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MPAA to Senate: Plug the Analog Hole!
A month ago, the MPAA filed
its report [PDF]
with the Senate Judiciary Committee on the terrors of analog
copying. I quote: "in order to help plug the hole, watermark
detectors would be required in"
-- are you sitting down? -- "all devices that perform analog to
digital conversions." At their page
Protecting Creative Works in a Digital Age,
the Senate lays out the issues they'll be looking at, including
briefs from corporate groups, and provides a
comment form
so your opinion can be heard as well. As Cory Doctorow writes:
"this is a much more sweeping (and less visible) power-grab than
the Hollings Bill, and it's going forward virtually unopposed.
...the
Broadcast Protection Discussion Group
is bare weeks away from turning over a veto on new technologies to Hollywood."
Doctorow's article on the "analog hole"
for the EFF does a great job of explaining the issues to
non-electrical-engineers, and has many thought-provoking
examples of how requiring such technology would be a giant step
backwards.
They just don't stop, they just don't listen, and they NEVER LEARN. I contact my congressman over this stuff every time, and I will continue to do so.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
MPAA to Senate: Plug the Analog Hole!
:P
You know, I've made a similar comment to the MPAA before. Come to think of it, some Senators too.
This is just another example of why and we always knew it. Listen, there will today and we'll all so don't forget so that's the way in which yes.
Who would have can you bring sufficiently.
There's no way the MPAA can succeed in this. All analog-to-digital conversion equipement?? I remember using a really simple A to D converter in one of my courses in University. I bet that chip costed a buck or two. Putting anti-piracy measures in it will increase the cost significantly, and for a really simple A to D converter? That's just ridiculous! Who are these morons coming up with this crap? This won't fly... no matter how dysfunctional these law-makers are.
....as I can't see the el-cheapo manufacturers in Taiwan wanting to comply with this. What's the betting that equipment from the Far East will come with DVD player style hacks to turn off watermarking?
Do these idiots realize that this proposed 'policing' of ADC(analog-to-digital converters) would include things like microphones and portable tape players? I'm sure they use these devices during their board meetings and hearings, and probably discuss confidential and/or copyrighted issues. Who's gonna police these?? Also, they will have to stop using their portable tape players to dictate notes for their executive assistants to scribe, since the information they want scribed could also be considered copyright material!
Bah, I'm getting my old VCR to plug up someone's 'analog' hole!
Attention all planets of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control! - Neil Peart
So say i'm using a digital camcorder in the mall and britney's new single starts playing from the loud-speakers does my camcorder shut down because it detects the watermark?
Total BS, this would ruin consumer electronics if ever implemented.
to the midle age.
What ? Me, worry ?
Adding a watermark to an analog signal will change the origional data. It is interesting how far the MPAA is willing to go to adulturate their own data so as to not allow others to access it.
Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but copyright will always protect me.
FFS, after reading so much about VCRs, the MPAA, ADCs, the BPDG, the CBDTPA, p2p, the FCC and CDs, I wish these guys would just STFU.
"...Watermark detectors would be required in all devices that perform analog to digital conversions..."
Mary and Her Lamb Want Back Royalty Too, You Thief!
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
What they really ment was that there are some A-holes in the MPAA that is in desperate need of plugging.
War is one of the most horrible things a human can be exposed to. And one of the worlds largest industries.
So does this mean that every decent Electronics course or manual would be outlawd under the DMCA? After all, an ADC without the fingerprinting layer would be a circumvention device!
I guess the supreme court ruling is irrelivent huh.
n ot-republican idiots who are in the pockets of Big media.
this is the problem in america today. Industry has TO MUCH DAMN POWER. they think they can just ignore rulings that the court places on society. THEY CAN'T, and for the Senate to even consider the issue leads me to believe that those people do not belong where they are.
the House Majority whip said yesterday, "In a time of war, we can not concern ourselfs about the constitutional problems when passing laws"
these are the idiots we have working for us. on the one side, we have warhawk who support big Industry, on the other, we have psudo-wanabe-whatever-is-popular-at-the-time-and-
yes there are a few with redeaming qualities and are not part of the larger crowd, but for the most part, we have a corupt, inept, retarded set of leaders who pass legislation based on the cash they get rather than what their constituents would want, or what there best intrests would be.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
This is getting amusing. The farther they go with this, the more crazy they sound. At this point it's just a question of whether they'll realize they're trying to dig a hole in water and try to make money off the new phenomenon rather than trying to suppress it, or will they just totally flip off the deep end?
In a previous ??AA article on CBTPTBPAPAwhatever, I mentioned I felt safer because they were unlikely to use the tactic of asking for something much more ridiculous than what they actually wanted, so they can get what they actually wanted in a compromise. Since having copy controls in all devices is what they want, and what they are asking for, the tactic won't work.
Welp, looks like I was wrong. Bet a dollar this fails, and they "compromise" by only having DRM (digital rights mangler) tech in digital-only devices.
How the hell did they get so much lobbying power?
The enemies of Democracy are
Since politics is often the art of compromise, I find myself wondering if this particular proposal is deliberately extreme so that the Hollings Bill suddenly looks more reasonable and has better popular and political support.
I always had the notion the copyright is a compromise between content providers and consumers. I do believe that creators should be compensated, but it seems to rein in piracy, our fair use rights should be removed. Why is it that we always lose our rights as a "preventive measure" to protect something that really isn't in much danger, in this case, IP? The movie and music industries continue to rake in the big bucks (suject to economic recessions, of course!) while our fair use right to time shift or format shift is taken away?
I am the evil aardvark!
This is an inflammatory puff piece. Obviously there will need to be exceptions to the analog->digital rule, especially in cases where the MPAA's IP rights are in no danger. But this is an emergency situation, they are perfectly justified in getting out a blanket law right away and then tweaking it to allow certain behaviors afterwards.
In spy movies it's common to run the shower and muffle the sound to evade listening devices.
Any analog watermark is going to have to be quiet enough so that listeners can't hear the watermark tones when listening to the radio -- but loud enough that any recorder can hear them.
Wouldn't it be possible to watermark a recording of silence and play it loud enough to disrupt all recordings for miles?
Only because his brain shuts down when he sees the moolah in MPAA's hands.. How ironic!
Rapid Nirvana
Does this mean that if they had their way, then if I spoke copyrighted lyrics into a speech to text system, it would shut down?
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
Don't see any more movies, don't buy any more CDs, just stop giving them money. Like all of you people who saw Star Wars, you're helping to make useful digital cameras a thing of the past. (I mean digital cameras for the little people since the bigshot movie people won't have to follow this law.)
Do you understand the implications of this? You can't record a couple's first dance at their wedding because the copyrighted music in the background cannot be allowed to be converted from analog to digital. Plz use this example to explain how sick these people are instead of talking about abstract coding ideas. Not being able to record a wedding reception will hit pretty close to home.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
So we've got the CBDTPA to (hopefully not) let them "own" all the digital devices, and now they want to go after analog. How long before they claim people are using 802.11 and come up with something to let them steal the airwaves?
--
"Hey, good thing they're coming after my 28.8kbps modem...this thing is just like a crazy piratin' machine! I got 2 mp3's this month!"
Oh, and I think after they get this "hole" filled in I think they should really get it through their heads that I have a "crap detector" in my analog-neural converter. I think they should just skip all of this baloney and make all musical analog to digital conversion illegal. Once and for all it will just end this silly issue
This sig provides no comical value.
They're thrashing around like a wounded animal. No thought of what they're doing or where they're going... just trying to survive the next minute before the lights go out.
The irony is that it's the thrashing that will kill them.
No one likes to see an animal suffering like that, but I for one am having a good time watching this one fighting for its life. Just don't get in its path because a wounded animal is a dangerous beast.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Did they even consider the impact on modems, or those actually interested in fidelity (truth) or do AtoD's become federally controlled devices?
The Other Nate
Page 2, under "The Broadcast Flag" "Detection and response to the Broadcast Flag does not mean less functionality for video devices, including PCs that receive DTV. Rather it adds to these devices the ability to determine the difference between protected and unprotected works. The MPAA and its member companies have no desire to reduce the functionality of PCs or other devices and in fact want them to be MORE functional, not less. That is, so that they are able to provide a secure environment for digital over-the-air broadcast television content, in addition to everything else they do today." That is right up there with "[insert Spyware of choice] doesn't infringe on your rights as a consumer -- it is giving your PC more functionality by allowing us to market to you in select ways with select business partners."
Online wrestling as a trading card game? WWF With Authority.
This will make my digital thermometer outlawed.
These laws are just getting better all the time.
The big deal here is that they are putting restrictions on devices which have legitimate usage.
My car does 140mph, legally I can only do half that. No legislator would consider requiring all cars to be blocked from these speeds unless the road told the engine manager that this was a race track.
This is the same thing. I like knowing I can copy CDs - its nice. Most of the time I'm just copying my own stuff, work, photos, etc... all of which would become a pain in the ass with this type of blocking technology.
Time to introduce them to a new digital device - the middle-finger!
Congress is spending more and more of its time considering legislation that requires technological enforcement of copyright laws.
It occurs to me, that if they are keen on using technology to actually enforce laws, rather than relying on the people's own good judgement and respect for the law, then they have much bigger fish to fry.
Why is it than we've not seen a legislative mandate that requires car manufacutrers to prevent drunk driving? How about limiters that prevent aggressive driving or speeding? Why have we not seen legislative mandates that require gun manufacturers to make guns that can't kill innocent people (or, at the very least, cannot be accidentally fired i.e. by a child)?
After all, these are issues that *kill* people. And human lives are more important than money, aren't they? Aren't they?
