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MPAA Wants Copy-Controlled PCs
phil reed writes: "According to our favorite media mogul, Jack Valenti (as stated in this letter in the Washington Post, all PCs need to have strong copy protection built in. 'Computer and video-device companies need to sit at the table with the movie industry. Together, in good-faith talks, they must agree on the ingredients for creating strong protection for copyrighted films and then swiftly implement that agreement to make it an Internet reality.' Way to go, guy."
come on kernel hackers, you heard the MPAA, i refuse to run linux anymore until the 2.4 tree includes strong copy protection
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Didn't they already try this with HD manuf's and it failed due to backlash?
They'll want in to not allow non win32 kernels on a PC, since anything not licensed by them must be illegal.
I'm sure i'm not the only one who realizes it won't work without legislation. What incentive could companies posisbly have to add this to their products? ("Hey, let's screw over our customers and take it up the a** for the MPAA by adding expensive copy controls and limiting their use!") All it takes is one hardware manufacturer to tell the MPAA to go f*ck itself, and this whole thing falls apart. They might get pre-built companies like dell, gateway, sony (Since part of it is in the MPAA board), but.. what about build your own?
Are the people at the MPAA really so stupid as to think that they can actually allow us to listen/watch stuff, but not copy it? It has to get decrypted somewhere..
Dear Editor;
w ar e/article/0,,5921_900241,00.html
I'm entertained by Jack Valenti's assertion in his Feb 25th letter that
"According to the Boston-based consulting firm Viant, some 350,000-plus films
are being downloaded illegally every day."
If this is actually the case, then 350 000 * 6 Gbytes per movie (compressed
DivX at about 400x300 pixels) = 2 100 000 000 000 000 bytes per day.
That is 16 800 000 000 000 000 bits per day (8 bits per byte) or 16 800 Terra bits per day.
According to CyberAtlas (please see link below) the entire bandwidth of the
US internet is only 20 000 Terra bits per day.
So Mr. Valenti is using figures to advance his argument which imply that
(world) 'netizens downloading pirate movies would utilize 84% of *all* US
internet bandwidth. There must be a very 'fat pipe' to River-City.
Yours,
Bobzibub
http://cyberatlas.internet.com/big_picture/hard
The problem with this idea is that there is no incentive for PC makers to put in copy protection for movies. Unless it helps PC makers earn money, they won't bother. Margins are too thin as it is.
Not everyone cares about the movie/audio industry and they need to figure that out.
Does anyone see this happening anytime soon?
Half the reason they sell some many computers (whether they admit it or not) is so people can listen to music and watch videos and such.. Getting involved with the mpaa at this kind of scale would probably just drag the pc market further into repression making it even harder for college graduates to get jobs.
Shouldn't the Movie and Record industries have been attacking the dual cassette decks, recording capabilities of VCR's, CD-R's, and Dvd-R's a long time ago?
T
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
What video/computer company would do this if they didn't have to? Other than games, multimedia is probably the top use for higher-end home PCs.
"More organs means more human." - Zim
He wants to sit down with everyone who develops Linux, FreeBSD and other open source PC products for some good faith talks? That's one big table.
If you try to make it a hardware device, I won't buy it, or people that buy preassembled PCs will pay a geek to remove it.
If you make it software, I won't install it. If you build it into Windows, that's OK, I'll just boot into Linux. Want to include it in Linux? Fine, I have the source code and the knowledge to remove it.
"Da ist ein Technölüst in mein Unterpanten!"
Jack, you should know that some companies in the computer industry make more than the entire membership of the MPAA combined. You won't have much luck twisting their arm...
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I was just having a discussion w/someone last night about how unfree we are.
who the fuck are they to control PC's? If a vendor wants to force copy protection it is up to them. Tough fucking shit if we decide to boycott, destroy, crack, etc.
I am sorry but I would rather suckass w/the latest technology of today than suffer through copy-protected PCs of the future.
Fuck you MPAA.
May I be the first to write: "Jack Valenti, go fuck yourself."
Videocassette piracy costs the movie industry worldwide more than $3.5 billion,... Comments like this always annoy me. How the hell do they know? Firstly, how do they count the number of pirated copies, and secondly, how do they know how many of those pirated copies would actually be legal copies if the pirated copy wasn't available?
Asking PC makers to copy-control PC storage is like asking paper-makers to copy-control their paper.
how would they actually manage this ? are they going to remove the "copy" function in the OS'es ?
Maybe they will go around and manually disconnect and destroy peoples ethernet cards and modems so that they cant copy files over the internet.
Any copy protection thought up by them would eventually end up cracked anyway, and then they are right back to square one.
I'm anispeptic, frasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulation.
"[W]hen social policy is created in smoke-filled back rooms, between movie/record company executives and computer company executives [..] [i]s it unexpected that such back-room policies end up favoring the parties who were in the room, at the expense of consumers and the public?" - John Gilmore.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Hang on to those old PCs folks. Sooner than you think might be illegal to use them under the DCMA.
They'll pry my TI99/4A from my cold, dead fingers.
This is nuts to ask the american public to pay for a computer that is controlled by the MPAA. Its disgusting how far people will go to stop the few who do actually pirate. Aside from that, who actually pirates? Aside from the people who cant really afford the movies in the first place. Most of what is going on there is done by college students and younger. Personally I am a college student but if I like a movie I would much rather have it in DVD format than divx. I think this is much more of a controle scheme then anything else.
my 2 cents
12ft of rope, 4 bottles of vodka, 2 midgets, 3 cheerleaders, 1 crazy weekend
Of course Jack Valenti wants this. This is the same guy who once said "The VCR is to the Movie Industry what the Boston Strangler is to the woman alone". He's not exactly a visionary.
The question the semi-intelligent people who listen to Jack have to solve now is this: how can we force consumers to buy something they don't want?
The proven formula for this is legislation. Government mandated airbags have killed more children than school shootings - and more importantly, they've created a precedent for how a corporation can incorporate non-features into consumer products.
Do you think consumers really wanted to buy DVD players with region coding and Macrovision? Was that a feature? The total ownership of the DVD standard presents a second way to force unwanted hardware down the customer's throats: patent a standard, license keys, and use the DMCA to enforce the keyring.
The infamous SSSCA is their attempt at bring approach #1, and they may also (in parallel) try approach #2. If there's any word I can use to describe the actions of the Movie Industry right now, it's "desperate". They know that the precedents set right now will last for hundreds of years, and they are fighting for what they believe is their very survival.
The question is, will consumers keep buying Dell and ignore the EFF? And if so, what's the most effective way to raise awareness...
Loneliness is a power that we possess to give or take away forever
Who the hell do they think they are, telling us what we need to do? They can just blow all of us...
They ought to feel lucky to have access to our users. That's what the media business is all about- delivering an audience to advertisers. Apparently, these arrogant clowns have forgotten where their bread is buttered.
Talk about taking away your basic rights as a human. It's like the government saying, "We can't trust the common person to not commit murder. Therefore, we must place everyone in prison. That is the only way to protect the innocent."
How does that make sense?
It is basically takign away everyone's right to make moral decisions about how to conduct their lives. You can't tell me that doesn't violate the constitution/bill of rights somehow.
"It's comin' back around again..." -RATM
Bootlegging of Music With Napster Hurts Free Software
I believe in the phrase, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely". If this insane idea ever gets close to fruition, then he will be one step closer to having that. Copy protection built into PCs and PC like devices will only serve to alienate an already tech weary population. Not to mention Jack's idea of what the people think about 'the net' is a statistical fantasy. From the article: " A recent survey revealed that 68 percent of all home computer users say they're satisfied with their normal 56K computer modem." Does that count the 50% that can't get broadband?!? If broadband were available to everyone, it goes without saying that 90% of people would have it. Just like most people want the faster car or bigger boat.
Even if it is technically feasible to implement a copy protection scheme on PCs it would next to impposible to ensure they were working and enforced (unless we revert to a police state). Then he claims that this will "benefit consumers by giving them another choice for movie viewing." Hello? Did I miss something. How will removing the ability to make legal copies with my PC give me more choices? Get a clue Jack.
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
considering that big manufacturers were ready to implement the new ATA specs for copy-protection, umm .. last year?
If this happens, I will gladly violate the law. Period.
sulli
RTFJ.
They lost.
science is a religion
Anyway, Valenti seems to be saying that copy-protection needs to be built into the hardware. I think it's fairly safe to say that if such a thing were to happen, we'd all need umbrellas to protect ourselves from falling pig droppings. Number one, you'd have to have legislation to do it, and such legislation wouldn't be very popular. Number two, can you imagine the outcry from the public? And number three, the technical details for implementing such a scheme are not trivial. I may be a hopeless optimist, but I really don't see this happening any time soon.
I've never owned a gun before, but if anyone fucks with my freedom or free use of my computer all in the name of an obsolete distribution industry like the MPAA and RIAA... then I'll go to their house and mess them up.
You can't legislate human technological advancement. Recognize this.
pi=sigma{n:0-infinity}[(1/16)^n][(4/(8n+1))-(2/(8n +4))-(1/ (8n+5))-(1/(8n+6))]
Eat me.
Love,
Brant
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
Two words here for the MPAA gestapo.
F*ck and You.
Backwards or forwards, it doesn't matter.
So, let's see... the MPAA wants to bug your computer to make sure you don't copy movies,
the RIAA wants to bug your computer to make sure you don't copy sound recordings, Microsoft wants to bug your computer to make sure you're not running copies of their software (and that you've paid your license fees for this week), and the FBI wants to bug your computer to make sure you're not threatening national security or communicating with terrorists. (And the ISPs want to tell you exactly how you can communicate with others)
If all of these organizations have their way, there won't be any general-purpose programmable computers anymore - just appliances that can do what Microsoft/MPAA/RIAA and the government think you can be trusted to do without taking away some potential money or power from them.
"MPAA wants a pony for Christmas"
Some things just ain't gonna happen.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
and anyone with a shred of sense can see it. Hopefully someone will actually read the post before moderating it in future or in meta-moderation.
When are the RIAA and MPAA going to get it into their skulls that they are not the main source of artistic creativity in the world?
I always hear these protectionist arguments along the lines of, "well, if you don't protect the RIAA/MPAA, society will decay because there won't be any music or art." Hogwash. These organizations didn't even exist a hundred and fifty years ago, and somehow we still had art and music. In fact, I seem to recall art and music going back to the dawn of human history? What, are they going to give out licenses to take piano lessons next? That'll be the day.
Jack Valenti is just a middleman, he has no talent on his own. I doubt he even knows that people build their own computers. What, is he going to lobby for that to be illegal next? I wouldn't doubt it. How schizophrenic can society get, people hating Microsoft, but being all right with the crap these control freak organizations put out? It really scares me most times I think of it.
</rant mode>
---Windows 2000/XP stable? safe? secure? 5 lines of simple C code say otherwise!
dinosaur: LICKALOTAPUS
'Trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet. The sooner people accept this, and build business models that take this into account, the sooner people will start making money again.' -- Bruce Schneier
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
MPAA doesnt want copy protection they want copy controll
ie they control your music and your life..well I not that god damn stupid and neither is the rest of the buying public..
Ask them how much the origninal copyright holder gets per work on cd per price..and they cannot answer..because they dont want the truth known..
I am sticking by the original terms of use of copyright..if they dont like that they can tsitkc where the sun dont shine!
Don't Tread on OpenSource
Guns that won't shoot innocent people,
Microphones that won't record copyrighted soundwaves,
Pencils that won't write copyrighted strings,
Speakers that won't vibrate to reproduce copyrighted current patterns,
Film that won't change when exposed to copyrighted rays of light,
Oh yeah, and brains that won't remember copyrighted material of any sort.
snow
Crystal Meth: Would you ingest somthing made from a poisonous gas and an explosive metal? You do it every day -- Salt!
Oh great...then what happens when EMachines goes bankrupt and sells the source code on Ebay for $12?
------
Today's Top Deals
With broadband in the sorry state is in today, there's no need for copy protection. How many VIDEOS do you see on gnutella and the like? The bandwidth just isn't there! As far as making physical copies: If i want to take a DVD that I BOUGHT, and make a backup of it, i should be able to. It's called FAIR USE. Oh, wait. Sorry, i forgot that ever since congress passed the DMCA, the concept of fair use has not just been further marginalized, but rather completely destroyed.
I think what a lot of people don't understand is that when you allow any copyrights at all, you set up a system and situations that inevitably lead to the endless extensions, the DMCA, copy controls on every PC, and eventually the removal of the freedom of speech all together. Sadly, too many people think that idea solution is some type of compromise or reduction, it is not - that will only eventually lead us back to where we are today. It is only when we are willing to fight copyrights altogether with defiance and civil disobedience and make a stand that wee will cut the vine off at the root. I wish people would understand this.
SlashdotGeek cmdrTaco = new SlashdotGeek;
cmdrTaco.blow("JonKatz");
if (cmdrTaco.knowsHowToSpel())
hell.freezeOver
else
cmdrTaco.continueToSuX0r()
"The growing and dangerous intrusion of this new technology" threatened the entire industry's "economic vitality and future security," and further, that the new technology "is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman alone."
Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, on the Threat of VCRs to Hollywood, 1982
-- And when Justice is gone, there is always... Force. --Laurie Anderson, "Oh Superman"
"This is what gives movie producers so many Maalox moments."
You'd think someone so hip to trademark and copyright wouldn't blurt out another companies slogan that's been around as long as I can remember.
I have decided that I want Kraft Macaroni & Cheese to be even cheesier...
Shit pretty soon Analog recording will be on the MPAA list of CIRCUMVENTION devices. If its not digital they cannot control it, even if it is digital protecting is questionable.
:)
I say we all tape our favorite films to 16mm kodachrome and tell the MPAA to go fuck themselves, I miss the days of that click click and splicing my own films
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
Awesome, i cant wait til they do that.
A new feature that i will have to pay more money for just to insure them that i am already paying more.
Hey guys we might as well cough up my money now and help these poor guys research this.
AFAIC, Jack Valenti is Public Enemy #1. He is the sterotypical grey-haired old man, trying to hold on to his power and empire in fits and spurts before he dies.
I hate this man.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Wait!
The DVD players are "licensed" already. That did not stop this?
The DVDs are already encrypted (if they wish to be protected) and that didn't stop this?
There are already laws "preventing" "illegal" copying and that didn't stop this?
What the hell is up with Jackie V? His only solutions are to make things more complicated and more expensive!
Here is a clue: prosecute movie pirates instead of magazines owners and DeCSS programmers!!! Get the cops to arrest people selling pirated movies RIGHT IN FRONT OF MPAA HEADQUARTERS for starters!
Ingenious!
Yes, I do expect a royalty if the above idea is actually ever used.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
It seems impossible to me. Maybe they can trick the unsuspecting punter, but not me.
Let me get this straight... he wants hardware that will detect all possible programs that will copy digital media...
So, from a theoretical computer science point of view, he wants a Turing machine that will recognize all Turing machines that compute a fixed function f. That sounds remarkably like a problem that is equivalent (by reduction) to the halting problem for Turing machines... Oh, did we mention that the halting problem is unsolvable??
But hey, if *Mr. Valenti* says so, it *must* be possible. After all, everyone knows that you can simply legislate away fundamental laws of mathematics...
Whats next? Valenti proposing that we set Pi equal to 3.0 to simplify calculations?
Nice letter. Now, go away. Let me talk directly to Mr. Spielberg, please.
Thank you.
Kindest regards,
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
That editorial written by Valenti was placed because Congress will be holding a hearing on content protection and broadband on Thursday morning. Even the Washington Post's editoral page can be hijacked by the MPAA's powerful lobbyists... The legislation to be considered will probably be Hollings' SSSCA.
SSSCA Working Draft. (via Cryptome)
woohoo captain no shit to the rescue.
Duh, thanks for stating the obvious.
>>computers and video devices must be prepared to react to instructions embedded in the film....
>>The movie industry is, however, consulting with the finest brains in the digital world to try to find the answer.
Well Pinky, by secretly embedding messages in innocent looking downloadable movies we're going to take over the world!
What Mr. Valenti is pointing to is not some sort of hardware or firmware change, but rather addidional IP controls in the OS. Windows, of course. Would Microsoft be willing to give its customers the old IP shaft in order to have the MPAA's support in it's time of trouble? Heck yeah.
These guys still don't get it. Now they want other industries to bend over backwards to suit their interests? I think it's clear these guys have way too much money already. Hey, Jack, you want to recoup your investments? Then how about not paying a star upwards of 20 millions for a single movie? I mean, I know they have talent and all, but that's just plain decadent. Nobody should be making that much money anyway.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: the music and movie industry need to rethink their business model: give away the media, make money of the showing (movie theatres, live venues) and merchadising (i.e. artifacts you want to own, because they are nice objects to have). Musicians should also consider the "shareware" business model. They could offer some free songs, saying: if you really like this song, send us a buck directly (not to any record exec).
So, some useless millionnaires and industry leeches (hi, Mr. Valenti) will lose their livelihoods...really, who gives a rat's ass?
Reminder: find a new sig
from the article "Because making movies is so expensive, only two in 10 films ever retrieve their production and marketing investment from domestic theatrical exhibition."
That is not true, check out Studio Accounting Practices in Hollywood By Joseph F. Hart, Esq. and Philip J. Hacker, C.P.A. if you want to see how they do their accounting.
It seems like many more than 20% are making money, they just use "funny" accounting, ala enron.
Do the Ricco act enforcers (our 'give'rnment at work,) have a clue about what these guys are planning?
You'll be shelling out money to the RIAA and the MPAA (who actually produce no music, no movies no creative thing what-so-ever,) with every CD-R, CD-RW or DVD-R, DVD-RW drive you buy, with every blank platter that's sold.
They'll even buy the screwing up of the OS (give Bill Gates a billion bucks and you'll see just how much he cares about Windows, [that's why they hate Linux, no discernable income stream,]) so that Joe Average can't back up anything.
Greed by people who already have too much money and nothing to do but screw you ouf of more is messing with the ISPs, the hardware and the software until nothing new can be produced and when we all have to shell out by the second for re(re-re-re)runs of Gilligan's Island. That's when the --AA's'll be happy.
Of course, that's totally bogus. Any cracker worth his salt can do bit perfect copies and sell the product, FBI warning and all.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Because making movies is so expensive, only two in 10 films ever retrieve their production and marketing investment from domestic theatrical exhibition. Distributors have to use other venues -- delivery systems such as cable, satellite, TV stations, videocassettes, DVDs, international markets.
This is a very interesting and relevant claim, if correct. Since theater going is still considered an activity in mainstream society, it really hasn't been threatened by anything offered in the home since people still want to get "out of the house". But this may be the only venue that pirate video doesn't threaten, even the foreign markets could be affected if people decide they don't want to wait a year for a theater release in their home country.
