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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.
As I understand it, this would just make it more difficult to record HDTV broadcasts in a digital format that's easy to redistribute on the net. And, of course, this would come at a correspondingly higher price for the hardware for the consumer. This might deter casual users, but some one determined will still be able to capture the broadcast at a reasonable quality. And I will still be able to get Simpsons episodes over some P2P network.
-------------------------------END--COMMUNICATION
Now that the EFF has their own blog, they can start Google Bombing!
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
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?
Whatever happend to the air waves belonging to the people and the brodcasters using them as a privilege?
CSS on DVDs is one think (still evil if you ask me) but on brodcast TV when dose the madness end?
I can see my donation to the EFF was worth every cent.
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
Isn't "Lawyerpoint" the coolest phrase ever? I can hear the news reports now...
"7 people brutally murdered at lawyerpoint. The suspect is still on the loose, assumed armed and litigious."
Want Linux games? HERE.
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?
Yeah, right.
Sir,
/. We would like to point out the following.
Carnvour has pointed out to us your post to
We know where you live
We know your ISP
We know which porn site you visited last night
We know where your parents live
We have a large number of Tanks that can role over your house, see the beta testing Isreal is performing for us in Bethlehem
We own Congress
Yours, [Name witheld] MSCIA
Wouldn't it be nice if schools got all the money they wanted and the army had to hold jumble sales for guns
> 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.
Slashdot isn't a blog it's a forum, as are most of the sites you've posted.
A blog is a lengthy archive of self-obsessed opinion compiled and posted on the web by self-regarding people who have no other media outlet, and read by a very few others, mostly equally sad bloggers themselves. They operate on the theory that with enough howl-around feedback from each other they can claim an enormous readership and influence.
"We hope that the blog format will help us get the word out and let interested people see what
this group is up to."
Not bloody likely, mate. Why don't you get in a newspaper or on television, if you want real people to see what you are up to, and not just internet types with nothing better to read at the moment.
Basically - all blogs are a total pile of bullshit, almost without exception.
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.
Microsoft owns most of the patents on DRM as applied to computing technology.
... and it certainly wouldn't be to GNU/Linux.
Passing the SSSCA/whatever-they-call-it-now will legislate the Microsoft Monopoly into unassailability. Microsoft favors the legislation, unlike every other company in the industry, large and small alike.
If this bill passes, Microsoft would be able to pick and choose which token 'competitors' survive by deciding to whome the would and would not license the mandated technology
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
That is certainly one possibility, but another one is that Microsoft (a company that is certainly *not* run by dummies) really does know that the value of their current OS monopoly cannot possibly grow at the rate that would continue to make them the dominant player they surely wish to be.
Recent MS moves actually seem more focused on becoming the kind of company that gets 1% or 2% of every transaction rather than one that gets 95% of a more limited pie. If that's the real strategy, they have no reason not to license their stuff to anybody else. Indeed, if licensing DRM technology substantially slows any effort in the Linux community to work around it, re-implement it, or come up with a competing standard, they would have to be silly not to do so.
Or even give it away, if the client use was associated with a revenue stream at the server end. (Indeed, that's *classic* MS behavior.) I personally also find a parable in the story of MS and its manipulation of the .DOC format.
Once upon a time, you couldn't do the .DOC format
if you weren't MS, then the licensing became less
and less restrictive as the format became more and
more prevalent. Last I checked, you could do anything with it you liked except (I believe) use it as a default file format for your software. This isn't really giving anything away, though, since Word is what 98% of mankind will use to edit any .DOC files. Plus, they had to do something once it became clear that XML and stylesheets really would be a serious contender to anything
that MS put out...so guess who leads the w3.org
efforts on XSL?
Babar
The only real effect this will have is to force consumers to stop purchasing computer hardware in the US and buy foreign units that lack the draconian restrictive controls. If these become difficult to import, it will encourage the smugglers to bring more goods in through grey and black market routes.
Case in point, PGP. How many people out there used the "legal" crippled version, and how many just downloaded the international version that worked as it was intended?
I'm thinking any forced DRM attempt is quite simply going to fail, and will take a good bite out of what little consumer confidence is left in the high-tech sector.
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
The problem is that the "analog hole" is impossible to close without direct neural implants.
Our eyes and ears are devices that take analog input-- therefore for us to hear the sound or see the picture indicates that there is an analog hole which cannot be plugged through legislation.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
>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 was just about to say the same thing about UK TV!
4 channels of schlok! Lets watch the news on 100% of our channels at the same time! And lets all have a breakfast show on at the same time! And lets make sure we have mentally retarded shows like "The Buzzcocks" on daily! And do I even need to mention Banzai!
I've never actually read so much on TV until I was over in the UK. Teletext helped keep the pain of nothing good on TV away!
It's hard to have a repeat when you only get 4 channels. And if you don't want dumbing down, try an educational channel! Where I live I get two over the air (just think, that's 50% of your total over the air programming): PBS and TVO. I got 0 educational programs in the UK.
And, the last straw that breaks the camel's back -- I don't pay by the year to get TV, so if it sucks, I'm only out the cost of the set (almost nil if your neighbour gives you their old one). In the UK I'm out over 100 pounds! That's the cost of a basic cable subscription here, and basic cable gets you 500% - 1000% more channels.
Fortunately, in my multi-satellite universe, if you look through enough guides, there's _always_ something new on. Hell, I'll watch FSTV for the rest of my life over the Beeb.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
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."
Microsoft favors the legislation, unlike every other company in the industry, large and small alike.
I don't suppose you can back up that assertion with links to authoritative source(s), can you?
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
I don't suppose you can back up that assertion with links to authoritative source(s), can you?
Yes.
The Relevant Patent
The Hollings bill S-2048
A less authoritative but nevertheless informative article summarizing the issues
If you need more information and aren't just a troll, you can do any further research on your own. Google is your friend (except when censored by corporate interests such as the Scientologists, but that doesn't appear to have happened WRT this subject, yet).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy