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More Details on the CBDTPA
Gemini and many others wrote in with still more info regarding CBDTPA, formerly the SSSCA. Wired has a story. Cryptome has transcribed the text. The Senate Judiciary Committee has a web-form where you can submit comments (although directly contacting your representatives may be better). IMHO, the best thing people can do is explain to less-knowledgeable folks exactly what is at stake. When ABC News (Disney) and Fox News (News Corporation) discuss this, they're not going to be spending much time talking about the downside. Update: 03/23 00:55 GMT by M : EFF has an alert with a sample letter to Congress and background on the issue.
FOX News and Disney are unified in support. They're at opposite sides of the political spectrum (Rupert Murdoch's "empire" -- including FOX, the NY Post and others -- is conservative and Disney is much more liberal). It seems that they are banding together for the purpose of world domination... or something like that.
Sen. Hollings says the reason broadband isn't as popular today as it should have been is because media giants are afraid to provide large quantities of digital content to the masses over it. Therefore, the public has no 'interest' in broadband. This is blatently wrong. Then he goes on to say the entertainment industry needs a "nudge" in the right direction... which is presumably to come up with a standard for thwarting piracy. Then, the best part, he says that, in order to increase public interest in broadband, the government needs to step in to regulate the digital media industry a little. So my point, and question, is: Since when is it the government's job to promote public interest in a certain area, especially with regards to entertainment????
I called both of my states (MD) Senators earlier today to make sure that I got in my "Don't you dare vote for this" early.
Neither office even knew the bill had been presented to the Senate.
This isn't on everyone's radar yet. We need to make sure it *gets* on their radar, though. Call them. Bug them. Make them realize just how unpopular voting for this will make them. (But, as I'm sure others will say, don't be rabid about it...just firm.)
CALL YOUR SENATORS. Handwritten letters are nice too, but what really matters is calling. You will get answered by a congressional staffer. Say the following:
"Hi, my name is _____ and I live in _______ in your district. I am calling to register my opposition to Senate Bill 2048. Thank you".
That's it. Unless you include a large check, they don't care WHY you oppose it really, but they DO care they you can vote for or against them.
Think about it this way: they can't spend the money, except on getting re-elected. Therefore, your vote costs a certain amount. If you call them and tell them the way you wish them to vote, they know that if they don't vote that way, they've lost a vote regardless of how much they spend. AND if you called, that means a lot of people probably think the same way, but weren't motivated enough to pick up the phone.
It's quick, simple, and took me all of 5 minutes, including looking up the phone number. DO IT.
Umm...they used the word "open", not "free". "open" is unambiguous.
Omnes arx vestrum sunt adiuncta nobis.
Are you trying to fuck everything up? Are you trying to turn the clock back to the fucking dark ages?
How can so many of you sit on your fat fucking asses and let this happen? I can't do anything about this because I don't live in the USA... but it doesn't matter because sooner or later you'll wind up exporting your stupid fucking laws to my country via treaty or something like that. My own government and people will look to you as an example, and I weep for the leadership you've abandoned.
You're really starting to scare the shit out of me down there, you Yanks. What happened to the land of free? How could you have sold out your precious freedom to big business and corporations? How could we have let you?
The America told in stories, the America talked about in your beautiful constitution is now dead to the world.
You're too big to take on now. I weep for what this world will become.
when Fox is THE ONLY news outlet to have carried an editorial explaining why the SSSCA was bad, in layman's terms nonetheless.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,47296,00.html
Come on Michael. You can do better.
What a marketing strategy for Hollywood - get the Federal Government to start pushing their products. Wow. Does anyone still think Congress isn't for sale?
What if Congress was this interested in promoting education and science instead of movies? You would be better off.
Remember though, there were concessions made for fair use in the DMCA, and I can't think of a single situation where they've applied. The only reason they've put this stuff in there is to get this atrocious bill through.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Throughout history, governments have been subject to corruption and all too often have sold the rights of their citizens away to the highest bidder. The US now faces such a time, as it has before. Therefore, I offer this proposal to solve the problems of rule by the highest bidder.
