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.

Comments

Government's job to spur Broadband interest???

[KenSentMe]

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????

Re:Government's job to spur Broadband interest???

[Zeinfeld]

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

Hollings knows that his bill is desperately unpopular and is looking for a disguise. I suspect that by now the US public knows that a bill labelled 'bill to do good things for old people' is most likely a bill to rob them of their social security, half their pensions and medicaid.

The key points to keep repeating are

• The car industry gets ten years or more to introduce safety measures like seat belts and air bags. This gives the computer industry a year to introduce measures whose only purpose is saving the pockets of Holling's campaign contributors.
• The measure would have serious negative consequences for the computer industry. There is no royal road for security technology, or a congressional one for that matter. It has taken ten years to develop specifications for IPSEC and DNSSEC and they are only just being deployed. PKIX/X.509 took ten years to see significant use and it has taken the US govt a further five to develop technology to deploy in the federal govt.
• The SDMI scheme was proposed with a similar timetable and the unrealistic schedule was one of the (admittedly many) reasons it failled. The decision process rejected any technology that could not be on the shelves by Xmas. The inevitable result being that only snake oil technologies ended up being considered.
• All content protection mechanisms are encumbered by patents. Most are encumbered by multiple patents. While most of the patents are bogus the proposed bill would put the computer industry at an unfair disadvantage to the patent trolls who would be unjustly enriched at the expense of industry and the public.
• Existing content protection schemes such as the CSS scheme used in DVDs have been abused by the content owners, in particular to enable the price of DVDs to be artifically increased in certain markets.

The biggest argument against the Hollings Campaign Contributors Interests Protection Act (HCCIPA) is that it is largely addressing a problem that is being addressed successfully in the courts.

Napster's original business model based on promoting piracy was dismantled in short order by the courts. Morpheus and the other commercial piracy rings have been forced to bundling scumware with the product to make a buck. Morpheus' current business model appears to be based on redirecting referals to Amazon's affiliate program.

The RIAA and MPAA are overreaching here. Instead of asking for a rational extention of the DMCA to address piracy networks they are making a naked grab for their self interest.

Advantages

[zapfie]

Probably the largest advantage the CBDTPA gives corporations over the SSSCA is that it is extremely hard to pronounce or remember, and is sufficiently long enough to keep it from coming up in day-to-day conversation.

Re:Advantages

[trudyscousin]

It's easy to remember. Just think of Porky Pig saying it:

"see bee-dee tee pee-...uh, A."

Call your Senators

[gclef]

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.)

Talk about counter innovative

[Zspdude]

I haven't seen anything recently that comes near this in terms of killing innovation. Am I the only one who envisions people everywhere hoarding dinosaur computers running ancient yet empowered software? Coders in hidden bunkers with a stockpile of unhampered obsolete motherboards, and vast cd librarys of ancient kernels and applications ??

PLEASE Call your Senators

[Meridun]

I'm not kidding here. I work for a small company that recently fought against some unfair legislation that the Insurance Industry was trying to push and we learned some VERY interesting things about what tactics work for getting attentions.

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.

He's lying.

[sulli]

I sell broadband for a living, and this has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with it. AVAILABILITY of broadband is why people can't or don't buy. Video on demand doesn't even enter into the equation!

Hollings is lying.

The New Boob Tube

[Threed]

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.

I called my senator...

[chuckw]

Just got off the phone with my Senators, much like many others have. It only took 5 minutes at the *MOST* and went a bit like this:

1) Look up their website here
2) Go to their web page and get their local office phone number.,
3) Call number.
4) Simply tell the person, "Hi, I am (your name), from (your city), (your state) and I would like to register my opposition to SB 2048".

One of them had me spell my name, and the other asked me what SB 2048 was. In case you forget, it's the CBDTPA (Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act).

When Copyright Expires

[seaan]

Although I've seen the issue of "encryption never expiring" mentioned in /. I thought it would be worth looking into a bit more deeply. The failure of DIVX provides a very good example of what can happen to DRM protected material. Everyone who "bought" DIVX media ended up with worthless "coasters" once the centralized DRM controller went out of business. Thus even in the short term, the DIVX example shows that DRM is not consumer friendly.

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!

DeCSS has a legit. purpose when copyright expires

[VValdo]

As soon as locked DVDs move into the public domain, DeCSS suddenly has a very legitimate use-- to permit access to "free" content.

The supporters of this bill are also working to see that stuff doesn't ever elevate to the public domain.

But I wonder: Wouldn't it just take ONE copyright holder who's previously locked a DVD with CSS to say "AS OF NOW, My movie is now in the public domain" to totally legitimize DeCSS? It would no longer pass the "solely to circumvent protection of copyrighted works" test.

On this view, copyright expiration and/or the potential for voluntary relicensing may legitimize every single anti-DRM tool.

Has this been discussed before?
W

Rational Extention of DMCA?

[Erris]

The RIAA and MPAA are overreaching here. Instead of asking for a rational extention of the DMCA to address piracy networks they are making a naked grab for their self interest.

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?

not broadband - multimedia players.

[BlueboyX]

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"