I disagree strongly with Mr. Valenti's proposal, as I do with any proposal that places such a burden on the consumers. At the same time I don't want to see the death of those big budget Hollywood blockbuster extravaganzas, cut down because piracy has made them less profitable. There is probably an equitable way out of this potential mess, I have a feeling that the studios will only find it if their hand is forced.
He qoutes figures and throws around the number billions all day long...
The reality is much of content has become a facility of the service. HBO makes really cool shows so people subscribe to HBO. AOL bought time-warner so the content would attract people to the service with exclusive content deals. And Jack Valenti says PCs need to be copy=protected. He needs this because HOLLYWOOD HAS RUN OUT OF IDEAS AND IS COPYING ITSELF AND THEY WANT EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS ON DOING THIS!
I hate the MPAA and the RIAA and all the other middlemen with no talent taking advantage of IP laws for their own benefit.
Yes movies will be sent at the speed of light all over the globe, but if the industry would advance and come up with new ideas and disseminate these ideas, that would be a great thing! Think of the good this could do for the world... oh sorry, I meant that all creativity should fatten Jack's pocket and all the people's pocket's who think his shit is cholocate.
This is just a rant, mod me to the basement.
The MPAA wants more then just copy-controlled PCs. They want to control the way movies are distributed on the net. While I do understand why they are concerned about folks downloading movies without paying. I do have a gripe against Valenti, or whatever his name is. He claims that he wants to stop copyright infringement or piracy but controlling someone's PC is not the way to go. What I do with my PC and what I want to put on my PC is none of Valenti's or anyone elses business. What I want on my PC shouldn't be of concern to Valenti or Rosen(RIAA).
They(MPAA) say they are for innovation, but I haven't seen ANY type of effort to do ANY type of innovation that would change the net. The innovation is being done underground because the MPAA and RIAA want to be control freaks. They say they represent the consumer or the artists, I don't think they represent niether. What they represent is pocket books and wallets!
...consipracy at 11.
The MPAA is quickly approaching the paranoid conspiracy crowd with their anti-piracy ideas. So are they going to make these boxes, get hardware companies to make them, or buy another law from congress. Probably #3, as he mentions Congress in his closing. Does anyone believe the piracy numbers people throw out anymore? Between movies, music (RIAA), and software (MS, BSA) they must be losing like $300 gazillion per year!
I don't like piracy, and I've never downloaded anything I didn't own, so these increasingly crazy schemes they whip up really piss me off. This is why I stopped buying music back around 1995 (well then it was because all the music sucked) and haven't bought any MS software since Office 97. Can't quite get over my movie watching hobbie, and I can live with DVD region encoding, though I will probably mod my next player (can't mod my current one).
Maybe we should dress up like aliens and spook Valenti by scaring him and then leaving ripped movies on his porch.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
I am sorry but this tickes me off.
Guns and Tabbaco kills thousands of people a year.
I do not care how many copies of the Matrix are copied a year! No on dies! To para phrase Wierd Al, "Maybe they will only beabile to buy the Large Limo and not the extra Large!".
What the heck guns don't kill people. MP3s do.
They assume you WILL copy, therefore they want to charge a surtax on blank media, burning devices.
As someone else has pointed out before, isn't it wrong to allow it, tax it, then outlaw it?
Therefore, wouldn't the RIAA actually be on the copiers side? Umm fair use?
Unless I misunderstood the last great copy debate...
(somebody have the link?)
This mind intentionally left blank.
The KKK a bunch of sheetheads? You decide!
MPAA, not RIAA
-Dave
I build my own PC's. I'll probably be OK. Worst case, you hack the hardware and disable. He hasn't a clue.
It seems that Mr. Valenti is suffering from the same myopic view of the market place that plagued the movie industry when then VCR was first introduced ["Movies Get Framed", op-ed Feb 25, 2002]. After the VCR was introduced the industry felt threatened and tried to bludgeon the manufacturers through the courts. The Supreme Court held that the VCR was a Fair Use device that the public should be able to use. Did this result in piracy, yes, but it also spawned a whole new industry to deliver movies to the public at reasonable prices. Why do people pay for movies when they could just "pirate" them off the Internet? The average consumer is more interested in obtaining the movie in a legitimate, convenient, and cost effective manner. You will never be able to completely prevent piracy. There will always be some enterprising geek that has too much time on his hands that will try to break the electronic locks that you use, witness DeCSS. But if you provide a reasonable mechanism for the general consumer to conveniently obtain your product legally they will. Stop punishing us and move forward with a simple to use movie on demand system.
Thanks for your time and consideration,
...address/phone # deleted...
Sean McAdam
It was somewhat off the cuff, so it probably will not get published in the paper. But It made me feel better...
~Sean
I guess people will just start reusing old parts in that case... Perheaps the environmentalists should be told about this :] But actually, I think that for the hardware-companies, implementing such a thing is suicide... And if all of them agree to do this, they'l get sued for cartell-creation!
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
State-of-the-art broadband? To what is he referring? Ethernet? T1/T3?
Or some other technology that's 15+ years older than 56K modems?
dinner: it's what's for beer
What they probably really want is more money, just like they already get a tax on blank media. Maybe a tax on Internet bandwidth, going to the movie industry, or a tax on PCs.
It would be more like "Let's buy them out and then building this stuff into PCs will be in our own best interests. Oh, and we would get to fire Jack too."
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Computers, by there nature, are reprogrammable, and designed as such. A VCR or DVD is not.
As soon as copy protection schemes are placed into a computer, somebody will find a way around them.
Which means they will spend more and more money trying to develop copy protection schemes, and pass the costs on to the legitimate users.
The legitimate users will turn to piracy, more out of spite then anything else.
The Internet is generally stupid
" The writer is chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association."
Does this mean he IS DIRECTLY affiliated with the MPAA? While they undoubtedly think along the same lines this doesn't necessarily mean they are the same nor have the same strategies to get to their goals. Who knows their article may interfere with some horrible master plan the MPAA has in store for us and they are screaming in agony as we speak contemplating a quick and plainless death rather than face the information anarchy that will surly follow!!!
Well we can always hope:)
I stole this Sig
The game console industry still attempts to do this, and yet, pretty much every console was hacked to allow copying of the games...
What makes them think that a non-proprietary system, with components from thousands upon thousands of vendors, let alone millions of software developers familiar with the system, can be stopped by this method? How about they save their money and lower the prices, or raise the artist's cut instead?
Is it just me, or did the media industry suddenly find itself with a lot of time on its hands? Is this a reprecussion of the great dot com burst? Too many executives running around justifying their existence, maybe?
I sig, therefore I am.
And DeCSS not DMCA
I will bend your mind with my spoon
mebbe this is right then?
350 000 movies x 650 000 000 bytes/movie = 227 500 000 000 000 bytes/day.
1820 000 000 000 000 bits per day.
1820 TB/day world downloads.
1820/20 000 = equivalent of 9.1 percent of all US traffic.
And I thought I was on a role too...
I dont want to care how you make money. Just make movies!
Have you ever watched a DiVX movie? DVD Quality DiVX rips are at 700 mb. I have dsl, those rips are hard to find.
Id much rather get a dvd. I like DVDs. I like going to a movie theater to watch movies. Have you ever watched a cam version of a movie? It's terrible!
Im a college student and a computer programmer. I have a fast broadband connection..
Does that make me a criminal?
Will it make me a criminal if i study encryption and use it to break copy protection?
Someone who had their house broken into with a sears craftsman wrench (used to smash glass) wouldn't sue sears for making the wrench.
Dont sue programmers for breaking weak encryption codes. You will only give yourself more bad press, and spur more people to break your codes.
While your'e at it, if you make you copy protection too strong, you lose functionality.
I dont know how you will implement copy protection.
Good luck trying to get consumers to buy a thing.
Consumers wont buy something feebled (DIVX DVD's) if other alternatives are available.
US History jack...the stamp act.
The british govt taxed stamps. The publishers and journalists had their rights impeded. They got out the word that it was time for a revolution.
Boom! New country.
Friendly Warning--- You stick to making movies. I will stick to making computer programs.
My computer is my property. DVDs that i buy i can do whatever i want with. Just be THANKFUL that i bought a dvd. I could be reading a book instead.
Just give us what we want and you will get paid.
We want creativity, not lawsuits. I want to be entertained by quality movies. I dont want controversy.
Why doesn't this guy stop wasting his time and money trying to stop the impossible. If instead these companies would focus on creating a high-quality, easy to use method of delivering good movies for a small fee (much like direct TV), he could be taking in 350,000+ a day instead of shooting himself in the foot.
Stupid sig of the week: Perl Hackers DIIMTOW
It is fairly easy to determine how much they have made from sales of CDs, DVDs, Software, etc. All they have to do is determine how much was spent on the production of the item, how much of them were sold, and then maybe compare to how much they made last year.
Yet with determining how much they lose to pirates is very very difficult and you have to beleive that the numbers they throw are just complete bullshit.
The MPAA, RIAA, BSA... can't really do that because do they check how many people have gotten a copy of Microsoft Windows XP, the new Matthew Good Band CD, the Harry Potter movie, or the Clerks DVD from IRC, P2P, friends, stores, etc? No, because they can't.
I'll admit I have a fair number of MP3s on hand and that do over-use my Windows 98 license (only on two machines which belong to my parents, I am a Linux user), yet can these companies and organisations, in reality, determine the losses they suffer? No.
He manages to say in the same breath that while consumers are evil, we'll go ahead and latch on to the idea that less functionality is good, and moreso, that customers will eat the cost for such a machine. Oh how soon we forget the trials and tribulations that IBM went through merely trying to get a CPRM hard drive to market, and how they eventually backed down, i'm curious how Mr. valenti proposes an entire system would be willing to go the distance just to placate the film industry.
Here's a likely scenario: The MPAA has these supersecret talks with the major computer manufactuers (HP, Dell, IBM, Toshiba, Sony, etc.) and they hash out a preliminary. Word gets out to the rest of the copyright community -- Record labels, content producers -- hell even artists wanting to perfect a way for their pictures to be copy-proof on the websites -- and soon, the manufactuers are tweaking and tuning, and reconfiguring and modifying their parts in such a way that the box is nary more than a glorified television, streaming the content of -their- choice, at their discretion.
If such a system comes to be, I"ll become a luddite.
Witty quotes suck.
Interesting. It's nonsense that producers wouldn't want to be online...yet they're not online? Explain that one to me...oh yes, because we don't legislation forcing all computer and manufacturers to the whim of Jack Valenti. Your arguument is spurious. You fail to address the fact that movie companies are keeping their movies offline. Guilty as charged.
As time moves forward, information will be replicated into infinity. Deal with it.
Poppycock. I'm sure your "we're losing 3.5 billion dollars to VHS piracy!!!" rests on the SPA assumption that everytime sone one pirates, they would have paid for it. As far as digital copies remaining the same, apparently no one has told Jack that DIVX is a far, far, far cry from MPEG2 DVD (they only way I copy & store my DVDs).
Boo hoo hoo, it's all Congress and the PC industry fault! Nothing to see here, move along. Can't blame the movie industry, nope. Not their fault movies aren't online. Uh-huh. Sure.
Silly strar-man arguement. I'm sure that when scientists claim the movie industry is holding back inovation, they were ONLY talking about cracking codes. Perhaps they were talking about the movie industries harrassing of competing P2P, distribution, pay-per-view, compression and related "digital movie" technologies, all of which Jack and co have no interest in because they can't controll it 100%. And they'll sue you over it too. Jerk.
Since when is restricting fair-use, first-sale doctrine and free-speech "consumer friendly." I think you meant "consumer limiting." The rest of this paragraph is you and your pipe dream.
What's on USENET TV these days?
That's not what I meant.
Dear Mr. Valenti: Fuck you, I've got the Second Amendment on my side.
The MPAA and RIAA need to realize that people will legally purchase their products if the consumer feels they are getting a good value. All of the money they waste on trying to develop and implement copy-protection schemes, and lobbying for legislation could go towards reducing prices. There will never be a copy protection that can't be broken.
I download a lot of movies and it really is not convenient. You need a high-speed connection, then you need to find the movie you want. Then, if you're using IRC or P2P, you need to get in a que. It usually takes me a few days to finally get the movie I want. If the DVD was $12, and the CD $10 it would not be worth the trouble of downloading.
Because making movies is so expensive, only two in 10 films ever retrieve their production and marketing investment from domestic theatrical exhibition
If only 20% of your movies are making money, I'd say you have bigger problems than little Johnny downloading your movie.
Try limiting your expenses next time. That's how the rest of the world works.
Jack, fuck off..
I'll let you specify standards for my PC when I get to specify minimum nipple counts for your movies
What would Lemmy do?
Somebody get Mr. Valenti a copy of Godel, Escher, Bach -- STAT!!!
The movie industry needs to set an example and be the first to use Copy Controlled PCs.
Then see if they can get any work done.
I find it interesting that the movie industry is the first to cry for strong copy protection, yet they depend on public domain works (like almost every big Disney movie) and "free" software (like Linux and BSD).
Personally I find Valenti a repulsive little gnome, but I don't think he understands just what would happen to his industry if he tightened down copyrights to the point that he seems to want. There would be nothing left to steal.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
'Computer and video-device companies need to sit at the table with the movie industry. Together, in good-faith talks, they must agree on the ingredients for creating strong protection for copyrighted films and then swiftly implement that agreement to make it an Internet reality.'
This means do it the movie indutries way or else!
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
The MPAA (not RIAA, though they might have been involved, they weren't the main litigiant) sued 2600.com for linking to the DeCSS source code (not DMCA). If you're going to make a political point make sure you blame the right party for the right issue.
Valenti is the only man fool enough to stand up in front of the world and spit out the mindless blather that the entertainment industry wants espoused to the world.
He's like Hollywood's media puppet. (Muppet?) No - better yet, he's the entertainment industry's Charlton Heston. At least Charlie was good-looking once.
Valenti would announce that DVDs grew on trees if the studios asked him to. What a bonehead.
Are the people at the MPAA really so stupid as to think that they can actually allow us to listen/watch stuff, but not copy it? It has to get decrypted somewhere.
They aren't thinking that they can prevent ALL copying. They just want to prevent the mass-distribution of perfect digital copies. They don't care about the equivalent of a cam-corder bootleg of a movie being passed around. They could get legislation passed requiring that hardware makers build copy protection into their equipment. Then all decryption would be done in hardware. They could be quite clever about it I'm sure. Of course there is always the possibility of someone screwing up again and some Norwegian kid getting ahold of a key, but they have probably learned that stricter controls are necessary to prevent such things. It could be downright ugly if they manage it. It could also be their downfall if they piss too many people off. But I don't see that happening. The sheeple will take what they're given and stfu, I'm sure.
(1) that broadband access to the Internet will never gain consumer acceptance without movies legitimately being made available on the Net and (2) that producers deliberately are holding back the exhibition of movies on the Net because of -- in the words of Lawrence Lessig ["Who's Holding Back Broadband," op-ed, Jan. 8] -- "the threat the Net presents to their relatively comfortable way of doing business." Add to this (3) the accusation that copyright owners are stifling innovation in the digital world.
Ok in reponse to number 1, Broadband access is going up with or without movies online. I personaly would rather watch movies in a theater (for the expirence) rather than pay to download 6 gigs that I can only watch 1 time.
# 2 Movies will get to the net one way or another. If movie producers want to make $ off of the movies on the net they had better start watching the music industry to see where that goes and start trying to develop there own model that will work. People will not pay to DL 6 gig's only to watch once when we can now DL it and watch it for free as many times as we like.
My reply to #3 is Well DUA! Copyright Patended or not it dosent matter. Movies are already on the net. You guys are losing cuz you are snoozing so to speak. MS has your "secure digital format" and people already dont like it.
Movies are already on the net and the Movie industry had best deal with it or stop complaing about it. They are more money now than before but that is there own fault for trying to fight the change. Some movie producers are using the net to release special Internet only trailers. They realize most people even if they do pirate the movie and it is good will see it in theaters and or buy it on DVD for the extra features. Kevin Smith has done this with Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
end rant
Vote early. Vote often. Vote CowboyNeal.
I won't buy a PC with copy restriction 'features'. Hear that, industry? I refuse to support freedoms being taken away. This world will be a sad, sad place if content is so tightly controlled.
.AVI. Then I'd have it in the background as I'm manipulating a character I created to get a feel for how Mr. Chan moves. In other words, I have educational reasons for wanting to use a DVD rip.
I am a 3D Artist. Most of the learning I did was at home. I started with replicating scenes from Star Trek. Now let me explain something about myself, I'm not a foley artist, nor am I a musician. So I had to find some sound effects to accompany my animations, along with a sound track. This means I had to go purchase both a soundtrack from one of the ST movies, and an ST game with sound files in the appropriate format. (in otherwords, they were paid.) If the Music Industry or the MPAA decided to target me, they could still harass me with the DMCA. The only thing protecting me is the huge PR issue that'd ensue.
Today I'm moving into Character Animation. But in order to solidify my skills, I need reference footage. One of the ideas I had was to rip a Jackie Chan DVD and convert clips of it into an
When I finally assemble a demo reel to get a job with, I'm likely going to add a song for the sound track. Now I respect the artists out there making music, but I'm not paying a license fee for a limited use Demo Reel intended to get me a job. Just as I wouldn't expect them to pay me if they used their music with my artwork to get a record deal.
If I were to purchase a 'Copy Restricted PC', then the hardware would fight with me over the content I'm trying to use. This is *not* good. This would be a serious blow in my ability to learn how to work for the same industry that's responsible for that 'feature' going in. I have a feeling that if this idiot has his way, one of the casualties would be the talent pool that suddenly has nothing to start with. How about guys that do remixes of songs we listen to today? I've heard some incredible remixes out there. I really think there are people who have done some of these remixes who really should get hired by a music company somewhere, becuase man they are talented.
They didn't make the song, somebody else did, but they spun it in a new way that's really cool. I didn't like that song 'Torn' by Natalie Imbruglia (sp?), but I stumbled across a remix of it that really made me enjoy it. Whoever did that mix is seriously an awesomely talented person. If they were prevented from using that song, then what would they sharpen their skills on? You can't go learn how to remix in college. You can't learn how to be a talented effects animator for a movie studio from college.
So if you take my fair use rights away just because you think you're losing money to piracy, then you're also drying up your talent pool and you'll have a drought on content.
I wonder if they're expecting to suddenly gain 3 billion a year if this goes into place. They're basing sales losses on Napster without even thinking about the other conditions going on out there. The content sucked this year, the economy stinks (altho I suppose Intel and AMD having slow quarters could be linked to piracy of processors on Napster...), and the Sept 11th attacks have made people happier to stay home then go out. Perhaps the real problem is that the RIAA isn't making their content available to purchase online.
"Derp de derp."
Didnt the 'Great Satan) aka Microsoft just get a patent on a 'Digital rights Management OS' ???
This goes along with the MPAA, and gives little billy gates what he wanted, to kill ALL other OS's in one shot.
