing prick because he believes his right to make money is more important the the rights of all of the rest of the citizens around him... this shits gotta stop.

Re:Who you gonna buy, what laws you gonna allow?

[maggard]

Gotta agree with the other AC: Why'd you bother posting?

Yeah, 99% of all good stories are in books - not.

You somehow feeling smug? Guess what - there's some good stuff on TV too.

Films. News broadcasts. Drama. Comedy. Current events. I don't know what things are like where you are but I enjoy my Discovery Channel programs, CBC's "Counterspin", "The Passionate Eye", PBS's "Charlie Rose", not to mention Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" the other night. Plus my sweetie laughs himself silly at "Allie McBeal".

Books are a great thing, I've got two rooms full of 'em & loved reading most of them. However they're not the only medium. TV, film, live performance, all have their strengths and all have their jewels.

Media-bigot is as inane as OS bigot.

Re:Who you gonna buy, what laws you gonna allow?

[maggard]

So what's it like living out back in a shack? And how are you online anyhow, big telecom corporations control the net infrastructure...

I'm sorry but your avoidence strategy seems half-baked. Last I checked Z-Rays weren't radiating from my TV set into my brain, or at least not any more then leak from the text megapublishers.

Who you gonna buy, what laws you gonna allow?

[maggard]

You've got a choice: Buy a TV / hard drive / solid-state-music-player / whatever that has encryption or don't buy one.

Most folks, all things being equal, will purchase the unfettered product.

The way manufactures, content folks etc. prevent this is by getting laws set preventing non-encrypted hardware. This is the case with DAT, DVD, etc.

However this is not yet the case with television and isn't likely to be. The public is getting wise to these tricks and lawmakers are starting to clue into the changing attitudes.

Furthermore this isn't putting limits on a new technology but attempting to reign in an existing one.

US Congress-critters are getting tired of feeling like TV's-patsies giving away spectrum and receiving nothing in return, no HDTV, no additional services. To now attempt to require content-protection on TV sets, that ain't gonna fly.

This hits Joe Sixpack in the couch with his remote in hand & as powerful as the lobbyist's are they don't match a nation of TV junkies.

Don't expect to see this sort of law get passed easily; it's too easy to make a cause cellebre against. It'll be an uphill battle & a very highly publicized one. I for one don't think it'll make it.

Without a law the model breaks down. Gonna buy a new TV set with all the new features? Manufacturers will quickly discover that the models with content-protection don't sell and those without do.

Are TV manufacturers in the business of protecting IP (except for Sony?) No - they just want to sell as many boxes as possible and don't have any stake what you do with 'em.

Short term: Companies will try to get away with anything they can. The long-term: In this case they probably won't but it'll be a fight. In the meantime get ready to write your own Congress-critters & tell them how you expect them to go on this issue.

Re:Who you gonna buy, what laws you gonna allow?

[alannon]

There's a flaw in your argument, unfortunately. The consumer electronics market out there is not even close to a free market. In a free market, quality and features will be as near as possible to what the customer wants in order to convince them to buy your product. But what if those features and qualities are harmful to another part of your business? Sony is a perfect example. Because they are a content producer as well as a consumer electronics manufacturer, they can leverage their position in both markets to force features into the products that users don't necissarily want. They're willing to take a hit in sales on their electronics side in order to protect their profits on the content side.
There is also a pretty good chance that the vast majority of consumers will not know enough about the technologies in question to be able to understand their impact until after they purchase the product. By then, it's too late. In this first round of digital TV products, this will be particularly important because there AREN'T any products out there that would allow you to record a digital TV stream anyways. By the time that products like those come out, it might be too late, since most people would have purchased a TV that didn't allow them to use it.

Re:Who you gonna buy, what laws you gonna allow?

[PerlGeek]

"Gonna buy a new TV set with all the new features?"

No. Or an old TV, either. 99% of the great stories out there are in books, and the stories that are in movies and books are better in the books anyway. I don't even have to support book publishers, either, if they get evil - I can buy from used bookstores.

It is really sad, what the entertainment industry has managed to pull off, but everybody seems to be forgetting that this isn't a choice we have to make.

Apple or Microsoft? Linux.

Digital TV or analog TV? Books.

Re:Who you gonna buy, what laws you gonna allow?

[PerlGeek]

Please forgive me - I did not mean to imply that there is anything wrong with movies or tv, or windows or mac, for that matter. What I object to is the way people have used them to gain control over their users - window's crazy eula, or the way Apple throws lawyers around so often, the way the MPAA and RIAA bought the DMCA, etc.

I give up TV, not because I think there is anything wrong with it, but because I think there is something wrong with the people in control of the entertainment industry. I am not a media bigot. I am bigoted against control freaks, those people who amass power to themselves and trample the innocent.

I misled you before, I am sorry.

Re:Who you gonna buy, what laws you gonna allow?

[Voltaire99]

Nicely put, PerlGeek.

To those worried about such trivialities as the encryption of idiocy on the boob tube: pshaw! Be thankful, instead, that one more layer of interference shall separate you from the abyss.

People just will not buy it

[jjr]

I know I will not if I have to give up the
functionality that I am used to.

Re:well maybe analog?

[enterfornone]

I think as long as there is demand for recording devices there will be a supply. There is no ways they can stop people recording stuff, if you can decrypt it to watch it you can decrypt it to record it.

--

Re:well maybe analog?

[enterfornone]

Recording copyright material is already illegal. The question is can it be prevented. I don't think it can.

--

Re:well maybe analog?

[enterfornone]

Don't buy their product. If other people want to that's their business. It's not as if you have some god given right to watch TV, if you don't like the terms that they supply their product under don't use it.

Fucking hell slashdot's 2 minutes between comments gives me the shits!

--

well maybe analog?

[enterfornone]

Well since everyone can record analog signals there's really no point to this.

--

Re:well maybe analog?

[outlier]

This gets at an interesting point that I think was glossed over when the Librarian of Congress came up with exceptions to the DMCA. In deciding that the CSS content protection technology used on DVDs not be exempt from the law, the following argument was made:

...it is clear that, at present, most works available in DVD format are also available in analog format (VHS tape) as well. ... When distributed in analog formats--formats in which distribution is likely to continue for the foreseeable future-- these works are not protected by any technological measures controlling access. ... Therefore, any harm caused by the existence of access control measures used in DVDs can be avoided by obtaining a copy of the work in analog format.

They essentially said "don't worry about lack of fair use for DVDs, you can always rely on VHS." Imagine if the law had been passed 10 years earlier and CDs had similar content protection measures. The Librarian of Congress would be saying, "Don't worry, you still have LPs and cassettes."

New LPs are extremely rare, and it looks like cassettes are going the same way. THIS IS THE FUTURE FOR VIDEO. I have no doubt that the studios will start phasing out VHS tapes in the near future. As they go so shall the VHS player.

We already see differental treatment of DVDs and VHS. Let's say that you want to buy a copy of that hit movie Antitrust (starring Ryan Phillippe as a hacker -- realistic...). The DVD version can be yours for the low, low price of $19.99 at Amazon.com. But wait, you want to be able to make fair use of the video, so you take heart in the fact that the VHS version is available as well. Boy are you in for a surprise. The VHS version can be had for a mere $106.99 from our pals at Amazon.com.

Why do I feel like I've been mugged?

Re:well maybe analog?

[outlier]

You shouldn't have to use DeWHATEVER to excersize your fair use rights. First off, most people will be unaware or unable to use something like that. Second off, why should I be treated like a criminal for doing something perfectly legal?

Re:well maybe analog?

[Skraggy]

In the UK Sky (part of Rupert Murdochs enterprises for those who don't know) have a digital satelite TV service. On the ordinary channels you can record to Video tape quite normally, but if you buy a movie on the Pay-Per-View movie channels, nothing records. you don't even see a scrambled movie, and you don't see the output of the film off the tape, even if it's during the period of time you have paid for to watch the movie. It is almost as if the digibox cuts the signal to VCR on encrypted PPV movie and sport channels.

Re:well maybe analog?

[jaydeekay]

What makes you think such enccryption enabled digital televisions will even have an analog out?

Re:well maybe analog?

[PerlGeek]

As long as there is a demand there will be a supply, but that supply may be made illegal. Alcohol was still availiable during the Prohibition, after all. My worries are that it will be made illegal to record data, not impossible. We already know that the industry can make it illegal, now it's just a matter of when.

Re:well maybe analog?

[BradleyUffner]

The more we use that argument the more we tell them that it's ok for them to take away our rights, because, hey, we have more. It's not ok to just sit back while huge companies roll over us. I don't know what to do about it myself, other then not buying to stuff, but I don't think that will really affect anything, there are enough stupid people in the world who WILL buy it.
=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\= \=\=\

Re:well maybe analog?

[sethdelackner]

Right, because the fact that laserdiscs were these ungainly huge discs that were more expensive to manufacture and more annoying to use had nothing to do with their rapid death when dvd came along.

Not!

Re:well maybe analog?

[Kwelstr]

Recording copyrighted material is FAIR USE, not illegal. Mass recording of copyrighted material is illigal.

Re:well maybe analog?

[sallen]

I think as long as there is demand for recording devices there will be a supply. There is no ways they can stop people recording stuff, if you can decrypt it to watch it you can decrypt it to record it.

I'm not so sure. This is really the work of MPAA and cable companies, CES fought it quite some time IIRC. But as far as 'if they can decrypt it...etc', maybe not. Where the MPAA and cable group wants to do is encryption TO THE MONITOR as well, not just to the set top box. Hence, tossing in a vcr, etc, won't work once the analog set and those connections are gone. They're thinking long term this time...they want to get TOTAL control. They're smart enough to know it'll take time before all analog tv's/vcr's are gone, but then they'll have what they originally wanted from the betamax case that the supreme court wouldn't give them. It's basically a slap in the face of the 9 supremes as much as anything else. I certainly hope this type of thing is included when dcma cases gets to the supreme court, where they undoubtedly will. (add it to the foot-in-mouth thing the sdmi group did threatening to sue academic papers)

Re:well maybe analog?

[NeMon'ess]

You're missing the point. This should be about FAIR USE. Why should we let our fair use rights be slowly eroded just because IP owners want to make more money from us?

Re:well maybe analog?

[IronChef]

Not when it's a TV program that gets broadcast that you tape for later. That falls under the 'time sharing' provision of fair use. The Supreme Court has ruled it's legal to time shift. End of story.

The problem is this: time shifting is legal, but preventing time shifting may not be illegal. And if that's how it plays out, we're screwed; the media/gadget companies will remove our ability to take advantage of 'fair use' in any way they can. They'll probably get away with it, too.

Damn.

Re:well maybe analog?

[EvlPenguin]

Well, yes, you could take the digital signal, put it in your TV, and take the analog out from the TV and plug it into a VCR (or TiVo, if you're so inclined), but that's not the point. If you payed all that money for digital television, then you would want to record that great digital signal and not an analog conversion of it. Going through a D/A conversion introduces undesirable loss, and therefore would undermine the purpose of getting the digital equipment/service in the first place.
--

Re:well maybe analog?

[MrBogus]

don't worry about lack of fair use for DVDs, you can always rely on VHS

Notice how the analog laserdisc (nearly the equal of DVD in image and sound quality, and no copy protection) was vaporized from the market when the first generation of DVD players shipped.

Re:well maybe analog?

[MrBogus]

Well, if they were so uneconomic, how did they manage to survive as long as they did?

(The answer is that they were priced at around $50 for a 'collectors' edition. But the standard packaging always had the same price as VHS. I'm sure they were profitable.)

Re:well maybe analog?

[MrBogus]

Personally I could give a shit if someone wants to make a set of single purpose devices to exchange encrypted content.

What's much more bothersome is the idea that key hardware and software components in a personal computer need to be blackboxed from the user. It goes against every fundemental idea of personal computing by removing the user's control over their own data.

Things like DeCSS and software DVD players were just the first stupid battle. Content protection mechnisms are already built into the Windows kernel. Every single I/O component is being readied for content protection. And, unlike most of you, I feel it's foolhardy to pretend that all of this will be cracked.

The long term trend is to turn your PC into a closed mediabox terminal, like so many failed 'settop' experiements back in the 1980s. Buyer beware, but there's not much you can do to stop it, except by not purchasing the product. And as DVD has shown, even the opposition is a wonderful customer.

Re:well maybe analog?

[GungaDan]

"It's basically a slap in the face of the 9 supremes as much as anything else"

So there is a silver lining to this cloud...

Re:well maybe analog?

[rampant_gerbil]

I think the concern is over what happens when analog signals are no longer broadcast in parallel, when manufacturers stop building analog boxen, and when analog VCR's are about as common as gramaphones. How will you tape the game during that coding binge then?

Re:well maybe analog?

[Are We Afraid]

Recording copyrighted material is already illegal.

Not when it's a TV program that gets broadcast that you tape for later. That falls under the 'time sharing' provision of fair use. The Supreme Court has ruled it's legal to time shift. End of story.

Besides, do you really want to have to worry about DLing some code or getting some black box to decrypt the signal so you can record it, a right you have now? And just think of the lawsuits this will generate. Another All American use of the DMCA.

Re:well maybe analog?

[Rogerborg]

• Oh, I think they'll always let you time shift programs.

Er, forgive my UK ignorance, but our digital movie channels over here are already encrypted to stop time shifting. It's only a short hop and a skip to stopping it for everything. Justification? How about "Hey, they show'll be around again in a couple of weeks if enough Joe Sixpacks liked it, right?".

Re:well maybe analog?

[Rogerborg]

• There is no ways they can stop people recording stuff

Sure, but they don't want to actually stop me and thee, they want to stop millions of Joe Sixpacks by criminalising and prosecuting a couple of us to intimidate Joe into paying his WWF Bitchslap! tax.

Re:well maybe analog?

[fors]

The FCC has already made it a regulation that all digital tv devices sold in the US have copy prevention measures built in. Hell my Dish satellite receiver has the tech. If it recieves a signal that says this program cannot be recorded it won't let me.

Re:well maybe analog?

[fors]

Buzz, wrong answer. The FCC has already ruled that all digital tv devices sold in the US only allow recording if the copyright owner allows it. I just got a Phillips dish satellite receiver and while I haven't tested this part yet. It says that if a certain symbol shows up next to the program name in the guide, that program will be unrecordable.

Re:well maybe analog?

[janpod66]

Don't bet on it. The intent behind these watermarking systems is that they survive digital-to-analog conversions and can be detected by any recording device, analog or digital. Besides, who says that ten years from now, you'll still be able to get digitizers or televisions with analog inputs? If all broadcasts and recordings go digital, why would anybody still offer analog devices for sale at a reasonable price?

In a worst-case scenario, any player or recording device, analog or digital, will refuse to play or record something unless it is explicitly marked, by a watermark, as "free to play" or "free to record". Furthermore, those cryptographic tokens would be handed out by a central authority, for a steep fee if you aren't Disney or AOLTW. For viewing, you would have to get decryption tokens via the telephone or Internet in order to be able to actually watch the content, giving the media companies a complete record of your viewing habits.

The end result would be that you would lose all rights to home recording or time shifting. Furthermore, any independent producer of content would have to pay for the privilege of distributing their content in a form that is viewable by the installed base of televisions and audio devices.

The political arguments are also foreseeable. Media companies will likely argue that they are entitled to controlling what you are viewing because they somehow "supported" or "subsidized" the creation of those digital television. They will say that they aren't really bound by any privacy laws, and that, in any case, obtaining records of the complete viewing habits of every television viewer will just be used to give viewers more of what they want. And 20-30 years from now, people who grew up in that kind of environment will wonder what all the fuzz was about.

Let's hope it won't go that far. We already have a glimpse of the kind of content and public life that would occur in such a world, and it doesn't look good.

Re:well maybe analog?

[Waffle Iron]

The end result would be that you would lose all rights to home recording or time shifting.