It's not that the technology in either of those cases is beyond the state of the art. It's that there's no money in it for them. The money in those two cases are in the hands of the automobile and gun manufacturers.
In the case for building copyright protection into the simplest A to D converters, the money is on the side of the MPAA. The electronics industry's position is unclear for now... they could stand to benefit by this legislation ('oh gosh, Mr & Mrs. Consumer! All of your electronics are now incompatible with the current releases from Hollywood! Tsk. You'll have to buy a totally new set of consumer electronics.'). They can also count on hackers breaking encryption scemes every few years, leading to another change in standards... forcing yet more upgrades.
I just have an image of all the senators manning a fast food joint "...that's the super legislative combo... would you like fries with that? OK... it'll be $5 Million in campaign donations, please pull up to the window."
We just force anyone who makes ADC to put a bit more cpu power in them (ok that will require adding a cpu core and memory and the rest of the stuff to make a dsp but we can ignore that for now)
That should only drive the price for a 16 bit a/d convert up about 800% but its such a small part of modern electronics it won't matter to the consumer.
I hope there is an exclusion for A/D converters for hearing aids or else these voters might get just a bit upset.
you bastards
Surely they can't be serious, this thing is going to float like a lead balloon.
Cory Doctorow writes: your cellphone would refuse to transmit your voice if you wandered too close to the copyrighted music coming from your stereo.
:)
That would put a pleasant end to all those wankers who use their mobile phone in movie theatres.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
My freedom, blah, blah, blah... out of touch legislators blah blah blah. Wanna even a chance to be heard?
1. Fill out this form. Really. Don't just read the comments, and don't just post here. Take a minute and write a thoughtful, well argued comment. Senators don't give a damn what people on Slashdot are saying, but they'll give a damn if it's on their own fancy website.
2. Vote with your vote. Get the hell out there and support candidates that see through all of this crap. As a community, we rant and rave that the whole system is munged then turn around and skip the vote en masse. Ever wonder why no one wants to mess with Social Security? Talk to this very consistent voting group. Senators listen to votes, not money. They only listen to money because it helps them buy more votes. Don't vote? Don't complain.
3. Vote with your dollar. If you rant, then continue to support these businesses, you have no one to blame but yourself. Just as politicians only respond to votes, most businesses only respond to money.
It's got to be more than talk, guys. If we don't start backing any of this up, we'll just be the cranky tech curmudgeons who desperately hang on to the antiquated notion of "freedom."
======================================
Writers get in shape by pumping irony.
As an electrical engineer student, I have built my own A/D converter circuit along with a sample and hold to signal inputs and put them into the computer. They are relatively simple both in overall design and the ADC chips themselves are also very simple: only about 16 pins with a single input and several outputs to represent the input voltage as a binary number. It is both ludicrous and impossible to convert this into something that checks a "digital watermark". Forget the linked article's references to how your cell phone would turn off if it were on near a copyrighted song.
A huge portion of our technology involves A/D chips. Your car uses one for the speedometer, for the fuel injection, etc. Digital audio amplifiers use it. VCR's use it. Any and all digital sensors use it. Adding in digital watermark checking functionality would increase the complexity of this simple, ubiquitous and cheap chip (prolly less than 10 cents, but that's just a guess) several orders of magnitude. It would be like the difference between your solar powered calculator and your desktop. Expenses in electronics industries would jump to compensate for this added complexity, because unlike the movie industry they operate very close to full efficiency.
In short, there is absolutely no way to make this request by the MPAA workable. None at all. Their execs wanting to control A/D conversion is just indicative of how far removed from reality they are. Unfortunately, that might not prevent them from convincing congress to allow this idiocy to go through, so i STRONGLY recommend submitting in the feedback form that NO you don't support it, and furthermore there is only one rational viewpoint on it. Feel free adopt my examples or argument.
Other examples of A/D :
How the telephone company decodes the tones when you press a button into a number
How digital cell phones work
How fax machines work
Digital medical equipment (measuring blood pressure, heartbeat, etc)
Literally any digital sensor
Your themostat in your house
etc
As long as the new law, if it passes, makes the FBI the chief enforcement agency of the law.
That way, nothing will ever happen to anybody, except maybe the innocent.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sadly, the third part of the report's summary - 'Controlling the Internet' - is much easier than the EFF report on the BPDG suggests.
All it would require is a law banning all ISPs from forwarding incoming TCP connections, UDP packets etc on to a subscriber, unless such subscriber has a license to operate as a 'server'.
Similarly, anyone directly connected to the backbone would need a license to accept incoming connections.
The US could threaten trade sanctions against any other country that doesn't pass similar laws.
The licensing regime for 'servers' would be onerous, and include things such as mandatory logs with IP addresses, times etc going back 3 years, also a cache of the last 200GB of data transferred. Anyone trafficking in unauthorised protocols, or using unauthorised cryptography, would lose their license.
That way, only medium-large sized companies would have the funds and resources to fulfil the administrative requirements of license compliance.
This is war - no sooner has the internet exploded onto the world stage, than the powers that be are fighting tooth and nail to protect their monopoly.
The most powerful way to fight - stop going to movies, even 'Star Wars' etc - discourage your friends - boycott Hollywood.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
adj.
2.Operated or done with the fingers: a digital switch.
3.Having digits.
4.Expressed in numerical form, especially for use by a computer.
5.Computer Science. Of or relating to a device that can read, write, or store information that is represented in numerical form.
6.Using or giving a reading in digits: a digital clock.
So will it be illegal read a phone number out loud? Or write one down from memory?
I wonder if there were similar knee-jerk reactions when the printing press first became popular?
I am a Karma Library.
I want to tell them my opinion on this, but without a reference, they won't be able to figure out what I'm so angry about.
Boy, what a relief that they were able to make time for the media cartel. Country feels safer already. Glad the Senate is being vigilant in it's work for the people.
Never mind sealing up the borders, have to make sure the MPAA gets to voice it's concerns over losing aspects of it's monopolies! Ridiculous!
If I use my analog ears to listen to a song and then I write the words down, am I illegal?
Looks like I'll need to buy a new mouse, keyboard, tv infared port receiver, VCR, gamecube, gameboy, cell phone, car, surge protector, electrical meter, geiger counter, cooling fan w/ rpm indicator, digital thermometer, thermostat, air conditioner...
The initial comment was written by "Glenn Thompson" from Gold Beach , Oregon.
Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but copyright will always protect me.
i always thougnt that creative people would help tear down the barriers that impose restrictions. wel im obviously mistaken, theyre the ones erecting the razorwire. i fear the day that i ever have a movie distributed/album pressed/book written, cause ill have to deal with this shit.
I want 2D games back.
Detection and response to the watermarks does not mean less functionality for video devices, including PCs.. Rather, it adds to these devices the ability to determine the difference between protected and unprotected works.
So what they're saying is, breaking your leg doesn't reduce your ability to walk, it adds the ability to use a crutch. Another ridiculous argument, another sign of desperation...
Hollyweird wants to outlaw resistors.
Do they realize how easy it is to make an ADC? Do they actually know what goes into 'em? (My guess is, they think it runs on magic, which is why they want to use magic to make it go away.)
What a bunch of dumbasses..
That sort of thinking proves they have more dollars than sense..
With this as the norm, and advertisers increasingly pushing new and more invasive ways to get their "content" to you, the abillity to record anything would be put in jeopardy. Billboards could prevent a photo of the skyline. Political speeches could be buried by someone playing "Who let the Dogs Out" on a boombox. Homemade Christmas videos would be a thing of the past, with copyrighted logos and packaging preventing recording, not to mention sound effects and music from toys.
MY question is: Is content really in that much trouble? Are books, movies and music copyrights being violated so much, that oppressive hardware solutions are the only answer?
I grew up thinking that copyright was to protect ME. If I wrote a song, or a paper, copyright would prevent someone from taking some or all of it and repesenting it as _their own work_. It now seems that that is not the case anymore, and copyright is being used to prevent duplication for ones own use (FAIR USE), and CREATION of content by the individual.
I urge everyone reading about this on /. to bring the message to people who aren't /.ers. The 'average joes' (w/ apologies to average joe ;) need to hear about these proposals. Too often, these things remain unheard of by the voting public. The media owned by the media protecting the media. Please spread the word.
... and too greedy and to silly. If the won't get it that they _have_ to change the way the're thinking and acting in their biz, the will loose more than they can ever imagine. Me myself laughs my a** out here in Europe... MPAA and all those lobbyists just should quit their job and better go to beginner lessons for doing biz in the digital econmy and dealing with the new possibilities - not to go after the rights of their consumers.
I better do not look any more any movies at all because as far as I know my Retina works pretty analog and I do not have a silly watermark detector in my brain or wherever. got it MPAA?
Go to the Senate Judiciary and submit a comment about breaking the copy protection on the Celion Dion CD with a marker.
That way even Congress will be in violation of the DMCA!
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Indeed, have a very nice day.
The enemies of Democracy are
"CONTENT" = BULLSHIT
Now that in the USA bullshit is more important than reality, this shows that the USA are decadent and does not contribute anything to the global welfare.
If a $600G/year industry cannot defend itself against a $18G/year industry, it doesn't deserve to exist.
IP is being ripped off left and right. This is costing artists and their agents millions if not billions in lost revenue. Sure, they are big, rich entities--but they won't be if this keeps up much longer. That's the emergency.
So I take it you've missed the campaigns for BreathAlyzers in cars, the various efforts for engine governors, and the "Smart Gun" that can only be fired by its registered owner?
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
better than plugging the analogue hole - why don't they plug everybody's ear holes. That way, nobody would want to pirate music.
