Slashdot Mirror
Consumer Technology Bill of Rights?
thrilliams writes "The WSJ's Walt Mossberg has a story about DigitalConsumer.org, a new lobbying group that's pressing for a Consumer Technology Bill of Rights. It would aim to protect the right to time shift and space shift media, make backups, allow for platform independence and translation between formats. Given the current DCMA/SSSCA climate, even these basic rights seem ambitious, but check them out and do what you can to support this nascent effort." There's also an NYT article on the SSSCA debate, with an unintentionally humorous quote from the head of News Corporation (which owns 20th Century Fox): "without copyright protection we will change our business models".
Think about all the public alerts that have been passed around the net that still cause headaches for government agencies, like the "FCC banning religious programs due to Madilyn O'hare" or the infamous modem tax issue or the $2,500 area code 809 phone calls.
Someone with a lot of literary skills needs to come up with some sort of alert that claims that those bastard liberal media companies and those liberals in Congress (I said sensationalist) are trying to take a way your right to record your TV shows by mandating that all future electronic devices contain copy protections to allow people who make shows to disable your ability to record them without paying for them. Include refs to digitalconsumer.org too. Then put the ole "We need to stop this right away, send this to all of your friends" line, details about the bill, and urge people to contact their congressman.
Make this issue so poisoned that no elected official will get near it. Remember, the public are sheep and the reason corporations give so much money to candidates and the reason that is so influential is that people are elected by the strength of their campaign ads. But in the end, it's people who vote, not companies. So if enough people get up in arms about this, the elected (and elected-wannabees) will stand up and take notice.
for those without NYTimes accts:
Jonathan Zittrain, an assistant law professor at Harvard, pointed out in a recent New York Times editorial that what Eisner's really saying is that the most dangerous threat to his industry is the American consumer. If that's really the case, what Eisner needs to do is rethink his business model rather than look for a way to outsmart his customers.
which really sums it up for me
perl -MIO::Socket -e 'IO::Socket::INET-new(PeerAddr="some.windoze.box:1
If you tag Legally acquired onto the end of each line then all the RIA and MPAA have to do is make it illegal to acquire the media without waving that right. Rights are waved all the time in agreements.
Also, all they have to do is make it illegal to acquire video via a recording device to defeat the space-shift/time-shift scenario.
I think the bill should make it illegal to require that a person give up any rights to consume media. Of course it would be ignored just like the fact that it is illegal to *require* a person to give you their SSN, but then the company isn't *required* to give you a loan unless you do either...
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
That brought an angry retort from Andrew S. Grove, the chairman of Intel. "Is it the responsibility of the world at large to protect an industry whose business model is facing a strategic challenge?" he said in an interview. "Or is it up to the entertainment industry to adapt to a new technical reality and a new set of consumers who want to take advantage of it?"
It is nice to see a more "mainstream" opinon which echos the sentiments of slashdot posters. This really is the core of the issue: Media companies don't want to deal with the new dynamics as to what people (the "consumer") want to do with the content that they percieve they own (i.e. i bought it in the store, i can do whatever i want with it). I don't see how digital rights should be any different than rights in the analog world. Asides from preceieved quality issues, all the move to digital has done, is make it easier for people to do stuff that they had done previously, i.e. the new term "space shift".
In my younger days i "spaceshifted" a record or cd to a tape or MD to listen to in my walkman or in my parents car. How is this any different than when I download a copy of a cd i own to my mp3 player?
The question I have, is who has more lobbyists? The hardware or media industires? That will probably be the deciding factor.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
This is from the company that brought us a boxing match between Tonya Harding and Paula Jones, Temptation Island, Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire, The Chamber, and loads of other worthless trash, while at the same time doing a poor job of promoting Futurama and Family Guy (and a poor job in general with The Tick). Since when is changing this business model a bad thing? The public is already a loser, it can't get much worse.
Other nice quotes:
"I believe if you say to these people, `You get us a system by Dec. 31 or we'll do it for you,' you'll be surprised at how innovative they'll become," Mr. Eisner told the lawmakers at last month's hearing.
Oh yeah, this really makes Eisner look like the good guy...
Senator Ernest F. Hollings, Democrat of South Carolina and chairman of the Commerce Committee, says that without technological safeguards Hollywood may never offer the kind of high-quality programming for digital television and broadband Internet services that would generate consumer interest and, in turn, economic growth.
Real "high-quality programming" comes from intelligent and creative writing, good acting, and management that lets these things happen - until that happens, it won't matter how many lines the video image has if they are all lines of crap.
"Unfortunately in many cases, fear is paralyzing Hollywood's ability to seize what I believe is an incredible opportunity," said Steven P. Jobs, chief executive of Apple Computer. "We at Apple believe most people want to be honest, and if offered reasonable choices, most people will choose to buy their content."
You know things are bad when Steve Jobs is the least insane person in the room...
if you get a pioneer car stereo it will be.
People find mp3 good enough because they dont' realize there's a difference. I did a presentation for professional communications on CDex, the little window program that rips mp3s. I ripped a 128, a 320, and a VBR. I played the same 5 second clip from each version, and then from the CD, everyone was shocked and amazed, they didn't realize that mp3 was lossy. Later 3 of them told me that they started to replace all their low rate mp3s with 320s. People do want higher quality, you just have to make them realize it.
The public wants the same things that we want. They just need to be shown.
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