Oh, I think they'll always let you time shift programs. The only catch will be, they'll disable the fast-forward for ads. Furthermore, the ads will be dynamically inserted in real time for each playback (like website banner ads). Plus, you'll probably have to log in so they can target you with your own personal spam. And probably, there will be more minutes of ads inserted for each succesive playback.

As a bonus, when you try to play it back a few years after recording it, you'll be locked out because the whole system will have become obsolete, unsupported, and non-functional.

Encryption

[b1ng0]

The encryption scheme in question is DTCP. Here is an information version of the specification which excludes technical details.

It's been said before and I will say it again: if it can be viewed/played then it can be recorded.

Re:Time shifting

[t]

Wow! A whole quater a day for no ads...

Re:OK, Enough

[t]

No we don't. Let them fool themselves. Let them drive their customers away. Instead of napstering or watching tv, why not go out and see a live band. Hell, see the sky outside your house.

don't blame the capitalists

[NoData]

true capitalists understand that intellectual property is a figment that has near zero value. true capitalists understand the concept of 'scarcity.' scarcity gives goods and services value in the market. intellectual property is the antithesis of scarce: infinitely reproduceable at a vanishing marginal cost.

left or right, what big media are doing should make everyone nervous.

Re:All this protections bothers me

[scrytch]

> Anyone with a fat enough pipe could launch their own channel, and if you can build a box to let the average Joe watch it on his TV, you'll have the chance to break the video stranglehold of the media companies. You wouldn't even need slick programming. Many people would try it just for the novelty.

Yawn. If you think the current programming on tv is awful, try the utter crap produced by the average tv viewer. Ever watch public access cable?

On the plus side, this won't fly. Starving a million iraqis to save a nickel on gas is one thing, but mess with an american's god-given right to television and you're in for an uprising, baby.
--

Want to win? Don't buy.

[crovira]

I vote with my wallet.

I turned off the TV set years ago until something worth watching came on. Its in a back room now gathering dust.

I almost never listen to the radio (Its sounds like an elevator with ads.)

I stopped wasting time and money on ephemera. Instead I participate in /. :-)

It is the same old issue: CONTROL

[PotatoHead]

Companies like things that work the same way every time so they can evaluate their risk, build their business plan, and go to market with their product. The internet is not very controlled right now, and this they cannot deal with.

It is also about competition. Nobody likes an open market when you actually have to give a sh*t about your customers. Better to have some lock-in so that you can minimize support and service costs; otherwise, it is not worth doing.

That second point is very relevant. MAYBE IT IS NOT WORTH DOING. If there are competing technologies, maybe just maybe, people will choose those over the traditional media. They must have thought that through, and if they have, then they must fear that over the long term, thus the need for control.

Personally, I am watching a lot less TV these days. There is a lot I could be doing besides watching TV, and it is a good thing. Freeing up all that time has let me begin to program again after not having done it for a while, coaching kids sports teams, working with music, and improving my home. These things are real, and matter to people around me. TV is not. Once in a while the escape is nice, but it is not the same as it once was.

Maybe it is the quality, or maybe it is just a change in times, but our family just does not watch as much TV. We do like DVD's and do buy them. CD Music is good, so is the occasional movie in the theatre. We also play games, PS2, Dreamcast (is that a fire sale or what!) and some retro stuff via Xmame.

News comes now from the net where I can get 5 opinions, and lots of commentary from any number of sources in the time it takes to wade through the local newscast. Local news and talk is good (Portland, Oregon actually has a new station that does this! -- Go AM 860!) and is worth a listen on the radio on the way home, maybe if things get quiet the late night newscast is ok, maybe not...

So after all of this, what does TV really have to offer? Premium television has some things that appeal (Sopranos OZ Fights Sports). Broadcast television has very little. Old sitcoms, Old movies, some (very precious little) local programming. TV is sort of in trouble when you look at things this way.

I had one of those dish systems. It is currently turned off because we did not make enough use of it to justify the money each month. I may just buy a premium channel or two for HBO or something, but for now the family does not miss it much at all. That should say something to the broadcasters, and the TV industry in general.

Maybe the plan is to simply use the broadcasters as a conduit for premium programming once the powers that be are sure that it won't be copied and eat into their cash cows (DVD VHS).

I would not worry just yet about NTSC being shut off. Broadcasters know the points I have mentioned above. They don't dare kill the older televisions until they have something that people want, that will be worth the higher quality, and that will keep them coming. Looking at todays fare makes me think we are a long way from that. Sporting events and some nature programming and perhaps movies are about the only things that are worth the HD standard. Even then, how much more does one enjoy the content at the higher resolution? I can tell the difference, but DVD resolution is pretty decent. The enjoyment of a good DVD and a VEGA television is pretty good now. I am not sure the price or the hassle are worth it.

In short I don't have a reason to buy unless they make it law. I know lots of people living the way that I do, so they probably don't have a reason to buy either.

As far as I am concerned they are cutting their own throats. Home entertainment technology is about simple easy things. If it becomes a pain in the ass, then many will find other things to do.

Re:coincidence?

[HeghmoH]

It could just be because firewire is vastly superior technology. Nothing forces anybody to use stupid encryption technology over it.

Re:coincidence?

[HeghmoH]

It's not "practically" the same thing, it IS the same thing.

I do know all about Apple's trademark and the actual name of the standard being IEEE1394 and all that. However, the name "firewire" has caught on, and that's what I'll call it. Everybody I use "firewire" with knows that it's the whole set of IEEE1394 stuff, not just things with the Apple logo on them.

It makes me glad...

[Apache]

... that I don't watch TV much any more, and broadcast TV not at all. And as long as all the stuff I buy (mostly anime) is on DVD, I don't need an HDTV because my monitor is plenty HD for me.

I encourage, no, BEG all the slashdot posters bitching about it to remember that it's a luxury in the first place, and if you don't like it, PISS ON IT. You of all people should know that there are lots of ways to enjoy yourself besides sitting in front of a box that will only show you what someone else wants you to see.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled trolling....

Re:All this protections bothers me

[freq]

If you wanna record realvideo streams get a program called streambox vcr. its still floating around out there somewhere... its great cause it downloads the stream at its actual encoded bitrate (not the rate your crappy internet connection streams it at) you might have to dig around for it cause I think realnetworks threatened them outta business IIRC.

From there use something like totalrecorder to convert the downloaded .rm file into a useful format.

you're welcome...

xoxo

All this protections bothers me

[flamingdog]

I don't get it. All this worry over all this copyright protection is just plain dumb. The fact remains that if you can see it or if you can hear it, it can be duplicated.

First off, music:
If you can hear it, it can be duplicated. For one, theres always the age old method of RECORDING it with a microphone. And actually, yes, you can get a nice quality sound from that especially with some tweaking. Hell, I still have a 1/8th to 1/8th cord I use to rip tapes to mp3. Just plug it from the headphone jack to the microphone jack. Works wonders. There are MANY other methods that I really don't feel like getting in to.

Second off, Video:
DVD ripping will ALWAYS be possible as long as it can be played on your computer. I have a million and a half programs that clock in at under a few megabytes that can rip video directly from a desktop. Hell, I use those to copy the realvideo movies that I can't download but want to watch without downloading again. On TV? Again, just use the age old method of screen camming. And again, you CAN attain a VERY nice resolution with the proper equipment. Again, there are also about a million methods of manual copying that I haven't mentioned.

---------------------------
"I'm not gonna say anything inspirational, I'm just gonna fucking swear a lot"

Re:All this protections bothers me

[AnalogBoy]

I know this isnt news to anyone, but the install procedure to RealPlayer could be SO streamlined.. however i do feel emotionally and intellectually violated each and every time i have to install the program. Why arent there laws protecting us from constant badgering online? It'd be useful.. a "Stop freaking soliciting me" button in windows control panel that inserted a registry key that made windows stop prompting for confirmation, made installs go quicker by saying "no" to everything that requests you view, start, or reboot something, and, for the love of god, STOP webpages from spawning 4092000e15 popup pr0n windows. Just one checkbox. thats all i ask.

Re:All this protections bothers me

[outlier]

The fact remains that if you can see it or if you can hear it, it can be duplicated.

While you are right (at least until analog recording devices are rendered obsolete), the mere fact that you can record anything is not the same as saying anyone with a non-infringing use can record the signal.

Yes, protected audio and video streams can be stored. Practically speaking though, >99% of users are unable to do so.

Besides, if I have a fair use right to time-shift content, I shouldn't have to point my videocamera at the TV.

Re:All this protections bothers me

[Greyfox]

The whole piracy thing is a red herring. They want total control of the format so that "unlicenced" artists will find it impossible to distribute their works. If you're not in the little clique of the RIAA or the MPAA, you won't be able to distribute (or even make) something that competes with them. I think they have a word for that. Collusion, if I'm not mistaken. It's not illegal if you've bought enough congresspeople, though.

Re:All this protections bothers me

[PerlGeek]

How do you record Realvideo streams? I'm interested in that one.

Re:All this protections bothers me

[IronChef]

webwasher.com will at least help with the popups. filters out ads too. very cool, unobtrusive free Win software.

mac version works well too.

Re:All this protections bothers me

[SubtleNuance]

this copyright protection is just plain dumb, b. The fact remains that if you can see it or if you can hear it, it can be duplicated.

But who wants to spend their life hiding like a criminal simply because some Transnational feels it should buy laws, that are against nature and reality*, just to stuff their wallets?

I dont want to be a criminal of a corporate state...

...Freedom is just another word until theirs nothing left to loose...

* intellectual property is a concept - not a concrete thing.. it is an agreement we make as free citizens with people who want to produce and sell in the market. thoughts and ideas are NOT chattle. "Intellectual Property" does not exist. The Capitalists have forgot this...

Re:All this protections bothers me

[hillct]

So, under the DMCA we can not reverse engineer even the most basic encryption, so, as pirate cable decryption boxes became populat in the 1980s, hardware to decrypt and store digital TV signals will begin to pop up over the next decade. The question is, will it be cost effective to pursue those who make use of such technology?

You will notice that I am certain that these sorts of decryption devices will become available in short order. There was one interesting question posed in an earlier comment. "Does this sort of encryption infringe on fair use?", Well, As far as I can tell, fair use does not relate at all to the ability to make use of the copyrited material. It is available in it's encrypted form, so fair use would dictate that it should not be an infringement of copyright to make use of the data in it's encrypted form. I'm not sure what someone might do under fair use with this data, perhaps create an artistic expression made up of the digital wave forms or something... Perhaps convert the data into an MP3? (that was a joke - think conversion of DeCSS source code into a musical composition). The next logicl question though is, Does fair use include decrypting the data for personal archival use such as is allowed for audio recordings? I don't have the andwers, just questions...

--CTH

--

Re:All this protections bothers me

[ConsumedByTV]

I do go outside, but not everyone sees the light...


The Lottery:

Re:All this protections bothers me

[SomeoneYouDontKnow]

I have a feeling that digital TVs are still going to have analog interfaces for quite a while, so you can still get in that way. Besides, I'm not talking about streaming HDTV content--there isn't enough available bandwidth to do that into the home yet. Good old NTSC will be fine for now. And even if you choose to use the digital interface, I would imagine that if the set manufacturers built the interface so that only approved content could get through (as opposed to encrypted/watermarked content that you weren't authorized to watch), they'd have the mother of all antitrust suits on their hands. Besides, it wouldn't make sense to do that from a technical standpoint because people are going to have things like camcorders that they'll want to hook up to watch their videos, and these are already using digital interfaces in some cases. Not to mention all the locally-produced TV programming, such as local newscasts and public-access channels on cable systems. I really don't think the idea will be to exclude non-encrypted/watermarked signals. There would be too many technical and legal pitfalls to doing that.

But back to the media box I'm talking about. All it would have to be is a computer with NTSC output capability and a remote, but with no monitor, keyboard, or mouse, at least not in the standard package. Build it with off-the-shelf components and load it up with open-source software and audio/video codecs, then publish the specs for it online so anyone could build it. That way, anyone from Dell to your local computer store to an end user could put these things together. The main challenges would be to make it as cheap as possible and very easy to use, so all the owner would have to do is turn it on and choose what channel he wanted to watch (or hear, in the case of radio) from an on-screen menu. There'd have to be some way to automatically update the channel list as new ones came on, as well as updating software as needed, but this ought to be possible.

Re:All this protections bothers me

[SomeoneYouDontKnow]

I'm not saying that the average person out there would produce his own stuff (although he could if he wanted to). I'm talking about things like independent films (Star Wars parodies, short films such as those on iFilm, etc.), streaming audio (KPIG, Radio Paradise, SkyFM), and possibly issue-oriented programs (could you imagine Slashdot TV?).

Here's my basic argument. Right now, we have three primary modes of live video delivery systems: broadcast, cable, and DBS. There are others, but these account for most all of the ways we get TV, and they're almost completely controlled by the large media companies. Couple that with the fact that there's effectively no way for anyone not in the "club" to gain entry. You can't get into anything that resembles a major broadcast market because all the frequencies are already taken, you can't get on most cable systems because the cable companies prefer to carry channels either partly or totally owned by their parent companies, and you can't get on DBS because these services want major programmers, and their signals are overcompressed as it is because they're already carrying more channels than they ought to. Many people here and elsewhere are bemoaning the monopoly held by the big media companies, but you're never, and I repeat never, going to break that monopoly until you find an alternate distribution method. The Internet is the best choice we have right now, and in fact, it works fairly well, especially for radio. In fact, as I write this, I'm listening to a high-quality feed of KPIG. Problem is, most people, including myself, don't want to sit in front of a computer in order to enjoy this content. I'd rather be able to go out into my living room and sit on my couch to watch and listen. I have a neat little gadget from X10 that will let me transmit the content out there, and it works pretty well. However, this is a bit of a kludge. What would be ideal is a box that I could hook up to my entertainment system to do all this, and that's what I'm talking about. Look, the big media companies are in a pretty good position right now. They're going to squeeze consumers as hard as they can because they can. Right now, the listener or viewer has no real alternative, at least not unless he's willing to sit in front of a computer. If you can get that content out into the living room, where most folks are used to getting it, you'll open up a new world of possibilities. And I'll say one more thing about programming. There are scores of cable and satellite channels that have failed over the years because they couldn't get carriage on satellite and cable systems. If you devise an alternative distribution method, programmers will use it. Yes, you'll get crap, but you'll also get good stuff. And you'll finally give people options and give the media companies much-needed competition.

Re:All this protections bothers me

[SomeoneYouDontKnow]

I agree with you about the problems of lots of users trying to grab streams at the same time, but I don't think adoption would be that quick, so hopefully by the time you got 10% adoption, we'll have more bandwidth available. Two years ago, almost no one had DSL or cable, and look how far they've come in that time. I'm not absolutely sure that bandwidth will keep pace, but I'd be willing to bet that we'd see improvements.

You're right about using off-the-shelf boxes, but you're also right about the proprietary software, and that's the problem. For this to work, we need something as open as possible so that programmers couldn't be excluded because they're using the wrong kind of stream. For this reason, Realvideo, Windows Media, and Quicktime are out, but I wouldn't see a problem allowing them to have access to the box if the software vendors that owned them wanted to create plugins.

And about the digital interface to the TV, I certainly hope you're wrong, but I'll admit that anything's possible these days. I still believe that you have a huge lawsuit if the electronics makers and media companies got together and developed a closed standard. It'd be similar to a scenario in which Microsoft would get together with PC manufacturers and devise a way to allow only Windows and Microsoft or Microsoft-approved software to be installed on computers.

Re:All this protections bothers me

[SomeoneYouDontKnow]

Over-the-air streams can be unencrypted or unencrypted, but if they're encrypted, the broadcasters have to pay fees for the spectrum, at least that's the way I understand it. The article mentioned the unencrypted nature of broadcast streams as an impediment to the copy-protection system. It pointed out that cable would be easier, since those streams can be encrypted without penalty.

So, even if some broadcasters encrypted, the monitor would have to accept unencrypted data, or you wouldn't be able to watch anything that wasn't encrypted.