And what's the bet they'd blame a fall in sales on the "damn grail pirates"
-- james
The winners can receive a quill pen.
lets face it. We need a commercial. The only way that we are going to reach the majority of people is to have a technology company/group pay the money to run a commercial and then create a landslide. If we put it in terms that people who aren't versed in the technological reprecussions (or the those who don't care) then that will happen. It wouldn't be that hard, the idea is there in the eff article. A couple is on vacation and a man can't take a picture of his wife because of everything in the background. A couple is at home and they run to switch off the tv so they can record their child's first steps, but the camera shuts off because they didn't cover up their magazines (this will be the next step in wathermarking, count on it). Hit the public in the heart and this will come to the forefront.
So we're in a world where ADCs have been set up to detect watermarked material and suppress it. Think how much fun you can have with this!
...uh... performance. Turn it on. At the very least all the outbound broadcast feeds die; if you're lucky and the hall has a digital sound system all the microphones just stop working.
Envision a small device that emits a fairly low level of white noise with the watermark in it. Perhaps it's just an MP3 player looping a watermarked recording of John Cage's 4'33".
Bring one of these to a political debate or a religious
Walk into a bank carrying a running DVD player. Say! What happened to all the security cameras?
The possibilities are endless.
--Andy Hickmott
is of VITAL importance in today's piracy riddled automotive industry! With the increase of terrorist speedometers that have unprotected analog-to-digital converters in them, who knows how many copyrighted works might be sent into the hands of rebellious youths every time you step on the gas pedal?
We must put a stop to this! Next thing you know, digital thermostats will be available, and then there will be NO END to the piracy!
What are they going to do about the ultimate analog hole? You know the one, you all have it.
It's the "analog hole" that runs out of the speakers, into the air, across the room, and into your ears.
Or off the screen, into the air, and smacks into your eyes.
That's one big fooking hole right there, and I know for a fact that unprotected digital music and video are passing through that hole every day. Just the other day I was in a room where Star Wars: Attack of the Clones was flowing right through the hole, unencrypted, right into the eyes of about 150 other people besides me.
This hole must be plugged. I hope they're drawing up the legislation and mapping out the new devices right now. In fact, I saw such devices being used just the other day on Star Trek...this advanced race has these cool so-called "borg implants".
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
Memo from Senator Hollings, et al.:
To Wit:
Given that there is a tremendous number of devices that can A/D music and video illegally and that once we have banned unmodified A/D devices, illicit A/D devices will soon be smuggled into our beloved country disguised as routine cocaine shipments, we are forced to take the next logical step:
Congress shall pass a law wherein all persons in the USD (United States of Disney) shall be retrofited with Digital and Analog Watermark devices on their visual and aural receptors. Said persons shall be prohibited by law to remove these devices once implanted and any person found to be without shall on the first offense be sent to a Intelectual Properties Reeducation camp. A second offense shall result in the permanent disabling of their Intellectual property receptors. Any child born in this country after the date of passage shall be impounded until such time they have been properly indoctrinated and fitted with their devices. All alien persons visiting the USD shall be fitted with temporary devices for the duration of their stay.
Since many people in this country have not been properly indoctrinated (or those who have resisted initial efforts to implant their devices), informational messages shall be fed to the subjects of this great land to inspire them to lead a better more wholesome life.
The honorable Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General has requested that to ensure that persons capable of excessivly creative thought or possess unfair physical capabilities or attributes, be required to have installed on their person, devices to render their unfair capabilities neutral.
Thank you.
Senator Ernest Hollings
In Walt We Trust.
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
All devices that perform analog to digital conversions? I once built a bond-pull tester (Mil-spec, destructive test for microchips) that did A/D conversion for displaying and recording results. You're supposed to monitor the signal coming from a load cell for watermarks?!
All those schemes to build in protection into the hardware seems to assume that only a few should be able to create and manipulate actual protected work since if everyone can do it, well, then anyone can of course work arround it.
That mean that I can't make a movie/film/song/music/book whatever myself and apply any copy protection to it. I do still get copyright on it of course but appearantly I can either not have the copy to be distributed or used by others at all or would have to have it in a form that is unprotected.
That mean only a few big companies will have the "benefit" of such a system, right? In what way does this in any way help "content creators"? As far as I see it it is just a way by some of the big content distributors to basically force everyone that is a true creator so that they have to go through them to get anything published or distributed.
I wonder when those big content distributors will realise that the new technology is actually making them obsolete to a greate extent since it is now much easier for the ACTUAL creators to distribute their work themselves. But they fight on in an attempt to make it mandatory to use them for distribution. Sad.
I think at least part of the reason why we are seeing these proposals one right after another is because the ban on soft money is right around the corner. When it takes affect, it will be at least a little harder for these groups to line pockets and buy congressional delegates. The MPAA, RIAA, etc. are really wanting to do these things while their influence is at it's max.
you must have missed the /. article last year (don't have a link handy, sorry) that politicians someplace (UK, I think) were considering doing just that. The plan was to pack a GPS and a speed governor in every vehicle, and depending on where the GPS said you were, the governor would limit you to the speed limit on the road. I would be continually amazed at all the really stupid stuff governments and corporate executives try to do (come to think of it, there really isn't a whole lot of difference except that in democratic countries there are laws against what the former can do while corporations run roughshod) except that I've seen so much of it I just shake my head at the next ocurrence of stupidity.
What is your Slash Rating?
When people like us say A-D converter, we think of devices that convert a continuous signal into discrete levels.
However, when the **AA says A-D converter, they're thinking about content stored on analog media being moved onto digital media.
I'm sure the MPAA ain't thinking of digital thermometers or such lower level devices (though if a black marker can be a circumvention device, why not a digitherm?). They're thinking of analog content, in the form of audio cassettes, VCRs, TV, the like. Same 2 words, but their interpretation is completely different to the technical interpretation we're used to. Almost, a storm in a teacup. The MPAA doesn't care about your wristwatch, your alarm clock! (I suppose they're not smart enough to realize the potential circumvention uses of such harmless devices *grin*)
What would be an absolute tragedy though, is if this misunderstanding of a technical term became enshrined in law. Then, one day some idle lawyer could pounce on the idle wording and start issuing C&D's to, say, alarm clock manufacturers.
Is there a relatively unbiased website that details candidates votes / opinions, etc. ?
Silpon Designs
Scented Paper Products
- The horse is already out of the barn
- A (smart) highschool kid could easily build the necessary equipment.
- The video game industry is already bigger than Hollywood. (Overlooking such minor allied industries as computers and electronics!)
This is all about the individual getting the tools to control their own fate, rather than blindly consuming whatever is shoved down their throats. The way the broadcast system has been handled for the last eighty years is a prime example of how badly things have been done in the past. If I lose the tools or the rights to make my own armature goat porn and share it with 50,000 of my closest friends, then these economic terrorists have already one. (Although I couched that in humorous terms, the point is 100% valid.)It's time the Entertainment industry stopped whining about keeping its monopoly on buggy whips and got with the times. And while they're at it, they can stop bothering their betters, shut the fuck up, and go sit in the back of the bus where they belong.
Our leaders ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H legislators need to look at the whole picture and weigh the benefit to the whole of society vs propping up the revenue streams of a handful of wealthy media conglomerates. A naieve thought, yes, but sometimes right does win.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
This isn't X-Files. This is reality, where it doesn't matter how rich somebody is--stealing is stealing.
Maybe you don't like NSync--but they rose from nothing based on only their hard work and dedication. If the starving people in the world put half as much effort into finding food that NSync does into their music, they'd find themselves on top as well.
Explain to me how a watermark detector is going to prevent someone from setting up a camcorder at the prescreening of a movie and putting it out as a movie clip before the movie even releases? They are trying to find a technical solution to a non-technical problem and trying to overemphasize the existance of this problem that has actually declined over the years.
It seems like every few days there's another reason that living in the United States is becoming less and less of a good idea.
Patriot Act. DMCA. This thing. The list goes on and on...
sigh.
After all, these are issues that *kill* people. And human lives are more important than money, aren't they? Aren't they?
No.
Signed,
Congress
No, Vern. They just let him in.
Sure, if the US implements a law preventing people from copying material, or insists that devices made must follow this watermarking scheme. What prevents people from outside of the states from Digitizing it and then P2Ping (or otherwise) over the internet to an American citizen?
The only way I can see of blocking this would require a "Great Firewall of the US" (like China's). At that point, I think the populous will have to reconsider who they are electing into power, if it's not too late.
(IMHO, of course)
~ kjrose
It is a very frustrating experience to want to do something, but being unable to.
I live in Canada, and I have been following stories like this for quite a long time now. I initially tried to contact my MP(Member of Parliament) regarding these issues, however there's not much a Canadian MP can do about bills circulating the US Senate.
It's also frustrating that if these bills and regulations come into effect they will have worldwide impact.
I'm just ranting, and now I'm done.
There goes my solar-panels... They can fall under the category of A/D...
Slashdot is like Playboy: I read it for the articles
They want to go all the way. They want automatic electronic enforcement of laws, using the level of smarts that can only determine that the user might be breaking the law currently, which is sufficient justification to allow them to immediately stop you. This is judge, jury, and prosecutor on a chip that can only make a few and/xor/nor decisions.
What's next, they ask congress allow digital cameras to use a stun gun on the user and call the police whenever it thinks the user might be doing something wrong?
Those are all good examples of other attempts to legislate personal responsibility through the manufacturer.