This is the M$ way , dont not underestimate M$'s plans.
Just pass the SSSCA , and force everyone to use ONLY the new Windows Freedom edition.
( I use Freedom the way home developers us xxx Oaks after they cut down the trees)
I think this scenerio is very likely.
lastly to however mods me down to - whatever no matter what i post about, lay off. It isnt funny any more
* Carthago Delenda Est *
The reason pitifully few films are legitimately available on the Internet is not producer hoarding. It is that those valuable creative works can't be adequately protected from theft.
He's right, you know. That's also the reason Napster got shut down and KazAA is trying to be: the movie and music industries will not put out their own copies of their media. I want freely-downloadable media for pennies a copy as much as anyone, but I can't get it because the owners won't put it out without copy protection.
What am I stuck with instead? P2P software that gets me assorted copies of pirated media, some of which is at an unusable quality, all of which is subject to interruptions and highly variable download speeds. I've been saying for years that I would gladly pay a single site $10 a month if it meant I could download my heart's content of music (or movies) of reliable quality, at reliable speeds over a reliable connection, with a useable search engine giving me complete results.
If having MS install copy-protection at the OS level means the media companies will finally make this available, then I can stomach it. They don't have to eliminate MP3s or AVIs, they just have to include something that will play files that are copy-protected enough to satisfy the media owners. If they don't want me copying it to recordable media, then it should be free or pennies apiece. If they don't mind me making copies for myself, then I'll pay more. And they can quote me on that.
Can't wait for the stickers to start appearing on the front of new PC's. "Designed for MPAA 2002", "MPAA Inside", or maybe even "Valenti Inside".
Furthermore, on the 'build-your-own' thread, try telling the component manufacturers from China to include hardware copy protection in their devices.......
one step closer to 1984. Doesn't quite sound right, one step closer.
Please help! I'm stuck inside my virtual reality headset!
It seems to me that someone would have come up with this idea sooner in history, and that the idea would have been seen as proposterous and this person put in their place. Oh, wait, it did happen in the past. What? We in the United States are allowed to backup our data and keep a copy of media that we purchase just in case the media goes bad?
I'm sorry, but this has gone on quite too long. It seems that many people, including the Federal Government, have forgotten what rights we do have concerning media in the United States. Now, I will admit that we have laws that are conflicted in this area, but at the same time. We need to make copies of things. Teachers need to copy worksheets so that they can pass them out to their students. I need to make audio backups so that when my cd's go bad (yes, cd's do go bad after ten years, unlike what was originally promised when they came out). Why attack people for that?
As far as I see it, we need to attack the people that are actually doing illegal things. If you want to stop pirating of movies, then find out who's pirating them and throw their butt in jail. Don't say that there's no way that you can stop it. That's just wussy.
It seems to me the Federal Government has stopped worrying about upholding the law, but has instead gone into a cycle of worrying about companies and punishing everyone when one person gets out of line. It's not working, either, and the result is going to be a big loss in freedom for all of us that are citizens.
Really? And here I thought innovation meant creation of something new or 'innovative'. Apparently I was wrong. Never one to leave such a thing alone though I checked Webster's Online Dictionary. Imagine my further supprise when I found this:
Is Websters' Wrong? THE dictionary of the United States. Not necessarily. Mr. Valenti asserted that we were using the word in lieu of "legalizing the breaking of protection codes, without which there is no protection." Therefore the relation might not appear in the dictionary.Never one to give up on a trusted source so lightly I returned now to (drum roll) the Thesaurus! again however I come up dry getting only:
No discussion of copy protection there.But then I noticed something. I noticed vicissitude. Webster's defines this as:
Note the term Unfavorable Change. At last the mystery was solved. Jack Valenti was not (to my everlasting dsmay) wholly misdirected. Neither was my trusted Dictionary/Thesaurus wrong. Obviously Jack was just employing a nontypical pair of synonyms in an effort to drag the complex language of "unfavorable events", "difficulty or hardship attendant on a way og life, a career, or a course of action and usually beyond one's control" into the language of everyday life. Because, as he points out elsewhere in his letter: "Other ingredients are necessary to protect digital content, but it gets too complex to explain in a few sentences." Jack is just tying to save space.
Well my friends all that I can say is: Up with VICISSITUDE!
mebbe this is right then?
350 000 movies x 650 000 000 bytes/movie = 227
500 000 000 000 bytes/day.
1820 000 000 000 000 bits per day.
1820 TB/day world downloads.
1820/20 000 = equivalent of 9.1 percent of all US traffic.
And I thought I was on a role too...
Well, still - when you add in the spam asking if you want a 30-inch p*nis, you're up to about 90%, right?
Well, apparently 32% of Americans are pirates, since "legal" content doesn't need a fast Internet connection. Must be all those Linux hacker/pirates.
Shockwave Flash movies are the greatest thing to happen to non-sequitur humor since Japan.
And readers:
remember this next time you post a story or comment about how cool "Lord of the Rings" or "The Matrix" or "Terminator 3" is.
The dollars you spend to watch these movies will only make people like Jack Valenti, and organizations like the RIAA and MPAA, stronger.
They know how much you love movies, and will continue to distract you with entertainment, all the while chipping away at your liberties while you're not looking.
is it gonna by copy protected too? ...
I guess I need to get some bandwith and a few TB of storage soon
with Valenti's implicit assumption, that being able to sell or rent movies over the Internet is a worthwhile goal. The ARPA project and the IETF and the W3C didn't spend thirty years and billions of dollars so that suburban families don't can save a fifteen-minute drive to the corner Blockbuster.
Bandwidth is too valuable to be wasted on Hollywood movies. It is my fondest wish that the Internet never again be used to transport one, legally or illegally.
Fuck you all, you'll burn in hell. karma.
As poorly rewritten as this editorial is, it hammers on Lessig on three points:
- People don't want to pay taxes, and they don't want the economy slowed down by "overregulation". So we adopt the passive compromise. Passively regulate by letting things like copyright law govern the market rather than active oversight. When industries realize this, they push to rewrite the law that shapes the market (there is no "free market", just different kinds of legal control) to give themselves plums. The current case in point is Enron, but let's not forget the previous Bush-deregulation debacle: Michael Keating and the S&L crisis.
- People don't want to lose their jobs either. This means when a big business or a whole set of them encounters rough financial straits - maybe they did something stupid, like Enron, maybe the world changed, as in the case of steel producers (who now use subsidies and tariff regulations to stay afloat), or maybe both as for the MPAA and RIAA, there's a lot of pressure on the government not to let them fail. But subsidies and payouts make good targets for "government waste" exposees, and arcane legal restrictions do not. This is why
- Anyone with the wherewithall and the disposition to realize the above two points is probably and intellectual and possibly also and academic. By naming a small community of professors Valenti's ghostwriters put in the only piece effective writing in this whole sham of an editorial. In short, if you're a cardigan-wearing, pipe-smoking, hoity-toity professor, you hate people who work hard and make money.
Wish I knew how to counter those, but that's where government's relationship with business seems to be headed these days.One the other hand, iff you're a hard-working, truck-driving, music-loving regular guy, you're with us and our good ole way of doing business, and you'll tell you government to support us supporting you. And those charges are damn hard to shake off.
Encryption on HDTV...
Encryption on audio CDs...
Region coding on DVDs...
I think it's high time to look into viable, high quality analog alternatives.
If I can hear the aution CD with my ears, it can be copied in analog format.
If I can see the DVD playing on my TV, it can be copied in analog format.
If you use high quality components, and know what you're doing, an analog duplicate shouldn't be too hard to make.
The problems come whan you try to copy *from* an analog source. Something about copying a copy of a copy of a copy, etc.
"A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force." -William Blum
Oh wait, the new LOTR DVD just came out. Gotta go to Best Buy! Now!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!HAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!
AHHHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Right Jack. Sure I'll buy a piece of hardware that has copy control features built in.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
There is no way they will be able to stop everything. They should just live with the fact that this will continue to happen, no matter what they do. They didnt think dvds could be cracked, but that happened. If this does happen, give it time and someone will figure away around this bullshit the MPAA is trying to impose on all of us. And everyone again will be downloading movies. It is just a huge circle, and there isnt anything the MPAA can do to stop it. They should just pull there heads out of there ass and live with it. They are not able to stop it, no matter what and how hard they try.
How do you take a picture of the best moment of your life?
well said.
When you're writing your Representative and Senators, make sure you let them know the real thing that the MPAA wants to stop. Competition.
The same devices that can be used to easily copy content are the devices that will allow people to easily make and copy content. They are willing to tolerate a little piracy, but they cannot survive in the face of everyone having the ability to make their own movies and music easily.
Point out that the only way to secure strong copyright is to destroy freedom, since stopping people from having machines that can copy arbitrary data will stop them from having machines that can create that same data.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
Hmm.. maybe it is time to start a boycott. No more
movies, no more CD purchases. It's time to start.
This is a joke! The video can be digitized in ANY format, not just the protected formats. What is this dude thinking, not everyone gets bootleg video from DVD or tape. Some movie houses digitize the video right in the projection room.
Movies have sucked lately anyway. I went with my
wife to see SuperTroopers, it had some funny parts but for the most part it wasn't worth $7.50 admission. "Clear and Present Danger" also sucked.
It also wasn't worth $7.50.
So now the movie industry thinks our computer technology is putting a dent into thier profits..
Guess again, thier movies are not worth what they
are charging for admission. So they suck.
1. copy protection WILL be broken. 2. people who deny others the right to use a thing for what they please are just as bad as lobotomizers. 3. see sssca. remove the sca. see what they are up to!!
The movie industry is under siege from a small community of professors.
I'm blushing, jack. No, we're not all professors.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
that pc 's are convenient for storing and distrubuting media . i think jack needs to see what he can ( or cant ) do to resolve his own issues , instead of blaming another industry that he doesnt understand and fears .
hint : give up jack , start yer own p2p service , make some real money , then complain ( again ) how hard it is to survive in the e - marketplace .
I am already in violation of the DMCA. I have to use a color correction device to eliminate the Macrovision from the DvD movies THAT I LEGALLY PURCHASED just so I can WATCH them.
This pisses me off to no end. All I am doing is WATCHING the movie and all of a sudden I'm a criminal.
Screw them too.
While we are doing this i have a few other ideas
Lets make guns so they cant shoot people
Lets make cars that can only go 65mph
Lets make spray paint that will recognize when you are writing graffiti and shut themselves off
Lets make car stereos that only play at volume level 2 - even though they are capable of much more
Lets make computers that cant copy.... oh wait, that is what we are doing.
Don't Tread on Me
As far as movies go there are sites overseas that provide streaming video such as movie88.com
He's just a parnoid intellectual property lawyer with a fear of change. We shouldn't fear people like this. We should promote what they say and bring it into wide open ridicule! We should laugh at him, and put him on TV shows in between the segment about the moon landings being faked, and the world being run by 8 foot tall lizards.
The MPAA has two primary goals, which are typical of almost any agressive corporate entity. First, they want to make as much money as possible. And second, they want to reduce the possibility of losing any revenue from new technologies or competition.
In the spirit of competition, two entities would try to outdo the other by producing a better product and ultimately both products will enhance as a result. This works great, IF there's competition. But who does the MPAA compete with? Although the member organizations might in theory compete with each other, they choose to rally together to protect the industry as they have defined it, and marketing forces can do very little but sway which direction they go. They simply do not need to worry much about an outside entity in their industry depriving them of any signficant revenue.
That being said, the only threat they see is a reduction in established revenue. They worry about piracy, because although 300,000 free downloads a day might seem like a lot, if the technilogically inept were to discover and participate in these endevours, it might result in a 10 fold increase in piracy and that they most likely would feel as a serious pinch in their bottom line. So they figure, even though the cat is pretty well out of the bag, that they can at least stem the tide somewhat by setting some standards on software and hardware for future codecs that might prevent the less serious people from "stealing" their property.
However, those that will steal, will do so with or without these protections in place. People are a weird sort. They will go out of their way and spend a lot of money to acquire something for "free". Your average online movie collector probably spends more time and more money on his internet connection than it would cost him for a decent cable or dish option, and he ends up with lower quality media that he will probably watch once and erase. Chances are good, he's getting these very movies over the same lines provided by the same company that offers the same media for higher quality and less cost. I'm talking about the cable companies. The MPAA should already be in bed with them. How are they missing this glorious opportunity that sits right under their noses.
Just offer up the same low quality movies for free right from the cable company servers to subscribers to the internet service, free of any restrictions other than a copyright notice. Might they get copied? Sure. But they are anyways. At the very least, you'll cut way down on the required bandwidth needed as all the transfers will be over the local network. If the cable companies suddenly had a 50% drop in the uplink bandwidth requirements and could spread some of that love back to the MPAA, they'd probably end up BETTER than they are now.
The MPAA could silently chuckle and give the occasional antipiracy rant just for good measure. The pirates would be deleriously happy. And all these controls would be unnecessary.
But thats not really what its all about. The MPAA wants to have complete control of the industry so that they and ONLY they can dictate how it will function. They have to be able to control all media and stifle innovation so nobody dreams up a way to put them out of business unless they have full control over its deployment and operation. Because it COULD happen if they're slow to react and too worried all the wrong things to pay attention in time. And they don't want to risk that.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Take a gander at this one:
.
United States Patent 6,330,670 (December 11, 2001):
Digital rights management operating system
Makes me want to puke.
"There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
We should consider ourselves normal, because as every other generation has shown, freedom is gained through risk, fight, and struggle and no other way (not even voteing sometimes). However, today our risks are a lot less thanks to others who have got us this far.
Here, I think the best solution is defiance and civil disobedience of copyrights alltogether. It is only when we get to the root of the problem that we will "free up our children" to go onto the "next generation of fighting".
Add to this (3) the accusation that copyright owners are stifling innovation in the digital world.
with this argument:
As for the third charge -- that copyrighted movies are destroying digital innovation -- what the critics mean by "innovation" is legalizing the breaking of protection codes, without which there is no protection.
You idiot. No one is claiming copyrighted content is stifling innovation. It has always been the overzealous copyright owners who are trampling consumers' rights.
On another note, I wonder why he doesn't quote what digital piracy costs the industry. Probably because it doesn't amount to much. Arguing against digital piracy by quoting the effects of analog piracy, while simultaneously pointing out "The analog format (videocassettes) and the digital format (DVDs) are different" makes his arguments impotent. How are we supposed to draw conclusions from your statements if you're an idiot Jack?
Hey this just be my simple minded approach to things but instead of spending Millions if not Billions of dollars coming up with protection schemes and filing suit against those that break them. Would it not just be cheaper, make more sense and be far more effective to make the movies such a good deal that you don't want to put the effort into stealing them? Sell the movies for $10, there would be no extra cost for distributing a digital movie other than bandwidth. No editing (to fit your TV), production (movies onto tape and DVD), shipping, or shelving fees, all you'd have is the bandwidth cost. Would I download a movie for free when I can have a legitimate copy for $10? Hardly, leave all the special features etc for the DVD just give me the movie, cheap, and I'll buy. But hey, again thats just my perhaps overly simplistic way of thinking.
"DMCA source code"...
rm -f dmca.c
*poof*
NO MORE DMCA!
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
Why not have encrypted movies that can only be played using an internet set top box or supply a pci card to end users that provides the decoding for the movie. Why force computers to encrypt all content just to support their subsription service.
The problem for the MPAA is that they cannot understand that as far as the economy goes they are not all that important. The computer industry is an order of magnitude larger. The not very hard to spot plan here is to bribe enough congressmen to push through their scheme. that is a pretty hopeless approach if the computer industry has more money.
I have done the DRM bit. I have even gone to an SDMI conference. My conclusion is that the MPAA and RIAA are Cheap, Greedy and Stupid.
First off, as every vendor that has attempted to get into the DRM space knows, the content owners want all the work done for free, or as near to it as makes no difference. One leading content provider had the idea that a complete DRM system should cost no more than $0.50 per device with the option of buying it out for $100K, this for a bespoke product that would cost several million to develop and would save the customer several hundred million a year.
Secondly the content 'owners' are greedy. Look at the little scheme they had in the DMCA (now repealed) to steal the 'returned rights' of artists by retrospectively designating them 'works for hire'. The scheme that is planned for insertion into the Hollings bill at the last minute will redefine publication through the Web to be a 'mechanical right' and not a 'Performance right'. This will allow them to steal the copyrights currently controlled by the composers.
Thirdly the content owners are stupid. They seize upon every piece of cryptographic snakeoil that comes to the market. The demands that the computer industry save their ass for them sound remarkably like the demands made by the likes of Louis Freeh over key escrow 'we do not believe that it cannot be done, your denial clearly means you must be lying'.
what we need to do is make congress aware of the abuses these people are already engaged in. The DVD zone system has one purpose, to allow the price of DVDs to be set by the amount individual markets will bear. This is illegal under EU law and they will get their just deserts in the end. But why should people like this have the benefit of niche laws to protect their interests if they don't obey the law themselves?
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Unless there is some new way to copy a video stream digitally, why can't movies be rented and streamed like the trailers are now? I think that would solve 75% of the problem right away. I think if the cost of streaming a movie around the time it became available to rent as a DVD were about half the cost of a rental, and it could be watched as many times as someone wanted in, say, a 72 hour time window, that would be fine.
I really fail to see how anyone would be able to afford the phenomenal bandwidth required to make a 2-3GB file available for download by a lot of people. University connection or not, there just isn't enough available to make it worth anyone's effort, and I certainly don't think students are going to saturate their network connections so a bunch of random people can download movies all day and night.
Congress does NOT need to get involved with new laws. It is ALREADY against the law to copy a movie without a license.
You misspelled COCK.
HTH. HAND.
-sk
Microsoft recently was granted a patent for DRM OS technology that is the basis for content control schemes envisioned for personal computers. http://cryptome.org/ms-drm-os.htm This technology exists today in the form a Media Player 7/8 and more comprehensively in the form of the entire Windows XP operating system. This technology was designed and implemented with one thing in mind. Control. Jack and Bill share the same world view when it comes to control and it shouldn't shock anyone to know that Microsoft is leading the charge when it comes to locking down the PC for "legitimate" commercial uses. There are plenty of implications that can be drawn from this. Anyone who's interested may care to read the following forum discussion. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&t hreadid=106206&highlight=microsoft
In general, modern problems have medieval solutions...
Remember Microsoft's Digital Rights Management (DRM) OS patent? If Congress were to enact legislation requiring this kind of copy protection at the OS level, then I imagine MS would be quite intent on making sure everyone pays them royalties, whether they're actually due or not. And that's assuming they'd place "nice" and even "allow" other OS's to contain copy protection. A few years ago, I would have thought the feds wouldn't let them get away without freely sharing a legislated key technology like this, but now I'm not so sure... . Not to sound too pessimist, but royalties like this could be a big pain in the arse for struggling Linux vendors.