Re:All this protections bothers me

[SomeoneYouDontKnow]

Sorry to follow up on myself. I meant to day "encrypted or unencrypted."

Sometimes, even previewing isn't perfect. :)

Re:All this protections bothers me

[SomeoneYouDontKnow]

Well, they aren't shipping with receivers now, so either they aren't required to, or that decision hasn't been made yet. However, HDTV receivers are already out there (the DISH Network 6000 comes to mind, plus broadcast tuners and possibly also one or more DirecTV boxes), so if the standard was changed to allow only encryption-enabled tuners to connect, then that'll break every unit already shipped. Granted, it's still early in the game, but I have a feeling that any company that's already selling tuners is going to be pretty pissed about their units suddenly becoming obsolete. They could redesign them, but that would mean they'd have to stop production for several months at least. If this came to pass, I could easily see Charlie Ergen (DISH's CEO) filing a lawsuit. Anyone who's kept up with DISH knows that they don't take kindly to anything they see as collusion or restraint of trade. Since they design and manufacture their own equipment, they'd be in a world of hurt if something like this happened, so they'd most likely fight it rather than stopping production and redesigning their boxes.

Re:All this protections bothers me

[SomeoneYouDontKnow]

But, as I've said several times before, this has nothing to do with piracy. It doesn't even have anything to do with stopping the technically-inclined from finding a way around it. What is is intended to do is stop the average consumer from exercising their fair use rights so the media companies can sell those rights back. You want that program you just saw? It'll cost you. It's all about maximizing profits. The broadcasters tried to stop time-shifting when VCRs first appeared. Now they're going to try again, and the DMCA makes it illegal even to try to reassert your fair use rights. Beautiful, ain't it? I don't think I could have thought of a better way to screw consumers.

I will point out, however, that no one is forcing us to consume this mass-produced junk. People can turn it off and go outside to play ball, or at the very least, we can come up with alternative programming. I'm still convinced that an open-source (so anyone can build it), easy to use (and I can't stress that enough) set-top box with an Ethernet jack plugged into a broadband Net connection could allow Internet TV channels to be streamed onto a standard television. Can you imagine the possibilities? Anyone with a fat enough pipe could launch their own channel, and if you can build a box to let the average Joe watch it on his TV, you'll have the chance to break the video stranglehold of the media companies. You wouldn't even need slick programming. Many people would try it just for the novelty.

Re:All this protections bothers me

[dachshund]

Anyone with a fat enough pipe could launch their own channel, and if you can build a box to let the average Joe watch it on his TV

Perhaps, but it would seem that the hardware manufacturer/content provider alliance is moving towards a set of proprietary interface standards that will make it difficult for your box to even talk to the average TV.

If the TV accepts only an encrypted digital input for high-definition, even the playback of your own homemade content is at the mercy of the owner of the technology. To circumvent is, as we know, a high crime even if the use is legitimate. As an example, look at Napster-- lots of non-RIAA music was floating around, but the RIAA had no problem seeking to shut the whole thing down before the court required specific-song filtering.

Re:All this protections bothers me

[dachshund]

Besides, I'm not talking about streaming HDTV content--there isn't enough available bandwidth to do that into the home yet.

It's a great idea, but as you say-- there's not really enough bandwidth to do any of this on a broad scale right now. Cable modems only offer 27-32Mbps total per channel/neighborhood, while most DSL connections are just barely above the acceptable bandwidth limits for decent, NTSC quality streaming video. It would probably work fine as long as less than 10% of subscribers were using it. More users than that gets hairy, and most ISPs don't implement any multicast, which could certainly improve things. I've actually dealt with a project that's trying to do something similar (commercially), and their experience with broadband providers wasn't very hopeful. So it looks like (for at least the next 2-3 years) video streaming is going to have to give way to video caching for later playback.

Another problem, of course, is the distribution. Your average small producer can't just throw together enough bandwidth to distribute (by unicast) to a large number of people. What you need is an infrastructure, something that can essentially provide Open Source Akamai-style caching and application-level multicast. Put that in place and your box becomes a whole lot more useful.

By the way, why build a box from scratch? A lot of existing set-top boxes, and certainly things like Tivo, would provide a good platform to begin with. By 2002 sometime, cable companies are going to have to relinquish control of the box-- in other words, you'll be able to march into Best Buy and take your pick of a handful of different boxen; to adapt them to this purpose, you might have to more or less obliterate the proprietary software, but it might be worth it (new Scientific Atlanta boxes even include cable modems.)

Besides, it wouldn't make sense [for hardware manufacturers] to [prevent playback of unauthorized signals] from a technical standpoint because people are going to have things like camcorders that they'll want to hook up to watch their videos, and these are already using digital interfaces in some cases

This seems to be exactly where they're heading (albeit only with the high-res inputs). Presumably, video cameras that want to use the bus will include a licensed version of the technology that clearly marks the signal as "legal".

Re:All this protections bothers me

[dachshund]

but you're also right about the proprietary software, and that's the problem. For this to work, we need something as open as possible so that programmers couldn't be excluded because they're using the wrong kind of stream.

Sure, but what the heck. We've already got Linux for Palm-- Linux for Scientific Atlanta isn't impossible. Linux for Tivo already exists, of course-- in fact, the kernel's available from Tivo itself. I think the goal would be to develop a good Linux distro for a few major cable boxes, and forget about building anything.

I certainly hope you're wrong, but I'll admit that anything's possible these days. I still believe that you have a huge lawsuit if the electronics makers and media companies got together and developed a closed standard.

The goal of HDCP is to prevent unauthorized taping of copyrighted shows. This requires that most video recorders implement a system to recognize and reject these signals. Of course the owners of the standard can't force hardware manufacturers to include the system-- but they can make it a condition if the hardware manufacturer wants their product to be compatible with HDCP-encoded media. At some point these restrictions will move from recorder to monitor (I believe they already are, but I can't find a link.) It may be illegal, I don't know. Are set manufacturers required by any known law to accept unencrypted streams?

Re:All this protections bothers me

[dachshund]

So, even if some broadcasters encrypted, the monitor would have to accept unencrypted data, or you wouldn't be able to watch anything that wasn't encrypte.

Hmm. But that only means that the receiver would have to accept unencrypted content. That makes a difference-- are HDTVs required to ship with over-the-air receivers, or could they ship with DSS/Cable receivers and some sort of (encrypted-only) digital in to the monitor?

Argument by Distraction

[Mr. Mikey]

You may not like what he has to say, but wrapping yourself in the flag and jumping up and down while chanting "Anti-American! Anti-American!" is, at best, an ineffective way to rebut.

I, 100% American that I am, agree with what he's saying. Do you have any actual, you know, facts to offer by way of counter-argument?

Re:The opposite: tuning -out- Televisions.

[wmeyer]

Muting of ads is an old idea. At present, you could detect ads by looking at the energy levels in the sound -- spots *always* use compressed audio (analog compression, meaning the peaks are prevalent, not the dips), but -- and this is critical to understand -- as soon as any significant number of chips was found to be in use, they would simply stop compressing audio, and break the mute.

Europeans pay a tax for television; Americans and Canadians put up with commercials. Take your pick.

Re:Right to be able to time-shift?

[the eric conspiracy]

but where exactly does our right to "fair use" come from?

Good question. This is what the law reads:

Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified in that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include --

1.the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2.the nature of the copyrighted work;
3.the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4.the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors. (Emphasis added)

While IANAL, it seems to me that this is very different from the concept of 'Fair Use' that is thrown around on Slashdot - that is mostly limited copying for education purposes is allowed as 'fair use'.

The following links give some examples of 'Fair Use'.

http://www.cetus.org/fair5.html

http://www.control-g.com/CFUL.00.html

http://www.cs.orst.edu/~cook/copyr.html

Re:Media

[the eric conspiracy]

Copyrights applied to sheet music even in Einstein's day.

Re:Media

[the eric conspiracy]

I agree people waste too much time on TV. But blaming shortcomings of current society just on TV is not all that insightful in my view.

The point is that TV is not necessary to a rich and meaningful life. I have some friends who live today without TV, DVDs and all the other assorted electronic gimcrackery that corporations have enticed me into buying. I haven't noticed they are the worse for it.

Media

[the eric conspiracy]

One of the most thought provoking photgraphs I ever saw was a picture of the interior of Albert Einstein's house when he was living in Princeton NJ. The picture showed a bookcase, desk with papers and open books, and a piano.

There were no electronics in view.

It seems to me that in the overall scheme of things the encryption of digital television signals is not exactly important. If you personally are put out by this, I think that you should take a step back and think about what is important. I can guarantee that in the long run cheap mass entertainment and the materialism that it engenders is a dead end. What really is important is your humanity, spiritualism and your personal relationships. Real quality of life does not come out of Hollywood.

Re:Media

[mcfiddish]

One of the most thought provoking photgraphs I ever saw was a picture of the interior of Albert Einstein's house when he was living in Princeton NJ. The picture showed a bookcase, desk with papers and open books, and a piano.

You're right, in the grand scheme of things encrypted TV signals are not so important.

But was Einstein's right to play his piano important to him? What if there was a law like the DMCA telling him what he could and could not do with his piano?

Re:Media

[ChuckDivine]

One of the most thought provoking photgraphs I ever saw was a picture of the interior of Albert Einstein's house when he was living in Princeton NJ. The picture showed a bookcase, desk with papers and open books, and a piano.

There were no electronics in view.

This could just be the consequence of when the photograph was done. Einstein died in the mid 50s. He lived in Princeton from the early 30s until his death. Television was fairly uncommon until the 50s. Radios -- the major electronic entertainment before television -- were often hidden away in cabinets. As were early TVs and stereos. As a contrast, Stephen Hawking -- a contemporary successor to Einstein -- is such a big fan of Star Trek that he's even appeared in an episode.

Humans have an amazing capability for wasting time in frivolous ways. Before TV there were dime novels, saloons, churches, political campaigns and more.

I agree people waste too much time on TV. But blaming shortcomings of current society just on TV is not all that insightful in my view.

Re:Media

[seven89]

It seems to me that in the overall scheme of things the encryption of digital television signals is not exactly important. If you personally are put out by this, I think that you should take a step back and think about what is important. I can guarantee that in the long run cheap mass entertainment and the materialism that it engenders is a dead end.

There are serious political issues involved. Intelligent political discussion requires the ability to quote. This is still easy with text-based media. However, if it becomes illegal to record video clips of news broadcasts in order to analyze their biases, or segments of movies or TV shows in order to unmask their cultural assumptions, then our ability to participate in shaping our future is severely dammaged.

----------

Re:I can play too

[ywwg]

tsk tsk, you forgot the golden rule: he who has the gold, makes the rules

Fair enough

[mwood]

If I can't watch what I want, when I want, then I just won't watch. Programming's more fun anyway.

Re:ho hum

[J.J.]

The danger with these systems is not the encryption method used, but the legal agreement you have to sign in order to be able to make a compliant device. The penalties for not toeing the line are enormous.

That's precisely why it won't last. There is no technological barrier that cannot be overcome. What baffles me is that these companies invest millions of dollars into a technology that relies on
1) everyone keeping their mouth shut and
2) everyone following the established security policies.

Why was the DVD encryption broken? Carelessness.

It won't last.

J.J.

ho hum

[J.J.]

(sigh)

When will they learn?

If they make it, we'll break it. Period.

What we need to do...

[LocalH]

...is take a cue from that Tivo spot and send two huge guys into the offices of the boneheads making these decisions, and throw them out the window.
_______
Scott Jones
Newscast Director / ABC19 WKPT

It's 2006...

[LocalH]

...but I think the FCC ended up extending that because of the slow adoptiong rate. Besides, it's not HDTV that has to be adopted, but DTV IIRC. HDTV is just a subset of DTV. DTV also includes SDTV (which is equivalent to the current NTSC resolution but in a fully digital signal). The station I work for is currently simulcasting it's NTSC broadcast on DTV, which makes us compliant.
_______
Scott Jones
Newscast Director / ABC19 WKPT

How the Hell am I Pro-Piracy?

[scotpurl]

Geez, there, A.C., go back and re-read my post. It was heavily anti-piracy. My agenda, plain and simple, is anti-pay-per-view.

As for CNET testing things (got a link? Their search engine turns up nil), I've tested it, too. Soundblaster Live, with the 5.1 surround, and Cambridge Soundworks speakers. Played the 300-something rate against the CD, and alternately muted. There were audible differences, and the audio spectrum thing I had showed diff's, too. Not double-blind, but enough that I could hear it, but not enough that I care. MPEG is lossy compression, so it's going to lose information no matter what the bitrate is. It shows in DVDs (rarely), it shows on digital cable, and you can hear it.

And, even if MP3 is a digital format, it's not a perfect digital copy. I'll call it the generic version of a prescription consumer good.

Lies, and Damned Lies

[scotpurl]

First, most of the music that is distributed over the internet (music wise), is MP3 files, which are not perfect digital copies of the original. They are highly compressed, high-loss, low-quality versions of the original. In short, they are sort of an analog copy of the digital original.

Second, pirates do not, will never, need to break encryption to create pirate copies. Pirates get copies of originals (that's from inside the industry), be it film negative, multi-track studio tapes, or whatever, and make their copies from that. That is exactly how songs and films appear in public before they have even reached, or gone beyond, their debut.

Third, a pirate just needs the same mastering equipment that the studio owns. And a factory to churn out those copies.

Fourth, the digital nature of things has not changed the laws. The laws about copyright are stronger now than they ever have been, and somehow that's not enough. I beleive that the ultimate goal is pay-per-view, with the retention of ownership and all rights in perpetuity, which may go against the U.S. Constitution, but certainly seeks to reverse a few Supreme Court rulings.

Fifth (and finally), if there is piracy, pass new laws to increase the number of police officers. Pass new laws to stiffen existing penalties. We have a legal system. The legislative branch creates law, the executive branch enforces the law, and the judicial branch does political favors to their appointers. Be that as it is, this is a problem of enforcement of existing laws, not the lack of laws.

Re:Lies, and Damned Lies

[Memophage]

> Fifth (and finally), if there is piracy, pass new laws to increase the number of police officers. Pass
> new laws to stiffen existing penalties. We have a legal system. The legislative branch creates law,
> the executive branch enforces the law, and the judicial branch does political favors to their
> appointers. Be that as it is, this is a problem of enforcement of existing laws, not the lack of laws.

The same logic applies to the "War on Some Drugs", and we all know how successful that's been. You can spend trillions of dollars enforcing a bad set of laws and never make a difference.

Re:Lies, and Damned Lies

[GemFire]

If you think MP3s are such great quality you have obviously never used Napster or any GNUTELLA client. MP3s available from these sources are usually, at BEST, decent. While looking for an old, out of production song, I had to download 3 different copies to get even one that was decent.

Yes, you can make good quality MP3s - I've done that too so I could listen to favorite songs without needing the CD in the drive, but, apparently, most people who open their collections to the net do not take the time and effort to rip quality MP3s.

But even if MP3s were CD quality, that wouldn't excuse putting copy protection on them. The copyright act is their protection and it protects them too damn well already. Copy protection is a method of theft, taking away certain rights that the buyer is supposed to have. You bought it and, while they may think of it as a licensing agreement, the law still sides with you as a purchaser. Copy protection is one more step to changing that.

Quit listening to the people who have already stolen up to a hundred years of access through the Public Domain, and start thinking for yourself. Do some research on the subject, read the history. http://www.limitingcopyright.com is a good place to start.

Re:Lies, and Damned Lies

[DreamingReal]

Fourth, the digital nature of things has not changed the laws. The laws about copyright are stronger now than they ever have been, and somehow that's not enough. I beleive that the ultimate goal is pay-per-view, with the retention of ownership and all rights in perpetuity, which may go against the U.S. Constitution, but certainly seeks to reverse a few Supreme Court rulings.

I think you hit it on the nose with that one. In fact, I don't think large-scale piracy is the issue here at all. The MPAA admitted when CSS was first announced that they weren't trying to thwart the major pirates but rather, to keep Joe Sixpack honest. But I think they are cutting off their nose despite there face. The recording and movie industries lose hundreds of millions to professional pirates while possibly only millions to Joe Sixpack sharing with his brother-in-law.