That being said, however, I think what the original poster was pointing out was the speed with which federal government listens to things when business wants something as opposed to individuals. There are movements to do all of the things you mention, but they don't seem to have had the same impact as what the MPAA is doing. Maybe the MPAA sounds just as reasonable to legislators as smart guns, but I don't think so.
I think the original poster was pointing out that all those things haven't been passed (although the MPAA stuff hasn't--but c.f. the DMCA), and it may be because the manufacturers don't support them. If they did, we might see engine governors, smart guns, etc.
The fact that there have been so many efforts to get engine governors without any real legislative attention whatsoever, but immediate attention when the MPAA wants anything, is disturbing. I think the original post was pointing out a disturbing trend in which individual citizens have to comprise a massive number before they amount to anything, but business merely has to mention something.
Erm, I'm guessing he's heard of most of these things. He's talking about legislation mandating (ie, forcing) to have the breathamathings before they start, instead of the current situation where its very optional. Same with guns... and I'd like to be able to let my friend use my gun.
It's things like this that make you start to understand the reasons why the I.R.A. does what they do in London and great britian... nothing like a group of the haves trying to smash the have-nots. to get everyone all good and pissed off..
If some lunatic blew up the MPAA and RIAA headquarters.. I doubt that anyone would cry or even be able to say it was a tragedy with a straight face.
Why doesn't someone just design and then patent an ADC that has this watermarking technology built in? I don't imagine any of the *AA's have done it yet, and ADC's are pretty simple circuits...just come up with some lame watermarking scheme, implement it and patent it. Guaranteed you'll get the patent. Then, you have THEM at your mercy (or they haul your ass into court trying to void your patent).
We need TV commercials with a strong message like the anti-smoking ones before people will get the hint.
http://www.askthevoid.com
My comment to them... any /. readers want to look into the bolded bit some more?
I am a US citizen living in Australia. There are a large number of
American artists that live here because they can make a living here
making their art. Most are here because the could not make a living
in the US industry with its heave handed control of the MPAA and RIAA.
To me this shows that US copyright law does not properly protect the
artist but only the companies that claim to represent the artists.
I ask the Congress to look at the top selling movies over the last year
and ask how many of them were made by US artists? How many of the top
20 music CD's were done by US artists in the last 20 years? Current US
copyright law is not helping the creators of the work.
The concept of public domain is very broken. Did any of the Members of
Congress pay royalties when they sung God Bless America on the steps of
the Capitol on Sept 12? The song was written in 1936 by Irving Berlin
and is still copyright just as much as a drawing of Mickey Mouse in 1928.
Maybe everyone just assumed that the song was public domain but I've
never seen so many Congressmen break the law at one time.
Please restore copyright law to the way it was 40 years ago and fix the
problem. Ignore what the MPAA and RIAA say since they do not represent
nearly a 1/2 million artists that make film and music in America.
Now the MPAA wants to make a device that is used in MANY, MANY devices cost 3 or 4 times as much, including massive redesign efforts throughout the electronic components industry. Tell me that that won't cause our electronics industry to slow down... (after all, we were just surpassed significantly in supercomputer performance)
The increased cost of the ADCs will be presented to the consumer... EVERY CD player, EVERY VCR, EVERY other electronic component will increase in cost something like $5.
Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but copyright will always protect me.
these are the idiots we have working for us. on the one side, we have warhawk who support big Industry, on the other, we have psudo-wanabe-whatever-is-popular-at-the-time-and-n ot-republican idiots who are in the pockets of Big media.
Big Money, Inc. has bought and paid for the legislature and the presidency long ago.
Support any and all campaign finance reform that regulates the contributions -- limits their size, limits their frequency and mandates reporting. It's the only chance to elect candidates whose mission in life isn't serving corporate interests.
Why not support/ignore the bill instead of fighting it ?
When it's passed, and there's
a) a 5 year moratorium on ANY electronics device while the RIAA defines what sort of watermark has to be detected (because there probably isn't a piece of electronics of any significant complexity made today that doesn't use at least one, if not 20 ADCs).
and b) a huge hike in the manufacturing cost of everything from cars to cellphones,
then sit back and laugh while you watch the Trade Federation^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H RIAA torn to shreds by industry and politicians alike.
Don't these guys have anyone /technical/ advising them? Let's say I go to a Big Budget Movie with Anti-Piracy Watermark (TM) and take my Anti-Piracy CamCorder (TM) with me to bootleg the movie. (I don't do that sort of thing, but this is an example...)
We'll ignore for the minute that most of the piracy of movies that goes on is by insiders. We'll also ignore the fact that you can get the movie from less than legal channels without taping it, allowing you to actually enjoy the movie in the theatre rather than taping it.
Back to my case. If I'm taping this movie, there are two suppositions involved related to watermarking: audio and visual. The technical question is: How on earth do you put watermarking in a visual medium without people seeing it and in an audible medium without people hearing it? On a movie screen, if you put a visual watermark in, even on every Nth frame, it's still going to be apparent that something is going on. Likewise with an audible watermark. If you insert some kind of sound clip, you have to avoid the low frequencies (it'll be drowned in the bass) and the high frequencies (people will take notice).
I don't frankly see a legitimate technical way to do this. Sure, you can try putting in embedded electronic codes to keep someone from copying something (e.g., CD/DVD to tape), but there will still be enough legacy devices running around that you can't retrofit, and in any case, people will crack the protection-scheme-of-the-month.
Maybe I've missed something (please let me know what, if I have), but I don't see that these propsed laws are technically feasible. Mind, I'm not inclined toward protectionist laws anyway, which is all this is. There's no difference between trying to get laws passed to prevent people from exercising their right to fair use and trying to get laws passed to increase tariffs on, say, steel. In this regard, unfortunately, the Bush administration is likely to be supportive of the recording industry...after all, we can't let the high-rolling Hollywood execs (who fund political campaigns) suffer in abject poverty because of the thieving consumers.
What is your Slash Rating?
Well, this is just about the only case when I am happy that Linux has not became a mainstream (read everyone and their dog uses it) OS.
Think about it: if it has then RIAA et al. would be after all OSS media players etc. to comply with their 'legistlations'. However, since the platform of 'choice' is M$Win, other OSs are not the main focus, hence they can still stay free and open.
And besides how can they possibly ban non-'encrypted' analog devices from being made? I mean I am probably as screwed as everyone else (I live in Canada, so States impact me directly) but places like Europe, Asia, etc. How is the States going to tell them you can't have their (read RIAA) content? Not sell to them unless they comply. Fat chance.
They should just move on and maybe invent something useful rather than screwing their 'user' base, well user according to RIAA, since you really don't own anything you spend your hard earned cash on...
Yea, politics, so nice that those that we chose to put in power work for us (in any country)..
"A May 10 report prepared for the Defense Department concluded that open source often results in more secure, less expensive applications and that, if anything, its use should be expanded." If this technology is implemented and must be implemented into software and devices then the government would have to enforce that. The government would therefore have to remove systems that did not meet the requirements. This would result in cost increases, and a requirement to use only those systems that would comply thus disallowing many of the more secure systems that are already in place.
Hollywood says to NASA: All of the ADC's on your future Mars rovers will have to include a cop-chip to make sure that your sensors shut down if they sense any Metallica songs on the Red Planet.
NASA says to Hollywood: We're going to sue you for every time the "NASA" logo has ever appeared in a Hollywood movie.
Hollywood: Okay, never mind...
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
I'll make this short, but sweet.
The United States was founded by people who believed in the public good. They set up commissions for public libraries and promotion of the arts, while at the same time granting inventors and authors the ability to profit from their works until they faded into the public domain. Our most hallowed documents, our most cherished music, even our national anthem come from the re-use of work written by authors and musicians a generation before.
Yet, the MPAA and the RIAA want to tell *me* that this is Unamerican. That my role in society is not as a citizen, or a voter, or a patriot -- but solely one as a consumer. Had this been the prevailing attitude in the late eighteenth century, there would be no Congress, no Senate, no President, no freedom; we would all be loyal subjects of the King, and Benjamin Franklin would be remembered as an eccentric intellectual imprisoned and executed for copyright violations.
I am not a consumer, or a "content provider", or a market statistic; I am a *citizen*. Please treat me like one.
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
if you feel like contacting all the people in the american senate, here is a list.
l .senate.gov, senator_brownback@exchange.senate.gov, senator@sessions.senate.gov, senator_DeWine@DeWine.senate.gov, info@kyl.senate.gov, webmail@specter-iq.senate.gov, senator_grassley@exchange.senate.gov, webform@hatch.senate.gov
webmail@feinstein-iq.senate.gov, webmail@edwards-iq.senate.gov, dick@durbin.senate.gov, webmail@cantwell-iq.senate.gov, senator_schumer@exchange.senate.gov, webpage@feingold.senate.gov, senator_kohl@kohl.senate.gov, senator@biden.senate.gov, senator@kennedy.senate.gov, senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov,
senator@mcconnel
:o)
/ d
I really get the feeling that, in general, the public is clueless about the things the MPAA, RIAA and others are trying to do to fair use rights. You never almost never hear about DRM in the mainstream media. I really feel that if people knew and understood the consequences of this sort of thing, that they might be more vocal to their congressional representatives. For once, I would like to see one those asinine email chain letters start circulating to inform people about this kind of legislation. It might be one of the few things those chain letters could be good for.
Spamming issues aside, email chains really are a great way to get a message out to huge numbers of people. People won't think twice about forwarding an email to everyone on their address list, and hence the flood of "Little Johnny Needs a Kidney" messages in my inbox. Remember how upset people get over the occaisional bouts of "Congress wants to tax email" type chains. When I last spoke to the representative for my district, he said they still get calls from irrate constituents complaining over email taxes.