Now, before I am labelled as an anti-establishment hippie, allow me to present my case to you. I will outline the historic case of government corruption in the United States as well as offering a method to ensure that such corruption will never happen again. Hear me out before you make your decisions. The Historic Case: America in the Gilded Age (1870-1930) The years following the Civil War in the US, often called Reconstruction, are also known as the Gilded Age. During this period, political parties, using political machines like Tammany Hall, they were able to harass, threaten, and force people to vote in the manner the party wanted. All government actions were in control of the party. Appointments, elections, campaigns, etc were all controlled by corrupt party bosses. Voters were often gathered together like a flock of sheep on Election Day, taken to local bars, intoxicated, and then taken around to vote at several different polling stations under the lead of party bosses. Edgar Allan Poe died because of these party bosses, who filled him with liquor (which he was allergic to), took him around to get him to vote five or six times, and then left him for dead.
Such concern for the public is touching, is it not?
Also, during this period, Big Business, fueled by the Industrial Revolution, grew more and more powerful and more and more corrupt. Standard Oil, the Rockefellers, Carnagie, the RailRoads; all of these businesses used a system of bribery and quid pro quo to keep the government from investigating their illegal and immoral practices. The Railroads changed rates, gouged customers, impoverished farmers, all to make a profit. The meat factories in the cities exploited their workers. Upton Sinclair, in his book The Jungle, described the unsafe and unsanitary conditions under which meat was packaged. The American Federation of Labor lobbied for workers' rights and protection against the abuse of Big Business.
Finally, under Theodore Roosevelt, Big Business was muzzled. The FDA, the Pure Food and Drug Act, and other Progressive legislation were all passed. Big Business had a standard to live up to. Workers had rights and dignity guarenteed to them. Finally, the evils of the Gilded Age seemed to be at an end. Will We Never Learn? America in the Second Gilded Age (1950-2002) Now America faces a new Gilded Age. Money is considered a form of Free Speech. Corporations are allowed the rights of citizens (except that a corporation doesn't have to pay taxes and can't be tried for criminal conduct). Once again, industries are trying to enslave their workers and their consumers, all for the Almighty Dollar.
The Recording Industry Artists Association, a group of distributers who can't play Mary Had A Little Lamb on the piano, are now legally allowed to hold the copyright on any work they distribute in perpetuity. The Satellite Home Viewing Act of 1999 has a clause that makes all sound recordings works-for-hire. Courtney Love has spoken out against the RIAA and its illegal actions at Salon.com. This bill was altered after all the arguments and debates were settled. There was no chance for a revisiting of this issue before it was sent off to the President. A boy who only had the authority to spellcheck the bill altered it at the request of the RIAA, in such a way as that no one had a chance to fight the alteration.
The RIAA, the MPAA, Disney, and other Hollywood industries are now trying to force another bill through the Senate. The Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA), a bill that outlaws all fair use rights of the consumer as well as outlawing innovation in technology has been proposed by Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina. This Senator recieved over $300,000.00 in campaign contributions from Disney alone. Tell me there is no quid pro quo going on now.
As bad as the RIAA is with its desire to enslave musicians in contracts illegal under California law, Disney is worse.
Disney has stolen and made its fortune from the public domain without giving one thing back to the very people they have stolen from. Where would Disney be without Snow White? Without Cinderella? Without Pocahontas? Without the Little Mermaid? Disney has raped the public domain and not given one whit in return. Every time the trademark on Mickey Mouse gets ready to expire, Disney lobbies to have the trademark law extended. Sorry, uncle Walt, you can't have your cake and eat it too. You raped the people, and they demand the Mouse and His Furry Friends for sacrifice.
And Einser, the CEO of Disney, is the chief backer of the CBDTPA.
Let me tell you what will happen if this bill passes:
1. It will be illegal to record anything off of your TV.
2. It will be illegal to listen to CDs you've bought on your computer.
3. It will be illegal to own an MP3 player.
4. The computer you are currently using will be illegal since it's not fitted with Copy Protection.
5. It will be illegal to innovate, to create, or to even write without the blessing of the Entertainment industry.
I've already spoken at length about this here. The Solution Since we can't outlaw soft money altogether to get rid of the quid pro quo going on right now, we'll have to regulate it. I propose that all campaign contributions over $5 be forced to be anonymous. Claims can't be made for tax write-offs on campaign contributions.
Think it over. If all donations are anonymous, there can be no quid pro quo. That way, it doesn't matter how much Disney et al give. With no quid pro quo, Congressmen can't be bought as they can now. They will have to face the people who elected them and do their will.
Does this seem too simple? Well, maybe it is. Maybe only the firebombing of California off of the map of the US will stop this garbage. But, a girl can dream can't she?
Phoenix
I am me. Insightful, isn't it?
Hollings is lying.
sulli
RTFJ.
That's an interesting point. The one thing I keep thinking of, while I code away at a lab notebook for the TB consortium, is how this would kill off non-commercial software projects because the technology's cost is "not cost prohibitive," instead of free. I realize that this would end upgrades to the beowulf cluster upstairs that protein folding, protein interaction, sequence alignment, etc. is being done on. This may end the lab notebook because it runs on software that could "reproduce copyright material." This may end most of the low cost Bioinformatics software projects around the country.
Although it's probably possible to make the standards work with the technology in use, I doubt that the industry leaders involved will let that heppen.
Bioinfomatics has nothing to do with Hollywood, the record industry, or Napsterization; but it will get killed so that the Dizzy corp can make another million on taking peoples' rights away.
I'm rather pissed-off about that...
"One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place."
- Mick Travis, "If..."
The DMCA makes it illegal to crack, this new one makes it illegal to ship anything that doesn't need cracking.
Oh no, they're tyring to legislate Linux out of existance! They're going to take away my MP3s!
Well, yeah... But those are just side effects of the real intent of this bill: Turning the Internet into the next big broadcast media - making the internet another dollar generating machine for Big Content, locking out the little guys, forcing the old paradigm into the new media.
All arguments regarding fair use are moot - if you read Hollings' speech, it's clear that he believes fair use will be protected. I don't see how that will work in practice though. Say I pay for and download a Simpson's episode with DRM, and I want to do a screen grab to make a picture of the Simpson's family to hang on my wall. Is that fair use? Well, I paid for the image, and many thousands like it (the video stream), so probably yes. Will DRM allow a screen grab? If it won't, then they've violated fair use (I think, IANAL), but if it will then what's going to stop me from grabbing every frame in succession and piecing them back together later? Are they planning on degrading the quality of all these works with some kind of watermark to prevent copying? We already know that doesn't work.
Moving on... Will we gain access to their entire archives? Probably not. More likely, we'll be told to "tune in" to a URL on Sunday night at 9PM to catch the latest episode. You'll be allowed to keep a copy for your own use, but you won't be able to remove the commercials because you won't have access to edit the file.
If we do get access to the archives, which version will it be? The "first run" versions, or the ones they trim down for later reruns?
I use the net for entertainment because it's so far outside the candy-coated crap that TV spews. I have broadband because it's useful to me for gaming and for my work. I already have my MP3 collection built to a comfortable level, and the latest batch of hit singles isn't really enticing me to buy OR download. So basically, I'm the antithesis of a good consumer and nothing is going to change that - other than The Simpsons and Friends, they can keep their copyrighted drivel. Yes, keep it. Keep it off our net.
..................
A couple additional points, harvested from the previous discussion:
1) Big Content has never tried to go after the individuals, even though they have said they would do so if left with no other recourse. Doesn't their refusal to go after people who are actually doing the pirating (vs. attacking businesses whose otherwise legitimate tools enable it) constitute some sort of admission that the works are public domain? Like the rules that stipulate that if you don't defend your trademark, you lose it. Same for copyright, or is it different? If it's the same for copyright, then anything that's ever been traded P2P is now public domain and Big Content will just have to suck it up.
2) You'll obviously have to identify yourself to pay for downloadable content, which is absolutely unprecedented. The only content consumers who are currently violated (in the most personal sense of the word) in this way are those who sign up for the privilege of participating in The Ratings. What's to stop them from using my personal information for marketing or whatever? There are huge privacy concerns that no one in congress is addressing.
3) Final word on the matter... One poster (and I'm sorry for the lack of attribution on all of these points, but the comments are still available with the other story) mentioned that this bill will likely die due to senate politics. Seems that Copyright is NOT the commerce committee's ballpark, and the guy in charge isn't too happy about this bill.
As an amateur historian, I realize that in the longer term it is hard enough to find materials after the normal process of time. The digital revolution has made this much worse (for example a recent /. story mentioned that England could not retrieve census information that had been recorded c.1980 from obscure 14" optical storage disks). The use of encryption and DRM is going to make this situation much, much worse.
