EFF Comments on HDTV Copy Restriction Plans

Seth Schoen writes: "EFF has been following the work of the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (which was featured in a CNet article linked from slashdot on Thursday) since it was founded in November. Co-incidentally, we today released an EFF overview of this work which contains some of our criticism of these efforts to control the ability of future consumer devices to record digital HDTV broadcasts."

Comments

just great

[crayz]

Already it's tough to get people to spend the extra cash on those HDTV sets. Lets throw in some copy protection too, to make HDTV even more unappealing! Then we can all be stuck with NTSC for the rest of our natural lives.

For Personal Use Only

[stuffman64]

As the article points out, PVR's do not use removable media (hey, now there is a good idea for me to patent... if only I believed in our patent and copyright system and it was how it should be). Therefor, it makes it nearly impossible for me to distribute/lend my copy to someone else (network TiVos are something else). This was the video industry's major gripe against VCRs when they were introduced. All though I would be quite enraged if they prevented me from recording broadcasts on a removable digital media, I would be far more enraged if I could not make digital recordings on a PVR.

Ultimately, IMHO, something like SCMS will be introduced to prevent multiple perfect digital copies originating from one source. However, SCMS was a joke for MiniDisc/DAT-- many units simply ignored the copybits or gave the option to turn them off. If worse came to worse, you can whip up a bit stripper and copy until your heart is content. Hopefully, if we end up getting a SCMS-like system on digital broadcasts, it will be taken as seriously as it was on MD/DAT and/or be very simple to beat...

...Then, of course, we would violate the DMCA and go to jail for months before our arraignment...

Re:For Personal Use Only

[RatFink100]

Meaning that if the movie industry didn't exist, another one would grow up to replace it.

I agree - I'm just not sure whether it would be as large - which is why I wrote 'very little to play' rather than 'nothing'.

I keep coming back to the question of how would people wanting to make movies, music etc make money. People always phrase this in terms of the big corporations - and I understand why, they are the ones pushing for these changes, they are the ones with power, they are the ones responsible for most of the content out there. But do we really believe that the small independent producers have some secret to making money that the Big Bad Studios haven't thought of? So my view is that the small guys will be as vulnerable, or more so, to loss of revenue due to unauthorised copying of their work.

The other mistake, in my view, that people make is that they seem to treat the argument as if the current situation is static. The studios want to introduce a change that will reduce our rights - that much is true. But they do not acknowledge that the amount of unauthorised copying is increasing, or that this represents a real problem for the content producers. What the industry is trying to do is stem a tide, reverse a trend - it's not just about greed and getting more and more from the consumer, it's also about making sure their market doesn't diminish to a fraction of its current size. I see it as an unwelcome - but predictable and even understandable response.

Of course many people say that there's no point trying to restrict copying at all, that it flies in the face of the technology and that that particular genie is out of the bottle and won't go back. They argue that content producers should acknowledge this and simply find a revenue model that doesn't rely on copyright. Well the only one I can think of is the live concert/theatrical showing model - which would mean very significantly reduced revenues and possibly no official content at all. I can easily forsee a future where you can make a little money showing a movie in theatres but never bother producing a DVD because there's too small a market for it.

Which pretty much brings us back to our point of agreement (though you may not agree with my logic of getting there) - which is that if effective copyright protection doesn't exist then there movie and music industries will exist but be much more modest than there are now. You're not bothered by this because you say you wouldn't miss 'mega-budget trashy action movies'. Well you may not miss 'Armageddon' or 'Lord of the Rings' but frankly I would. They may or may not be great Art but they are entertaining.

Personally I see this as a great dilemma/turning point for digital media in our age. I'd like to hope that there is someone out there clever enough to be able to come up with a way to make money without attacking personal freedoms - but I'm afraid I'm pessimistic about it.