Course, if it did happen, I could just start using a European-based Linux distribution, since they don't treat software patents the same. For now, anyway...
this has been another episode of pure speculation and meaningless FUD...
One states that Jack is always full of it, and 2 mention that Jack's reference to a "Maalox Moment" is a violation of Maalox's trademark, as he doesn't bother to credit Maalox for using their name.
Its good to see that people outside of the /. world also think that Jack is full of it.
Jack Valenti one of the main proponents of the DMCA
:)
True, but you make it clear you don't know what the DMCA is when you say:
The RIAA is also the group who sued 2600.com for publishing a link! to the DMCA source code.
First, Jack Valenti is the prez of the MPAA, not the RIAA. 2600 was sued by the MPAA, not the RIAA, for publishing the link to the DeCSS, which is made illegal by the DMCA. Your mis-guided effort were hilarious, until I remembered that uninformed malapropisms like the ones you spout are a leading cause of moronic legislation like the DMCA. Please, please PLEASE get your facts straight - the enemy is listening, and they like it when the Side of Good is represented by loud-mouthed dittos who speak without thinking. C'mon.
Final hilarity - some moderator modded this guy up +1, Informative. How the heck does a post by a guy who gets every major fact wrong get modded as informative?
But what does my opinion matter, I just vote here. It's not like I have any money or anything.
The ability for millions of Internet users to zap perfect copies of movies around the Net destroys the current business model of the movie industry. And I find very little reason to deny that claim.
That leaves the movie industry with two options (logically). Either prevent millions of Internet users from being able to zap perfect copies of movies around the Net, or change the business model of the industry. Both are fraught with problems.
Let's take on the topic of copy prevention. Essentially, it's not possible, as long as the PC in its current incarnation persists. You can encrypt media to the gills, but somewhere, somehow, in a PC, that media needs to be converted to a cleartext stream in order to be played. And anyone with a bit of technical know-how can capture that cleartext stream. The only way to prevent such copying is to embed copy prevention into the very lowest levels of hardware. Which will render the PC useless for doing anything useful. Besides, it precludes fair-use.
Next option: transmission prevention. Slightly more feasible. And with more of the broadband "biomass" being rounded up by a small number of media companies and telcos, this is probably the first avenue the MPAA is going to take in this battle. In six months to a year, most Morpheus users (for instance) will be forced by their ISPs to shut down their clients or lose their accounts. It's probably happening already. Sure, there will be a few maverick ISPs that don't play by the rules, but P2P filesharing systems become useless without a critical mass of users. Now, the MPAA will win the battle on this front, but at the cost of killing the biggest "killer app" to hit the Net since the browser. And at the cost of depriving Internet users from sharing perfectly legit files: stifling what could prove to be a huge revolution in human communication. Oh, well.
Of course, the other logical option would be for the movie industry to change its business model to something like TV: free and advert-driven. I don't know if this is possible, because I don't know much about business. But, I'll tell you this: destroying the PC or destroying the free exchange of ideas in a new an exciting medium, so that a few companies can keep their bottom line, is wrong.
dinner: it's what's for beer
Fuck you Jack... You'll have to pry my un copy-molested Linux running Athlon from my dead fingers. I just worried that in three years I'll be buying my next motherboard and HD on the Russian black market.
Sometimes sacrifising some Karma for a worthy cause just makes me feel good.
As for the third charge -- that copyrighted movies are destroying digital innovation -- what the critics mean by "innovation" is legalizing the breaking of protection codes, without which there is no protection.
This is someones paycheck. To say that we are right because its a free country and they make money off of us is not a legimate claim. I wonder what RMS would say?
That said, both sides are in a fix. With the advent of digital technologies, you can choose your metaphor: the genie is out of the bottle, the horse is out of the barn, or the toothpaste is out of the tube. Once a piece of IP is in digital format (whether or not its owner agreed to put it there), it is incredibly easy to make copies and spread them around, potentially depriving the IP owner of their legal revenues. And yes, owners do have every right to profit off what they created. Unfortunately, no one has invented a copy protection scheme that 1) isn't easily hacked and evaded or bypassed, and 2) doesn't impinge on fair use. And frankly, I don't think anyone ever will, short of having draconian controls on hardware and tough law enforcement efforts. There are just too many points of weakness in hardware to attack, and no way to even begin to effectively copy-protect a file. As far as "fair use" goes, if I own a vinyl LP of some album, I don't consider the album's copyright owner to be obliged to provide me with a CD just because a better format came out. On the other hand, books have a strong tradition of being passed on, lent, resold and whatever because traditionally it's been fairly expensive and time-consuming to photocopy a book. So, if I buy an e-book, it is unreasonable for me to expect to be able to make use of it (one use at a time) across several generations of technology? Given the LP/CD argument, I would have to say "yes". Is it unreasonable to be able to run on a non-M$ platform, or to be able to have a reader read it to me if I am visually impaired? Those are certainly fair uses of an e-book, which copy-protection schemes currently interfere with.
For any digital media there is going to be a large gray area of what constitutes "fair use" and what constitutes "reasonable protection" of the IP owners. It will undoubtably take many years for a definitive body of case law to be built up, just as it did for books, vinyl, and videotape. In the digital age, since it is so easy to copy (and therefore distribute) IP, it all boils down to the personal honesty of people. Unfortunately, the attitude of many computer-savy people seems to be, "if I can get away with it, I'll do it." This will only hurt us all in the long run by reducing the availability of digital materials and forcing onerous copy-protection schemes on us which don't work and only deprive us of our rights to "fair use" of IP we purchase.
I've put on my asbestos suit and stand ready for the eruption of flames sure to come from the pimply-faced 13-year olds who seem to make up the majority of /. readers. I stand my ground -- intellectual property owners do have the right to profit from their efforts, and efforts to get everything for free on the Net is theft. On the other hand, IP owners do have a moral obligation not to interfere with "fair use". It's a delicate balance, and it's not helping matters that so many of you feel that you have every right to steal what belongs to someone else.
Yes we have seen this before, and yes it failed with the HD manufactures, but we have seen this even a 150 years before that.
In the 1830's there were those who thought that the entire purpose of the industrial revolution was to leverage inventions like the cotton gyn to extend the size of their plantations for unlimited profit. Today we have a similar problem in the information age - people who think that the only usefull purpose of information technology and the internet is to extend the use of their intellectual property rights for unlimited controll. Today as back then, they couldn't be more wrong, couldn't be more delusional, and couldn't be a bigger threat to individual freedoms.
The only real solution is cut the vine off at the root and attack copyrights directly with defiance and civil disobedience till (like then) they run out of steam and quit trying to take away our freedoms.
What's next? Do you plan to require that my friends each purchase the DVD as well when I have them over to enjoy my home theater?
They can stick their copy protection into my PCs when they pry them from my cold dead hands. Pure and simple. The whole media industry can go to hell for all the stuff they've tried to pull. They already don't deserve the rights they have(see: 150 year copyright terms, DMCA style laws, huge media ogliopoly, ability to buy as many laws as they'd like), I'm obviously not in favour of giving them more.
It's been a long time.
What will scientists and engineers do when they need to do some really important general-purpose computing, but that sorely needed general-purpose computer is illegal???
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Could this be because four out of five movies put out by the movie industry are drek and people aren't willing to pay the umpteen bucks the movie companies want for them?
Maybe the best thing the movie industry could do for their own financial security is MAKE BETTER MOVIES!
You've got all these Bowfingers out there trying to make something out of nothing with bad writing and bad acting, and then trying to cover it up with expensive effects and advertising. CLUE: A thousand bucks worth of quality script is worth more than a hundred thousand bucks in overhyped advertising.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
I can't wait for the closed-doors WTO trial evaluating this kind of policy... should be fun.
Someone is gonna be pissed about me posting this, but if you dont know about the Libertarian party, visit www.lp.org. They are against copy protection, and stand agains regulaion of cryptographic sofware and p2p networks.
According to our favorite media mogul, Jack Valenti (as stated in this letter in the Washington Post, all money should be deposited in his bank account. 'People of all ages need to sit at the table with the movie industry. Together, in good-faith talks, they must agree on the ingredients for depositing money directly into my accounts and then swiftly implement that agreement to make the dream of making me rich, rich, rich a reality.' Way to go, guy."
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Assuming they'd manage to come up with some way to really protect a DVD from being copied, you could still put it into a hardware DVD player, attach it to a good old traditional VCR and rip it from there... I don't think most people would even notice the quality loss.
I know they're stupid, but are they really stupid enough not to see the obvious?
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
... a violation of the DMCA?
Since the video card COULD be used for viewing illegally copied material (keep in mind fair use and legitimate use no longer have any meaning)
To quote Spock of the USS MPAA... The needs of the many...err...f' em
I cannot understand how everyone can get so worked up over this. Mr. Valenti may have a lot of power over the motion picture industry, but in the realm of the Internet he is as powerless as any goatsex posting troll.
As I'm sure you remember, the MPAA lobbied and Senators Fritz Hollings (D.SC) and Ted Stevens (R.AK) to introduce the "Security Systems Standards and Certification Act"(24k). This bill was never even introduced to the US Senate because of opposition. Now, since that avenue failed, he wants to convince others of the dangers of having computers around that can participate in these, obviously, highly unlawful acts. Or, that's what he would hope to do.
This has no more substance than FUD from Microsoft. Relax. They're not going to take away your PC any time soon.
Now that's just the sort of mindless MSFT bashing I would expect to see here. Now observe the proper way to bash Microsoft:
In December of 2001, MSFT was awarded a patent for an operating system that incorporates strong Digital Rights Management (do your own darn google search). This means that anyone and everyone that has any device that uses an "operating system" and enforces copy prevention technology needed to eliminate the potential for copyright infringement will be paying licensing fees to Microsoft unitil at least 2018. Naturally the license fee will just happen to exceed the retail price of the corresponding MSFT operating system by ten per cent. Just like the currenty MSFT tax, it won't matter if you recompile your own kernal to exclude the technology, you will still have to write that check to MSFT. If you do not license from them, well yes it really will be illegal. But you have to explain these little details. Just spewing anti-MSFT sentiment du jour is simply unacceptable laziness.
Combine this with the earlier story about howMSFT has determined that HTTPis "obsolete" and you will soon find yourself unable to network with other computers without paying Microsoft for the privilege of using MS-HTTP.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
Government mandated airbags have killed more children than school shootings
And how many children's lives were saved by airbags?
Gun nuts complain all the time about gun control nuts only showing stats on how many people were killed by guns, never showing how many lives were saved by guns. You are guilty of EXACTLY the same crap.
Infuriate left and right
The great thing about America is that the game is out in the open. It is a battle, and the guys with the most energy(consisting of effort, money, political influence, etc) are the ones who will get favorable legislation. If you want to make sure that this doesn't come to pass, get out there and talk to your congressman, or start a petition, or something. If a tightly organized group like the NRA can accomplish so much, think what a carefully organized group of /.'ers could do.
...but don't you think it quite ironic, nay hypocritical, that many here cry foul when anyone suggests violating the GPL yet when anyone violates another's copyrights many here cheer? Little do you know that without copyrights your GPL becomes unenforcable. Before you condemn thers for wishing to control their work, think about what you're doing when you place the GPL on your software.
Why hasn't this been started in the technical community? There could be a slash site with info on representatives with the potential to support or harm our interests as geeks, and organize some contribution/lobbying for certain causes. I'm sure the support would be there, and this might end up having a significant impact on US politics. Imagine a site with the traffic of /. geared towards lobbying representatives for causes we care about. The site would have to be sectioned geographically. If well-implimented, this could change the way democracy works, with people actively supporting causes they care about, and a government resposive directly to the people. PAC groups, or Political Action Commities already can serve a similar function, but the organization is lacking to get individuals involved in their political system, and business interests are often at the heart of such groups. A sort of open-sourced lobbying would be a good way to bring the influence on the political system back into the hands of the people it is meant to represent. Work should start on this immediately, although I personally lack the technical ability, or time to impliment such a system. Time to ask the community for some help.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
Okay, so Jack wants to stop people from copying movies and watching them at home. Never mind the similarities of this argument to the VCR years ago. Never mind this argument to cassette tapes further back. Jack may have point, but he's also missing one. I consider myself a film junkie. I see probably three or four movies a week on average. And I can't stand to watch a movie on my computer. I cannot stand it. I think that the MPAA is overestimating how often this will happen, especially with only 5-10% of households using broadband. The presentation of copyrighted material is as important as the material itself (IMO). As much as I love FOTR, I refuse to watch a crappy VCD encoded copy of taken from a theater in Bangladesh.
Will quality improve over time? Probably... Will the MPAA keep trying to copy-protect its material? Sure. This is a never ending cycle that we've seen before. The video game industry didn't scream to the government about piracy, they fought it themselves... (Okay, so they went screaming to the government too, sue me) What the MPAA fails to realize is that the technology community will always break what they come up with. Why? We are the ones who write your encryption, Jack! C'mon... There is a bigger fear that I wrestle with on this issue, however...
If Hollywood feels they are losing money on their movies, they will lower the budgets on existing projects. Imagine, a world where Leo DiCaprio can only be in half a movie because the budget won't support him as lead. Wait... Okay, bad example. The point is, aren't movies bad enough right now? Just a thought...
"Goodness, how did you people live long enough to invent tools?" -Hobbes (the tiger, not the philosopher)
Imagine this scenario:
"In accordance with the Microsoft Excel EULA, the required upgrade to Microsoft Office 2005, the latest version, has not been met. Please upgrade to decrypt your data."
Would anyone really put it past them?
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
bah! to hell with em all. Why make such a big stink about this? Let it take care of itself in a supply and demand fashion... don't try to play both sides of the fence here folks. If you desire the benefit of something, you have to accept the responsibility and consequence of the work and potential failure involved... it is a gamble. If the public wants to see movies so bad, and wants them cheap and easy, then by all means pay attention to that and provide it. If you must force companies and consumers into doing it your way, then perhaps that really shows that your model is innefficient. However, if you don't want to pay for a movie and resort to stealing it, then by all means... theiv that sucker and enjoy. Save yourself and everyone else the trouble of your pathetic whiney attempts to justify your actions and choices. That just shows you have an underdeveloped conscience that you should deal with immediately and not bother everyone else with.
It's hard for me (a practiced paranoid) not to be really worried when this type of stuff bubbles up to the surface. Imagine a world where it's *illegal* to have full control over your computer. Imagine a world where running a non-copy-protection-compliant operating system (like anything not made by microsoft) is illegal.
Terrifying.
Yep, you just described the perfect setup for the American consumer. No, there are no more American citizens, just consumers.
Now go out and spend some money to help get us out of our recession. It's your duty as an American.
My, but I hate getting cynical.
(Yes, this comment is obviously not meant for the sizeable number of non-American Slashdot readers... but don't worry, our government doesn't have a problem passing laws it thinks applies to you anyway.)
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
I started writing a letter to the Post, but I didn't like how it turned out. All my arguments are crap. I hereby release it under the Dork Public License: if you decide to use it (either in relation to this article or something else), please don't sign my name to it (since I didn't have the balls to send it, I don't deserve any credit), and please post your version.
---
I am writing in reponse to a letter you published on Monday, February 25th, by Jack Valenti of the Motion Picture Association of America. In it, he states that movie distributors are eager to utilize the Internet as a medium to distribute movies, but will not do so until computer and video-device companies "agree on the ingredients for strong protection of copyrighted films" in their products. If there is no agreement, Valenti argues that Congress should step in and mandate this strong protection in consumer products, limiting the types of access the consumer has to these products in these devices.
I must respectfully disagree with Mr. Valenti. I support the right of copyright holders to protect their works from being used without their consent. However, I believe that their proposals (especially trying to get Congress to make new laws for them) go way beyond what is intended in the law regarding the balance of rights between copyright holders and the general public.
Valenti makes the claim that over 350,000 movies are being downloaded illegally every day, and implies that it is easy even for people who do not have fast, broadband connections to the Internet. But what he fails to mention is that the same technology that created this phenomenon has benefits to the distributor as well. Technology is a two-way street, and frequently alters or even invalidates business models. The Internet has changed such diverse industries as Retailing, Photography, Communications, and countless others. All of these industries had to adapt to the good parts and the bad parts of changing technologies. Valenti seems content to take the good parts for his industry, while lobbying Congress to make the bad parts not apply to his business.
What he also fails to mention, and what is at the crux of the matter, is that Copyright Infringement is already crime, no matter what medium it is in. Do we really need more legislation to protect access to copyrighted works? If the movie industry and device industry cannot agree on a way to limit consumers' access to copyrighted works, we should come to the conclusion that the public does not want their access to these works limited, and we should trust them to act in accordance with existing law, and prosecute them if they do not. But new laws to protect the Movie Industry at the expense of the General Public is not the answer.
...and I want 20 million bucks, A small Caribbean island, and a bunch of blonde bimbos to cater to my every whim!
Of the two, I think my want is the more likely of the two to be realised.
You're using her as bait, Master!
Am I the only one being amazed at the absolute conviction and dedication the media industry (MI) has toward trying to stop time and changes?
The last few years it's been like a weekly serial, where articles pop up regarding the MI's attempts to stop this, ban that, prosecute these, convince those etc. etc.
Imagine what the MI could have been able to achieve, had they thrown all this money, effort and resources at developing new business models, investigating how people will use media in the near future, what things the public wants and the like.
It's admirable their being so persistent, though unfortunate it's at the wrong things.
In a society that believes in nothing, fear becomes the only agenda ~ Bill Durodié
that you dont confuse Libertarian Party with libertarians. Remember set theory? This is one of those.
hell yea! nobody really needs to play online games with graphics that aren't ascii anyway! bring me back my muds!
As long as you're converting, seems like it should be 16.8 Peta bits/20 Peta bits.
Oh, and your story link won't get botched by slashdot for being too long if you actually link it.
Lawrence Lessig recently wrote in the Ametican Spectator about the broader context of this fight:
s /Lessig/Control.htm
http://www.spectator.org/AmericanSpectatorArticle
We can hold this program through the use of AI. I'll send them the program if they want it will provide correct and accurate feedback for eveyr question
.....? .... ? ...
Can we
That will be circumvented
How about
That will be circumvented
Well wait, think about
That will be circumvented
"Can't sleep. Clowns will eat me"
but your last statement I am assuming from its wording that you were being satirical... however, I don't believe that is out of the question considering many software licenses today
As for the third charge -- that copyrighted movies are destroying digital innovation -- what the critics mean by "innovation" is legalizing the breaking of protection codes, without which there is no protection.
No, Mr. Valenti, what we mean when we say "innovation", are things that give the consumer, the end user of your products, the choice of what we want. Surely, as head of the MPAA, you must be aware of your own members outstanding lawsuits against the truly innovative device makers Replay TV and TiVo. Perhaps it is time for you to stop treating your customers like criminals and thieves.