The point is that email spreads messages very very rapidly and to a very large audience. All for free. And the more sensational the email the faster it spreads. It would be nice to see some nice, clear, and authoritative chain letter start circulation about DRM. It needs to be a message that informs people that it's not just an issue for nerds and computer geeks, but one that it really can and will impact their lives. And one that counters the claims by the RIAA and MPAA that this is really for their benefit.
People really do react when they think something they enjoy is threatened, the problem is just they just usually don't know or realize the threat until it's too late.
... is the ANALog equivalent of the buttplug.
This saying is getting a little worn out but it is ringing more and more true lately...
"A third political party in a America? First we need to have a second."
How congress will will react when they realize that they have outlawed one of the most widely used devices in the world. Used in virtually all electical/mechanical industies. The simplest A/D converter of them all.
The Switch. (otherwise know as The Button).
I don't even want to get started on the number of uses that a switch has. It would literaly put the US into the middleages (and maybe earlier. cadapult triggers could be a form of switch.)
Slashdot is like Playboy: I read it for the articles
The purpose of copyright law is to promote wide distribution of quality content and information.
The mechanism of copyright law was designed to protect powerless content producers from powerful content publishers.
Custom and usage has turned that on its head. The law now primarily protects the powerful publishers, and it does so more each year. Copyright law does not promote quality, nor does it encourage migration into the public domain, the original and quite explicit goal.
The goal of commercial publishers is now clear. It is to buy laws that - de facto - prevent self publishing by raising the technological and cost bar so high that only established interests will be able to distribute work that can be used by a significant proportion of the people. Instead of protecting talented people from ruthless publishers, copyright laws will soon mandate the effective enslavement of the very people they were meant to protect.
This is not what copyright law was invented for. And it was an invention. There is no "natural" or "social" law or convention that prevents people from sharing or repeating information. Copyright law was invented, and it was invented with a particular purpose in mind. We have now very nearly inverted that purpose through creeping amendments and fiddling with the original laws.
If you do write to your elected representatives, I'd suggest that you make it clear that you understand this, that you haven't been brainwashed by Disney into believing that only huge commercial publishers should control all distribution and dissemination of information, that you want a complete cleanout of copyright laws, and a return to the original intent.
Once more for luck: the original and explicit intent of copyright law is to promote the distribution of information and content from individual producers to individual consumers by ensuring that distributors - those with the money and power - could not dictate terms, steal work, and become even richer and more powerful at the expense of the people at either end of the chain.
I'd say we're well overdue for a return to that situation, and I'd bet good money that a vast majority of (nameless, faceless, powerless) authors, musicians, scriptwriters, and garage inventors would agree.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I just don't understand how they're going to pull this off. If you've ever taken any kind of digital design class, you understand how ubiquitous and relatively inexpensive A/D converters are. I've had a whole lot of fun with the AD670
from Analog Devices and if you look at the pricing, I just don't know where they're going to fit a "cop chip" into this thing. At $10 a chip or thereabout, putting a big chunk of digital logic into it seems unmanageable.
Also, maybe I'm wrong about this, but for the "cop chip" to tell the ADC whether or not everything is good, won't it just have to make a pin high or low to signal it to shut down? I mean, there is a limited number of ways that one chip can efficiently signal another chip. How hard would it be to just tie the "cop chip" lead on an ADC to Vcc and not worry about it again?
This doesn't even get into the fact that there is no WAY, I mean NO WAY for any over-the-counter ADC to pick up a watermark. I mean, its not like in the Flintstones where there is a little bird pecking shit out on a stone tablet and the bird says "Hey, that's copyrighted... SQUAWK!" The ADC doesn't know how its being used. I could be throwing anything at it in any format. Hell, I could have run all sorts of analog signal processing on it beforehand...
Here's a good example: I was building a TTL-based robot for a class that needed to see using an NTSC camera. In the class, we weren't allowed to use any pre-fab processors - we were required to build our own from scratch. So I built a little special-purpose 16-bit RISC processor. So memory wasn't exactly in abundance, due to prototyping limitations, and clock speed wasn't exactly stellar, so the two big video-processing options were out: not fast enough to process NTSC in real-time and not enough memory to store the whole image and then process it. The way I got around this was by using the camera as a sort of memory device and detecting each horizontal sync off of the ADC, then just storing the individual line and processing that. It was an extremely good compromise. My point is this: how would the MPAA or whoever have any idea whether or not there was a watermark on the thing I was pointing the camera at? Particularly since I ran the whole thing through some signal processing before the ADC in order to widen the band of the most relevant image data.
At the end of the day, this is simply impossible. Maybe companies that have a vested interest in this, such as Sony, can integrate it into their higher-level hardware, but I can't imagine that the Analog Devices of the world are ever going to pull this off sanely.
Just my thoughts.
Nonperiodic Central Trajectory
I'm no biologist, but aren't our 5 senses "analog to digital" converters? (timpanic membrane/tongue/retina/olfactory/skin => Na, K electrolyte pump => neural stimulus....you get the idea)
Get bent MPAA. There will be no watermarking near me anytime soon.
Sigh...here we go again. And as a non-American, all I can do is sit back in horror and watch this happen. There are no representatives for me to write, no agencies I can contact, nothing. It's like being a non-Citizen in the Roman Empire. God knows MY government will just follow suit and do "whatever the Americans do" (I give you one guess as to what nation I call home).
You Americans are the Citizens of New Rome. You have the rights, you have the power, you have the voice. The rest of us can only sit back and watch what your government does, and wait for it to affect our lives (and it will, it always does).
Umm concidering what you can do with FPGAs now soon they'll have to get a law passed to controls those. Or people are just going ot download some code and program their own converters.
This can be summed up in one simple word. Stupid.
"Maybe you don't like NSync--but they rose from nothing based on only their hard work and dedication."
Whooooooweeee, that MUST be a TROLL, you can't be that ignorant about how the entertainment industry works!!!
N'Sync is a manufactured band, these boys never met each other until they were assembled by the record company. It's not like they slaved away in a garage for ten years while working at McDonald's.
The whole reason N'Sync/Britney/etc/etc ad nausem got to be such mega stars is that they had some corporation pushing them. The industry controls access to the airwaves. They control access to TV. They control access to distribution of your CD.
If you have been slaving away in your garage for the last ten years, good luck getting on the radio unless you get a recording contract -- and that's just selling yourself into indentured servitude to the recording company.
Now, with modern, cheap, digital electronics and networks, any schlub with a few thousand dollars in equiptment can get his work heard. Of course, with a sea of other wannabes out there, good luck raising your head above the crowd to the extent of one of these mega-"artists"!
So we're balancing the rights of 10,000,000 little guys against Capital records or Sony.... I don't think the wealthy corporations are the ones who need legislative protection here. Let the entertainment companies find a way to protect their interests without perverting our body laws to do so. If they can't, then maybe they should go out of business.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Anyone else tired of corporate america OWNING our legislaters?
What the hell are we supposed to do to fix this?
This technology is beyond Star Trek. Hell, it is even beyond capabilities of most humans (who are most adaptive computers on the planet so far, that we know of.) If I were to sit in a chip, how would I know legal status of the work and of the recording? And what if the legal status changed after the recording was made? And what if the recording is done with permission? And what... -- forget it.
Should they not cover Digital to Analogue
conversion too?
Having read the documentation of much of the dribble from the lackeys of Hollywood, I have uncovered a way to cripple this new technology. Since each "sink device" (playing unit) has a public key certificate, it would be merely necessary to make a .wav, .mp3 (or similar) sound file that appears on your web site (or your signature for message boards?) containing a revocation certificate for sink devices. Essentially, you destroy this technology in a way that it can never recover from. How many computers will Intel have to pay to replace, before they stop making this technology? They should learn the legal doctrine of "constructive nuisance."
Get to work folks....
"They" play what people want to listen to. "They" are providing a service. If you don't want to pay, that's fine--don't use the service.
Looking at the PDF presented to the Senate Judiciary commitee, I noticed that this "Copy Protection Technical Working Group" is represented on the first page as including representatives of consumer groups, but on page 7 these aren't mentioned. The CPTWG site itself isn't exactly overwhelmingly informative about its membership, either.
You can send them your opinion if you want, but I'm pretty certain that they have employees whose sole job it is to laugh at all submissions and then shred them. We can hang around all day on Slashdot and whine about the evil RIAA and MPAA, or we can take action. I'm fully prepared to not visit any movie theaters, not rent any DVDs, and cancel my subscription to DirecTV for one year, just to send a message. If enough members of the geek community (who probably exhibit above average consumption of media products) followed through and put their convictions above their addictive urge to see AOTC etc, we might just create a significant enough dip in revenues for one year to get their attention.
If your will power isn't strong enough to resist visiting the cineplex, at least try buying only used CDs and DVDs (locally or from Amazon) and avoid renting new releases. Also, get a TiVo and set it to grab movies from free TV. Get a TiVo just to piss them off, if nothing else.
Not gonna fly without some additional support. I can BUILD an ADC from very simple components. Of course, *they* could remove the ability to write code for micro-controllers, make circuit design a restricted thing, make transistors restricted. And what about the lowly resistor?
I guess my hobby is about to become illegal, simply because it *could* be used to produce equipment that *could* be used to make an unauthorized copy of someones media.
Ah, well, if the ADC chip becomes *copy disabled*, I'll be delighted to post plans for your very own discrete ADC. As long as we have the processor chips...
Take the DAC. Even simpler. Just a high quality
resistor network, and an amplifier. And what is Hollywood going to do about that? Let me guess -- transistors are going to have to have a COP in them as well...