The problem is that DRM does not expire when the copyright expires (assuming congress will eventually allow copyrights to expire, and does not keep extending them forever :-) The copyright balance requires that the work goes into the public domain once the copyright has expired. The only way that will happen with a DRM scheme is if the copyright holders are still around, and have some type of motivation to make it public.
This is a difficult problem, with no easy solution. A minimal solution is to require that all copyright holders make their product available when it enters the public domain, but this won't help if the organization is no longer in business. Given this view, I don't know if DRM should be legal under copyrights. If DRM is legal, the only workable solution is to go back to the old method of copyrights (pre-1976) where you actually have to register for copyright protection. If you want to copyright something that is only "published" with DRM controls, an archival copy of the original unprotected version must be registered with the copyright authority (presumably Library of Congress, who will need new funding for this responsibility). This method has another real advantage, which is that it ensures that the copyright holder can be identified. The restoration industry has a big problem with "abandoned" works that are still technically under copyright, but they have no contactable owners.
This is a long term problem, and typically people don't worry about the long term (companies have trouble thinking past the end of the quarter!). But the issue of archiving and availability is extremely important. It goes right to the heart of what copyrights are supposed to do: "promote the progress of Science and useful Arts". Widespread use of DRM will make today's tragedies small potatoes (such as movies from the 1910-40's that should be in the public domain, which are instead literally rotting away without any care by the actual copyright holders).
Feel free to use some of these arguments in the letters to your congressmen!
This bill is the logical extention of the DMCA. Encrypted formats were trade secrets, and had NO LEGAL protection at all, until the DMCA was used as we knew it would be. The goal of the exclusive franchise created by copyright is to increase what's available to the public domain. The DMCA severly restricts what gets out to the public domain, as readers of "protected" formats won't work when the copyright expires (crutently 75 years). Unfortunately for the entertainment industry, these formats are not as popular as unecumberd formats, so they have introduced this bill to MANDATE their formats. This will eliminate the public domain altogether as it will eliminate user control of the devices used to create and distribute digital media. In the future, there will be nothing but digial publication, therefore there will be no publishing exept by approved and authorized software. It will outlaw free software. If you don't think that non free software restricts what you say, you need to re examine your non free EULA. Right now, I don't care if Microsoft decides that I can not ever use their software again (as they can by their EULA). If this bill passes, that will mean that I can't publish.
The only rational extention of the DMCA if for the supreme court to strike it down as a clear violation of free speech.
In the mean time, I am going to hand write my representative. Want to guese which letter will have a greater effect, this one or that one? Hmmm, it might be time to use some old fashion press to influence the local comunity. In the future, an inflamatory handbill might not pass the "protection" program in my copy machine. See where things can go?
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I think that this may be something to consider (taken from a letter to my Senator)
"The movie industry as a collective has had great interest in recent years in selling multimedia machine- basically a highly specialized computer with copy restrictions built in. In a capitalist economy, such a produce would compete against older forms of media and traditional general-purpose desktop computers. All things being equal, the computer market is large enough to support their special machines alongside regular computers. However, it turns out that not all things are equal. When their products were tried in the marketplace, they failed miserably (the DivX machine is the most well known example). Most consumers refused outright to purchase hardware that they labeled as erestrictedf and the few who did purchase these media machines found that the restrictions they contained gave the machines extra technical difficulties and were more difficult to use in general.
Despite their failure in the marketplace, the movie industry seems to still want to sell their movies on similar machines. Having failed in a free market, this legislation would force consumers to buy general purpose computers that have been twisted into essentially being their multimedia players (making them no longer general-purpose. I have read about proposed hardware protections, and there is no way to implement them without limiting how they connect to other computers and without breaking many existing software tools.) Not only are they cheating the consumer out of a truly general purpose computer, they are forcing the computer hardware industry to pay the tab for producing hardware for the movie industry to sell their special protected files for"
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
More like:
+ Hollywood asks computer industry to develop a standard DRM system.
+ Computer industry is more than willing, and tells Hollywood what it will cost
+ Hollywood doesn't like the price.
+ Hollywood goes to see if the government will pass a bill forcing the computer industry to give them their DRM technology for free.
+ Bill has no chance of passing, but computer industry cuts a last minute deal to keep the government from snooping around in their business.