Honestly, Hollywood is its own worst enemy. I download DivX;-) Seinfeld episodes from the internet - is it b/c I'm a cheap-ass pirate? No, it's b/c I've never been given the option to purchase them legally. I think the television industy would do well to take a lesson learned hard by the recording industry. If they won't make it available, someone else will! They are squabling over how to protect the $10 in the tip jar while the pirates are running away with the cash register.

There is a market for season box sets for most shows. And if not, then make them available for download on the web. They won't lose any money in syndication revenues and they'll gain the $$$ of those fanatic completionists like me.

There will never be 100% protection for IP. The best they can hope for is vigilant prosecution of those costing them the most money, while offering their products in such a way as to eliminate the market for pirated products. The fact that all three industries (music, movie, TV) have done the former and not the latter will be their downfall.

-------

Re:Lies, and Damned Lies

[dachshund]

. The recording and movie industries lose hundreds of millions to professional pirates while possibly only millions to Joe Sixpack sharing with his brother-in-law. Honestly, Hollywood is its own worst enemy.

I think Hollywood has a pretty good idea of how much they're losing to pirates vs. average consumers. The motivations for their current actions seem to be twofold:

The "honest" motivation is that many content producers-- artists, publishers, engineers etc.-- are just plain scared. They see an entire way of life, which is predicated on copyright protection, disappearing when Joe Consumer starts using Gnutella on a day-to-day basis. If such a thing were to happen someday, the monetary loss to the industry would greatly exceed the cost of professional "piracy". Napster gave the audio industry a taste of wide-scale consumer piracy, and the industry didn't much care for it.

The "insidious" motivation stems from the fact that modern companies need to show significant, constant revenue growth to their shareholders. Unfortunately, CDs are currently priced at the edge of consumer affordability-- there might be some room for price increases, but not much (a $30 CD?) Corporations are looking for new ways to maximize revenues-- cross marketing is a one such technique (movie soundtracks, Britney Spears/Pepsi ads). But some execs look at the average American income and think they can get a bigger slice, if only they change the way they price their goods. Some of the "rights" that we take for granted-- making mix tapes of our CDs, or even being allowed to listen to a CD multiple times-- would make excellent sources of revenue if the content providers could convince consumers and the government to go along.

Convincing the government takes nothing more than a few campaign finance contributions-- the DMCA was passed by a voice vote. Convincing the consumer is easy as well, provided you give them absolutely no alternative. Get all of the content producers on board, blackmail the hardware manufacturers into submission (join and make money or stay out and produce worthless equipment), and make sure the government will prevent "circumvention" no matter what the constitutional cost. Given a choice between pay-per-use Jennifer Lopez and nothing, consumers will pay the extra fees, many not even realizing that their entertainment budget has doubled.

What could stand in the way? Circumvention devices, illegal pirates, countries with "weaker" copyright protections. But the content providers know that they only need to marginalize these threats and they won't be significant. For all we say about "consumers never accepting this technology", the industry now has the clout to push it down our throats if they want to. And I believe it would take something truly significant to change their course at this point.

Re:Lies, and Damned Lies

[Rogerborg]

• I beleive that the ultimate goal is [...] the retention of ownership and all rights in perpetuity

Over here in the UK, we have a channel, Carlton Cinema, that shows old movies and generally comes bundled in basic cable/satellite packages. They've been quietely buying up TV rights to movies as the main movie channels tire of them. It looks like a low cost, low risk, low reward policy, but it's since transpired that it's Carlton's goal to eventually own everything, in (as you say) perpetuity.

With the exception of the few dozen most recent films, Carlton will eventually own the back catalogue to everything. I'm finding it hard to get worked up about that right now, but I can't believe it's a good thing for one (or a few) organisations to own the rights to everything, forever. What do we think?

Re:Huge royalties for Apple?

[Another MacHack]

No work except having helped invent it. Companies charge royalties for patented hardware inventions all the time, but it's "cool" to bash Apple, so that's the only time people bitch.

Maybe this would help Public Television

[shoor]

I suppose Public Television would have no reason to put any restrictions on their broadcasts. Of course, it seems they could use more funding.

Re:As they have a right to do.

[mjpaci]

I don't think he was attacking you. He just wanted to know if it makes a difference whether you miss the commercials because you're fast-forwarding or making a sandwhich, going to the bathroom, reading Slashdot, whatever. Wouldn't you be stealing?

Evolution is not just a biological principle...

[knarf]

Hmmm... A feeling creeps upon me, that evolution as described by Charles Darwin to be the engine of creation, also rules over human endeavour...

The Romans were happily feeding Christians to the lions, and Thracians to eachother in the arena, but a time came when they longed for other entertainment. Even feeding a whole flock of Christians to a horde of hungry lions could not rouse them anymore, so the habit died out - as did many Romans.

In medieval times, it was considered fun sport to gallop your horse on a collision course with a wooden pole in hand, hoping to unseat your opponent before he did this to you (sorry girls, this was a mens only sport). This was fun while it lasted, but eventually people longed for other pastimes. As is written down for all to read in books of history.

Now fast-forward a couple of centuries, to.. say the 23d. In whatever is used to record knowledge by that time, will people 'read' about the funny habits of their 20th century ancestors, who gawked at electronic lightshows (kinda like the puppet-on-a-string theathers from the 17th century...)? It seemed to be fun while it lasted, but eventually the puppeteers became greedy, and the populace looked elsewhere for entertainment. They seem to have considered throwing the media-moguls before the lions as a fun alternative, but this plan was abandonded for lack of suitably starved lions. Besides, they were a protected species back then, and you could get arrested for mistreating one. So they eventually invented lochian ultra-cricket, and set out to find the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.

Re:As they have a right to do.

[revscat]

It's the same situation as illegally copying mp3s or downloading movies off of gnutella. It's illegal, and it's robbing the ones who created it by allowing you to sit around and watch it without even looking at their ads--their one source of lifeblood. How would you like it if your source of income was subverted based solely on the cry "Information wants to be free!!!"?

It's time for this new piracy-happy mentality to die. Seriously.

Too bad it won't. Look man, no matter how loudly the sanctimonious lawyers for the MPAA, et al., scream the genie is out of the bottle. Digital is here, and if it's digital, it can be copied easily. Copyright protections only deter, they don't stop. And in the era of the Internet, it only takes one person to break the copyprotection for the entire world to have access. This cannot be stopped.

This is really starting to show striking similarities to the War on Drugs. Consider: The RIAA has for the most part neutered Napster. So what has happened? Aimster, Gnutella, Freenet, and good-ol IRC have seen increased use. And guess what? Every day more and more people become more and more educated about the back alleys of the net, and they're able to find stuff more and more easily. This, too, will not stop.

So here's the deal, man: Either a) we set our sites towards totalitarianism, or b) we rethink the way our current intellectual property system is set up. I think I prefer b).

- Rev.

Makes me fell warm and fuzzy...

[macdaddy]

The thought of such a thing makes me feel warm and fuzzy all over, like under my arms. In fact it smells a lot like my armpits. That's odd. Wait a second; it's like my ass crack too! Warm and fuzzy with a unique smell. I'd better watch out cause didn't Time Warner patent that smell a while back? I guess circumventing the protection of the elastic band on my BVDs puts me in violation of the DMCA. It was pretty easy too. Just hook and pull. Oh wait, now I've told the method to the whole world. Now I'm really up shits creek without a double roll of Cottonelle and a Black Box catalog.

--

Re:As they have a right to do.

[MadAhab]

He was, however, trolling. The Supreme Court long ago recognized time-shifting as legal. (YHBT YHL HAND )

On the other hand, if they want to prevent this legal activity by downgrading our technology, perhaps its time for voters to remind the tail who is the dog and take their bandwidth back.

Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.

Re:Looking into the crystal ball

[seanw]

Orson Scott Card actually wrote a good short story about just that scenario.

This man (named Hiram, I think) was living alone and had been psycologically evaluated by the goverment as a socially inactive type, so his television was kept on 24/7 to comply with some law designed to keep him mentally healhy. programming was also specified by the government (there was only one channel).

I won't give away the end, but it's worth a good read. It's in his Maps in a Mirror collection.

sean

Re:Aw, what a shame...

[ncc74656]

I don't live in America

our TV contains many educational and informative programmes not 24/7 runs of Cops or WWF.

Right now at prime 21.20 I'm watching a programme about the archeology of Ealy Cathederal.

Point taken. (FWIW, when my parents returned from an overseas assignment last summer, they picked up digital cable so that they could get BBC America. They developed a liking for EastEnders while we were all in England in the mid-80s. I was never able to get into it much myself, though.)

Re:Aw, what a shame...

[ncc74656]

If you want entertainment, then just read a book

what if I want news

Ever hear of newspapers? With most TV "news" organizations' left-wing slant, their "news" offering usually isn't worth the electrons used to transmit it.

or education?

Hit the books again, or the Internet.

I'm not saying that TV is completely useless...it does an OK job of entertainment. I don't know if I would trust it with much more than that, though.

Re:Looking into the crystal ball

[darkonc]

Damn. and me without my mod points (yes, I DID read 1984).
--

Re:Right to be able to time-shift?

[interiot]

That might be a hard question... if technology like that had more than a very remote chance of existing. However, it doesn't. If it ever materializes, the laws can be changed. (hopefully in a more democratic way than they are now)

That's only half the story though. The other half is that the big companies would like to get the market to accept their data format, and only their data format. Once they do that, they can not only have a gatekeeper that keeps pirate copies out. But then they can also keep independant works out of the hands of normal people, either through explicit policy, or through red tape.
--

Re:I can play too

[interiot]

Why not? Laws which govern contracts can be copyrighted, so it seems only natural that contracts could be copyrighted as well.
--

perhaps not...

[voidstin]

I know that certain directv boxes can turn off the analog outs for certain programming, such as pay-per-view movies. Once digital becomes the norm, content providers could easily phase out analog to close that loophole...

OK...

[Gorimek]

We agree on the facts then. I wouldn't call that a law, but I guess you can, and if you do, your formulation is correct.

Re:OK...

[Karl_Hungus]

We agree on the facts then. I wouldn't call that a law, but I guess you can, and if you do, your formulation is correct.

Agreed ;)

Re:OK, Enough laws

[Gorimek]

No.

The problem is too many laws and government acting as proxy for the highest paying industry. The solution isn't more laws, but less.

Legalize Freedom!

You betcha!

[Gorimek]

For example, legalizing drugs would happen by repealing the laws banning drug use, not by adding new laws permitting use.

Re:You betcha!

[Karl_Hungus]

For example, legalizing drugs would happen by repealing the laws banning drug use, not by adding new laws permitting use.


OK, Here's an example:

Amendment XXI (1933) Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

See, that's how you repeal a law, by passing another law. Therefore, I don't see any way to legalize anything without passing a law that does just that.

strange days

[Spittoon]

Has there ever been a time when more scientific effort was expended trying to *prevent* us from doing things rather than trying to *enable* us to do things?

DeCSS?

[The-Pheon]

Just wait till i code DeDTCP!

(This is a joke, DTCP is the protection specification that they are 'going' to use. http://www.dtcp.com/ )

Re:Listen up, advertisers

[__aasfhc1949]

Hello:

If this crap gets implemented, the analog TV set I have now will be the last TV set I ever buy. I'll listen to the radio, I'll read books, I'll take up knitting, I'll find something else to do. And you can take that to the bank.

Wait a minute ... you can stand what's on the TV now? All of those things that you've listed are infinitely better than languishing in front of the TV. There's absolutely nothing of worth on, and as far as I'm concerned, the faster these television and cable companies get people off the TV the better.

Rajiv Varma

dtv encryption

[scharkalvin]

Guess many of you don't get it. The over the air signals of dtv won't be encrypted, though that option will be available for closed broadcasts such as pay per view over cable. The TV sets however won't have a clear signal digital output. That channel, designed to connect to the digital input of a digital vcr will be encrypted, or at least have a don't copy signature in it. Digital VCRS will only record non-encrytped signals on their digital inputs, or those lacking the don't copy signature. Digital VCRs will be able to copy over the air signals IF they lack the don't copy signature. The idea is that you could view the signal, but not make a copy of it. Since set top boxes designed to allow analog tv's to receive digital signals must have a non encrypted output, you could copy this signal with an analog VCR (but there is nothing stopping the bastards from dumping Macrovision shit all over it!).

What would be a better thing to do (IMHO) would be to allow recording of ANY over the air signal, but with a time limit on the number of views allowed of the tape, and/or the number of copies that can be made. For example I could time shift an HBO movie to a digital vcr tape. I would not be able to make a digital copy of that tape, and the tape would be time stamped when the recording was made. The machine would also be instructed to re-time stamp the tape every time I viewed it. I would be allowed to view the tape for say only a 1 week period. That means that 1 week after I first viewed it the tape would become not viewable. Such a system would allow me to time shift a program, view it in a piecemeal manor (kids keep interrupting) or view it several times in a limited time frame (wife and I get to look at it at different times due to work schedules, etc). This would still preserve the content owners property since I don't own a copy, I just viewed it later than they broadcast it.

Oh BTW, how much do you wanna bet there won't be a digital version of TIVO? Only way to stop that is to have video on demand!

The beauty of TV

[Shook]

In response to all these people basing TV, I will paraphrase Home Simpson:
"TV gives so much and asks for so little in return."
Of course, I sure a quote from a TV character won't carry much weight with the TV bashers.

Re:The beauty of TV

[IronChef]

Homer also said, "TV: friend, teacher... secret lover..."

Right to be able to time-shift?

[dirk]

I'm sure htis will be marked as a troll by some people, but where exactly does our right to "fair use" come from? I know all about time-shifting (and support it), but I have never seen anything that says they must make it so you are able to make a backup copy, only things that say they can't stop something from being produced because it can make a backup copy. I know it's a weird thing, but those really are 2 different things. It's like saying if I can, I have the right to make a copy, but they are not required to make sure I can make a copy.

"Fair use" is very important, but I can completely understand where they would not have to take into account whether or not you are able to copy it. Imagine if sometime in the future there is a technology that is great, except it cannot be copied (not through encryption, but because of some flaw in the technology or whatever), what happens then? Do we throw out a good technology (that many people may want) because the companies can't ensure that people can copy it? Or do we let them use it, as the only thing "fair use" ensures is that they can't outlaw things that let you exercise you're "fair use" privilege? So, is the "right to fair use" actually ensured by some law or court ruling or something similar, or is it only that they can't stop things that would enable people to use their "fair use rights"?

Re:Right to be able to time-shift?

[mOdQuArK!]

1. The purpose and character of use is clearly commercial, as it's an attempt to avoid spending money if your original copy is destroyed. "A penny saved is a penny earned," as Ben Franklin said.

In this context, "commercial" means that you're providing a good or service to another party with the intent of being compensated. You're using the term incorrectly, as referring to any action having to do with money.

Re:Right to be able to time-shift?

[Fesh]

And interestingly enough, from what I see here copies for backup purposes are expressly not protected. Consider:

1. The purpose and character of use is clearly commercial, as it's an attempt to avoid spending money if your original copy is destroyed. "A penny saved is a penny earned," as Ben Franklin said.

2. The nature of the copyrighted work in question is not often a scholarly work, but a commercial entertainment product. So the importance to society at large of being able to make a backup is not all that great. After all, the media companies have spammed the market with the stuff, so it's not like it's not readily available.

3. The amount of the work copied in proportion to the whole is 100%. My reading of this indicates to me that the smaller the portion of the work that is copied, the more protection the copying recieves.

4. The affect of the use on the market is that you don't make an additional purchase, so using the industry's logic, they "lost" money because you made the backup. See point 1.

By looking at these criteria on a point-by point basis, it seems clear to me that making a backup copy is not protected by this description of fair use. Furthermore, I could make the same argument for just about every other "fair use" that we're losing due to these "copy protection" schemes.