Times are a changin'. Those who choose to go forward will reap the rewards of satisfying consumers needs. Those who choose to drag their heels will fall by the wayside.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
This reminds me that I yesterday illegally downloaded a pr0n movie and I feel like Jacking off now.. ;)
If you replace "prohibition" with DMCA, the whole thing still makes sense.
This may also solve that Microsoft's pesky Linux problem.
do you need more hints?
while I agree with your statement, it has a very large stench of elitism, as if only WE the mighty brained slashdot folk ever apply critical thought... on second thought... memory is telling met that there is very little critical thought on slashdot, but a whole lot of sheepish and emotionally knee jerk reacting 'follow the crowd' people here on the mighty slashdot. The ones that do use logic and reason are often (but not always) shot down in favor of sensationalistic panic attacks. I think it is funny when the ID of a group of people seems justified simply because the group is large enough and suave enough to use pretty words and rhetoric... our society is a society of marketers and lawyers out for personal gain only.
If worst comes to worst, the raw signal components can be extracted from CRT neck boards. LCD screens with potted up components are harder but not impossible. There are chemicals specifically designed to dissolve expoxies while leaving other plastics undamaged. Even if that is not an option, there are always Dremel tools and X-Ray machines. Expose the neck board or the wire matrix driving an LCD and that signal is had. I've also seen CCD cameras that produce very watchable results when pointed at a display screen. Is that a lot of trouble? Absolutely but only one person has to post the results.
As for their little encrypted USB speakers...forget it. The hi-fi market alone is enough to blow those guys out of the water and even then I don't care how many potted up magic chips are in the speakers. I'll cut the cones out and clip out most of the voice coil. Replace that voice coil with a fixed inductor and resistor and guess what? I'll cheerfully blow 20 bucks on a pair of USB-O-Matics to create that little "circumvention device". Idiots.
Like, for many people, dragging and dropping their way thru life, command line copying is strong protection.
Of course, the next time I issue a cp command I'll probably have a DMCA violation on my hands.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Who has the better lawyers? The MPAA or the computer manufacturers? The MPAA is going to stick to their guns on this because they are convinced that it is vital to their continued profitability. The cornered animal fights fiercest, after all. While the computer manufacturers, such as Gateway, Dell and Compaq, will likely fold, since it is not a perceived do-or-die situation for them. Slim margins be damned when they could be looking at billions of dollars in lawsuits.
Ideally, what will happen is that Microsoft will jump on their white horse and come to the MPAA's rescue by promising to put strict, unbreakable anti-piracy protection in Windows. The MPAA will gleefully accept this settlement, and the Linux world will be left in peace.
Besides that, it'll give Microsoft their very own "Unbreakable" ad campaign -- I can see Gates jumping all over it for that reason alone!
As far as i'm concerned jack valenti can go fuck itself. Of COURSE these morons are going to try to get the most restrictive and hitlerian laws that they can get. That doesn't mean that these laws will ever happen though. we have to at least have SOME FAITH in our lawmakers (and if not in our lawmakers, then at least in the courts) that these crap things will never see the light of day. Jack valenti and his group of thugs may hate the US Constitution, but that doesn't make it disappear. individual people still have rights in this country, last i checked.
People will base thier moral perogative on YOURS. What does this mean? It means if you are morally right 99% of the time in your own business dealing, you will find that 99% of your customers will play fair with you.
People, unlike corporations, don't steal from the weak just because they can. If that were the case, *every* church collection plate would come back empty. But they don't, ever. Becuase a church is morally just, and so the people who contribute feel that they need to live in the same moral framework.
If you are worried about piracy, take the moral high road. If you take the low road, all the legislation, copy protection and strongarming in the world won't save you, but if you are morally justified in everything taht you do, you could give you music away for 100% free and find people donating money to you out of thier own good will.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
I have been short of breath lately from all my yelling about copy protection needs... so bear with me. I believe that my oxygen is being stolen by others. I believe that the only solution is to regulate where and how oxygen is used. I demand immediate implementation of Oxygen CRC for oxygen tanks and the policing of plants of all types to ensure compliance.
And all hammers should have built in protection to ensure nobody uses them for anything bad.
Somewhere along the line corporations have gathered the power to assume that if anything in society interferes with their profit margins, then we're all responsible to cater to their needs.
I like ice cream.
The Movie industry doesn't _have_ to use digital technology. There are some great movies that were recorded and distributed on celluloid film. It just takes a little more talent and skill to tell a good story that way then to distract us with mindless special effects. If the MPAA doesn't like the problems that come with digital distribution of movies, they should stick to analog. If they want to because of the profit, then take the risks that go with the profit.
doesn't mean that we do. They can develop a copy-protected PC. And then some enterprising young chap will un-develop it. It wouldn't take much more ingenuity than the fellow who developed it ... and that's the rub with this sort of idea.
All this junk is against the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Trying to prevent copying of information is like keeping half a room hot while the other is cold...you just can't keep doing it. Please reply.
-- Hexadecimal.
jvalenti@mpaa.org
phone (Washington MPAA office)
(202)293-1966
Until our children are no longer molded into castrated sheep democracy remains a fake and a danger. -A. S. Neill
Quote from a reply on the WP site:
I'm on his side. Property is property and property theft is wrong. But is it just me or is this guy just so completly full of it that you want to go the other way just to avoid getting any on you? Paragraph one is just Jack re-iterating the argument made against him and his. Paragraph Two is where we need to start keeping our boots handy. "A recent survey revealed that 68 percent of all home computer users say they're satisfied with their normal 56K computer modem." All home computer users, all mind you, now have a "normal 56k modem". 68% are satisfied with them. It does not make sense. I'm not being obtuse and just looking for something to pick at, anything that ends up in the Washington Post with Mr. Valenti's name on it has been as carefully groomed and lubricated as his hair. If the wording is circuitous, slippery and strange it is because Jack and his "people" wanted it that way. The final line in paragraph two is so bizzare that I will not touch it except to point out that would seem to imply that anyone who pays for broadband access, does so in order to pirate illegal materials. Paragraph Three: "The second professorial indictment is palpable nonsense." Suitable for framing. This "sentence" is everything Mencken was warning us about. He then talks about the "financial fragility" of the industry. Explaining that "making movies is so expensive" because only 2 in 10 of their products even manage to make their nut back. If I was in a business where 8 in 10 of my products were rejected by my customers, I would probably experience some "financial fragility" myself. Independent film makers have recently demonstrated that you don't need millions of dollars to make a quality product. Hmmm, but if Jack and Co. can get in there and lock down the Internet as a medium of distribution, in the name of protecting Hollywood from piracy, maybe all movies could someday cost millions again. And just what is "domestic theatrical release" compared to total profit, which I guess would include "foreign theatrical release" and other profit making channels? Just more vague specificity. I am tired of wading through this muck, I will hit a few more highlights and dispense with it. He states that university broadband systems are mostly what are used to "record" movies illegally. Try sneaking into a movie theater with Ohio State's computing infrastructure under your coat. Again, if it seems not to make sense, it is because the senstence was engineered that way. Just cast a vague accusation and move on. I just can't think about this anymore, it has taken up far too much of my time already. It is so obvious that what he wants is akin to banning typewriters to protect Tolstoy. It is bizzare and infuriating. And has anyone who is reading this ever seen one of these digitally pirated jokes of a film? It's not like you're downloading DVD quality Gladiators the day they come out. The one I saw, and the guy was telling me how great the quality was, was grainy, dark, and came with a soundtrack that sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. It was worthless. I laughed at it. There is no way I would consider that an alternative to the DVD. Finally, to state the piracy costs the industry X amount of dollars is pure baloney. Why universities? Because many college kids don't have alot of money. Just like a guy who packages DVDs in some third world country, he can work all year and not be able to afford Disney's latest offering. He wouldn't have bought it except that he got to view the "pirated" copy at what he and his would consider a reasonable price. And he would not have bought it otherwise so it didn't cost any industry any sale.
Whenever a person or an industry asks for legislation, one should always ask two questions:
I understand very clearly how what Valenti wants is going to benefit the movie industry, but I do not understand how this is going to benefit the people of the United States of America in the long term.
Which is better for the people of the United States in the long term? A movie industry dominated by a few very large oligopolistic Hollywood producers that make movies that cater to the common denominator, or a movie industry with hundreds of small, vibrant, innovative but independent movie producers that cater to a wide variety of styles and tastes, in other words, that offer consumers a choice?
Do we want to support with legislation all current business models? or should we let the MPAA adapt their business model to the times or go out of business?
Firstly, the real cost is only the sales foregone. Many, probably the huge majority, of these "pirates" would simply not buy, and so their "piracy" doesn't represent any real loss.
Secondly, the loss is hugely inflated by using the full retail value instead of something more realistic like the either the wholesale value or better yet, the lost profits.
What Valenti wants to legislate is a permanent revenue stream, a tax, if you will, on visual entertainment, with the MPAA as the sole beneficiary.
I, for one, object to Valenti's proposed tax on visual entertainment.
Happy Jack says:
Help me congress, my business model is going the way of the Dodo. The only option is for congress to step in? For the consumer's benefit? Jack seems to be saying that the MPAA will hold online distribution hostage unless congress forces hardware manufacturers to protect his fragile business. Tends to support the assertion: The very same assertion that happy Jack labels, "palpable nonsense." So, lets recap, Jack sees three options for online movie distribution, (1) Hardware manufacturers voluntarily increase their costs and decrease product performance to protect the revenue stream of the MPAA, or (2) congress forces hardware manufacturers to protect the revenue stream of the MPAA, or (3) No online movie distribution because the MPAA can't collect all their nickels and dimes. How any of this benefits the consumer is beyond me. Perhaps consumers benefit by their goverment catering to the needs of large movie studios? Perhaps consumers benefit by being forced to purchase less versatile digital devices with decreased performance and increased cost? Honest Abe must be rolling in his grave, because "government of the people, by the people, for the people" appears to finally have "perish[ed] from the earth."Why the hell would you want this restrictive crap on your machine? And just who the hell made you God where you think you can demand that this be integrated into the kernel? Tell you what, if you have such a hard-on for Valenti and his fascist policies, why don't you write Valenti's "content protection" code for him and submit it for inclusion in the kernel .. watch Linus and everybody else laugh their ass off at you. Better yet, why don't you just run Windows or some other closed-source OS that will keep you locked up to the degree that corporate America desires? Because the rest of us (normal people) are not having any of it.
By the way, go piss up a rope.
You do realize that 650 000 000 bytes is only 919.888 MB and not 6 Gbytes (or 650 MB for that matter) don't you? So for 650 MB it REALLY should be
350000 * 6.815744e08 = 2.3855104e14 =>
1.9084083e15 bits per day =>
1735.6873 Tbits/day =>
8.678% of all US traffic.
But then there's that US TRAFFIC thing. You assumed that the 350 000 downloads were only in the US and used the daily US traffice number. Now we both know that there are plenty of pirates in other parts of the world.
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
"It's a nice thought from Jack, but unfortunately the way out of this is to convert the home PC into an entertainment viewing device. Sort of like a television with more channels. While it may be true that today many people use a computer for nothing more than this, there can be so much more available. Two way interaction is where the Internet became a reality. But, with all of the copy protections and content controls in place it will be as difficult to introduce new software to a PC as it is today to add new capabilities to your television set. Face it, what the media companies want is a passive audience that receives their content and pays for it. While they are open to considering certain other distribution models - like allowing the user to view a movie on a PC instead of a television set - they are not interested in any sort of "interactivity". This would destroy their business model. Attempts at interactivity today, with movies, music and other media, generally result in a cease and desist letter from the copyright owner or the estate of the original copyright owner. The sorts of parodies and collages that have been made are certainly amaturish and unprofessional - but they point out ways that computers and software can be used together with the Internet to have interactivity. While 50 or 100 years ago this was an everyday occurrence and was covered under "fair use" exemptions, this is viewed as harmful to the copyright owner's revenue stream today and shut down immediately. While recordable media may in the future make it possible to create your own works to play on DVD player, remember the DVD player is a device in your home for playing licensed media from the media industry. It is not there for any other purpose. This is a device that is subject of so many patents, licenses and industry controls that it is amazing it was ever built. This is what the future of the PC is if we allow folks like Mr. Valenti to decide things. There is no way to expand the functionality of a DVD player. It plays Mr. Valenti's movies. Period. If we view the PC as a home entertainment appliance, this is where it will go as well. You can forget about using it for any other purpose - other purposes will prevent the kind of control that would keep the business and distribution model of the media companies safe. Should they be afraid of different distribution models? Absolutely. Napster did not shut down the buying of CDs, but it did show that other models can work. Will the new, heavily restricted music subscription services on the Internet work? I doubt it - unless we wake up and find any flexibility taken away from us and we must again be nothing more than passive receivers of media company output."
Wanna buy some? It's not cheap, $5 / 12 oz bottle, but that is due to the relatively high cost of dehydrating all that water (involves a hair dryer and lots of patience). You should see the electric bill every month . . .
They can have my Linux box when they pry it from my cold dead fingers!
-Grunt
"Together, in good-faith talks, they must agree on the ingredients for creating strong protection for copyrighted films and then swiftly implement that agreement to make it an Internet reality."
IOW:
"Together, they must come to the decision that favors me and my pals, and swiftly implement it. Screw what you want"
Because they control the flow of information to the public. The public only hears about, and eventualy cares about, what the media wants them to.
The power that they wield is hugely dispraportionate to their economic power.
-- kwashiorkor --
Leaps in Logic
should not be confused with
Jumping to Conclusions.
3 days BEFORE "Harry Potter" hit theaters, my co-worker had the entire movie on a CD-ROM? How? A friend of his had a friend that was an executive at Warner Brothers. The executive had an entire copy of the movie burned onto CD-ROM for him.
The original WB exec then gave it out to his friends. And the friends started making copies, etc.
I know it was a copy of the movie. We took lunch hour to watch half the film. The film hadn't even had a debut yet.
Jack Valenti! You want to know who's pirating your films? It's the same damned people for whom greed and self-interest are the motivating factors.
I can't pretend to intimate knowledge of Mr. Valenti's intention, but I'd like to offer the following observation:
Nowhere does it appear that he is advocating forcing consumers to purchase copy-controlled hardware.
What he could be describing is the creation of dedicated hardware for internet movie distribution that will have copy-controls built in, and require a high-speed pipe.
In other words, you want to watch internet movies on your computer - you'll have to buy one ( or a card ) with the proper DRM system. You want to watch them some other way, you'll have to purchase that system ( set-top box, new tv, etc ).
It would seem that machines which aren't configured for DRM-internet-movies will still be available. (Of course people will hack them, but that's a different story.
I don't see in that piece where he's advocating forcing people to use copy-controlled machines for everything. Instead, he appears to be refuting claims that the MPAA is standing in the way of demand for high-speed access. And further, that the availability of a standard copy-control system is an absolute prerequisite for the existence of (MPAA) internet movies.
MjM
-rw-rw-rw- the new number of the beast
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
650 000 000 bytes == 619.888 Mbytes
typo eh? =)
Microsoft and other software companies can make deals with movie companies to reduce or even stop the copying of movies, music, etc. but that won't stop everyone. People will still break the encryption, circumvent the protection and unfortunately that has become illegal. (Knowledge is power/Knowledge is illegal) And I can see how effective copy protection been at stopping copying.
As one of my favorite comics said about the war on drugs
"Right! God, if only the War On Drugs hadn't been so effective! I could really use some fucking marijuana right now!"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So, somehow, my PC has got to distinguish between video that I shot myself of something that I'm "allowed" to shoot and a film in the cinema that I'm not allowed to shoot (to make a screener to distribute)?? Not gonna happen. What's more likely is that the MPAA will push to throttle all media creation on a consumer-grade machine without express permission from them. Or, at least cripple any such media creation as to make it worthless (ripping MP3's with the stock WMP springs to mind).
Of course, there's quite a few comments here that claim that Linux is the solution to our woes, but I wonder... what is the Linux equivelent of iMovie? or iPhoto? But even more than that, is Linux even legal if the PC's are meant to incorporate these controls at the hardware level? How many minutes would it take for the MPAA to declare Linux a circumvention mechanism under the DMCA and wipe it off the face of the earth (or at least the US market)?
My heart is filled with dread at the thought of what happens when the interests of the MPAA in controlling their content is at odds with my interest in making my own films/music with a modern (content-control-enabled) PC.
Where the value of X-Mailer: is the true measure of a man...
Here is the Pulse. Here is Jack Valentis finger, far from the pulse, jammed straight up his ass.
drinks are on me!
fuck that cocksucker with a rusty chainsaw.
As much as we would love this idea to go away on it's own due to it's sheer stupidity one must remember that in the good ole USA that politicians can be bought. It happened with the DMCA and it happened with this in the form of (R-SC) Fritz Hollings and the SSSCA. See slashdot story here
Yes it's stupid.
Yes it can happen.
With enough money it will.....
How much did the MPAA contribute to politicians in 2000? $132,837 54% went to Republicans
So far in 2002? $86,707 60% this time to Democrats (like our buddy Fritz)
At the risk of soundding like a troll, I personally agree with the artical. Unlike the RIAA, where most of the crap that comes out of it is out of a template and manufactured in mass quantity for the sheer raping of boy/girl-band lovers, it actualy takes the hard work and effort of many 100's if not 1000's of people to make a movie. And for whats it worth, i feel that we should just pay the money asked of us to see that movie. I mean, where i come from, pirated movies are = to 1USD each, but i still go to the movies, pay more to see the movie. So why can't we just do the same here? I mean, sure with enough hacking, copy protection will fail anyway, but unlike charging for MP3s which is really like getting raped, there is value in paying for a movie.
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
I don't think Matsushita is an MPAA member. It is certainly party to some of the DVD licensing organizations, but it is not part of the MPAA. Sony is, of course.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
That is one which I would like to see :) That big dog on the OpenBSD web page, OpenBSD's best friend. Here's lunch boy, come and get it! Gnaaarrrrllll.
A good DRM format is not very difficult to implement. Rather than data, make movies into executable files, ones which require communication with a central server to play. For added security, the executable could delete itself upon the end of the movie, or after a certain time period.
Now granted, someone's going to crack this. But the beauty of this approach will be revealed when this happens - once the file format is cracked, the authors need do little more than rearrange the format, and the crackers are back to square one. Because the movie format is executable, the programmers don't have to worry about "breaking" compatibility with existing players - they are free to implement a wide range of encryption schemes, further thwarting pirates.
Granted, this won't stop those who walk into a movie with a camcorder, but then again, that kind of piracy would still exist with or without PC's and the Internet.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
1. Which has the biggest impact on profits?
A - Exact bit-for-bit duplication of products from legally obtained originals, with the resulting copies sold on streetcorners and eBay.
B - Production of products that rely on stupidity to make money and are of little or no value to the consumer.
C - Evil naughty hackers.
2. What should you do to ensure that "piracy" does as little damage as possible?
A - Produce products with enough value that people would prefer to purchase a legitimate copy rather than deal with quality and legality issues of questionable copies.
