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Philips Targets Wireless TV Retransmission At Home

Posted by timothy on from the make-sure-people-can't-use-it dept.

cadfael links to this EE Times story, excerpting: "Philips is attempting to start yet another industry initiative to tackle digital rights management, this time focusing on the wirelessly networked home. 'At stake here,' said Leon Husson, executive vice president of consumer businesses at Philips Semiconductors, 'is the "free-floating" copyrighted content that will soon be "redistributed" or "rebroadcast" to different TV sets throughout a home by consumers using wireless networking technologies like IEEE802.11.'"

4 of 367 comments (clear)

  1. So now philips is a bad guy again? by kilgore_47 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just when we were starting to like them for that whole red-book thing...

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    The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
  2. The Problem with... by iGawyn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem with this digital rights management solution, just like all of the others, is that they cannot force people to upgrade. Although there is a certain segment of the populace that will desire to own the latest and greatest everything multimedia, and therefore trip himself into owning devices embedded with DRM, the average American won't want to spend the extra money to upgrade.

    Therefore, unless you give them a major incentive, the RIAA/MPAA is foiled again. No upgrades means that all of the time they spent plotting up yet another scheme to control what we can and can't watch is ruined by consumer apathy.

    If they really wanted people to upgrade, they would (a) develop a new, proprietary format, (b) stop release of all current and future products on CD/VHS/DVD, (c) release ONLY on aforementioned proprietary format. Eventually, enough people would switch to make it worth their while.

    Even with this, though, people will find a way around the Digital Rights Management schemes, as they also do.

    To use a famous quote, "Where there's a will, there's a way." And when it comes to copying CDs, VHS tapes, or DVDs, there is most certainly a will.

    Gawyn

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    Freedom of Speech?
  3. Re:But should DRM always exist? by lynx_user_abroad · · Score: 5, Insightful
    What's the difference between buying a DVD player and putting it in my living room, or streaming the content to a wireless receiver at my TV??

    That depends. Am I the company that won't get to sell you the additional DVD player, or am I the company that won't get to sell you the wireless receiver?

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    The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.

  4. Why is 802.11 different from the Rabbit? by og_sh0x · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Back in the 80s it was perfectly legal to use the wireless Rabbit (remember those?) to transmit TV signals from the living room to the bedroom. This went for broadcast, rented movies, etc. Heck, you can even legally transmit on the FM 88-108 MHz band as long as it follows FCC Part 15 (no external antenna, and under a certain wattage... 100mw I think). Considering that these allowances were made for home-based Fair Use usage, I would consider this a clear-cut violation of Fair Use rights just like copy protected CDs. If you want to make *public* broadcast over 802.11 illegal... Well it already is. Just like it would have been illegal to use the Rabbit back in the 80s to re-transmit cable for the whole neighborhood.