At this point, I don't think anything other than a complete overhaul and rewrite of the copyright laws is going to improve the situation. For one thing, the things that we here on Slashdot consider to be "fair use" have to be enumerated in the law in order to be valid. By a strict reading of the law, it would seem that a lot of things we take to be fundamental rights due to the properties of information are not in the least bit supported under law. And in truth, if you don't want the cops breaking down your door, the law is all that matters.

--Fesh

Re:Right to be able to time-shift?

[dgulbran]

but where exactly does our right to "fair use" come from?

A good question! As a matter of fact, it comes from the Supreme Court... they established (in Sony Corp. vs. Universal City Studios among others) that it is perfectly legal and within my rights to use a VCR to tape a show when it is on TV in order for me to watch it later.

If I can't "copy" the transmitted digital TV signal to my VCR (or Tivo/Replay/Ultimate) then I can't exactly time-shift it, now can I?

Re:Right to be able to time-shift?

[janpod66]

I'm sure htis will be marked as a troll by some people, but where exactly does our right to "fair use" come from?

The same place that copyright comes from: from our legislatures. You see, unlike your rights to life and physical property, you don't have an inalienable right to own content or ideas. Instead, copyrights and patents are established by law for the purpose of encouraging people to create content and inventions and share it. If we don't like those systems, we can, for practical purposes, abolish them legislatively; it shouldn't even require amendments to the constitution.

Of course, given the enormous politicial power that the media industry wields and the political apathy of the US voters, it is unlikely that anything is going to happen any time soon to curtail these "digital land grabs".

I kind of have stopped worrying about it: the people that seem most insistent on "protecting" their content (Metallica, Disney, etc.) seem to be producing mostly junk anyway. The more difficult and expensive they make it for their content to be accessed, the better as far as I'm concerned. The good stuff (classic books, art created for art's sake, live music, etc.) tends to be free or not rely on copyrights for its revenue model.

Aw, what a shame...

[sloth jr]

...as if TV had anything worthwhile to watch anyway.

Re:Aw, what a shame...

[Catbeller]

That's an intellectually lazy comment, and so trite. Listen, "TV" hater: it's a video screen. They want to control what you see on it. And no, your PC will not override it. And they will have this power forever. All over the world.

Re:Aw, what a shame...

[DrSkwid]

"If you want entertainment, then just read a book"

what if I want news or education?

the BBc motto is "Nation shall speak unto nation"
not "You lot will be entertained at our convenience"
My grandfather, my father and now me paid the BBC to uphold the values they espouse but the screw is now turning and the vision we financed is being removed and replaced with some other draconian thing at the behest of the movie studios.

I pay directly to have programs made and transmitted to me. So what if I record them to watch later, that's what I paid for.
.oO0Oo.

Re:Aw, what a shame...

[DrSkwid]

I don't live in America

our TV contains many educational and informative programmes not 24/7 runs of Cops or WWF.

Right now at prime 21.20 I'm watching a programme about the archeology of Ealy Cathederal.

(and they were using a BBC Computer to plot the curves of changes in magnetic polarity - notice that. A National bid to computerise the youth. UK computing culture owes much to this project.)

Newspapers! pah,
.oO0Oo.

Re:Aw, what a shame...

[DrSkwid]

hehe Eastenders kind of refutes my argument but at least I have a broad choice even from 5 channels and few cable channels I get (Eurosport - the free sports channel).

It's my feeling that Eastenders is propaganda. The people in it have absolutely no capacity for conflict resolution spending their lives in constant turmoil. Any disagreements are solved by violence or verbal abuse leading to dominance and submission rather than cooperation and harmony. It's painful to watch.


.oO0Oo.

Re:Aw, what a shame...

[limejuice]

Nobody will be forced to buy a digital TV. No one has to watch TV in the first place. If "they" actually get total control of what one sees on a digital TV, no one needs to suffer whatever consequences that come as a result. Since evidently you do not want "them" to control what you see, then simply do not purchase a digital TV. Problem solved. You do not need TV. No one does. People survived pretty well before its existence. And do not be concerned with the people that do buy them. That is entirely their problem. If you want entertainment, then just read a book.

--

Why are TV manufacturers going along with this?

[kindbud]

They are doing this because they are owned, by and large, by the very media conglomerates that want to push copy controls into the mainstream.

But this doesn't seem to be getting anywhere with hard drives. CPRM seems to be stillborn. That is, until the media conglomerates start buying up hard drive manufacturers. AOL-Time Warner-Seagate, anyone? How about Sony-Fujitsu? At the rate media conglomerates are growing into media juggernauts, with their fingers in every pie, I don't think even IBM's mighty market cap will keep it - or at least its hard drive manufacturing business - safe from a buyout indefinitely.

Vivendi-Universal-IBM, EMI-Maxtor, Fox-Western Digital - scary stuff, but not unrealistic.

I don't understand

[slapout]

I can understand why they don't like copying dvd or vhs movies. But broadcast tv? I don't get it. Its not like the quality's that great and then with the commericals too. (Wouldn't the adveristers like it if people were recording shows and showing them to friends -- commericals and all.) I mean if ya can't catch the orginal broadcast, they want you to wait for the rerun????? Who cares if someone tapes last week's "Friends" and watches it again?

No Sale

[bill.sheehan]

I don't think I've watched a TV show at the time it was broadcast in a year. Thanks to ReplayTV, I get to see what I want, when I want. (And the 30-second commercial skip is a godsend, too. Somebody really should explain to advertisers that the demographic who watches BBC America is not the demographic who buy cheesy Chia pets.)

The benefit of digital TV is a sharper, clearer signal - but only, apparently, if I'm watching the original broadcast. No, thank you. I've been liberated from "Must See Monday" and "Trapped in Front of the Tube Tuesday." I'm not going back.

Television is called a medium because anything well done is rare.

OK, then

[Legion303]

Guess I'll start reading more books. It's only going to take a couple of days for teh encryption to be snapped in two anyhow.

-Legion

god damm this took to long to find.

[jon_c]

Here is the most technical paper I could find on the subject. it was NOT easy to find, anyway. It looks like (from 500 yards) a lot like SDMI's dingy.

Along the search I also found another artical on the subject, though it's pretty damm old (like 98), it seems that's when the MPAA got interested in the idea.

my option: fuck em' they can't stop people from recording what they have in their living room. However they can STOP via LAWYERS, that and people that can't offord to fight it, and that PISSES ME OFF

-Jon

"what did we do wrong?"

[DuctTape]

I had a funny thing happen the other day. A Time/Warner/AOL salescritter came to the door of my middle-middle-class neighborhood house and asked me what they had done wrong that I wasn't a cable subscriber?

I replied that we had subscribed shortly after they finished construction of our house, but after having cable two months we found that we didn't watch it enough to justify subscribing. The next five minutes the salescritter entertained me by trying to list all of the reasons that I should subscribe to cable, and with each of them I replied that the particular feature/channel/program didn't appeal to us. I also mentioned that our TV is only on for about a couple hours per week (mostly when I slum late on Saturday nights to switch back & forth between SNL and MadTV -- okay, I did watch an extra hour for Survivor, sorry to say).

This admission of minimal TV watching time didn't sit well with our intrepid salescritter, and I'm sure that he must have reported us to somebody since no normal American watches so little television. If they ever tried accuse us of stealing cable, they'd find what little was left after the builder took it out when they put in the next-door-neighbor's front yard.

Where he almost got me was when he asked if we used a computer, since that's where we would have to have a cable modem. I replied that the neighbors do well during the off-peak times, but in the evenings they're down to ISDN speeds. Miraculously, that shut him up. I was surprised.

So anyway, I don't need a TiVO, I don't need more than a DVD or VCR player. There's nothing that the networks have that I really need to the point where I need cable -- well, the picture is a little fuzzy now and then.

Just give me internet connectivity, books, family time, outside activities such as Scouts, neighbors to visit with, and pleasant evenings.

On that note, the police should be here any minute to put me away.

DT
--

Re:"what did we do wrong?"

[Voltaire99]

Sorry to go off-topic, but your anecdote points to a revolting trend: Corporate America's use of low-paid sales lackeys to fawn for it. Just as you were visited by the servile "what did we do wrong?" fellow, so were we recently called by an abashed representative of the local newspaper (the Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul). "Oh, we've missed you!" were the first words out of her mouth, read, obviously, from a saccharine script. "What do we have to do to get you back?"

I told her we've little use for the establishment media. But, she insisted, surely I must have had a favorite section of the paper. Well, in fact, I did rather miss the food ads, these being simultanously the most useful, honest, and aesthetically pleasing aspect of the publication. Seizing upon this morsel to announce, proudly, "There! See?" she offered the paper at an insanely low price "to make us all friends again," and when I reckoned that it was costing the bastards more to send it to me than I would pay for it, I couldn't resist the offer of friendship.

I inquired whether there was a means just to have the food ads delivered -- save trees, you know, and cut to the quick -- but at these prices, you're stuck extracting them from the dross yourself. ;)

Re:Count me out

[PerlGeek]

Personally, I won't be getting cable TV either - for that matter, I don't see much of a reason to get a TV at all. I'll be spending my time at libraries and bookstores.

Honestly, is there anything in TV and movies that isn't in books? Other than the obvious, and that doesn't matter much to me.

Count me out, too.

Re:As they have a right to do.

[PerlGeek]

The Linux community is way different from the Napster/Gnutella community. Remember Linus cheering for Metallica?

Diss music sharing if you want to, but please don't take it out on Linux. The vast majority of the so-called "pirates" out there use Windows, and a lot of Linux users agree with you 100%.

Re:As they have a right to do.

[PerlGeek]

I think he has a good point. Watching TV but not the commercials, listening to the radio but flipping the station whenever the music stops, reading a book at the library but never buying it from the bookstore, buying books and CDs used instead of new, listening to illegal mp3s from irc...

What's the difference? Please, I'd really like to know what you think.

Re:Give me liberty or give me analog

[PerlGeek]

Now, what MS Office needs is Tivo software and a card...

"The last thing I need is some helpful box popping up saying that I'm copying too much."

You just know it's going to be a paper clip or something. :) Oh, Office Trek II: The Wrath of Binky.

Re:Big deal !

[PerlGeek]

Aye, that's the truth. I gave up TV cold turkey some time back. My only problem now is...

I might as well admit it, I'm addicted to Slashdot!

No, that's got neither rhythm nor rhyme. Phooey. Ohwell, I'm sleepy. G'night.

The optic nerve is still wide open

[Coward Anonymous]

Rampant pirating will still occur as people view precious encrypted content with their corneas and obviously vulnerable optic nerves. Unscrupulous people will no doubt exploit this vulnerability to violate copyright (recollection, dreaming, etc.) and so the optic nerve must be encrypted too!! These violations must be stopped!! If not for our own sake, then for our community and if not for our community, then for the sake of our children.

Re:As they have a right to do.

[sethdelackner]

Perhaps individuals should be required by law to watch each and every commercial aired during a show that they watch, whether live or recorded

I am truly amazed how often I hear this kind of argument. The airwaves are public property leased to the broadcasters. They have absolutely no right to make you do anything at all with the signal they send into your home. If you want to watch only the non-advertisement part, that's your choice.

If they want to guarantee their revenue, then they can make their programs available only to people who sign a contract to pay for it (ala HBO on cable). Buying a TV does not involve some shrink-wrap agreement to waste your life watching soft drink and car commercials.

Re:Looking into the crystal ball

[Fesh]

So a broadcaster could bump you on to their pay-per-view channel and then charge you for accessing it? That sounds truly evil.

--Fesh

Re:Time shifting

[Kwelstr]

I am the only one enjoying PBS? Damn, I feel weird!

Er, why wouldn't they?

[Galvatron]

That's like calling the federal government crazy because during the 1800's, instead of renting all land west of the original 13 colonies, they SOLD it! Well, duh. Can you imagine the mess if no one owned their property, and we were all just serfs in the employ of the Government?

Changing scarce goods from a common resource to private property almost always ensures that it will be used more efficiently. After all, if whoever bought it initially can't find a good use for it, he'll sell it to anyone who offers more money, so they can find one.

The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.

Cable Box Email spam

[sPaKr]

I can see it now, new spam email.
Quickly get your new "Digital Signal Stablizer"
As we all know the Signal Stablizers is the black market term for cable box hackers. So now we will need a new hacker to put between the Tivo and the cable box, Im over it. I suspect Tivo will make a new Digital version that just writes the raw digital to the disk( maybe some compression if they are smart). The truth is that we will win, there is no way any one is going to play by these rules, and if the courts feel that they were pissed on, I doubt they are going to be responsive as these TV companies would like. I hope this new system costs them a ton of money, that way when I hack it with radio shack parts they will loose a lot more and reliaze how lame they are.

Re:Cable Box Email spam

[glyph42]

Umm.... TiVo does just write the raw digital data to the disk, provided you're using a satellite system. It writes it in the original MPEG-2 format that comes right off the satellite.

Go ahead, let 'em...

[ouroboros]

So, let me see if I get this: television broadcasters want to encrypt digital transmissions of conventional broadcasts as well as movies, thereby controlling the hardware on which I view them, the frequency, times and locations where I may view them, as well as the price I pay. Those are their terms.

Unfortunately, those aren't my terms. I watch very little TV anyway, and in any event I have no desire to watch the ads. If I can't see the show when it's convenient for me and without advertisements, then I guess I'll just have to do without TV and miss the show.

But that's OK. It's not as if there's much in the way of quality on TV, the movies, or radio anyway.
In fact, the amount of time devoted to ads has been increasing and the show quality has been decreasing for quite some time now, making the service *less* valuable.

In short, what they're forgetting is that I'm a customer and if I can't buy what I want, I won't spend the money. The best way to get these guys to listen is to speak with one's pocketbook.

If we all did this, TV manufacturers would see sales plummet and balk at making the new sets. Advertisers would see their now very accurate Nielsen ratings plummet (no doubt every TV set made would digitally transmit back to the broadcaster minute-by-minute viewership results) and advertising slots would sink in value.

Re:As they have a right to do.

[Catbeller]

The War on Drugs? You got it. It's Prohibition III, the return of the police state. Prohibition III is going to make the War on Dugs look like a high school student council resolution. To prosecute this war (on the population of the world) for the conglomerates, the police agencies are going to need total access to our networks and our PC's. And they'll get it.

And our children will never understand what we'll be complaining about. "But dad, you're such a bleeding-heart liberal! Of course they have to scan our house for e-textbooks. It's to prevent theft! And don't you have a cache of txt e-book files? I don't know, I should tell the teacher..."

Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation

[DrSkwid]

My grandfather, my father and now me all paid for the BBC. We paid for the programs to be made and the infastructure to be constructed.

It is a service paid for collectively by television owners on a non-profit basis. We pay for the programs to be made and transmitted to our houses for our use. My licence covers equipment capable of recieving transmitted signals not televisions. This covers time-shifting and program recording for whatever use.

Now the big players want to violate my investment.

Well fuck them.

People make programs.
People make music.
There will always be entertainment available in your local area whatever they do.

The ONLY countermeasure we can take is to not buy their shit.

Break the encryption and distribute the tools necessary for watching it just for good measure.

Without our previous consumption these people would be nothing. Ok I like the stuff they've made, thanks and all that but when they take the piss you either fight them or opt out.


.oO0Oo.

digital TV

[gordona]

The original CEA (Consumer Electronics Assoc) press release can be found at: http://www.ce.org/Newsroom/Newsroom_recent_news.as p

This is a conspiracy

[Animats]

This is an attempt to take away legal usage rights established in the Betamax decision and in the Audio Home Recording Act. For this to happen on an industry-wide basis is a conspiracy in restraint of trade as defined in antitrust law. Only because the Bush administration is expected to be very anti-consumer does this have a chance of getting anywhere.

Some highly visible antitrust lawyer needs to get up and say this to the press.

Re:Time shifting

[demaria]

It also costs $8 a month.