B - Encourage harsh prosecution of those who profit from the sale of "pirated" content and launch a PR campaign explaining your side of the case.
C - Punish all consumers for not giving you enough money and argue that you should have complete control over everything you sell for all eternity, followed by evil laughter.
3. When your product can no longer provide adequate profit in your market, you should:
A - Change your product to better fit the market.
B - Move to a different market.
C - Grab market by the legs, spread them wide, and shove your product up the most convenient orifice.
I can't think of anything that would cause a code-fork faster than copy protection making it into the kernel :)
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Because once we load Linux or *BSD on our machines, they'll be rightfully called WORKSTATIONS, and therefore we'll be immune to this bull.
Hey, *THEY* happily redefined the meaning of hacker to be terrorists, so we can do the same to x86-32 machines.
Reminds me of a girlfriend that wanted a plaster cast of my dick......
In the case of computers you can have the original, I'll build another one.
The problem for the MPAA is that they cannot understand that as far as the economy goes they are not all that important. The computer industry is an order of magnitude larger.
No, the problem is that they do understand that, and they want it. They see the computer as nothing more than a means of entertainment. They don't know what a computer is, but they see it playing videos. Then they look at the amount of money people are spending on computers and software, and their jaws drop. They think that money should all be theirs. If it isn't theirs, that means to their little pea brains that it must have been stolen from them. It's up to their lawyers and hired guns to figure out a way to prize the money away from the computer industry.
Oh, yeah, they may have some sort of awareness that computers are used for other things, like what the script girls would have used typewriters for back in the old days, but they don't have to dirty their hands with that.
Remember back during the Bush (Sr.) campaign when everybody was surprised he did not know what a supermarket check-out scanner was? It's like that. People at this level of politics or plutocracy simply do not have any clue. At all. About anything. They don't deal with reality; they hire people for that.
In other words, they're not stupid; they're delusional.
Jack, et al, know that the general public is controlled by the media moguls. Expect to start seeing characters in sitcoms being repulsed at the idea that someone is 'stealing' movies off the internet. Expect to see the 'disgusting thief' ostracized for his/her 'illegal' behavior.
There is power in words.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
'Computer and video-device companies need to sit at the table with the movie industry. Together, in good-faith talks...'
Cough. Cough. Excuse me? Good faith? You have the cajones to use that phrase?
There's nothing "good faith" about the MPAA or RIAA. I won't speak for movie stars (just yet), but ask a recording artist what they get from the label. IF their album goes platinum, they MIGHT make money off their next album, if they tour a lot.
Let's face it, though: They spend too much on the stars, get too much for themselves, and then sit around and bitch and moan about how they're not making enough.
If you reduced the pay for "stars" to a reasonable amount, you could cut the budget of the average major production, significantly, you could then afford to have the movies play in the theatre for less, you could charge less for DVDs and rentals, more people would buy these products because they'd be priced reasonably, AND YOU'D STILL MAKE AS MUCH MONEY OR MORE.
Sorry, but I think it's wrong that Tom Cruise makes God knows how many $$$ per movie, while school teachers, cops, firemen, people who do something really important for society get paid crap.
Sorry, had to rant a bit. I think they're all a bunch of blood sucking vampires myself.
so when are they going to start having employees of DMCA and MPAA and FBI swing by my house every day to do random copy-drug-liscencing-protection-1984 style scan searches?
Ave Molech Setting
Dear sir,
Let me give you a clue:
1. It won't work. This should be obvious by now.
2. It will tick folks like me off and we will turn to illegal copies(which btw I have none right now)
3. Most people don't want to steal.
4. People like orginal's, whether it be cars, books, movies, music, basecard cards, etc
5. People won't follow idiot laws unless they are forced to. Can you force them?
6. There's got to be a happy medium, but this ain't it
There now, I feel a little bit better.
If I buy a piece of hardware, software, or media and it doesnt work like it is supposed to (that is acording to fair use laws, and descrpitons on the device/media packaging, THEN IT IS BROKEN!
If it is broken I'm taking it back. Beleive me if you make a loud enough noise they will take it back reguardless of thier return policy.
RA7
"Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" - RWE
Give me a break. IF (and it's a big if) Valenti's vision becomes a reality, you will roll over and take it up the a** as soon as Phantom Menace or The Matrix becomes available as video-on-demand, IF (there's that word again) you have an "approved" computer. You'll rush out and buy one and enjoy it just like the rest of the world.
Yes, welcome to Slashdot, where we all love to hate the MPAA/RIAA, but we post glowing reviews of movies like FotR and cheer on the guys who are lining up for four months to see AotC.
We're voting with our wallets, people. I've spent WAY more money in the past year on MPAA-member products than I have in donations to the EFF or equivalent, and I'll bet that 99.5% of Slashdot readers have done the same.
Perhaps the reason folks are happy with their 56K modems and existing broadband is that it's good enough to read email, visit web sites, and read the news. Why would I want to spend hours downloading a movie (legally or not) when I can jump in my car, drive 5 minutes to a shopping center, and rent the movie for 5 nights for a couple of bucks? Duh! I'm sorry folks, watching anything more than a few minutes long on my PC has no appeal at all. The TV in the living room has surround sound, a decent sized screen and there is a comfortable chair in front of it. I think in the long run, most movie goers/viewers will agree: The PC is not the motion picture venue of choice.
"Computer and video-device companies need to sit at the table with the movie industry."
No, they don't.
"Together, in good-faith talks, they must agree on the ingredients for creating strong protection for copyrighted films and then swiftly implement that agreement to make it an Internet reality."
Sez who?
Fuck you, Jack, you fucking parasite. Looter. Crook. Pimp.
--rgb
Yeah, you could arrest every single college student, and a good portion of the rest of the population, and turn your country into a police state; or you could simply produce a new distribution model that would work with the system and encourage people to pay for their content. It is still a pain in the ass to obtain content reliably and in good quality, or at any decent speed. If I could pay a small fee (1-25 depending on the content, or a monthly subscription to a service) to be able to download the content into a format that can be converted into any other format (like a QuickTime codec), so that I could use the content how I see fit on any device that might play that sort of content. I don't want to stream content and I don't want to download an encrypted file. I want total control of what I'm going to purchase, along with value added material, such as info, pictures and lyrics if it's a song as an attached PDF file, and it must be delivered quickly and reliably. Music should be delivered in MP3 or OGG Vorbis format, as they are freely re-encoded, and video should be MPEG4 ISO. This is something that's really amiss on the internet today, and something that I'm sure a huge amount of people would love to pay for. Interoperability with various hardware players is key, and I have to be able to re-encode the content to any format I want. Any streaming services must be free and funded by advertising. If I can't download the media ad-free, I'm not going to pay for it. This is the way it's going to have to be if they want to work with the internet and draw people away from piracy. The fact is, that right now, it is more convenient to get your content online from bootleg sources than to purchase the content legally. If they change this and make the content available on demand over the internet in standard formats, it would be well-worth paying for, and the demand is huge for these services. If 350,000 films are being downloaded now every day, with all the trouble people go through and bad quality they put up with, imagine how many would be willing to pay a reasonable fee to be able to download that content from a legitimate source reliably, quickly and in guaranteed quality. The fact that so many people are pirating movies should only encourage the MPAA and RIAA to see the oportunity they're missing, and to change their distribution system. This is going to put a lot of the physical media distribution industry out of business, but it is for the best, for the creators, providers, consumers and the environment. We are bound to move to an electronic distribution system, so they might as well get started, before the pirates get more organized, and figure out better ways to capture and distribute content on their own. All we want to do is watch movies and listen to music . . .
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
I'm sure there will be a burgeoning market for black market PC's, just as there are for cable decoders and other illegal electronics.
One way or another, people will rebel against this.
This space left intentionally blank.
I'm scared at this thought.
Imagin a world where you can't buy any hardware cheeply that can run anything other than software made by big business. The first thought is just to boot linux. But what if they changed the arch to a closed system, got rid of all the legacy stuff. All of the new hardware would only run windows with software that microsoft and the MPAA approve of. Microsoft would likely make a programming enviroment with limited access to wav, video and file devices, poof no more MP3's, MPEG's, Divx, etc... Only ASF...
Sure hackers will find lots bugs in the system to get around the restrictions but mass use of MP3's and Mpegs are dead in their tracks. Mass software pirating is no more.
Almost all the software makers will support this because it means that no one will be able to crack their programs. But the small guys will suffer and most will die off.
I've never thought about this before but this seems like the most logical path of the future.
All it would take would be a partnership between Intel and microsoft and its reality.
Copy protection dose not == encryption.
Copy protection == closed systems.
The computer industy made many mistakes in the early days by making the systems open in design and they have been opened right up with linux. From a programmer/hacker/geek perspective this is a good thing but from a business perspective its a nightmare.
Basicly it all comes down to taking the tools out of the hands of the general public.
--
God, root, what is the difference?
I know there are alot of people downloading whole movies from the internet, but is it really that big of a problem? People have been downloading pirate software for as long as I have had internet access, and the software industry is fine. I remember the advent of mp3s and the initial downloading craze, and the music industry is still kickin'.
I guess the big quesiton is, how much of the entire consumer base is downloading and not buying. Yeah, we all know somebody who is uber-1337, and likes to brag about how he doesn't pay for anything. This person is usually very immature and just generally annoying. But take me for example. Here at work I have access to all the bandwith I can handle, a cd burner and an Internet full of illegal movies. But do I horde them, laughing the whole time because I am getting away with something? No, I don't even bother because it is not worth my time.
Also, I hear about how digial copies are so pure, and just as good as the original. Heh, I hate to break it to everyone, but a divx movie that I might download from any of the many sources on the internet, is nowhere *near* what I would consider DVD quality. Hell, it's barely watchable quality. Not to mention the fact that I will have to view said movie while sitting at my computer desk. Well you don't *have* to watch it on the computer, but they alternatives aren't much better.
I can make a crappy vcd out of the file I downloaded. But it will take god knows how long to convert the movie into vcd format, plus the fact that it will be generally pretty crappy. Oh I guess I could hook up a computer with a tv-out to my tv. An easy thing to do, but I'm just too damned lazy.
Basically, the movie industry is going through the same thing that every industry does when it becomes painfully evident that their revenue stream is in jeapordy.
Where exactly does this number come from? Cites? Sources? Valenti pulling things out of his ass rather than shoving them in there for a change?
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Educated consumers wont buy something that takes away from their rights that they had previously.
Computer Scientists will break whatever you think up almost immediately.
Whatever copy-protection you dream up, remember, its only a math equation. It can and will be reverse-engineered.
This is a logistical nightmare to implement. Dont even try.
This is a paradigm shift. Shift's happen. Keep up or become obsolete.
Remember Jack, the internet moves information a heck of a lot faster than your lawyers can sue.
guess I should've warned some people, my bad . . .
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
You mean the little faries that live in my puter aren't real??? *Wimper* :(
"You have already seen this movie on this computer. Movies are allowed to only be seen once according to the Terms of Extortion and excessive Control bundled with the DVD. You are now a movie pirate. This computer will call the FBI in 5...4...3..."
Why yes I am paranoid! Thanks for asking!
Sony is a pissant company compared to, say, Microsoft or IBM.
Sony's market cap = ~$42 billion
AOL Time Warner's market cap = ~$100 billion
Microsoft's market cap = ~$319 billion
IBM's market cap = ~$169 billion
I know market cap is not the only or even the best measure of a company's size, but it's a decent measure of the leverage a company can wield. To put things in perspective, the total value of all Sony's floated stock (i.e. market cap) is a bit more than the amount of *real, liquid cash* that Microsoft has on hand (~$36 billion as of their last filing).
Media giants like AOLTW are small fry compared to the giants of tech or many other industries. They just have disproportionate influence with politicians and the public. Why? For one, they have a long, long, long history of brutally effective lobbying and tight political connections. Jack Valenti was riding in the car behind JFK in Dallas, and was the first advisor to LBJ to be sworn in. The main reason, though, is that they have enormous influence over the public. Politicians don't get elected without the media. Elections are won and lost by media coverage. Popular entertainment media like movies and TV can shape public opinion.
That's why politicians get on their knees for media companies - nobody who cares about reelection wants to piss off the owners of CNN (AOL Time Warner), FoxNews (NewsCorp), ABC (Disney), CBS (Viacom), etc.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Would have a police man standing behind me all the time watching what I do. In truth, they can go screw themselfs. If I have to, I'll contine to use my old hardware, after all I do have the right to fair-use. Lets hope that the MPAA/RIAA and their related cronies get their ass cut off. And prehaps handed back to them.
Om, nomnomnom...
What they forgot to talk about is the seating arrangment they want; where the computer companies are sitting under the table performing fellatio on the Industry Associations.
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
Isn't it funny that after all these years, the humble PC is still considered one of the most controversial devices invented in the last 30 years?
If good ole' Happy Jack had his way there wouldn't be PC's, but there is and there's not an easy solution to the power they represent for people like "Happy Jack".
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I find it interesting that Jack Valenti doesn't mention stream in anyway shape or form, but places the entire focus on downloading. Before Movie 88 was shut down, they were doing streaming via realvideo which at best was fair. At a $1.00 per 5 day rental it had gr4eat potential. If you remember last year Madonna did a webcast of a mini concert in London that was streamed. 26 million people tuned in. Imagine $1 each. Even if half decided they didn't want to pay, that would leave 13 million. More than any single concert has ever grossed, by far. Imagine Harry Potter opening on the web, or Lord of the Rings. You think your numbers for a weekend opening are good now?
Remember this is the same guy that said that the VCR is to the movie industry what the Boston Strangler was to women, in testimony before congress, and lived in the White House as an aide to President Johnson.
Think about it this way... if we have computers that have this copy protection on it, someone if not
:P
a lot of people will crack it. Then we will have
software/movies/etc... that don't have good software
protection because they trust the hardware. So
what am I saying... people will crack it.... then
everything that you can rent for $2 online, will be
copyable, so they will lose the money from trying
to sell videos at your local movie store. They
can't win either way, if they can actually make
something that is not crackable... then they deserve some payment.
Can anyone say modchip for PCs
L8r
I know this apears to be slightly off topic. But it isn't.
We, me, you, and anyone else who cares about our rights need to show it. Little by little our rights are windled down to little more than slaves so that big copperations can find new ways to make money off of us.
We need to show the government that we have a voice. And that we will no longer tolerate this kind of behavior. I am tried of being a sheep, are you?
So once again, I ask who else lives near the Washington DC Area?
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
The movie industry needs to focus on their security first so that their "valuable creations" don't get stolen. If they acted more responsible and kept their film/data in a safer place they wouldn't be in this mess.
Seriously, the only people who seem to get very upset about these types of restrictions are us techno/computer geeks/fanatics.
I've tried bringing these issues up to "average people", pointing out all the limitatons that have been involuntarily placed on the DVD player sitting on their entertainment center, etc.
Usually, they come back with a big "who cares?", because they think other issues are much more important. As long as they can go to the store and buy a movie for $19.95 or whatever and it plays for them, they're happy.
The true change will only come about when the MPAA and others like them keep pushing and pushing, until *something* does directly affect the average Joe and Jane. I have no doubt it will... and soon, at the rate we're going.
The recent announcement that the proposed encryption of HDTV broadcasts will render all units made before Jan. 2002 obsolete is a start. Only thing is, most "average people" didn't buy one yet.... So once again, they mainly pissed off the geeks who were "early adopters".
If they're only aiming to implement this scheme in 'an Internet reality' then we really have nothing to worry about.
e x p e c t d e l a y . c o m
c_j_n(at)yahoo(dot)com
Even if you don't live iun the DC area, you can still help. Information for handouts and so forth.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
...the more we slip through your fingers."
With apologies to Princess Leia...
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
AOL/TW owns Warner Bros, And New Line. As well as a small independant film company, that I have forgotten the name of.
Viacom owns Paramount. At least a controlling stake in it. Ever notice how all the MTV and Nickelodeon (both Viacom cos) movies are paramount releases.
News Corp. (aka Rupert Murdoch) owns fox. As well as tabloids and a bunch of other CRAP.
Disney owns Miramax, Hollywood, Touchstone, Buena Vista, and one or 2 other obscure independant firms.
Universal is owned by Vinvaldi (sp?). A shithole french company that started in the fucking WATER buisness.
Columbia/Tri-Star is of course Sony. And if anyone has any power at all in the above about CPPC, it would be these guys. But thats minimal. I'm not losing sleep on this at all, and none of you should either.
Valenti is an obvious moron, and socially inept. He's being screaming death of the movie industry now for 25 years. IT WILL NOT EVER FUCKING HAPPEN. So eat your mush Mr. Valenti, and remember that you are not special.
It would have to be in the hardware level or this won't work. Yeah I'm sure Microsoft would do this and maybe even Apple. But whos gonna tell the free community that they need to limit what they can do?
RIAA: "Hi Mr. Torvalds, we need you to enforce the DMCA in your kernel"
RIAA: "Hi Redhat, we need you to enforce the DMCA more and Mr. Torvalds told us to contact you."
RedHat: "Umm... we don't actually do the coding for those media projects, you'll have to contact Gnome, KDE, and all the other little developers"
RIAA: "Oh... thank you, you wouldn't happen to the phone number for 1337hac0rz34 would you?"
RedHat: "Haha... click".
Actually this would be funny, I'd like to see them do something like this, because in linux the dmca,etc will never be software. So unless they're hacking firmware which would be a whore, this won't work.
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
I think that companies should adopt the Dr. Evil approach to what has been said by this booger.
"you want strong copy protection in our software? Well then you must pay us 100million billion dollars!"
but this guy is on crack.
...a charge issued only by those who have a blurred knowledge of the financial fragility of the film industry.
Computer and video-device companies need to agree on the ingredients for creating strong protection for copyrighted films...
I guess he thinks all computers are sealed-case, off-the-shelf pieces of crap that can be built to keep an eye on the contents of your files, and what you do with those files.
Because making movies is so expensive, only two in 10 films ever retrieve their production and marketing investment from domestic theatrical exhibition...Videocassette piracy costs the movie industry worldwide more than $3.5 billion
Hey, I'm all for copyrights and piracy prevention, but let's get real. Just because clever bookkeeping makes most of your movies "losers" doesn't mean that you aren't swimming in cash from the few successful ones. Just walk across Wilshire Blvd up into the hills, knock on some doors, and ask people what they do for a living. Not a lot of insurance salesmen up there.
I think Mr. Valenti has a blurred knowledge of technology. As I said, I'm all for copyrights and piracy prevention, but depending on an entire industry of manufacturers, programmers, and users to base their standards and protocols on your security needs is ridiculous. Might as well ask car makers to build their cars so you can't fit a duffle bag full of pot in the trunk.
And, an unrelated aside:
A recent survey revealed that 68 percent of all home computer users say they're satisfied with their normal 56K computer modem.
Hey! Isn't that equal to the number of users on AOL/MSN?