But, more practically, I could build this, but if Microsoft keeps the OS monopoly, I expect that non-Microsoft certified drivers won't be allowed. Oh, the current Windows version already complains about non-authorized drivers?
If the OS won't load the driver, someone will try to run the software in "real" mode on those Intel processors. Can't have that, DOS mode will have to be curtailed. Oh, its already happened in the current Windows release?
I don't want this to be an anti-Microsoft rant, but the success of Hollywood's evil intention is based on an OS monopoly. And that's Microsoft now.
I guess the only answer is to stick to open software. Become a "pirate" and a "hacker". Insist on OS software where YOU have control. I don't care if its Linux, a DOS clone, or ShinyNewOS2000, as long as its open.
How the hell does Hollywood expect to stuff the Genie back into the bottle? Wouldn't this be like refusing to sell fertilizer because it *could* be used to make explosives that *could* be used to blow up a building? This shouldn't stand, but take no chances.
Ratboy.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
I have some serious reservations on giving additional rights to an industry that wants to have a veto power over how I choose to watch there material.
I use MY vcr to record shows, since I sleep during prime time (I work early in the morning), My Video CD recorder to keep a copy of the shows for future use and reduce the amount of video tape i need. And my dvd player/cd player to handle those shows not on tv.
All of these uses are legetimate, and I do not appriciate someone in the movie industry calling me and others "Thieves" because we done want to watch lousy commercials. Or watch the show when the networks grant use permission (schedule) the program.
If the DRM hardware is mandated, I will keep my old equipment and record anyway. Since most electronics will last indefinely, it will become a "have/have not" situation. Those of use who get/have the products before your laws will continue to do want they want (both legal and illegal) and the rest of the people will have to live under the dictates of the so-called "owners".
I believe that the Congress has taken IP and copyright TOO FAR against consumers and the general public because thaey have been bought off with campain contributions from the software, recording and movie industries.
Finally, not every ADC chip can be controlled by a DRM "cop chip". Certain applications (medical, flight safty, process control) CAN NOT be shutdown or severe/fatal consequences will result. As long as these applications exist, uncontrolled ADC chips will exist, and someone will find a way to retrofit them into consumer products.
In short, you are fighting a battle you can not win as long as we are not a dictatorial police state. Laws are only ass effective as the willingness of the people to support them (Take a good look as the Civil Rights movement for an example). If the Congress is ready to setup a police state to protect industry, Then you have violated the spirit if not the letter of your Oath of Office.
>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>> additional comment
If this passes, then the various industries will have one more convert to either boycott or actively bypass their control every chance I can. It will be time for Civil Disobedence.
Chris
If you want freedom, be prepared to PAY the price for it.
Toilet paper, with it's possible use as a wrapping for unsuspecting households (thus causing damage to property) should be outlawed even though it's majority use of keeping arses clean is much more in the public interest. The road goes on forever and the party never ends!
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
My digital scale in my bathroom uses an AD converter. I wonder if they will force that to have a watermark detector too. I sure wouldn't want to weigh any copyrighted material.
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
The next step must be to require everyone to get a chip in the brain, so that only legally aquired music, videos, books etc. can be accessed. While we are at it throw in an anti-violence program a la Spike and we are all set.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
"Owners of copyrighted works remain concerned that valuable digital copyrighted works are subject to infringement when distributed in American homes to analog television sets in free over-the-air terrestrial broadcasts, and in peer-to-peer online services."
I have three comments on the above statement.
The first is that valuable works are already being transmitted over-the-air via terrestrial broadcasts. And consumers in their homes can record these broadcasts already using a VCR. I cannot understand how one can differentiate between digital content and analog content when displayed by an analog television set. While placing rights management on analog television signals may look like a solution, it places the full cost burden for protecting those copyrights on the owner of that analog television set. If such a law were enacted, every television set currently in use would be unusable and have to be replaced. And anyone who owned and used their current television set would be a criminal.
In addition, the airwaves are a public resource whose use is governed by the FCC. If a law were enacted to halt free and public use of the frequency spectrum, doesn't that defeat the purpose of having that frequency spectrum be public?
The second point to be made concerns the aggregation of the public frequency spectrum and peer-to-peer networks in use over the Internet while discussing potential law. These two must be kept separate, as they fall under two very distinct categories of governance. As the frequency spectrum is regulated and licensed on behalf of the public by the FCC, the Internet has no such regulatory rule or licensing. In addition, the FCC can license only those transmitters that reside inside US borders. With the Internet, any regulation cannot be mandated by a single country.
The third point is to examine, honestly, why the current copyright laws are inadequate. In the case of analog television sets, what has changed since the advent of the VCR? Can't the VCR be used to make unlawful copies of copyrighted material? The fact that the signal is digital or the content is digital is immaterial to the violation of copyright law. Can it honestly be said that other copyrighted works, such as books, are less vunerable to having their copyrights violated? The question for the content providers to answer is why does a digital representation of a work deserve a higher standard to protect it.
In the end, the costs to the public must outweigh the needs of one industry to protect its business model. America has always been called "the land of opportunity." Rather than squelching opportunity by legislating, the US Government in all its branches should be promoting new ideas and opportunities. I would hope that the public of the US, and the potential opportunities they have, will be a more powerful ideal to uphold.
This came out a month ago, right? So, is there any analysis from "Management-approved" sources about the "All A/D Converters" bit? I mean, a source that my management would consider viable, not just some guy's blog (no matter how smart he is). Engineering trade publications might be a good place to look for non-Disney bias. I read a few of them, and haven't found something like this.
My company works with A/D converters, and if this is interpreted by "management-approved sources" as something that can really effect "All A/D converters", you can bet that someone here would be interested in contacting the polititians about it. And, we all know that my company's word (and campaign contributions) are worth far more than my own.
(By the way, even if you can figure out where I work (which you can't), these opinions are my own and not those of my company.)
If people are willing to break the law to make analog to digital copies of copyrighted material what makes anyone think that they won't break the law to subvert the watermark detectors?
The goal is to get it passed and mandate control over the majority of consumer items.
Effectivly stopping 99% of of the population, 'joe average consumer'.
Then directly go after as many of that other 1%, the group that has the technical ablity to get around it.
Total domination can never be achived, but if you get damned close..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Congress is spending more and more of its time considering legislation that requires technological enforcement of copyright laws ... Why is it than we've not seen a legislative mandate that requires car manufacutrers to prevent drunk driving?
Three words:
Ted Kennedy. Chappaquiddick.
When you make a budget, always include a bogus item (example: .5 million paperclips) for the bean-counters to eliminate. Otherwise, they will cut something real. The beanie boys have to justify their existence by quantifying how much money they saved the company through budget analysis and streamlining.
When you lobby for something from the government, always extend your request well into the realm of the ludicrous. That gives the lawgivers something to eliminate, thus demonstrating their statesmanship, technical savvy and willingness to compromise.
So; if you want to pass a law requiring digital copyright protection in all computers, ask for digital copyright protection in toasters and vibrators too. Then weep crocodile tears when your real legislative objective becomes "a reasonable compromise between affected parties".
"You know, a DEAL deal. Maybe he's a republican!" -Crapgame (Don Rickles) in "Kelly's Heroes"
You can build an A-to-D converter using a
D-to-A converter, a counter, and an analog comparator.
It's hard to see how this law could prevent
such devices from being built successfully.
So once again, we have a "solution" that doesn't
prevent the *genuine* bad-guy mass-piracy
problems - but does take existing rights away
from the casual user.
If this gets through it's proof that our
lawmakers are either utterly corrupt or
terminally stupid - either way, you know how
to vote.
www.sjbaker.org
No audio watermark scheme has ever succeeded. I remember schemes for record, tape and CDs and none of them survive. What are the odds this one would?
Remember, the one audio recording format that RIAA did manage to enforce copy restrictions on, DAT, is dead.
The limited play CD is dead.
People may not understand the legal technicalities
and will just return equipment to the shop if it doesn't record what they want to record. If that happens to much the shops will just stop stocking the hardware.
They push for very extremist bills, and end up with compromises right where they want to be. Obviously, you can't control ADC. I can build my own ADC out of discretes that's every bit is good as an integrated one (actually, still a bit better). Once I leak MP3s out, they're in the open.
Here's my take. The record companies are the milkmen of tomorrow. In the old days, milk was delivered door to door by milkmen. There was a certain convenience involved, but refrigeration, pasteurization, and the fact that you need to go to the grocery store anyway pretty much eliminated the need for them. They were optimized out of the process.
:)
Artists today make their money performing. A very tiny percentage of artists make significant money from their recordings. Total, open promotion of their music is really in most artists' best interest -- they can fill their shows with fans who'll pay $10 a ticket, and buy a T-shirt for good measure.
In this world where fans listen to tons of different music for free, directly support their favorite artists, and creativity (rather than marketing) is rewarded, the record companies are...milkmen. Say goodbye.
Here, though, the milkmen have enough money to buy friends. And to buy laws that keep them in business. Push back, whenever you can. When M'shell releases an MP3 for $0.99, how much of that does she get? When broadcasting rights are negotiated with online radio stations, where does the revenue go? 90% artist? Somehow I doubt it.
Actors guilds have contracts that state the maximum amount an actor can pay an agent (10%). Great woe would become a record industry faced with an organized public, or organized artists. Deserved woe.
In the mean time, GENERAL COMPUTATION IS AT RISK. Your right to make any program you'd like, for your own purposes, to explore Raymond's noosphere, is at risk. Milkmen want laws and circuits to keep them in business.