Re:Count me out

[gilmae]

> Between letting the broadcasters use digital TV to not deliver HDTV

Counterpoint: In Australia, the greatest controversy is that the government mandated that digital television must be transmitted in HDTV format, thus forcing consumers to spend several thousand dollars to buy HDTV capable sets. Presently, the situation is alleviated by the existance of set top boxes that translate the digital signal into analog format for use with existing sets. Is that the situation in the US?

Kill your television!

[ayden]

Well I guess there's one more reason not to watch TV.

I Meta Moderate and I lose karma?

Re:Count me out

[decefett]

Part of the deal in .au for the free-to-air's getting the DTV spectrum for at no cost was so they could bring us the "splendour" of high definition tv.

The argument was "this is the evolution of TV, if you make us pay for the spectrum we can't afford to make any HDTV content". Of course noone really cares about HDTV but .gov.au swallowed this. At least they did make sure that broadcasts would be HDTV instead of just letting the bastards get the spectrum for nothing then broacast standard definition and use the rest of the bandwidth for data casting or extra channels to compete with pay tv.

The spectrum should have been auctioned off to whoever wanted it, i know that Fairfax and Ozemail plus a few other were very interested in buying some spectrum for data casting, but alas it was given away.

Re:This guy is a loser.

[dcollins]

Hell, I'd spit in your food, too. I come from the country of America.

Re:As they have a right to do.

[TomV]

Can somebody please change the lameness filter so any post containing the words "et al" is automatically denied? Please?

In fact, could we just have a Latin Filter so that those amongst us who were denied the benefits of a proper education can be spared a lot of humiliation.

Perhaps we could start with i.e., e.g., etc., et al., ad hoc, ad hominem, post facto, de facto, per se, quid pro quo...

It's all greek to me, anyway

TomV

Get a grip!

[Rylfaeth]

If the worst case scenario is implemented, you won't be able to record your PERFECT *digital* television signal... you will still be able to record an analog signal though, which is more than sufficient for bootleg purposes. If you can record perfect digital copies, what's the point in getting like a DVD set of a season of a show? I dunno, I just get the feeling that you guys are constituting "fair use" as "I bought my digital TV, which entitles me to watch any signal I damn well please" when in reality it is "I bought my digital TV which displays any signal that comes through it". If someone were taking away your fair use rights, it would disable your TV until their show came on... you don't see people suing ISPs for not *giving* them access just because they have a modem...
-Rylfaeth

NO FAIR USE ANYMORE IN THE USA

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

According to Judge Kaplan, "fair use" does NOT allow you to even tell people where to get a technology that enables you to make a fair use of a work if that technology circumvents any copy/access control measure. Fair use is only allowed if the copyright owner gives you unencrypted access to the content. Legal precendent as of now is that fair use ONLY exists where the copyright owner PERMITS it to. Yes, this goes against what fair use is supposed to be about, it is supposed to allow actions that the copyright owner can NOT prohibit. But with the DMCA, UCITA and shrink wrap licenses, the law says the providers has INFINITE rights, and you, the "consumer" has NONE except those the producer lets you TEMPORARILY exercise, for as long as HE/SHE wants you to.

Ask a lawyer for real legal advice.

Huge royalties for Apple?

[Dr. Spork]

If every future television set will require firewire this is a huge win for Apple! Are the royalties still $1 per device? (I vaguely remember hearing they are less now... but still, this is money Apple needs to do no work for.)

Re:Huge royalties for Apple?

[Dr. Spork]

Geez, I'm not bashing Apple (here), but innocently observed that with $0 overhead costs they will be raking in some money from ordinary TV viewers. This may not be their biggest source of future income but it certainly seems stable and there is nothing for Jobs to screw up since all the work is already done. It's the sort of thing that would make me buy stock.

Re:Time shifting

[Dr. Spork]

And now that you mention it, it doesn't really carry quality programming.

I'm confused---

[WhiteWolf666]

Sure, its too early for one of us to have played with one, but.....

Why can't we do this?

-> = Firewire connection

Set-top box -> PC -> Where ever you want...

Sure, there will be little things to take care of, like decryption, and what not. But I doubt 'dtcp' will be foolproof.

In fact, I'll bet even money the first company to release a 'dtcp' card for your PC will mess it up and allow for very very easy reverse engineering.

Just my 2 cents

Re:coincidence?

[Decimal]

It could just be because firewire is vastly superior technology.

Don't forget that "firewire" is Apple's trademark for IEEE1394. Sony's iLink is practically the same thing.

Re:What's the real motive here?

[Ig0r]

Or the studios could just explain how the new format has such superior quality to what everybody is already using, even though it's the same shit in the end.

--

Excellent!

[macemoneta]

One less thing to do. Now I can get back to my recreational reading.

An even better idea; let's encrypt phone calls with digital phones (sorry, analog not supported), so answering machines don't work!

Why stop there? Encrypt all written text (need those secret decoder contact lenses), so copy machines don't work.

Yup, we can stop all those nasty copyRIGHT infringements. Oh, and all technological progress while we're at it. Doh!

OK, Enough

[AntiNorm]

Enough of this DMCA/Digital Transmission Content Protection/SDMI/etc crap. We need specs, regulations, and laws that protect the consumer, and we need them NOW.

---
Check in...(OK!) Check out...(OK!)

Re:As they have a right to do.

[AntiNorm]

The duplications and 'time-shifts' (read: piracy) are simply copying without the authorization

Then why the hell did the Supreme Court rule that time shifting is a perfectly legal example of fair use?

---
Check in...(OK!) Check out...(OK!)

Re:Looking into the crystal ball

[YetAnotherDave]

Remember the old 'Max Headroom' series?

TV was the means of controlling the masses, and havign an 'OFF' switch was punishable by law (sorry, can't remember excatly how)

Life follows art, truly...

Re:Count me out

[IronChef]

You said it. I'll stick with my analog ReplayTV unless digital timeshifting works just as well. Which of course it won't... Ack.

Re:heres my take on encryption...

[EvlPenguin]

it will just take time and resources before someone will come up with a way to crack it on the fly

Uh huh.

Lets see, how long has the distributed.net project to crack RC5-64 been going on for? And they have a tremendous amount of computing power at their hands.

I'm not saying it _can't_ be cracked, I'm just stating that it's not as simple as waiting around a few months while your computer covers the keyspace.
--

Re:Looking into the crystal ball

[EvlPenguin]

The next advancement in this trend will be TVs that you can't turn off. And then TVs that pick up signals from your end.

Sounds double-plus good.
--

The opposite: tuning -out- Televisions.

[Dief_76]

Carl Sagan wrote about an invention in his novel 'Contact', where a handy tinkerer came up with a chip that, when installed in TV, would instantly mute it whenever an ad came on. An example of selective viewing that benefits us, but I wonder how the big companies would react to this? Possibly the same way as in the book.. lawsuits, counter-products, and general gnashing of teeth and wailing. ;)

Re:Count me out

[MrBogus]

The situation in the US is that HDTV/DTV/Widescreen analog TV have all basically been scotched until the encryption details were worked out. The gist of the news story is that that has happened.

But, yes, DTV to analog converters are expected to be a popular item.

Re:The Details

[MrBogus]

My understanding is that the converters that are planned for existing "HDTV-Ready" sets are not planned to run at full HD resolution. Maybe 720p at the best, maybe worse.

But still, these converters might the the only chance for a consumer to get unencrpypted access to the HD picture. Best pick one up before they disappear from the market (which they will - there aren't that many HDTV-Ready sets in the US).

"Let them eat cake!"

[Ho-Lee-Cow!]

The words of Marie Antionette and the history of the events that led to the French Revolution spring to mind. Seems to me that ignoring the peasants always ends badly. Her counterparts in the content industry clearly don't know their history.

Seems to me that ignoring the end user, or treating them like criminals and thieves, will probably alienate them pretty soundly. If Congress, the FCC and the others allow the content industry to dictate like this, then they won't have anyone but themselves to blame for a backlash against the technology. In this respect, the government should really let the market dictate and let these people self-destruct--might be better for everyone.

Economic consequences of IP monopoly

[EricEldred]

But is it good for the U.S. economy to transfer so many rights to these IP monopolists, in an effort to reward them for "creating" new expressive works? What are the economic facts?

A new book, "The Cheating of America," (ISBN 0-380-97682-X, get it from your public library while you still have one) from the Center for Public Integrity gives some anecdotal evidence that such a massive transfer is not good for the American economy.

Tax avoidance and evasion has always been commonplace in Hollywood, for example. Tax shelters and offshore corporations and "service company partnerships" mean that these stars of the economy end up paying NOTHING in U.S. taxes every year, even when they state billions in profits.

Clever accounting (much more creative than the actual movies themselves) meant, for example, that Batman grossed some $253 million in the first year, but, according to Warner Bros., ended up losing $36 million and so did not have to pay any taxes!

The result is that you and I, taxpayers who pay the studios for the privilege of consuming their trash, pay once again to support the government that has been purchased by these movie moguls.

The argument that U.S. consumers will support these outrageous tricks in order to enjoy a booming economy is simply uninformed. Instead, we need to pay more for IRS auditors and congressional investigations and put some of these crooks in jail.

An even simpler solution

[Golias]

The VHF and UHF frequencies do not belong to the broadcasters; they belong to the public. The FCC is the federal body which allows exclusive use of these frequencies, for free, to TV broadcast stations in exchange for serving the public interest.

So far, that has meant broadcasting news & weather reports, playing PSA's, etc.

What we need to do is call our Congressmen (In my case, a Republican House Representative and two Democrat Senators), and tell them that we believe that these kind of heavy handed tactics do not serve the public interest.

Then Congress can give the broadcasters a choice: continue to serve the public by broadcasting an encryption-free stream, or all free use of the airwaves will be revokes and you will be forced to pay for the privilege of exclusive use of the bandwidth.

Who's with me? Can I get a witness?

An even simpler solution

[Golias]

The VHF and UHF frequencies do not belong to the broadcasters; they belong to the public. The FCC is the federal body which allows exclusive use of these frequencies, for free, to TV broadcast stations in exchange for serving the public interest.

So far, that has meant broadcasting news & weather reports, playing PSA's, etc.

What we need to do is call our Congressmen (In my case, a Republican House Representative and two Democrat Senators), and tell them that we believe that these kind of heavy handed tactics do not serve the public interest.

Then Congress can give the broadcasters a choice: continue to serve the public by broadcasting an encryption-free stream, or all free use of the airwaves will be revokes and you will be forced to pay for the privilege of exclusive use of the bandwidth.

Who's with me? Can I get a witness?

Going to far

[tie_guy_matt]

So far the average joe hasn't been to concerned with copy right laws. He may have been a little bit concerned when he first learned of Napster, but mostly he has just ignored this entire thing. I guess he has been to busy having 2.3 kids and living to an average age of about 70. Eventually (I hope) someone will go to far with this and the average Joe will finally do something about it. If he can no longer tape things off of the HBO connection that he stole fair and square will he finally ask what happened to fair use (or as he knows it -- that law thingy that allowed him to use his beta max back in the 70's.) Only time will tell.

Re:Count me out

[JCCyC]

Personally, I won't be getting cable TV either - for that matter, I don't see much of a reason to get a TV at all. I'll be spending my time at libraries and bookstores.

Libraries. Used bookstores. Yum yum. Scavenging for oddities in print. You can almost feel your soul getting close to Nirvana by the minute. Why don't I do that more often? Lazy bastard, I am. Damn.

I hope they don't outlaw that anytime soon...

Re:OK, Enough laws

[Karl_Hungus]

No.

The problem is too many laws and government acting as proxy for the highest paying industry. The solution isn't more laws, but less.

Legalize Freedom!


Bonus points for legalizing Freedom without using a law!

Re:As they have a right to do.

[Karl_Hungus]

If someone doesn't watch the show at all, the chance of them not skipping the commercials is 0%.

Is that because if they don't watch the show at all, the chance of their not seeing the commercials is 100%?

Re:As they have a right to do.

[Karl_Hungus]

No, if you'd done that, you would have implied that you really do believe that. Unless you do?

Re:Count me out

[SubtleNuance]

the FCC has lost it's collective mind

You want to see crazy? You wait until they start SELLING the airwaves instead of licensing them.

Re:As they have a right to do.

[seaan]

The duplications and 'time-shifts' (read: piracy) are simply copying without the authorization. It's the same situation as illegally copying mp3s or downloading movies off of gnutella. It's illegal...

Hmm, been reading RIAA and MPAA propaganda? Not only is time shifting recognized as a legal activity (Supreme Court "Sony vs. Universal"), it is also explicitly allowed by the DMCA.

Actually that was a another case where the recording industry screwed congress and the consumers. Time-shifting was already legal, so the DMCA did not really have to address it. But congress wanted to make this trade-off: formal recognition for time-shifting in exchange for protecting rental videos against copying. Thus the DMCA required VCR manufactures to recognize Macrovision/Copyguard as a trade-off in formalizing the ability to time-shift. How does this screw us - two ways:

* Read the top of this thread. The industry is adding content control measures to eliminate time-shifting. Of course the same DMCA makes circumventing the protection illegal (even if it is for a legal non-infringing use).
* The MPAA puts Macrovision/Copyguard on all video produced, not just the rentals. Thus they screw the average consumer out of their fair-use rights (to take a real world example, my 2 year-old is on a mission to wear-out his favorite VHS recordings, and macrovision prevents me from taking a perfectly legal step of making a back-up copy).

Prof Felten speaking at Stanford

[seaan]

On a related subject, Prof. Felten is speaking at Stanford today (Thurs May 17). I'll be there. Details follow:

Reading Between the Lines: Lessons from the SDMI Challenge and its
Aftermath - Prof. Edward Felten, Dept of Computer Science Princeton University

Date: Thursday, May 17; Time: 2:15 - 4:00; Location: Math (Building 380) Room 380 Stanford University

The music industry has proposed a range of "security technologies" designed to prevent the unauthorized copying of recorded music. Recently a group of researchers, including the speaker Prof. Edward Felten, was forced to withdraw from publication a paper analyzing several of these technologies, due to threats of litigation by the music industry.

This talk will discuss what happened:
- the status of anti-copying technology,
- how the music industry is trying to prevent copying
- an overview of the technical analysis
- how and why the authors were threatened,
- and the effect of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act on computer security researchers.

DIRECTIONS: You can locate the building by going to http://www.stanford.edu/home/map/search_map.html and clicking on Bldg. 380 Mathematics in the list of Academic and Administrative Buildings. Parking info can be found at http://www-facilities.stanford.edu/maps/download/. Please allow extra time for parking.

Questions? Please respond to Barbara Simons at: simons@acm.org

heres my take on encryption...

[mesach]

If someone can come up with it, Someone out there will be able to crack it... it will just take time and resources before someone will come up with a way to crack it on the fly.

Anything that can be created can be taken apart.

Re:Count me out

[RedWizzard]

Maybe they think they're doing Industry a favor, but by excluding the public from this decision, they're destroying the very market they wish to exploit. They won't sell any of them to me, that's for sure.

There are very few programs I watch at broadcast time. Without full quality digital timeshifting digital broadcasting is worthless to me and I wont buy it.

Remember, put your money where your mouth is

[ckedge]

I enjoyed Napster hugely, and it's loss (and the loss of services like them) is a massive step backwards in time (as the RIAA would like I'm sure).

So I should be concerned, but I'm not. Why? Well, I've found myself exclusively using mp3.com for my music needs. Tons and tons of free music. I have not had any trouble finding good stuff (except when I purposely delve into the bottoms of the categories to do my part in 'discovering' new talent).

It makes sense. If information should be free, it will be free. Not because we force *all* information to be free, but because if information isn't free, there is always other information that delivers the same value that *is* free. Capiche?

Let me restate that: I don't have to buy Jennifer Lopez music at $20 a pop, or MS Office at $300 a pop, or MS Win2K at $400 a pop (CDN $), because I can easily find 10 artists who sound like and are as good as Jennifer Lopez who give their 'information' away free, and because I can always use GPL office software (and use open standard documents like HTML), or use GPL/free operating systems.