Evil is the money of root.
(or whatever the acronym was)
Remember that proposed law that would _require_ such a thing from Sen. Fritz Hollings?
I guess they couldn't buy it in D.C. and now are trying to buy it somewhere else.
Weazels.
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
I mean, wouldn't putting hardware copy protection increase illegal gambling? Yeah, you heard me. People would take bets on how fast programmers could crack the hardware protection.
That wouldn't have been saved under a sane law? None. Zero. Zilch.
The industry *knows* how to detect passenger wait and adjust airbag response accordingly. They *want* to do this. They're not allowed to.
Airbags detonate with force calculated for an adult mail who didn't use his belt. The result is that *everyone* else is less safe than they would be under a sane system.
hawk
It is hilarious that they start making that argument about the costs that they need to recoup for their films... in well under a decade, the costs of studio quality cameras are going to be in the consumer price range. It is going to be hilarious when the first person says to Hollywood about their beautifully videotaped, independent, non-spaceship, non-effects heavy production, "I don't need you anymore. Buzz off. And I don't need your distribution. So double buzz off."
That is going to be a funny day. The days of the $20 million dollar stars are coming to an end. So are the griping Ally McBeals out there, and their perks. The market will be flooded with independent producers of television and movies (which will look the same in quality... totally) selling their wares for cheap with cheap actors, until they get more money to develop their shows. Actors that are good will have ways around the system, and not have to play games with some sex-driven producer. It will be much more equalizing.
By the way, I have never, ever bought the idea that some movies never make a buck out there. That sounds like crap to me.
I live in Nashville and have seen country lackeys that live like kings with zero name recognition for 20 years or more off of one b-side on a bad album. So to say that someone is not making a dollar off of the movies that I have heard of or seen in the national media, then they're lying or tricking for the tax man. After all, these are the same people who told you that Forrest Gump lost money.
- Riiiiiiight.
I don't care what your spreadsheet or your accountant said, Forrest Gump did not lose money. Whoever said that needs to be slapped vigorously.They (the MPAA) are getting desperate. They know what is coming. They're dead in ten years, unless they set up a state controlled monopoly.
Guess what? It ain't going to happen.
it is just your kind of additude that we have this problem today.
If the students weren't able to download movies, they would still spend their money on beer and getting laid, and just not watch movies, or make VHS copies.
I don't see where the studios are losing money.
Only people with jobs can afford to buy a movie on VHS and then again on DVD.
What I've been thinking lately is that this actually needs to happen. A reasonably secure, widely implemented SOFTWARE spec for DRM needs to happen. And it's in our best interest not to fight it.
Hardware security, if it happens, will be draconian and will limit any kind of open development platform. And it's what Media industry biggies will push for -- are pushing for -- because they can't see a succesful software alternative.
Of course, there can't be a totally secure software solution. There can't be totally secure solution of any kind. But assuming we stopped fighting soft security -- or at least didn't distribute tools for doing it -- we'd soon see media biggies start to release their holdings. Slowly. Expensively. And a total rip off. And 90% of folks would be herded through the DRM scheme.
And I think, over time, in that market, it would fail. Eventually, someone would release suffeciently compelling media at a competetive price and they'd win.
I think the media biggies know this, and so they're pushing for a platform that not only allows copy protection but also utter control. They do it under the auspices of copy protection. If we give them copy protection, they lose their weapon.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
I resepect a publisher's right to prevent their product from being pirated and I would hope that there would be some sort of "middle ground" that would allow me full access to my computer and it's hardware while allowing the publisher to enforce his rights.
Here is how I think it can be done. A small dongle device that plugs into a USB port that contains a "serial number" that is the key. You provide the serial number which allows the server to encrypt the data so that only someone with the right software and this particular dongle can decrypt it. The data is stored on the hard drive in encrypted form or could even be burned on a CD-ROM if you wished.
The key could have several different license models, single use, limited number of uses, time limited use, or unlimited uses. This way you could sell a single viewing for say $.99 or the whole unlimited use for say $14.99 (or perhaps a weeks worth of use for $2.99).
People are pissed about stifling innovation not because you don't want them to pirate movies, but because Alen Cox and others won't give lectures in the US because they are afraid of being arrested for violating the DMCA, the worst piece of corporate interest legislation in recent history.
The people that don't want the government to influence business are the same ones trying to use business to influence government.
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Just finished reading Cryptonomicon...
Has anybody ever seen this actually work? If so, we have nothing to worry about. Just wait for your next door neighbor to buy the new MPAA approved device, and copy as many movies and music as you wish.
Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
Mmmmmm...rolls.
Perhaps you could pound some sense into them. If they offer people a good product at a fair price, they don't have to worry about "piracy." It just won't be worth it to people to go to the effort of obtaining a copy if they can get the real thing for a decent price. Same goes for the RIAA. But they don't want to listen to such thinking because it means they would have to stop gouging their customers and saddling them with ridiculous restrictions.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Said everything I wanted to say. :)
I'm suprised no one's commented on the phrasing near the bottom: "computers and video devices must be prepared to react to instructions embedded in the film." To me that sound like the ability to add scripting and such like to films: one little security hole and bam, movie viruses.
Things work now with my system, so I will never upgrade again! HAHA MPAA! See who is the smartest of the all!
E.
wrong. This was an average person. Not a techno-geek.
I don't steal movies, music, or programs. I run free software, listen to music that is freely distributable, and pay for rentals and the occasional theatre.
Bullshit that people won't be pissed off if they can't copy this or that. The average joe is not going to be happy when they can't download their MP3s. My father nearly cried when Napster went down.
As far as American's whining over not being free... As far as I see it the Constitution originally granted a lot of freedom. We were really pissed off during the Civil War when the federal government became more and more centralized (conscription, taxes, and suspension of personal freedom). Ever since then we have been quiet and let it happen.
I will not let the fucking MPAA tell me what to do. Hell no.
Again, Fuck you MPAA.
You missed my mistake of typing PIY instead of PFY.
In a couple years you could grow up to replace the grammar and spell check in Outlook.
I think what "they" (thouse who represent the dmca) are concerned about is the growing ease of which these controls are are accomplished, I can tell you its much easier to get some software, audio xyz off of morphous then it was in the past to get it off of bbs , or ftp, or well. . i guess IN the early days AOL was about as easy as it got, but that is besides, the point. mainstream "piracy" is a bad idea with the current system. . I think the system needs to change, and accommodate the principals of negligible cost of information distribution, creation, ie software for making movies, and audio is getting better and better, eayser and cheeper and cheeper, game mods that go mainstream, are still being created by small teams of individuals, as opposed to the legions of people involved in a major motion picture.) Independent film is getting better, and look no further then Linux and its open source contemporaries as taking advantage of the "medium". . Obiusly the acienent system of hording resources,will have to change, the system does not "need" a select few at the top, and the rest feeding thouse few to function. ofcouser those tyring to express their control of the content are not going to be very gun-ho about the idea that information is free. I don't know why so much has to be releated to money offten the artists or content creators and content recivers are not "doing it" for the money, the publishers are, and perhpas that is wher ethe inheret conflict arises. .
I guess I'll buy those old PC off the rivers beds in China. That would solve two problems at once.
Umm ok. I don't mind video on demand because I'm paying for a one time use of viewing, like I would for renting. The added benefit is that I don't have to be responsible for physical media in the process. Buying a DVD and renting a movie (at Blockbuster or with VoD) is not the same thing. For starters, the price is very different. If I pay $20 for a DVD, I'm paying for the rights to take it home and watch it whenever I want. As part of those rights, I should have the right to fair use of it.
Most of the DVD purchases I made were for the explicit purpose of getting inspiration. I didn't buy Lost in Space because it has a steller plot (ha!) but it does have a totally bitchin style to it that I love to examine. If the MPAA says "you cannot take screengrabs", for example, then the DVD's no longer have value to me. Even moreso, I lose some of my toolset for improving my skills.
Your comment about VoD is incongruent, and pretty lame really. I support the MPAA in producing movies using talents I hope to develop some day. But if they start to shift towards restricting it, then they can forget about me willingly going along for it.
I do intent do speak with my wallet. I will not buy a computer with copy restrictions on it. As a side effect, I won't be able to speak with my skills. If they stall my ability to grow by limiting what I can do with content, then they also stall my ability to work for them.
If you're challenging to not by a copy restricted computer, you're going to lose.
"Derp de derp."
"The more you tighten your grip, Valenti, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
Cynicism, like dogmatism, can be an excuse for intellectual laziness. - Susan Shirk
.AVI ports are much smaller, than the corrected 600MB value, depending on the resolution. Not the nicest things to watch but they work at times.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
Deja Vu anyone? This is a cloud of confusion he's throwing out to gain more time to develop their own proprietary system. These kinds of partnerships are designed not to work.
For all of you saying you'd rather go to the movies or rent the movie for a 5 nights. I have downloaded the lotr divx (really good quality I must add), and then I took roommates laptop, which has an s-video out, and hooked it up to my stereo receiver, which has video out put to my tv. So, I watched the lotr divx, on a nice size TV w/ surround sound. So, you dont actually have to watch divx on yer computer. There are ways around this. The only bad thing is when you get divx over 2cds, like lotr, you have to change cds. Off the laptop it played great and even looked great. Id even go as far to say on my tv (which is a pos) it looked as good as some dvds. But this probably wouldnt be the same if I had a nice new Sony Trinitron.
How do you take a picture of the best moment of your life?
Computer and video-device companies need to sit at the table with the movie industry.
This costs more money than various lawsuits, so Jacky our little gangster won't see this happen.
Together, in good-faith talks, they must agree on the ingredients for creating strong protection for copyrighted films...
see above
and then swiftly implement that agreement to make it an Internet reality.
Swiftly implement? I will swiftly implement my foot in your ass to make you come down from your trip... Jack, did you forget to take your pills again?
damn this guy is a dreamer...
I think that Mr. Valenti just wanted to see how many posts he could ignite and flame wars he could start on slashdot. Of course you cant copy protect PCs. Everone knows that if its turned on, its insecure...right???
Just a few comments...
They're satisfied with 56Kbps because that's all they can get. BTW, who did this survey and where were the results published?
Way to go. When I get my DSL line will my name be enshrined in a manilla folder at the MPAA as a potential copyright infringer?
Two solutions, in my mind: Don't make the other eight if they're money losers. Or, perhaps, make decent movies without all the multi-million dollar special effects. If you're looking for reasons why noone's going to the movies, it's because most of them assume that their audience has the intelligence of a cabbage. We're looking for a good plot, believable characters, and other things that, frankly, you'll never be able to get by adding more and more expensive CGI. Not everyone is distracted by the fancy computer generated effects to the point that they can't tell that the movie, as a whole, stinks.
But you'll probably push for a prohibition of the consumer's ability to store this purchased movie onto anything more permanent than a hard disk. When that dies then I'll have to buy another copy won't I? Ah... I see the plan for the studios' future revenue stream.
I, personally, suspect that it's difficult to explain briefly because it'll take a new 200-page law which will trample the rights of most every computer user. And you don't really want the general public actually knowing what's being planned until it's too late anyway.
Nice try. Lessig doesn't (in anything that I've read anyway; I'm still reading his latest book) say that ``copyrighted movies are destroying digital innovation''. It's the new copyright extensions that you and the rest of the MPAA have lobbied for and gotten enacted into law that threaten to kill off innovation. Particularly when they're being applied to things other than your precious movies.
Just my opinion, mind you, but anything that obsoletes existing computer equipment will never be considered ``consumer-friendly''.
Here's a clue (free of charge): The internet does not exist to provide the movie industry with a convenient conduit to pipe their crummy movies to the public. And, since the vast majority of the people using the Internet seem to be happy with slow, slow, 56Kbps connections (your assertion), they're not going to be lining up to replace their modems with DSL routers any time soon. Besides, if you haven't noticed, most of the U.S. cannot even get broadband. Consider those who have cable access: why haven't more signed up in large numbers to receive pay-per-view movies? It's a dud. If it were popular, wouldn't you think more people would have demanded that their cable providers include it (or more of it)? BTW, most of the people that I have heard of even having a PPV service cancel it after a short time. Are you and your cohorts banking on the public paying for movies that they'll watch at home because it'll be more convenient to see a bad movie at home as opposed to having to get in the car and drive to see the same bad movie? I'm pretty sure that the movie-going public isn't that gullible.
You need to get over this fantasy that we're all clamoring for Hollywood's product and that the MPAA members are performing some sort of noble service by churning out the drek that passes for a Hollywood movie.
Have a nice day!
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Real World example; Supermarkets used to try and think of things to make our lives easier. Complimentary trollies. Heavy use of barcodes to make checkout faster. Choice. But the last "feature" added to a local supermarket chain was to add those anti-shoplifting alarm things and now they're considering making you pay a deposit to use a trolley. They've been stedily making the isles narrower to fit in more crap, reducing choice for no apparent reason. A local department store has it's most popular sections (CDs, Videos, games, toys, computers, HiFi) all furthest away from the entrances on the top floor. Don't get me started on the way Ikea is laid out.
So, just when did companies stop adding features that their customers wanted and just focussed on screwing us over?
If courts, other businesses, and government start listening to this guy's crap, he could become the most powerful man in the world over the next 10 years. Scary.
Macintosh humor! MacComedy.com
This means all of us ultra-liberal geeks out here will have to decide which is the lesser of two evils. What fun. :)
I mean no one saw it coming with Senator Hollings of SC's SSSCA Legislation!
Also, why would hardware copy protection even work in the first place? If you are viewing a copy protected movie, or listening to copy protected music, all you would need to make bootlegs is a digital video camera or a tape recorder (respectively). The only way around this is to make movies unviewable or records unhearable, and I don't think that this solution would do mush to help record or movie sales.
"...computers and video devices must be prepared to react to instructions embedded in the film..."
;)4 1)
No, they absolutely must not. Devices i own in my home will do what i say and nothing else. They will answer to me and only me. I've had enough of this with DVD (They can decide what you can fast-forward through for gods sake). Any system that relies on this is completely flawed and anyone who designs it is a fool. I don't know why people allowed DVD to get away with this but the general public sure as hell better not let anything else like this through. It goes against the entire Open Source philosophy.
BTW
I just had a comment deleted for threats against the president of the USA. I hope threatening the President of the MPAA is still legal, cause i want to kill him
(slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=28127&cid=30233
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Fuck you and your shitbox sermons.
Your morals are not welcome here. Please leave the premises, we do not need to call the police. I at least hope we don't.
I WILL USE my GUN (AKA BIG BLACK COCK OF DEATH) any way I see FIT. You do not have the MORAL AUTHORITY to judge whether he should or should not own one.
Necrophilia for Dummies
I: Introduction
Very few text files have been written regarding the sexual tendencies and practices of necrophiliacs. While most people would prefer to believe that we do not exist we most certainly do as is obvious to anyone who visits a cemetery during our nightly rampages. Necrophiliacs prefer to go about their business alone sharing is not a part of this alternative lifestyle as the corpse usually wears out fairly quickly. This is not to say that the occasional orgy involving four or five necrophiliacs and about a dozen or so corpses does not occur, but it is very rare. In this file I will describe common (and some uncommon) techniques which necrophiliacs use to gain satisfaction from their stiff partners. Hopefully these vivid descriptions will encourage you to go out to your local cemetery and to join our ranks!
II: Finding a partner
Finding a partner for your necrophiliac activities is definitely the hardest part. You not only have to gain access to the corpse but you also have to find one which suits your tastes. Granted, some necrophiliacs would screw roadkill if given the chance but most of us are more discriminating. Your chances depend upon where you pick up your date. If you have access to a morgue it would definitely be your best bet as the corpses there are usually the freshest and have not yet been treated for burial. They may be a bit chilly because they've been lying in the meat locker for days but that really shouldn't make a big difference to the determined necrophiliac. Cemeteries are a bit harder to deal with as finding a screwable corpse is harder to do. However, if you know how to interpret signs this shouldn't be a problem. If a grave consists of a mound of fresh dirt and is covered with flowers, chances are that the stiff hasn't been laying here for too long. Rotting flowers on the mound usually hint to the state of the corpse as well. Some people are exclusively into 'porking the bone', i.e. sex with skeletons. In this case you can dig up almost any grave and hope that the inhabitant hasn't yet disintegrated into dust. Try to scope out a fairly secluded cemetery for your passions unless you like a sense of danger to go along with the sex. Having anyone catch you in the act is NOT fun, and if you're picked up by a cop chances are that you won't be able to screw anything but Bubba behind bars for the next few decades. People are generally not understanding of the necrophiliac lifestyle, so it will probably be a long time before we can come out of the closet.
III: Preparation
Depending upon where you are at this point you'll have either a little or a lot of work to do. The person in the morgue will obviously have to do little more than to open the locker, pull the corpse out and bang away. If you're one of the cemetery people you'll have more work to do. An experienced necrophiliac is always equipped with the bare essentials: a shovel, Vaseline and a box of rubbers. Why the shovel is needed should be obvious, but if the ground is hard then you might need more equipment to dig up your date. Vaseline is used to loosen the corpse up a bit. This makes it less likely for a body part to break off while you're having fun and it also prevents your mantool from becoming too irritated while screwing the dried out pussy. The BOX of condoms is used to play it safe no necrophiliac should be without it. You never know which STDs your partner had during his/her lifetime, and believe me, it doesn't get any better after the person dies. You can put on more than one rubber for extra protection if it is warranted, but screwing a corpse without protection is just plain stupid unless you want to be the next date for a necrophiliac. If you're in a cemetery try to drag the corpse out of the grave and behind a bush or to another secluded place. Pumping away in the grave may seem more convenient, but it's a severe disadvantage to you if you need to take off in a hurry. Sometimes the corpse is too fragile to be moved in that case make it fast. Or just break off the head, hand or lower torso and take it with you for added convenience.
Note from the pixel fairy: This is where i must warn you! Vaseline dissolves latex, meaning it will eat through your or dead-boy's condom. Use KY Jelly or anything else that's not oil-based.
Part IV: Techniques
So now you've got a stiff lying seductively in front of you, but you have no idea how to start. How you proceed from this point onward really depends upon what kind of person you are. The corpse will last longer if you treat it gently and with care, but if you prefer to go all out you'll probably receive greater satisfaction. There are many differences between screwing a live and a dead person which one needs to be aware of. Firstly, a corpse will never tell you to get off of it if you're being a bit rough and it will never complain no matter what kinky sexual practices you use it for. Screwing a corpse is also much more predictable because you can raise an arm, leg or whatever and it will still be in that position when you reach for it again. Take the arms and gently lock them in an embrace behind your back, or spread the legs to make sex a bit easier. If you want a great blowjob then lubricate your partner's mouth, lock it to your preferred width, insert and go for it. Although there's no tongue stimulation it's still worthwhile, and it's also safer than conventional sex. Corpses can also be recycled if treated properly. If you're a proficient embalmer you can keep a corpse for over five years if it has been properly embalmed. That's free sex whenever you want it! You naturally don't want to be too rough with an embalmed corpse though as they are more fragile. One final advantage of screwing corpses is that they are always in abundance. Based upon your sexual preferences you can designate a cemetery or a morgue as your territory and always find fresh partners to screw. Plus you don't have to resort to cheesy pickup lines or spend all your money in order to get a date. necrophiliac is a passion which is cheaply satisfied.