Even if they do watermark all types of data-aquisition cards en ADC-components,
how are they going to watermark my self-build ADC? Build a sawtooth-generator, a timing circuit and a comparator, and you will get a fairly good ADC (up to 12 bits of precission seems possible to me)
Just think if you were the bionic man/woman you couldn't watch a movie or listen to music!!! sheesh life would suck!
Stop giving them a hard time. They're just trying to prevent illegal copying. Oh, damn, I've just illegally copied 26, 27, 28, 29 words from Webster's.
It's not that the technology in either of those cases is beyond the state of the art. It's that there's no money in it for them. The money in those two cases are in the hands of the automobile and gun manufacturers.
The gun manufacturers have very little to do with it. In fact they try to keep a low profile in D.C.
It's gun owners and 2nd Amendment advocates that wield power because not only can they deliver some money they can deliver the only thing the money is good for: voters
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
Wasn't it William Gibson who said the recording industry would last only 90 years? It's getting about that time. I'm an electrical engineering student, and I know it's going to be impossible to stop low-tech analog duplicating. Everything can't be digital.
We're here to give you an OS, not a religion.
YA know, I rarely ever break laws (speeding not counting) and I figured most of my life I never would, but when the corporations finally overturn our democracy, I'm going down fighting!!!
If it means plugging this I'm all for it.
Sorry, couldn't resist
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
Since the MPAA is so concerned about piracy of their copyrighted works, I would like to propose a simpe solution: DON'T RELEASE ANY MOVIES TO VIDEO OR DVD. This would ensure that their copyrighted works would not end up pirated somewhere (barring the random camcorder person in a theater). This would also ensure that the studios wouldn't have the money to support the useless lobbying efforts of the MPAA. Of course this is an unacceptable solution for the greedy people in Hollywood. At some point in time Hollywood must realize that the more copies out there the more risk that one of those copies might be pirated. Of course, with more copies also comes more profits. So make you choice Hollywood more profits or copyright integrity.
This will stimulate a whole new after market in CD player repairs. Let them go ahead, we can make tons of dough...
If bits have inherant value, like cash (the Hollywood stance) then what Hollywood wants is bits which are as hard to copy as cash it, or preferrably harder.
We call it copying, they call it counterfeiting.
I can see their point: if I could walk up to any photocopier and digitally reproduce my twenty dollar bill, our economy really would be in trouble!
If it became impossible to protect cash from copying, all we'd have left is credit cards and other centralized systems for storing money: banks and the like, which prevent copying of money via tools like "accountancy".
I think, if we're serious about the so-called "digital economy", we better face this as a serious problem and propose a constructive solution, rather than running around like a bunch of children complaining because they can't photocopy twenties any more.
[ok, how much karma can I burn in a single post, huh?]
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
"I think everyone here should take pains to let the Congress know about the direct, measurable economic harm that will befall other industries if this type of legislation passes."
I agree wholeheartedly. But who do we contact? It'd be great if the story submitters or the editors or just some AC poster put up the details on who is sponsoring a bill, which committee is in charge of it, and on contacting them or your own senator/representative by mail, phone, fax or email.
I'm sure crap like this analog to digital "protection" outrages a lot of people here but not everyone knows who to complain to! Remember, the squeaky wheel gets the oil....So we need to start squeaking! The MPAA/RIAA have been squeaking too loud and too much!
I'm Australian, living in the Netherlands, but anyways,
I remember as a kid, I wanted to go to America to work, I remember having to wait for months for games to come out on the NES/SMS, yet I would read American games magazines and they where out there....same with movies, we could wait 6-12months for new movies......
Things still havent changed much, music releases are mostly on par globally, games and movie releases arent (BladeII is coming out in June I think, maybe July....) and I think this is a large source of this piracy (I already saw a dodgy screener of BladeII)....the reason being not for gain or to subvert the system, mearly because of the fact that we have to wait so long to see/play anything over here.
Which I actually find pretty amusing. I could imagine that alot of this perceived problem is actually caused by us outside of america, so when in america, we see a bill being passed like this, its kinda amusing....its not right, but its still funny.....its almost like in america, they believe the internet is theirs, they own it, they can regulate it....trully arrogant and bound to fail.
but I appear to have gotten myself sidetracked....as a kid, i wanted to live in america, but after recent events, the government openly telling people "dont question us", the feds with almost absolute power to get any info on anyone without reason, the tracking of H1B visas and now, chips in ADs....I am sure that if they are putting in cpus in them, i'm sure tracking functionality cant be far away, i mean, i could imagine they would mainly target techie gear, soundcards/vidcapture cards.....i think i will stay away from america now, far far away.
all you are, is all you are, i'm so sorry for you.
and there are already laws on the books that punish people who steal.
if the *AA wants to come up with its own format for distribution of its precious content, and then make its own hardware to play that content, then fine, no big deal. but there's no reason that the government should legislate that everyone has to play by their rules.
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
I was just reading the "input" page at the Senate
c fm
http://judiciary.senate.gov/special/input_form.
and I must say, most of the comments are very well
thought out, and well stated, and all the ones I
noticed were against this ridiculous idea.
I think and hope that our "content industries" are
making a lot of enemies.
I have been thinking about this. If there was a boycott against the RIAA and the MPAA, and those boycotts were able to have some monetary effect, do you actually think the MPAA and RIAA would realize that? Hell no. They would say "See, pirates have stolen our profits!" How can the MPAA claim that pirated copies of Spider-man and AOTC took millions out of their pockets, when these movies had a couple of the largest opening weekends EVER?! Yeah, pirates cost the RIAA tons of money, which is why bands like N'Sync sell millions upon millions of albums, breaking sales records.
It is definitely a double-edged sword. If enough people boycott them, they will spin it to show that pirates have stolen their profits. If you don't boycott them, they will have no reason to change their ways.
The only way to F them, and F them HARD, is to have some kind of legal alternative that shows exactly where their lost business is going.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Surely this would mean that distributing a schematic for an A/D converter would be trafficking in a circumvention device - is the USG going to force all electronic textbooks to be rewritten?
Watermarking mustn't change the perception of the song or movie that you're playing. This means that these watermarking data must show up in the least-significant bit(s) of the converted data.
:) )
:)
Let's say I'm watermarking a song for distribution on a CD. I'll use the bottom bit for my watermark, and distribute my song with "Grondak Was Here\0" encoded every 136 samples. (Real watermarks better be more interesting
Now it comes time for you to make a digital recording through your analog playback device. When your ADC samples a datastream, it outputs a fixed number of bits of data per sample (e.g. 10 bits/sample, 14 bit/sample, 24 bits/sample, etc.)
If your ADC has too few bits of resolution (eg, A2D converter sample size is 10 bits instead of the 14/16 bits originally used to encode the CD), the watermark will disappear! (This is because the most-significant bits have to match up, output to input.)
What do we do now!? Bust everyone who owns an old-school ADC by throwing the DMCA book at 'em?
Further, if someone encodes the watermark by using level deltas between samples volumes, low sample rate A2D conversion becomes illegal under the DMCA because some high-frequency deltas will also disappear. Good bye delta-based watermark. Analog filters could also be illegal, by the way. Shoot, a crappy microphone is illegal once they plug that analog hole. Even the phone system only handles 300-3300Hz, so delta-encoded watermarks might disappear if they're presented faster than 3300 deltas/sec. Are we saying we want our phone system to be illegal under the DMCA?
I think the only solution to this problem is to replace the human senses with all-digital versions.
As if.
[Error 407: No signature found]
It would be a shame if blind and deaf could not see movies because theire electroncis stop recording it.
A blind/deaf person should also be allowed to hear and see movies/music through electronic seeing and hearing aid.
This quote from the Senate memo sums up the basic contradiction:
Owners of copyrighted works remain concerned that valuable digital copyrighted works are subject to infringement when distributed in American homes to analog television sets in free over-the-air terrestrial broadcasts, and in peer-to-peer online services.
Now, either it's valuable, or it's free. If you're going to give it away for free then you can't start complaining about what people do with it. Why should people feel like they're pirating music or videos? We get them free on the radio and free on television all the time. How are we stealing when these things are broadcast at us continuously. You may say that the broadcasters paid for us, but let's look at that. Even the proposed fees (and defeated, or at least deferred) for Internet broadcasting (which were much higher than what radio stations are charged) don't add up to real theft - .0014 cents/song/listener (I got that number here). Average song is 3 minute long, let's say I listen to music continously throughout the day, so 16 hours a day. That comes out to 320 songs per day or 116800 songs per year. My music bill for the year? 163.52 - cents! Where is the theft?
I'm sure it hasn't occurred to those people that consumers might not be buying as many CDs and DVDs because we're more or less in, oh, I don't know, A RECESSION!? WITH THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE UNEMPLOYED NOW WHO HAD JOBS A YEAR AGO!? Nah, that couldn't be it. It must be the thieving citizenry. And it definitely couldn't be that recent music and video releases just flat-out suck. Nah, this is award-winning material coming out now, surpassing the quality of anything we've ever seen or heard before.
The more limitations legally placed on media and technology, the less likely people are going to be to buy things. What'll happen then? Will the MPAA and the RIAA buy a federal bailout akin to the one for the airlines?
I sincerely hope that their stupidity bankrupts them. Maybe the next generation of entertainment companies will realize that the average consumer isn't a criminal and won't appreciate being treated like one. I don't put up with local merchants treating me like an idiot or just another customer getting in the way of their laziness, so why should I put up with such offensive attitudes from the MPAA or RIAA? And I'm sure the RIAA will be happy to konw that, except for three, the only CDs I've purchased this year all came directly from the (little regional) bands themselves, whose music is far better than anything y'all've got going right now.