In a world with a billion digital citizens, all it takes is one person to make an entire class of information free, by creating something and giving it away for free! And we can all help out!

Everyone here realizes that giving money directly to the artists would be most efficient, what with the distribution of information costing nearly nothing. "Cut out the greedy fat cat middlemen!!" is the cry. Now with mp3.com's "BackTheBand", I can put my money directly where my mouth is!

In not too long a time all other media will follow in the same path. First came free software, then free textual entertainment, then free music, eventually free video must follow. (You've heard about the project to make a free fully rendered movie using POVRay, right?)

It's pretty hard to compete with free. If these bastards want to commit financial suicide, what the hell do I care!

Re:Remember, put your money where your mouth is

[m2e]

One Word: Napigtor

You are missing the point: sure, it is possible to obtain pirated music, but... who cares? You can have good sounding, free and legaly obtained music, so why pirate non-free music? It is similar to OS - you can pirate W2K Advanded Server and use it for your personal web site, or you can download/cheaply buy GNU/Linux and use it too.

More restrictions may be good for society

[mks113]

If I had to watch a show when it aired, I probably wouldn't. If I had to pay for each show I watched, based on what I knew was on, I probably would watch less than I do now.

I think if we could get people out from in front of their TVs and out talking to their neighbors, going for a walk, or spending time with their families, that society would be much better off.

I recall being a kid in the early '70s. My Uncle had a colour TV, one of the few in the area. On Saturday mornings you had to fight to get a seat in front of the TV -- Cousins, friends and neighborhood kids were all there, watching one of the two channels available. When we got bored of TV, we would go outside and play.

Now it seems that watching TV has gone a step further. Everyone has a TV in their bedroom, and seal themselves off while watching. It is no longer a social event.

I don't mind watching a bit of TV, but I don't like what it has done to our society.

------------------------------

Proof of just how clueless the content people are

[vslashg]

I love this quote:

"We've watched what happened in the music world . . . and we are determined to avoid that here," said Preston Padden, executive vice president of government relations for Walt Disney Co.

These people really, truly believe that with the right mix of technology and laws, they'll be able to make solid copy protection. They'll broadcast data over RF into your house, and you'll only be able to watch it on their terms.

Never mind that it only takes one person out of millions to make a copy before the genie is out of the bottle. Never mind that any encrypted media has to be decrypted before it can be viewed. It's just comical, is all.

Firewire? How about CRT!

[dfinney]

Those nasty content owners want to have it all. This new Firewire technology, and it's ability to to link up to 64 devices at 400 mbps just makes my blood boil. How it is being used for encryption doesn't seem to be in the article, though. What the Times isn't reporting is the Cathode Ray Tube conspiracy. Using Cathode Ray Tube technology television producers can control EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO SEE! While the details are a mysterious secret, only those segments of their digital or analog content that THEY CHOOSE for you to see are visible on the Cathode Ray Tube! We need to put a stop to this before the nefarious Flat Screen Technology is used to lock down analog and digital content! On a less silly note, choosing not to watch is an option that hits them in the checkbook. Ensuring that digital distribution remains available for non-copyrighted material is still a laudable goal.

They will pry TiVo from my cold, dead hands.

[sdo1]

Now lets be real here... the broadcast media companies are less interested in making sure you watch Friends at 8:00pm on Thursday than they are making sure you watch the commercials.

Digital recording and time-shifting (TiVo, UltimateTV, ReplayTV, and the like) break their business model. I'll be honest here... I watch almost NOTHING live anymore. If there's a sporting event I want to watch, I fire up TiVo and do something else constructive for an hour and then start watching it. That allows me to fast forward through all commercials, and pretty much anything else that's boring. And yea, I can see why broadcasters are pissed about my ability to do that. Yea, you could time-shift with a VCR, but not with the simplicity of something like TiVo.

The bottom line is that it's their business model that needs fixing, not our recording habits. Given the popularity of crappy sounding mp3 recordings, does the broadcast industry really think that the public will give up the ability to record just because they can't recording the original HDTV signal? Digital TV receivers will have analog outputs for a VERY long time, and as long as that analog signal exists, there will be someone with a product like TiVo to take advantage of it. And by the time that the analog signal goes away, products like TiVo will be so commonplace that there will be a HUGE public outcry if they suddently can't use them. Fair use and time-shifing is something the public EXPECTS to be able to do, more so now than ever, and that expectation will continue to grow in coming years.

-S

To fight loss of fair use

[Technician]

Don't buy it! They assume people will buy the protected content just like they bought DVD's. I'd like to see the thing die on the vine. Stick with VHS and free tv. The content providers will soon find out what does and does not sell. Treat it just like the old floppy copy protected games and programs. I view subscription software as broken out of the box. Not all my machines are online. I do most of my critical stuff on unconnected machines. It's the best security I have for finance and personal data. Take anything back when it doesn't do what it is supposed to on your equipment. I took back a Microsoft Optical mouse because the mouse driver could not find my modem. That machine didn't have one. I bought a Dexxa optical mouse instead. I take videos back that have distorted pictures on my TV. I take CD's back that won't DL to my RIO. I don't use Liquid Audio audio format because it is incompatible with my hardware. Make copy protection expensive for the providers. It is true there is a bunch of content I don't get to see, but that is up the the content provider to exclude me. If the content is provided on a format I can use, then I may become a consumer by choice. Notice how lots of stuff is released in both VHS and DVD? The biggest thing now killing the digital TV standard is loss of free quality content. People won't upgrade for over the air because there is no reason to spend the money. Broadcasters won't want to put in the studio equpment because there isn't any receivers in the local market. I think the digital TV will not make it On the Air. I think it will be limited to subscription viewers who pay for premium content.

Re:As they have a right to do.

[MegaGremlin]

> The duplications and 'time-shifts' (read piracy)

'time-shifts' (read: found to be legal by the US Supreme Court in 1984)

Looking into the crystal ball

[Gaijinator]

The next advancement in this trend will be TVs that you can't turn off. And then TVs that pick up signals from your end. And after that (which I predict will occur in 2009), we'll go back 25 years to 1984.
----------
"Remember, your friends will stab you in the back for the price of an Extra Value Meal."

Re:Looking into the crystal ball

[bumski]

Well, not quite, but how about this:

Under the digital television spec, the broadcaster can actually change the channel on your television, with or without your approval.

Re:Looking into the crystal ball

[anakog]

The next advancement in this trend will be TVs that you can't turn off

... or ones that work even when turned off. It has already started

Wont matter in Australia

[graystar]

It wont matter much in Australia, our government has crippled digital TV so much no one will be using it anyhow.

Difficult?

[Ultimo]

"FireWire technology does 'make it much more difficult for hackers,' said Peter Mell, a computer security expert at the National Institute of Standards and Technology"

When will they learn that "much more difficult" and "really fucking easy" are synonymous? There is an almost unlimited number of us, to the few they can hire. If they don't make it absolutely impossible, it'll be broken within months.

I can play too

[sonofepson]

OK, fair is fair. I'm going to start encrypting the checks I use to pay my cable bill using the public key from a small bank in Alaska. If the cable company wants to cash it they can use the bank I choose.

After all I wrote the check so I retain the copyright to it, and that is how I wish that work particular work to be used.

If they cut off my cable I will declare that the lack of service is an attempt to circumvent my copyright protection and sue.

So There.

Coming to a freenet node near you...

[iomud]

DeTES (television encryption system) hacks for all those TV capture cards and such.

Give me liberty or give me analog

[Crayola]

If the price of digital broadcasts is increased restrictions over how I can record, leave me with analog. I occasionally dump my TiVO'd recordings off satellite onto tape to keep around. The last thing I need is some helpful box popping up saying that I'm copying too much.

Of course, once encryption schemes are in place, there's nothing to stop the NFL from deciding to make all their games only viewable by subscribers.

Anything goes over private bands, and pay-per-view can charge what it wants, but anything going over public airwaves should be free and unencumbered by small-minded paranoid schemes.

This has nothing to do with piracy

[nightfire-unique]

I see a lot of posts on here shouting "this is useless against piracy! You can't stop the copying of digital information! Pirates will find a way!"

People - please! This has nothing to do with piracy. It never has had anything to do with piracy. This is about control of the average viewer.

We (those of us who copy information without authorization of the copyright holder) are insignificant when compared with the bulk of average consumers. We could copy TV signals, DVDs, and MP3s until we turned collectively blue in the face, and it wouldn't even register on the revenue statement (neither figuratively or literally :).

Even the big boys out in Hong Kong represent little more than a nuisance to the content industry. There are millions - perhaps billions of consumers who "legitimately" buy content. And they are the ones that the content industry are hoping to affect.

By training the public that everything is licensed, that copyright is absolute, that encryption is necessary, they are setting the stage for increased profit. They need to subvert control over every aspect of use, not duplication, to further increase profit margins.

Think pay-per-view. Think subscription. Think replacement media. Think time/use limited content. These are cash cows - and the more the public gets wracked with "content protection is OUR RIGHT," the more they will believe it.

The good news - this doesn't affect us in the slightest. We're smart. We can override the use controls. We can hide.

The bad news - the rest of the world can't. The arts will suffer. Content will homogenize. Billionaires will become trillionaires.

I guess it's not all that bad. :) I mean - this is the way it has to be. Just ask the record industry.

Sigh.

--
All men are great
before declaring war

Re:As they have a right to do.

[nightfire-unique]

The duplications and 'time-shifts' (read: piracy) are simply copying without the authorization.

While this is a true statement, it is not relevant. The supreme court of the United States has determined that authorization of the copyright holder is not required to legally timeshift material.

It's the same situation as illegally copying mp3s or downloading movies off of gnutella.

No, it isn't. It's different because it is not illegal (see above).

It's illegal, and it's robbing the ones who created it by allowing you to sit around and watch it without even looking at their ads--their one source of lifeblood. How would you like it if your source of income was subverted based solely on the cry "Information wants to be free!!!"?

Again - it is the supreme court which ultimately determines the legality of doing things, not you. While it may be "robbing the ones who created it" in your view, that view is not similarly held by the court.

On a more personal note, I would not appreciate it if my income was subverted based solely on the cry "information wants to be free," but rather than fighting a losing battle agains the supreme court, I would modify my business plan to avoid this "subversion of income."

Hope this helps to clear things up.

--
All men are great
before declaring war

Hmm...

[bloo9298]

Shouldn't the title of this story be "Digital TV Enroaches"?

Re:coincidence?

[Betrayal]

Well, actually, if you look at this cnet article - http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-5924503.html you'll see that Microsoft has decided to release USB 2.0 support for Windows XP as a separate patch.
Which isn't to say that everything's quiet behind the curtain. Similar "protection" schemes can probably be tunneled on top of USB as well as on top of IEEE1394.

Re:As they have a right to do.

[Betrayal]

He just wanted to know if it makes a difference whether you miss the commercials because you're fast-forwarding or making a sandwhich, going to the bathroom, reading Slashdot, whatever. Wouldn't you be stealing?

This isn't just a question of possibility, but also of convenience. Advertisers know that a certain percentage of the viewers are taking a leak/flipping channels/whatever when the commercials are on, but they also know that since it is somewhat inconvenient to do so, many will sink into that trance-like state that is crucial for delivering their message. Although fast forwarding through time-shifted commercials isn't different in principle, in practice only a very small percentage will watch them.

This is very similar to the current legal battle against DeCSS. The MPAA is fully aware that the source has spreaded through the internet and that any half-competent geek can use it to create copies of DVDs. But the point remains that it is still very inconvenient to do it. By fighting it (or its distributors, in the case of 2600) they make sure that no commercial entity will create DVD players or proprietry software that uses DeCSS in an easy to use way.

On the one hand, this is really where Free software can thrive - the guerilla force to spear-head legal changes. On the other hand, it might enforce the already poor name hackers have made for themselves.

There Is Only One Way to Defeat IP Laws...

[MOBE2001]

...and that is to immediately and globally engage in mass copying, uploading, downloading and distributing of all copyrighted and patented materials. This is the only way we are going to prevent the powers that be from enacting increasingly Big Brother-type measures to ensure that their so-called intellectual property is not stolen. We must not allow this to happen. Otherwise our freedom is history. The powers that be got their power and wealth from our money and our work. We allowed them to be what they are. Resist all Orwellian systems that take away your liberty a little bit at a time, one little law at a time. We can take it back. The internet is our weapon. Refuse to pay for any copyrighted music, software, patents, ideas, etc...

Copy it all and distribute it all! Reclaim your liberty!

Ahhh, but that's not the point anymore.

[El Camino SS]

By making everything encrypted, it makes circumvention so darned time consuming that the average Joe doesn't want to waste the time. This is just like pushing someone under with a pile of lawsuits that are frivolous and useless. At the end of the day, when no one will watch tewlevision because of all of this Sh*t, then the end will come for them. They have spelled their doom early.

You all stink as critics.

[El Camino SS]

I am a televixen person and a local newsman, and all I hear is a bunch of whiny bastards that have never noticed how hard it is to appeal to the fickle Roman Colloseum that is television. How do you fix TV? Too stupid? PBS ALL THE TIME. Uhhh, NO. Too smart? WB all the time? NOT. TOO VIOLENT? THEN ITS CRAP CHRISTIAN BROADCASTING. TOO TAME? THEN IT IS "MOVIES FOR GUYS THAT LIKE MOVIES." You can't win. TV is very personal, and therefore you will have a reaction, that is secretly why you all like it. That is why there should be a variety. And please stop complaining about sitcoms... we all know they suck.

This guy is a loser.

[El Camino SS]

And I mean it. Note the silly way that he backhands the citizens of the USA. Like we're all idiots. He probably lives in a country that gets a big fat foreign aid check from the USA, or worse, was in a country that we had to defend from totalitarianism. These are the SOBs of the world. The ones that believe the hype. THE ONES THAT SPIT IN AN AMERICAN'S FOOD OVERSEAS JUST ON "GENERAL PRINCIPLE." Basically, the ones that can't think for themselves... caught up in nationalism, or worse racism. Our grandfathers died defending these little trolls, to give them the freedom to spit in our faces, and tell us that "it is fortunate that they don't know any Americans." Then get over it, prick, and realize that people are nice the world over, they are just sometimes programmed to hate for no apparent reason or in the absence of true knowledge, like you are. Americans are a very kind and gentle people, a people that are more concerned about people's freedoms across the world than the world is concerned about them. Please don't spead anti-American sentiment without telling what country you come from, its just not sporting.

Big deal !

[The Fanfan]

Do as I do : don't have a TV. All of a sudden, you will find yourself with a lot of free time on your hands to play with your favorite PS2, code a bit there and ther, surf the web, read books (ya know those weird thingies with a lot of paper inside), meet with friends, learn cooking, have sex and assorted fun, listen to music, you name it.

TV is a brain-munching parasite, worst than ESB. With satellite, cable and 100 channels of shit (© the Pink Floyds), it doesn't even have anymore the excuse of being an unifying societal experience as it was 30 years ago, you know, a common something that could bring all sorts of people together, however insignificant was this shared "culture".

Throw this TV away. Have a life.

Re:Big deal !

[leroi_hardi]

To record or not record? To own the work of others and inflate its worth beyond reason? To broadcast on a license THAT WAS GIVEN TO YOU BY the Deathstar government to perpetuate the enslavement of the masses? Not that any of me mates here on /. would give jimmycrack, but American broadcasters, ABC-NBC-CBS-FOX, have yet to produce ANYTHING of value. Kill their brains and sell 'em dreck seems to be the plan. When will get blip-verts? Channel 23 rulez! Yeah, whatever. Compare anything on US broadcast service to: Channel 9 OZ Frell the yanx ! BBCA Say no more, nudge, nudge. Say no more. Yes, it is truly sad that out of some 400 channels on D----TV, only about 4 seem worthwhile. But, boy, those 4 . . .

Re:Where do you plug your PS2?