Much like how the MPAA "Ratings Board" was basically created due to Congressional threats of regulation, the Computer Industry will decide that self-regulation of Digital content really is in their best interest after all.
Under the Supreme Court ruling in the Betamax decision, DeCSS would be legal for the same reason that VCRs are. That is, a claim of contributory copyright infringement cannot be used to tax or ban a technology that has a significant legitimate use. For VCRs, timeshifting was one such use. For DeCSS, inclusion of short movie clips or stills in multimedia movie reviews could well be such a use. (DeCSS was also supposedly an intermediate test step in producing a Linux-based DVD player, an application that most assuredly would satisfy the Supreme Court test.)
However, the anti-circumvention provisions in the DMCA seem expressly designed for the purpose of banning any lawful access or copying that the monopoly holder decides to interfere with. Thus, DeCSS is illegal - that is, until the courts get around to declaring the DMCA itself illegal (unConstitutional) on the grounds of conflicts with the First Amendment or the copyright clause (Article I, Section 8).
Broadband Internet service is by no means required or an inalienable right. I do not feel it is my government's responsibility to meddle in the business affairs of broadband providers insofar as adoption of the technology is concerned. I also believe that there are many reasons why adoption of broadband has not occurred as rapidly as some would have hoped, the lack of high quality digital content being dubious at best.
If such technologies exist (and I do not believe that they do) to create a digital environment that allows all possibilities of fair use and at the same time prevent unauthorized use, adoption of the technology can be assisted by the parties that benefit from the technology by subsidizing the purchase price. A $200 rebate on computers with this technology would be much less subversive (and offensive) than mandating that all computers must utilize the technology.
Huh?
True, but I do not believe technological solutions can be developed that allow for fair use of digital content at the same time that the content is protected against unauthorized use.
There must be a reason why there are competing business interests surrounding deployment of this technology. Further research should be done to understand the competing position rather than simply passing this bill to undermine it.
My response to this is the same as my response to Item (1).
Several companies (CBS, HBO, etc.) are already broadcasting content via HDTV. If these companies are unconcerned about the lack of security afforded their content via the transmission protocol, I fail to see why a change to a secure transmission protocol is predicated. It is my belief that the reason there are so few HDTV broadcasts is because there are so few TVs capable of playing HDTV content. As HDTV becomes more common, so will HDTV broadcasts.
It's also difficult for me to understand why HDTV benefits comsumers. If HDTV truly does benefit consumers, they would buy HDTV sets. The fact that consumers opt for lesser expensive TV sets leads me to believe that the average consumer is satisfied with the quality of their broadcasts. Change may be good, but change for the sake of change isn't.
This is completely false. Encryption can be built into any transmission protocol be it via radio waves, Internet connections, cable, or satellite, regardless of an open or closed nature. The competitive advantage of cable and satellite providers is in the advent of new technology since the standard became common. In order to enable old technology devices (televisions) to use the new technology, additional hardware (set top boxes) is required. The same could be done by traditional signal broadcasts if companies chose to develop such technology. There's a reason they haven't developed the technology; no one believes the benefit of the technology outweighs the cost to develop it. If ABC believed that the benefits outweighed the costs and started broadcasting their signal in an encrypted format that could only be decrypted by purchasing one of their set top boxes, they would have done so by now.
So if cable and satellite networks already have encryption technologies and over-the-air broadcasts do not (by choice), why must the decision to encrypt or not be forced onto the Internet?
I don't think a solution is technologically feasible in order to ensure fair use. If the technology could be developed, I still don't think government intervention would be necessary to ensure adoption. Adoption could be gained simply by having desirable content made available only in an encrypted format. If, rather than subscribing to NetFlix, I could watch the latest videos on a pay-per-service basis, but only if I purchased special hardware that enabled me to view the videos, I would buy the hardware if doing so was cost-effective and to my benefit. If it's not cost-effective or to my benefit, there's no need for the technology to be developed, much less forced by the government.
In most cases, content originates in analog form.
Content will always be converted to analog in the "last mile" between the viewing device and my eyeballs. Though the quality would be dubious, there is no way short of creating a fascist technological state to prevent me from using a digital video camera aimed at my viewing device to capture "protected" content and converting it into a format most convenient for my own use. Certainly, keeping the content encrypted up to the point of being displayed on the viewing device may make unauthorized use more difficult, but it will also make fair use more difficult (or impossible). Considering this, I think it is in the consumer's best interest to not pursue this technology.