Note from the pixel fairy: Necrophilia is not so cheaply enjoyed unless you already have such direct access.
V. Conclusion
I hope that this text file will encourage you to go out and try necrophilia. Not many people do it, but that's precisely what makes it so much fun it makes you feel special! If no living person would touch you with a 10 foot pole then try having sex with a corpse! Some of them are real beauties and it's an experience you'll never forget. There is no greater experience for a virgin than having his/her virginity taken by a corpse. Anyways, have fun and if you have any experiences you'd like to share then by all means do! Maybe necrophilia will enter the mainstream because of your efforts
XDFGF
Take two (or more) copies. Compare. Remove (or distort to unrecognizability) watermark. Spread.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
For me this is closely related to a topic once brought up by Ray Kurzweil. It went something like: If we have nanobot swarms (atomic level robots in this case) that could actually create any physical item including furniture, clothing, even medicine, and which could instantly reproduce and repair themsleves, we would reach a new delema. Would these companies restrict the technology so that they could charge on the old model of one charge per instance (or in a companies IDEAL world, one charge per length of use, per functionality, etc). Keep in mind that after the first swarm its pretty much a free process, its all becomes IP! Would they really restrict the potential to clothe and feed and care for virtually everyone on the planet due to our (highly corrupt) concept of money (which is one of the few things in existance which doesnt obey the laws of balance. You can create money out of NOTHING, so what is it worth, really? Ask the Federal Reserve what THEY think. You think all your money is backed up by either cash OR gold? Nope. There is not enough "money" in existance to pay off all the debt created by the Fed. See here for further details) I think that the copy protected CDs Movies etc is the first real version of this scenario on a major scale. I dont think its nearly as critical tho - in my opinion, dont make it available to the public if you dont want them to use it change it, etc. Any other argument belies the fact that if its in bits you can copy it, and if the COMPUTER IS TURNEND ON, ITS INSECURE.
Joe Sixpack, most likely ignorant of what MPAA is, sees the check-mark on the Flybynite, sees that Freedom brand doesn't have it, and with little separating the two in regards to price, figures he's getting more for his dollar.
You mean the same way that DVD players with the DIVX checkbox swept the market?
p.s. - Don't make fun of "Joe Six-Pack" - he spends and he votes. "Ich bin ein Johann Sechs-Satzer!"
Carthago delenda est!
Doesn't Sony already own major media properties (MGM?).
Has this made any difference?
Copy control has already been attempted in update to IDE interface standard, and I think Big Blue was behind it. Will be attempted again, probably multiple attempts when climate may be more "preferable". As long as money is seen, this will be ongoing. Sit down at table? Obfuscation. Will be done by slipping in a couple sentences into a totally unrelated law, and into treaties for international reach. MPAA has nothing but time and multiple opportunities to slip this in somewhere.
I find it rather laughable that Jack Valenti says "...because making movies is so expensive, only two in 10 films ever retrieve their production and marketing investment from domestic theatrical exhibition." The problem I have is that Hollywood is notorious for cooking the books... take for instance the concept of "Net Profit". Take a look at here for a page that shows how Hollywood calculates "net profit" so that a movie like Coming to America can show no profit.
Don't stop at those two pages... look here or here or here... or if you don't mind reading a PDF file, try here
For the last two years, OpenCores has been designing a PC (among other things) from raw gates. The design is covered by a GNU license.
Blocks underway include a CPU (already running Linux), a video card, serial ports, ethernet, bluetooth, USB, wlan, PS/2 mouse interface and firewire. The rest of the modules are waiting for a developer to volunteer.
This design can be used, in conjunction with an FPGA, to build a working PC. With enough interest (and money), the same design files can be used to build custom chips.
New developers are welcome.
It's called a fucking JOKE! The poster was NOT actually *serious* about that.
Get the hook out of your fucking balls.. dumbass.
Is to get rid of broadcast television and radio.
When mandatory encryption is in place for all viewing devices, then everything can be pay-per-view PER USER PER VIEWING. and will be.
The real problem is that anyone at all watches the crap they put out.
This is insane. As a consumer, I would be strongly opposed to purchasing any hardware which enforces such copy protection. For the record, I do not engage in or support piracy, but I do insist on being able to back up my data, to move it to different media, and to be able to use it in less than mainstream OS's(Linux is my primary OS at the moment, and I have experimented with some of the other less conventional ones as well.) Perhaps if there are a large number of others that agree this should be made known to hardware manufacturers. Unfortunately, as far as the incentive, I believe that could be generated by the movie industry fairly easily. Note that many builders of portable digital music players were willing to gauruntee support for copy protection if a standard were ever created.
Without concord, one option is left: Congress must step in to protect valuable creative works on the Net and thereby benefit consumers by giving them another choice for movie viewing.
Valuable creative works like, say, Freddy Got Fingered?
Viacom owns Paramount Pictures and Blockbuster Video, as well as the CBS and UPN television networks, Infinity Broadcasting (radio), and many other media properties. /. reader sent $5 to the address below...
Don't forget Vivendi, the French megaconglomorate that owns Universal Studios (they bought it from Seagram, who bought it from Matsushita). Vivendi owns tons of non-media related companies as well.
Disney also owns the ABC television network as well as cable channels and radio stations.
The only entity that would be able to takeover one of these huge megacorps is another one of them. On the other hand, if every single
Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE
Ah..the truth reveiled! All these fuckers really want is to set everybody up for a revamp to the DMCA and possibly introduce another bill that will protect their scam. Bend over and grab your "copy protection" Jack cause I got a big fat "Fair Use Policy" that I'm about to ram up your ass you weathered old piece of crap!
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
ZZT!
Yeah, so I was in elementary school when it was made and I just found out about it. But it's fun!
Maybe we'll just get Cisco to put hardware filters on all routers that block all transmission of mpg, avi, mov, mp3 files...
They shouldn't read this, it might give them stupid ideas.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
Too bad Congress wants to enforce it with the SSSCA. It will be ILLEGAL to sell non-crippled (non-DRM) PCs.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Linux could very well be made ILLEGAL. If it has the DRM code, it is patent infringement, if it does not it would violate the SSSCA. The standards that would be mandated under the SSSCA could be constantly updated so that the current standard would always be subject to patent restrictions. They could easily say a technology is too easy to break due to it being obsolete WELL before the patent expires.
In fact, MS could have a 100% monopoly, if all their competition was made illegal.
And the gov't could absolve all blame - they could say they didn't outlaw Linux, it was just that MS used its "right" to not share the DRM technology developed by the "industry" (i.e. MS) which is used to "protect" content and ensure its availability to the consumer. Thus Linux would be not in compliance with the SSSCA and thus illegal - if you don't like that, beg MS for permission to add the code to Linux - also, that version must be closed source - else it could be circumvented.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
First of all, payments should be made directly to representatives, hence the open nature of the system. The site merely organizes the donations and lets people come together and discuss the issue at hand and the most effective method of lobbying that issue. There could be sample letters to representatives, or just ideas for letters, and people could then print it out and send it off along with a check. This is a grassroots lobbying campaign for general geek interests. The site should not handle any of the payments, and instead get people interested in making the contributions themselves, along with constructive letters supporting our interests. The site would take a life of its own, and many different political groups might find it an excellent resource for building support for their causes. There could be some educated discussion of the issues at hand, and people would be encouraged to voice their concerns to their local representatives. This would not be too hard to impliment, and could have a significant impact on our political system if enough people participate.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
Two Jack Valenti quotes immediately jumped out to me as absurd...
"A recent survey revealed that 68 percent of all home computer users say they're satisfied with their normal 56K computer modem."
I've never met one person who was happy with the 56K speed, have you?
"The second professorial indictment is palpable nonsense. It is a charge issued only by those who have a blurred knowledge of the financial fragility of the film industry. Because making movies is so expensive, only two in 10 films ever retrieve their production and marketing investment from domestic theatrical exhibition."
It's not that movies are so expensive to make, but isn't rather that there are SO MANY BAD movies made and almost every bad one loses money?
Wouldn't it be a GOOD THING if Hollywood had to FINALLY run their operations like Real Businesses, with things like Accountability and Penalties for Failures?
How can we ever take him or his industry seriously? Dino DeLaurantis' first movie made money. The next 30 all, ALL lost money. Any other industry in the world would have seen him make 2-5 more movies, not 30. (To my recollection.)
We are talking about The Motion Picture Ass. of America, Mr. Jack Valenti!
only two in 10 films ever retrieve their production and marketing investment from domestic theatrical exhibition. Distributors have to use other venues -- delivery systems such as cable, satellite, TV stations, videocassettes, DVDs, international markets.
Short version, Jack believes because U.S. box office sales are failing that we should change the PC (note the very U.S. centric view).
Translational long rant
In U.S. theater's only 2 out of 10 films turn a profit. So these numbers obviously don't include any past Lying over profits nor do they include video sales or foreign film runs, which brings the numbers of successfull movies to 8 out of 10. But wait jack skews the numbers again, Titanic (prod costs 200M U.S. Dollars succeeds but cuban heart music (prod costs 1M U.S. Dollars) doesn't turn a profit. So Jack wants the world to turn on it's head to help a less than sterling business model. Typical.
And what about legitimate uses file sharing of movies, they compete against his middlemen, so obviously they will have to be stopped.
Signed JerryMeander
5 years w/o an account
Sony managed to do just that with the Playstation, by putting the region encoding in the wobble groove on the CD. That's why you need a mod chip to play bootlegs, instead of just being able to patch them.
Jack Valenti probably wanted guards in towers to shoot at cars trying to see the movie for free from outside the drive in.
Because the majority says so.
Remember that somewhere around 98% (I'm pulling that number out of my ass, but it was definately in the high 90s) of the population, voted for either Bush or Gore in the last presidential election. Look around at almost ever person that you know, and probably yourself too: the probability is very close to 1, that you're part of the problem. (My apologies if you voted for one of the other parties.)
If you, your mom, your father's cousin's former roommate, the hot chick across the street, the supermarket checker who sells you your beer, and your boss all vote for candidates that just happen to have millions of dollars to spend on campaigning, then people that have millions to spend on campaigning are the kind of people that you're going to get. And if a person needs millions of dollars to get elected, then they're going to have to do something to get it.
It's not a cliche or a joke to talk about politicians being corrupt. It is something well-understood and it doesn't require any subtle insight. It's simple game theory. We actually pick corrupt people for office because they are corrupt.
The only way out is to somehow change the payoff table so that the system doesn't favor the corrupt. The details of how to do that... well, that's a big subject.
But you can start by never voting for a republican or democrat, and telling everyone who listens to you to do the same. Whether you vote libertarian at one extreme, or communist at the other, you'll be helping. (But long term, it will take more than that.)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Waste precious time at the music store checkout trying to determine if the cd will play on your generic player.
Fumble around looking for your supermarket discount card until they just cave and punch in the "store number" so you can buy chuck steak at $2.49 instead of $5.99.
Ridicule customer service reps for enforcing policies THEY KNOW SUCK.
Don't even get me started on telemarketers.
Be creative, have fun, fuck with *them* every chance you get, and BE COUNTED!
Are we not men? We are Devo! D-E-V-O
As you point out, movies are not *necessarily* expensive to produce. Here's a realworld example from back when I was doing bits and extras myself:
Robert Blake had this wild hair up his ass for years about a particular series concept. After a while the network (IIRC it was NBC) got tired of him being a pest and said fine, you can have your one season trial run, but YOU have to pay production costs out of your own pocket.
So Blake DID, and the result was the short-lived series "HELL TOWN". The per-episode budget was around $80,000 -- yet nothing was skimped and no one got cheated.
At the time, the *average* one-hour TV drama of similar type cost about half a million dollars to produce each episode.
What's wrong with this picture??
Er, well, I can tell you, at least for one aspect. A great deal of the typical production budget is cash, and its ultimate disposition need not be accounted for. Frex, the meal budget for extras is a cash item -- and is often skimmed -- right into some producer's pocket. Universal was so bad about this practice (which leads to miserable working conditions and shorted pay for the peons) that I would not knowingly hire onto a Universal production.
The entire system runs on being able to blithely screw whoever is below you, and bending over for whoever is above you. And the MPAA/RIAA view consumers as being at the very arse end of the food chain.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Only by using hardware could the RIAA & MPAA dream about making content managed PCs. While MS will rollover with these two groups, the open software/OS groups cannot/should-not implement this plan/theory. These two groups should acknowlge that securing files by using applications and OSs is doomed to failure (there WILL be a way around any such security), and the answer lies in smart hardware.
A smart hardware drive, for example, would identify numerous security file formats and only permit limited operations on those files. The drive would not allow a copy to be made of a file that does not allow copies. A file that allows a limited number of plays/views would be scambled and deleted after the last play/view. Writing a secure file to a smart removable (or write once) media/device might not be allowed. A smart nic would not allow a secured file to be transmitted over that nic (or just a scrambled transmission). Secured files should not be able to be given a non-secured wrapper (ie. zip, rar, ace, gzip, lharc, etc).
The RIAA & MPAA MUST embrace the open software/OS development/user community and provide timely drivers and applications. Also importantly these groups MUST provide source code for those drivers and applications so as to provide trust with the open software/OS community.
Jobs has refused to put any form of DRM in any Apple products. Witness iPod/iTunes, both of which are completely free of DRM. Apple is an ally in this.
We are the music-makers,
and we are the dreamers of dreams.
-Willy Wonka
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
"...even though the sixth or seventh copy of analog becomes unwatchable"
This is total BS. You can copy a analog signal from the same source as many times as you'd like and each copy will be alike. It's only when you make copies of the copies that this happens. This little detail is important and convieniently missing from the argument.
It would be quickly cracked. I've downloaded free copies of 3D-Max since version 1.0. All of them required hardware dongles.
Step 1: find section of code that searches for hardware dongle
Step 2: apply patch
Step 3: enjoy software!
Even better...how about making movies that someone actually wants to watch. Is it our fault if Battlefield Earth was such a stinker?
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
For what it's worth:
Uneccessary and illegal DRM hardware
Could ruin computing as we know it
Keep out of areas that
You don't belong in
Otherwise you could be
Underestimating the power of the geeks
retarded.
.
It should not be sufficent to say just what.
You should have to say in detail how.
The system is breaking down.
Government is corrupt
Ditto Corporations.
We hold this truth to be self-evident:
Microsoft is an evil pile of excrement.
force hard MPAA/RIAA type copy locking onto all computers? in the old country, we joined this conversation by saying, "eat my shit, fool."
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
black market for movies and music right now is only interested in digital specimens.
Is that why most of the pirated stuff in HK is made from some guy holding a camcorder in a movie theatre?
This will work until the MPAA puts a chassis intrusion detection system in your TV/monitor that will render the circuit board useless if you dare open the case.
Wow, now when my TV breaks, I can rush out and buy a new fscking TV, instead of fixing it. Too bad every company didn't work this way.
Imagine if Honda decided to make their engines self-destruct when you open the hood, or if Intel/AMD made their processors melt themselves when you opened the case...
And that's the real danger, because this guy (and wonks like him) have real spending power, and They are going to push this DRM hardware by hook or by crook. I would recommend going on the offensive: We need to make it plain to all (in power.. who might make this law..) that this is a bald-faced attempt at total control of our ability to use our LEGALLY OWNED PROPERTY. It's my fucking computer, Jack, not yours. Take your DRM smeg and shove it where it hurts.
Do we install goveners on cars to ensure they can only drive 45MPH, just because some people might speed? No.
Do we make baseball bats that crumble on contact with flesh, just because some people use them to kill? No.
ugh.. I can't believe this nonsense.. except that it's really happening.
We're doomed. Or are we?
"Avast! Prepare for the rodgering!" THWACK! "Arrr.. me nards.."
There's many other uses for broadband access, many of them legal. Quick and easy access to development sites (SourceForge, etc.), graphics- and Flash-heavy websites (which there are too many of), IRC and IM (three IM clients and connections to two IRC networks can suck up some decent bw), and so on. I don't care for most North American created movies, I won't pay for them in theatres, and I don't want them hogging valuable space, whether on CD-Rs or my hard drive. For the reason that they suck.
You left out the patent owners too, dumbass.
In other words, take away rights in order to appease the movie industry.
As I see it, there's already too much appeasement to the media industries. Remember where appeasement on such a large scale brought the world in the late 1930's? Before you know it, it's a dictatorship -- but instead of being run by a fanatic, it's run by lawyers and other big-money men.
Is that the future you want your children to grow up in? One where you have no rights because the corporations want it like that?
Screw Jack Valenti, and while your at it, screw organizations (blocs, cabals) like the MPAA and RIAA, and lastly, screw the whole damned open capitalism system that brought rise to these money-driven opressors.
I will not buy a piece of hardware or software that has this so called copy protection feature built into it. They should just give up on the fight, no matter what the pirates will pirate whatever they want. If there is a will there is a way. - UPTiME
I'm not surprised at this kind of bullsh!t, especially after the decss fiasco, the day that gets built into PC's, I leave PC's and thatch roofs for a living
It's easier because it is impossible to protect something that is encryped when you give/sell millions of decryption tools to the general public. One of the main tenets of security is that you can not trust the client. It's an across the board rule that applies wether we are trying to stop cheating at quake or trying to limit when a person can decrypt something with the tools we give them.
50 + 2 - 0 = ?
A: 52
B: 50
C: 49
Hint: +1 = -.5
I have kept ahold of old copies of software and OS's (even Win 3.1 and Dos 6) out of fear that someday this will become the case. It has already started with WinXP, I'm staying at 98se.
hehehehe, haven't thought of that in years now... I gotta call my brother now and reminisce :)
good job.
btw, history really agrees with you but would say that any group with power of some sort (definition varies a bit depending on society) becomes this 'corporation'. Government is basically this, except the product and service is sometimes different. Basically, when you get people together, it is some weird effect where morally weak ones will divorce themselves from their conscious views of ethics and morals and try to melt in the crowd. Ironically, those that prosecute them often only attack the group identity and ignore the individuals. That is why a government or corporate entity will get hammered sometimes, yet the individuals actually responsible not only get away, but in the case of IRS, ATF, FBI and CIA will often get moved and promoted.
That's the main thing about the Australian and New Zealand film industries, I believe - we're good at making quality stuff cheaply.
Which says a lot about Hollywood, I think, and why their output is generally so fucked up: the people actually making the movies are too busy demanding huge salaries to worry about the quality of what they're producing, and those salaries have no relation to the quality of the output . . .
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.