[The Fanfan]

Arrrrhh, good question. And nop, it's a very ordinary PS2. I just use my and its 21" desktop display : S-Video -> video capture -> 30 fr/s + stretch at 1600x1200. Works quite well.

Re:Where do you plug your PS2?

[The Fanfan]

BTW, it works quite well yet but for fast games, latency is a problem (about 2 fr, 60ms) ;-)

I don't recommend that solution. Better look for a monitor with a TV input or a projector. That what I'd do now

Re:As they have a right to do.

[antarctican]

I think he has a good point. Watching TV but not the commercials, listening to the radio but flipping the station whenever the music stops, reading a book at the library but never buying it from the bookstore, buying books and CDs used instead of new, listening to illegal mp3s from irc...

They're all the same, in all those cases you're taking money from the content producers. There's no doubt about this, and this is why holleywood fought time-shifting as they did.

Everyone keeps talking about protecting content producers vs. freedom of information, as if they're mutually exclusive. Why does anyone never say, "hey, is there a better way together of doing this?"

Perhaps it's time to change the whole way content is producted and 'funded'. Perhaps it's time more people be convinced to product content not to make a profit, but because they want to share their talent with society. And perhaps it's time that society supported such practices. All this content is producted by artists, who should be doing it not to get rich, but to share with the world. Let's eliminate the greed, everyone work for the betterment of society, very trekish if you will. =)

Now, go ahead, scream communist, tell me that my ideas are anti-american. (good, because I'm not American! and proud of it!) Continuing the Star Trek analogy, I see Americans with their constant need for greed (holleywood being the perfect example) as Feringi (sp?), boy did Star Trek get the pulse of the American mindset perfectly with that creation....

We've lost our way, we've forgotten how to be artists, how to work for the common good, how to SHARE. (didn't these people's mothers ever teach them anything?) It's time to abandon capitalism, it obviously just doesn't work, and neither does communism, we need to find a new better way.

Anyhow...

antarctican at antarcti dot ca

Re:As they have a right to do.

[antarctican]

Too bad it won't. Look man, no matter how loudly the sanctimonious lawyers for the MPAA, et al., scream the genie is out of the bottle. Digital is here, and if it's digital, it can be copied easily. Copyright protections only deter, they don't stop. And in the era of the Internet, it only takes one person to break the copyprotection for the entire world to have access. This cannot be stopped.

Why is this contant confrontation needed? If all you ranters who go on about, "it's our right to copy it" sat down and thought, you'd see these people at the hard of things are just trying to earn a living. True, their idea of earning a living involves BMWs and blonde bimbos named Kiki at the call, hwoever for most of the workers on the shows or recordings they're just making a living. Which is their right to do. There's also the continual cry that without the income, there won't be money to make more shows or recording.

I think the movie and recording inductry is making discustingly large profits off the backs of the public, and a lot more of their profits should go to the workers instead of high paid execs and high priced lawyers. So I am in no way defending their actions in trying to 'protect their content' I believe in the freedom of information as much as the next guy.

However I see the big picture. And the big picture is the whole system is flawed. The who system of selling what you make and hoping to make a profit is flawed. Artists should be enabled and encouraged to work to share their talents with the world because it's the right thing to do, and because they get to bring joy to people. And we should set up a system which allows this.

As well, high paid corperate execs need to be taken out of the system, their greed is what's ruining all this.

And finally, these artists need to have it made clear to them, in exchange for their sharing their talents with the world, we the people will give them a good life, with everything they need to live comfortably. (you do not need a blonde bimbo named Kiki to live comfortably....) They will not be rich, they might be slightly famous because people appriciate their talents so much, but they will have a secure life knowing they're giving to society and we're going to be there for them.

This might be anti-American, this might be anti-capitalist, but it's certainly a better way then everyone trying to screw each other just to get ahead. I think Americans need to look at their entire society and ask if there's ways they can improve it, and get rid of this aweful thing called capitalism. (I am NOT saying switch to communism before anyone makes that cry, I'm saying find something better, something in between, or maybe off in an entirely new direction we haven't thought of yet).

It's time for change.

antarctican at antarcti dot ca

coincidence?

[walter-harold]

microsoft dumps supporting usb 2.0 in favor of firewire. . .what's buzzing behind the curtain?

Re:coincidence?

[walter-harold]

i should better explain my suspisions. they were more along the lines of how microsoft would decide for us what was going to be standard for us; piggy-backing on to the TV's standard makes for a good way for the comouter to connect to the TV & who's in the position to get data back to the mfg. (and eventualy marketing divisions)?? microsoft.

Re:Count me out

[Rick the Red]

As I said earlier (but apparantly the link's expired; you can read it here), they've already sold some airwaves. What they should do is lease them, not sell them, but at least it's better to sell them than give them away.

Count me out

[Rick the Red]

Between letting the broadcasters use digital TV to not deliver HDTV and letting the cable companies not carry the analog signal once a station broadcasts in digital, coupled with the requirement that all analog broadcasts cease in 2006, the FCC has lost it's collective mind.

Maybe they think they're doing Industry a favor, but by excluding the public from this decision, they're destroying the very market they wish to exploit. They won't sell any of them to me, that's for sure. I'll miss television, but with my growing DVD collection and more content available over the internet, I doubt if I'll miss it much. Hell, between the PS2, GameCube, and X-Box I won't have time for television!

Won't AT&T Broadband be suprised when I tell them "Thanks for bringing me @Home, now you can cancel my cable TV subscription."

Listen up, advertisers

[r_j_prahad]

If this crap gets implemented, the analog TV set I have now will be the last TV set I ever buy. I'll listen to the radio, I'll read books, I'll take up knitting, I'll find something else to do. And you can take that to the bank.

This is the last straw. I have had it. I am angry. I will not put up with this childish bullshit any longer. HDTV will have no place in my home, and you can take your advertising dollars and your product and all your intellectual property rights and stuff them up your corporate ass where they rightfully belong.

I'd probably be less indignant if there were anything on TV worth watching, but it's been nothing but garbage for the last ten years. And I expect it'll only get worse.

Let's be honest...

[tthomas148]

As is happening with the music industry, within a couple years, these big companies won't have any content anyone wants anyway...

YES

[waspleg]

finally my TV can monitor everything i do
why don't the feds tie this in with carnivore
and require that every new tv set be installed with a remotely operable video camera !@#! so that they can survey everything we say and do 24/7 .. for our protection of course

do not adjust your set

No more TV

[dswan69]

I only watch the TV I do because I can time-shift it. Without that I won't watch TV anymore. Perhaps this is the way to break this stupidity - no time-shifting means loss of viewers.

Whatever happened to Sony vs. BetaMax?

[core_dump_0]

That gives us the right to tape shows whenever we want. But according the DMCA if they encrypt the shows you're violating the law trying to tape it. That's just wrong. The DMCA nullifies every fair use law out there.

big brother can only control what you see if you..

[Benjiman McFree]

only if you purchase an access controlled device. I still haven't bought a dvd player! I like control, not being controlled.

Hamlet and Digital tv

[carlcmc]

To record, or not: that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler to suffer on one's couch

Through endless commercials 'cause we can't record,

Or to undertake a propendous thing--go to the kitchen.

And by eating stop them? To eat: to starve;

No more; and by a lunch to say we end

The tryanny of the thousand terrible shows,

That we are subject to, 'tis consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To eat, to glut;

To gorge: perchance to hope: ay, and what blessed hope;

For in that blissful hope, that Elisabeth will return to Survivor.

************** To be, or not to be: that is the question:.

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come ****************

The Details

[fish8719]

Somewhere inside the television, after all the digital's said and done, there is a connection to the CRT. Or LCD. Or whatever. It's 3 pins. Or 9. Or whatever.

Grab your soldering iron and wire cutters. Slap in some glue logic and a semi-fast microcontroller. Or, even better, your Linux box. Three modes: pass-through, record, play.

About the simplest embedded system you might hope to design, oos?

Of course, this only works for COPYING (the touted reason for the encryption), not for pay-per-view and the other various methods of controlling what gets to your box.

Re:The Details

[gd23ka]

That might work until the _individual_ pixel cells a future screen is composed of do the decrypting.

Each pixel or groups of pixels on such a display constitute a digital device that receives encrypted digital display values (color, luminance..). These are decrypted using a cryptographic process prior to the device driving the display element(s).

The description of this process is written prior work, Copyright 2001 gd23ka and therefore no longer patentable.

Good luck copying digitally from that because in the worst case you would have to connect to every single pixel on the display..

Re:As they have a right to do.

[koreth]

Do you get up to go to the bathroom during TV commercials?

Re:Time shifting

[koreth]

Is that such a bad thing? HBO seems to be having little difficulty cranking out quality programs without commercial interruptions.

Re:As they have a right to do.

[koreth]

Wasn't an attack. I want to know if you're careful to watch every last ad that a broadcaster inserts into its programming. And if not, how does getting up to go to the bathroom during an ad hurt the broadcasters less than fast forwarding through the same ad? A perfectly legitimate question, I believe, even if I perhaps should have explained myself at greater length.

Misunderstandings about Copyright

[stuccoguy]

I will put my two cents in here because this article, like many here at /. concerns the ever increasing threat created by novel abuses of copyright.

There seems to be a common notion that the purpose of copyright is to vest some special private interest in copyright holders. This could not be farther from the truth.

Article I, 8, of the Constitution provides:

"The Congress shall have Power . . . To Promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

The US Supreme Court (SONY CORP. v. UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS, INC., 464 U.S. 417 (1984)) pointed out that "The monopoly privileges...are not primarily designed to provide a special private benefit. Rather, the limited grant is a means by which an important public purpose may be achieved. It is intended to motivate the creative activity of authors and inventors by the provision of a special reward, and to allow the public access to the products of their genius after the limited period of exclusive control has expired.

They go on to point out that "Creative work is to be [464 U.S. 417, 432] encouraged and rewarded, but private motivation must ultimately serve the cause of promoting broad public availability of literature, music, and the other arts. The immediate effect of our copyright law is to secure a fair return for an `author's' creative labor. But the ultimate aim is, by this incentive, to stimulate artistic creativity for the general public good. `The sole interest of the United States and the primary object in conferring the monopoly,' this Court has said, `lie in the general benefits derived by the public from the labors of authors."

That's right! Copyright protections granted by the constitutions where not meant to grant special monopolies to the RIAA or the like. Copyright is meant to protect the rights of all of us /.ers to have access to the creative works.

Obviously many copyright holders and legislatures have lost sight of that vision.

Re:Misunderstandings about Copyright

[stuccoguy]

How much different is that from our government issuing patents on "one-click" technology?

Shooting their own feet off

[6EQUJ5]

Don't take that as an anti-gun statement, I'm all for all sorts of firearms... But really if these companies are going to put so many limits on the use of their product, then great -- I won't buy it! I have a life, I'm not going to pay to watch entertainment that's little more than advertising and political propaganda. I'll surf the net for porn instead, or go drink at a nice bar, or maaaaaybe even read a book or a journal. Or I'll spend time at the driving range. I like guns.

What's the real motive here?

[reposter]

It seems clear that this whole hullabaloo boils down to stopping people from copying movies. This is in the movie studios' interest. But with the exception of Sony, are there any monitor manufacturers who are in bed with movie producers? If not, why would a manufacturer want to go to all the trouble and added expense?
I think the only answer would be customer demand. So how can the movie studios create this demand? By releasing movies that will ONLY be playable on conforming equipment.

But this is going to be a huge hurdle, much bigger than the introduction of DVDs. With a DVD, at most you have to buy a DVD-ROM drive or a DVD player that now costs under $200. But this new protected videostream is going to require you to buy a new protected DVD player AND a new protected TV. (Or for PC folks, a new video card and a new monitor.) Now you're paying at least $500, probably closer to $1000. That's pretty severe! These movies are going to have to be awfully good to make it worthwhile for anyone who isn't rolling in money.

The eventual disappearance of NTSC broadcasts is going to be tough enough to sell even when "all" most folks have to do is buy a set-top box. But tell everyone that they must replace every TV they own, and I don't think they'll go for it.

Therefore, I think the only way for this to go through in a big way is for the movie studios to get together and buy all the major monitor manufacturers. Good luck, fellas.

These are the same assholes....

[Silver222]

Who promised us HDTV years ago. I still don't have it. And now, I don't want it anyways. Besides the occasional sports event and Simpsons episodes, there isn't much I want to watch anyways.

How long is it going to be before people from NBC come into your house, put you in a straightjacket and clip your eyelids open ala "A Clockwork Orange"? After all, they are paying for the ads, so we damn well better watch them, right? Even if we don't want to?

"I'm sorry sir, you can't take those clips off your eyes...that would violate the terms of the amendments that President Gates tacked onto the DMCA. And no, you can't gouge them out either. Enjoy the next half hour of brainless sitcom we are about to show."

We (the human race) hereby proclaim...

[littlebasicid]

In the course of human events, it becomes neccessary to break the chains which bind us to our tried and true product suppliers. We therefore feel the need to make new stuff which will make us feel smarter, be it useful or not. We will
<BR>1 destroy all rights to our privacy to satisfy our need to this.
<BR>2 Not give a monky's crap whether we really want it or not, if it "breaks barriers".
<BR>
<BR>Let's face it. We've become idiots to make ourslelves feel smart. Think of what is to come!
<BR>1 Advances in your fridge. Pay about $33,399 to know the exact temperature of every item in you fridge, just hook the 'convenient' metal wires into them.
<BR>2 Super Toilet! Every time we flush, it shoots the crap back for a second, only to know we have mastered the 'Return/Feedback' aspect of technology.
<BR>3 Sleeping. Let everyone who wants to see it, see a streaming movie of you sleeping.
<BR>
<BR>It began with the Television.
<BR>It's Come to this.
<BR>Make new stuff with out a real decision.
<BR>We think ourselves to be in bliss.
<BR>
<BR>Will this really happen? Has it already? U B the Judge.

And I won't...

[littlebasicid]

I can't use cable without getting violated.

Hey, cable, your intentions may (or may not) be good. But...

"... <B> and the land, of the <I>FREE</I>, and the home, of the, brave.</B>"
Well, as we've learned from our national anthem, our country is a lie. Home of the free... free what? When they can come along and say, "YOu know what? We're not gonna let you watch your shows, though you subscribed. And payed. And had a guy come and install you. And monitered how much TV you watch. We're just not gonna let you use what you payed for."
So now we have to be the home of the brave. We'll stand up to those companies. Repeat after me:

I will not watch Cable if they say I can't watch what I want.
I will go to the nearest Americast representative and give him a ton of crap, and when he goes what the heck was that for, I will laugh.
I will cash my checks in the small bank in Alaska, as previously stated in another message.
And If I Must Do As Everyone Says, then I will plug myself into a central computer program. I will become a pawn to the Cable Companies. I will become a teeny minion of the Matrix. No joke.

yeah right !

[chop.2.0]

and then they will tell you that you can not cancel your cable service without loosing your internet service. so you will be adding 13 bills to your cost of internet service, for the basic cable you don't want.

been there when I setup directTV. that is how i achieve redundant tv with manual failover.

there's a dick in every direction, the only question is who's your're gonna suck!

--------
the following transmission was brought to you in lowerCamel case, all rights reserved.

Re:As they have a right to do.

[llamas]

I'm not sure that inconvenient is the right word when it comes to commercials. It seems that there's an even chance that viewers are waiting for the commericials so that it will be more convenient to grab a snack, hit the bathroom, throw in some laundry, etc.

It might be more accurate to say that if the viewer does not have something they are waiting to do, they are more likely to watch the commercial if they do not have the means to fast forward through it.

But, how many people wouldn't, or couldn't, watch the show at all if they couldn't time shift it? It seems to me that the increased number of viewers, no matter what percentage fast-forward through the commercials, are worth the broadcaster's while.

--Mike

Re:As they have a right to do.

[llamas]

I should have included the SARCASM tag on that last line...

Re:As they have a right to do.

[llamas]

I think it's more like 80%, due to the mind control satellite feeds. Wear your foil helmet.