See (12).
But if the technology exists to prevent piracy, couldn't this significant piracy be prevented by the owners of the digital content choosing to protect their assets? Is my government responsible for covering the asses of entertainment companies because entertainment companies do not wish to protect their assets without preventing fair use? I don't believe so.
Millions of Americans drive faster than the speed limit every day. The demonstrates drivers' desire to go fast. Would the appropriate solution be to mandate that all cars must have a device that disallows going faster than the spped limit, or would the appropriate solution be to increase the speed limit? My answer to this is: neither. In the case of both speeding and protecting digital assets, no government action is necessary. If the entertainment industry desires protected digital content, they should protect their content. No government mandate need be required.
There are economic threats to the consumer if this bill is passed, including the necessity of purchasing new computer hardware in order to view content they otherwise have a legal right to.
America's content industries have the resources to fend for themselves with regards to protecting their own content.
See (12).
I'd like to see legitimate consumer "expectations" spelled out, and I would like to see law make it a punishable offense to prevent any of these consumer "expectations" from being allowed. With "fair use" explicit and an inalienable right, moving forward on protecting digital assets is reasonable.
See (20).
See (20).
And most importantly, I can't reiterate this enough, legitimate use of digital content should be mandated.
SEC. 3. ADOPTION OF SECURITY SYSTEM STANDARDS AND ENCODING RULES.
(a) PRIVATE SECTOR EFFORTS.--
(1) IN GENERAL.--The Federal Communications Commission, in consultation with the Register of Copyrights, shall make a determination, not more than 12 months after the date of enactment of this Act, as to whether--
(A) representatives of digital media device manufacturers, consumer groups, and copyright owners have reached agreement on security system standards for use in digital media devices and encoding rules; and
(B) the standards and encoding rules conform to the requirements of subsections (d) and (e).
(2) Report to the Commerce and Judiciary Committees.--Within 6 months after the date of enactment of this Act, the Commission shall report to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, the House of Representatives Committee on Commerce, and the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary as to whether--
(A) substantial progress has been made toward the development of security system standards and encoding rules that will conform to the requirements of subsections (d) and (e);
(B) private sector negotiations are continuing in good faith;
(C) there is a reasonable expectation that final agreement will be reached within 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act; and
(D) if it is unlikely that such a final agreement will be reached by the end of that year, the deadline should be extended.
(b) AFFIRMATIVE DETERMINATION.--If the Commission makes a determination under subsection (a)(1) that an agreement on security system standards and encoding rules that conform to the requirements of subsections (d) and (e) has been reached, then the Commission shall--
(1) initiate a rulemaking, within 30 days after the date on which the determination is made, to adopt those standards and encoding rules; and
(2) publish a final rule pursuant to that rulemaking, not later than 180 days after initiating the rulemaking, that will take effect 1 year after its publication.
(c) NEGATIVE DETERMINATION.--If the Commission makes a determination under subsection (a)(1) that an agreement on security system standards and encoding rules that conform to the requirements of subsections (d) and (e) has not been reached, then the Commission--
(1) in consultation with representatives described in subsection (a)(1)(A) and the Register of Copyrights, shall initiate a rulemaking, within 30 days after the date on which the determination is made, to adopt security system standards and encoding rules that conform to the requirements of subsections (d) and (e); and
(2) shall publish a final rule pursuant to that rulemaking, not later than 1 year after initiating the rulemaking, that will take effect 1 year after its publication.
So if the industry can't determine what is best for their consumers, the government will. Because the government is an expert with regards to what is best for consumers. It takes gall to think that the government could provide swifter and more equitable results than industry negotiations.
Wouldn't this defeat the purpose of encoding the content in the first place? Or would it force all security to be performed entirely by hardware?
And somehow, requiring "fair use" of content was left out of this section... go figure.
There it is in black and white. Fair use must be protected. Now if only fair uses were specific and itemized.
Having read the rest of the bill, there's nothing that I find particularly problematical. Devices controlling digital assets will be mandated and it will be illegal to transport devices that don't have the digital rights control across state lines. It will also be illegal to modify the security system. Those are the least of my concerns if the above material isn't ironed out and addressed.