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Consensus At Lawyerpoint
Seth Schoen writes "The
EFF has started
a weblog about the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (BPDG), called "Consensus At Lawyerpoint". This is the EFF's first-ever blog, the brainchild of new EFF staffer Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing blogging fame. Consensus At Lawyerpoint covers the efforts of Hollywood -- with the complicity of consumer electronics and computer companies -- to impose
a new government mandate for copy controls in digital TV devices.
This mandate would outlaw tuner cards for digital HDTV, unless they included DRM (and prevented the end-user from getting
a cleartext recording). PVRs and VCRs might be allowed, but only
if all their outputs were encrypted. Since all TV broadcasting
in the U.S. is supposed to be digital by 2006, this could have an
enormous effect on technology and on the competition for
video standards in the marketplace. We hope that the blog format will help us get the word out and let interested people see what this group is up to." Interesting for a couple of reasons, both the subject matter (the beloved SSSCA/CBDTPA) and the method.
Bill Gates/Micheal Dell/Steve Jobs steps up to a podium. He holds out a plain white mouse in one hand. Then swiftly, he closes his hand upon it. The rodent makes a sharp, shrill sqeak that booms in the ampitheatre...
He drops the mouse to the floor, and silently, solemnly walks offstage...
In all seriousness, doesn't Microsoft have orders of magnitude more LIQUID CASH than the Movie/Record industries make per annum? Why don't they just crush these ninnies, remind them that their place is to entertain us, not create laws in which to enslave us.
Why is it when I hit ^R that ZSH calls me a cocksucker?
This could actually be a good thing. Imagine how the TV execs would react if people just didn't buy a new TV set or a converter box. They might just understand what people really think about TV content. I thought we had some crap on TV here (UK) until I went to the states, I feel really sorry for you guys there, the ammount of dumbing down, commercials, and daily repeats just made it unwatchable for me, I had to resort to talking to my wife instead! I rarely watch TV now, and if it wasn't for the kids I'd be tempted to get rid of it.
a lawyer to destroy any incentive for invention. I think that if there is If there is anything in your country that will one day make the US a technnological backwater it will be American laws giving lawyers so much power.
At the moment it is in a balance in that people who invent have a large incentive to make an enormous amount of money but will that always be so?
> So far, only the massive pockets of Rupert
> Murdoch have been able to make Digital TV stay
> afloat at all,
The big problem for most Digital providers is they spent a fortune on infrastructure, a fortune giving away STB's that are obsolete after a year and a fortune on rights to Sporting Events. However not enough people are prepared to pay enough to watch sporting events events they used to get for free to balance the books. Sky are also losing money fast, they plan to be the last man standing, then winding up the prices and presure. However this is doomed to failure.
To make Digital TV work, the providers need to provide new value added services that people are prepared to pay for. Games/Video/Music on Demand, High Speed Internet, and a truly Interactive (2Way) experience. The technology used by the existing Digital Providers can not provide these valued added services.
1) Terrestrial Digital (ITV Digital) is broadcast only; no return-path/uplink; no On-Demand Services; No Email, Web or other Internet service. Client Side PVR only.
2) Satellite (Sky) is broadcast only, si no return-path/uplink, so no On-Demand Services, No Email, Web or other Internet service. PVR on Client Side.
3) Cable looks good on the surface but it has a big road-block. Its network topology is a ring, the capacity is finite and this causes big contention problems, it also has the most expensive infrastructure to install.
4) xDSL, the new distruptive technology, it cheaper infrastructure than cable, includes a proper return path and supports IP; So true On-Demand and High-Speed Internet, the value added service to win.
I've seen the future and it's IP TV.
I've always believed that one should never ascribe to evil what can be explained by stupidity. In my mind, this applies to the House and Senate as much as (or more than) it does to the American public at large.
/. agree with me?
But we're hitting a point here where I find it literally incredible that anyone capable of getting him/her self elected into the legislative branch can possibly not realize what's going on. Is it just me? Is this issue tougher to understand than I think? Do I just think the injustice is so obvious because most people on
My one hope has been that if the demands of the entertainment industry got preposterous enough, someone would "catch on," the light bulb would go off, etc. But that hope is rapidly being crushed. I'm beginning to think that we've already lost, and all the valiant, worthy efforts of the EFF won't end up mattering a tinker's damn.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
Forgetting for a moment that this is wrong and harmful, it's also stupid: how on earth is copy-protection of TV ever supposed to work? I point a camcorder at my TV during play, and boom, low-quality copy. Use optical zoom and some moderately cunning software to merge video streams and I might even be able to get a copy at near-full resolution.
Ah yes, but, see, that 1% that's watchable or even good - it changes for every person.
I've got a collection of old VHS tapes from way back. Old shows I loved, old footage I wanted to preserve, and so on. I've undertaken a project to rip them all, clean them, and put them on VCD so that I can still watch them (I hope!) when the hardware incompatability act of 2006 rolls around. I want to make sure there's old school entertainment around for my future kids so they don't get completely stranded in the WTO-generated cultural wasteland I think I see on the horizon.
It's probably illegal. I don't share the files, I don't publicly broadcast the files, I don't sell copies of the CDs, but I expect it's illegal anyway, or will be soon enough.
Screw 'em. I prefer to think of it as time-shifting on a transgenerational scale.
GMFTatsujin
Part of me can't help but think that the real reason this industry is trying to encrypt the digital signal is so that VCR companies will have to pay them royalties. I don't think they care as much about what happens to their signal after it hits household TV's.
I'd be okay with royalty extortion, except they're trying to control what I do with the content. Well, I have a piece of advice for them. The minute that a TV show becomes too hard to watch because I refuse to be anchored to my TV day and night is the minute that I stop watching TV. I have plenty of things I could be off doing, TV is more of a luxury than anything else.
How do they seriously expect people to adopt Digital TV over Analog TV when they don't get the same priveledges they are used to? Hell, the reason I don't have Digital Cable right now is that my home-brew PVR can't work with it!
"Derp de derp."