If this were to pass, it would kill off a good chunk of the consumer electronics industry. Costs of making everything from microphones to camcorders to TV's would increase in cost, while some things will become useless to consumers (think.. trying to film your daughter's wedding, and when the dj plays some copyrighted music, the camcorder "shuts down"). Speaking of "Shutting Down", have they been clear as to if it is a temporary shutdown, or death to the device, such as the iMAC's with the copy protected cds?
The end result will be people using old stuff. I dont care what new features are thrown in, if something is loaded with all this new junk only to serve the interests of all already well-profiting company, im not going to buy it.
Where is the CE Industry at a time like this? Don't they have sufficient lobbying power too?
Oh, ha ha. Just as ONE small example, when Prop. 15 was going down in CA in 1980, the vast majority of the NO ON 15 bankroll came from gun manufacturers, many out of state, NOT from "gun owners" or so-called "2nd Amendment advocates," sorry.
And in case anyone thinks this is OT, the point is (as Deep Throat said), "Follow the money." Usually when you follow the money, you find people with power. For guns, that's Smith & Wesson, Winchester, Beretta USA, et al. For the MPAA and all who sail with them, that's Fox, Warner Bros., Matsushita, Toshiba, Intel and Microsoft, and friends.
"Show me them who's got the money, land, and weapons, and I'll show you them who's got the power" Interrobang
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
The electronics industry's position is unclear for now... they could stand to benefit by this legislation ('oh gosh, Mr & Mrs. Consumer! All of your electronics are now incompatible with the current releases from Hollywood! Tsk. You'll have to buy a totally new set of consumer electronics.').
As a hardware hacker who has a certain amount of contact with professional hardware designers, I cannot see them taking this position for two reasons.
1. It's unworkable. You cannot expect to tell someone to upgrade their equipment too often. They won't stand for it.
2. Many of the uses of ADCs (which are theoretically capable of encoding the content which is so cherished by the MPAA and RIAA) are not in consumer electronics of this type. If you have a nuclear reactor which uses ADCs to read sensors in the core, you don't want them burdened with a load of secret code which can shut them down at any time if the random noise happens to look like the watermark they're intended to protect.
Sean Ellis
Follow OfQuack's antics on Twitter.
If this doesn't work then they are going to make everyone install shutters over their eyes and ears that close whenever you get near or look at an unauthroized sound/symbol. That way you won't be able to enjoy the copyrighted material unless you pay them for it.
Laws like this make me want to steal all my music and movies because that way I can't support these bastards. Too bad I still want to support the people actually doing the work to bring these movies and sounds to film and record.
I hope you don't mind but I borrowed your letter.
Hopefully somebody in my district will actually read it.
Sean D.
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
Watermarks are such nifty technology. If these assholes would just use them in a sensible way (e.g. trace a rampantly-pirated work back to its source) instead of trying to have consumer equipment behavior be a function of watermarks, I wouldn't complain a bit.
But nooooo.... they have to twist and distort and pervert the technology into such a hideous mockery of its former beauty. The bastards.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The MPAA doesn't seem to know delta sigma analog to digital conversion. You can easily build a ADC with just one digital in and one digital output pin, a capacitor and some resistors.
If they ban these components, you can still build a capacitor with aluminium foil and paper, and you can make resistors with pencils.
Jan
Legislators often won't consider exactly how basic the technology they're banning is; if you want an example, look at firearms. Do you know how complicated zip guns are? Not very, and though they aren't useful at a distance, inside a few feet they're deadly.
Do you have any faucet washers in your tool drawer? Beware; they could be called "silencer parts", and people have been prosecuted for it. The same is true of auto muffler parts.
The government wants you to speed.
The government wants drunk drivers on the roads.
And in any case - The government really can't control either. But to back up my statements; There is an industry of crime in the US. There are too many people making too much money on the status quo to turn back now. When you speed, the government writes tickets; It's kind of like every highway is a toll road, but only for those who utilize it to its fullest. A lot of money is made based on speeding tickets. In fact, Texas eventually had to pass a law saying that a given county could only make a certain percentage of it revenue from writing tickets. The city responsible for this is Johnson CIty, where I - shock amazement - got a ticket.
As for wanting drunk drivers; That's an important part of the system as well. Remember that the government (like the new RIAA/MPAA wing of the government) exerts control through FUD. The drunk drivers keep people scared. The penalties don't begin to keep people off the street.
And in any case, people would only defeat them anyway. They'd tamper with the systems and override the speed limiter, or replace the sensor element in the breathalyzer, or something. BMW tried to make cars too complex for a drunk to work with that new car control system, but it turns out that didn't work. :)
All in all, there are too many people making too much money for any part of the system to change significantly. Marijuana is illegal because of DuPont, more or less, and it stays illegal because of the poverty industry; Selling it puts money into the hands of minorities and the poor, which the government doesn't want because it wants to keep those people in poverty - Again, maintaining the social order from which they profit. Then they get to bust people for selling it (or occasionally for owning it or buying it) and fine those people, or sometimes throw them in jail. Prisons are a multi-billion dollar business in this country, largely as a result of our drug laws, whether directly or no. You can't stop putting people in prison, running them through the judicial system, and so on, because we'll have a bunch of unemployed prison wardens who let's face it, are not the most retrainable people around.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
learn to spell, you dumb cunt
Wouldn't it be a fairly straightforward matter to run interference on the watermark signal? I wonder what they have in mind. The spec on watermarking would have to be pretty public.
That said, I think this sucks.
Please mod me up. My grandma might not make it to the weekend and she always wanted me to hit karma cap.
Here's something else to consider, in the furor over whether or not these *koff* "creative sources" are to be "fairly" compensated for their works...
My guess is, that 99 out of 100 of these measures are going to "fail safe" -- in the event that an access control cannot reliably determine if you are authorized to view a protected work, it will default to "not authorized" and prevent you from accessing that work.
So what happens when a glitch in your hard drive scrambles the access key for all your DRM-enabled MP3 equivalents? Sorry, you're not going to be listening to those any more. And I'm sure the tech support for EasySafeAudio.com will be more than happy to just issue you a new access key, for free, right? No, they'll probably convince you that it's easier to pay for another access key -- in effort, you get to pay TWICE for the same "right to listen". And you have to, because otherwise your 80GB of rights-protected media files sitting on your hard drive are useless unless you do...
I wouldn't like these "features" even if they WERE 100% error-proof and reliable. I sure as hell don't want them if they're buggy and easily corrupted -- which they will be, because monopoly control and lock-in is all about making easy money, not pushing quality products.
Jay (=
I did this for living some time ago, when nice integrated ADC chips were not available. This is really not that hard.
So, what's next? Plug the "comparator and counter hole"? Declare op-amps "circumvention devices"? Outlaw electronics coursebooks? Regulate EEs the same way as pharmacists?
This is really a slippery slope, and they are already going down fast.
Hmm, a lot of telephone equipment does analog-to-digital and vice-versa conversions. Looks like the baby bells are all in big trouble now! Hahaha.
They'll just get an exception.
Of course the exception won't cover the converters in your computer's sound card or any add-on VoIP adapters you could use as the hardware component of a network telephone. So your alternative to their service will cost more, and will flake out if someone is playing a watermarked recording or radio program in the background.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Obviously the MPAA have hired Boldrick (from Black Adder) to work for them.
"I have a cunning plan that can not fail!".
Comes under the same idea he had about cutting his mother's head of with sythe to stop her backing her head on her low ceiling.
Oh shit, and I forgot to address the point of guns which can only be fired by their owner; This is coming. You'll have a pistol with a fingerprint scanner on the trigger (some kind of laminate device perhaps.) and when you put your finger there and it recognizes you, the safety will be turned off and there you go. Of course this will mostly only be used on police weaponry, and there are other issues. I suspect early prototypes will use a chip powered by radio noise which works by proximity. This also works when you're wearing gloves, which is a distinct benefit.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Whatever crack they're smoking, i want in on it. It really seems to make reality look much different.
today is spelling optional day.
3. Vote with your dollar. If you rant, then continue to support these businesses, you have no one to blame but yourself. Just as politicians only respond to votes, most businesses only respond to money.
<SARCASM>
But then I might have to miss seeing Spider-Man, Attack of the Clones, or Lord of the Rings!
</SARCASM>
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Our phone system is on an analog copper local loop. It plays on hold music (which we have paid a copyright fee for!!). However, the backbone network it is carried over is likely to be digital these days. People phone us, get put on hold and ... BANG!!! the phone goes dead, because the telephone exchange does not know we actually own the rights to this stuff??
Doh.
So say i'm using a digital camcorder in the mall and britney's new single starts playing from the loud-speakers does my camcorder shut down because it detects the watermark?
Imagine the effect on police "wires" if crooks take to playing watermarked music in the background.
Heck: I bet there'd be a big market for "watermarked silence" recordings just for making bugging more difficult.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
for a larger example: Opensecrets.
More importantly, the NRA delivers votes.
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
It's a thoroughly ridiculous concept. You can't ban an A/D or D/A converter any more than you can ban air or kittens or potatoes.
Trying to ban A/D converters is like trying to ban tea or koolaid. "Oh, my tapwater won't work with this teabag from Japan."
It's obvious that nobody involved has talked to an Engineer, or even an Engineering student. You can make an A/D converter from a handful of resistors and an op-amp. Any reasonably intelligent person could wire one together in, say, 5-10 minutes. (More time = more bits). Then you store the digital data stream in whatever digital format you want, and use the same converter (essentially, but not technically correct, wired backwards) on the other end to do the D/A conversion. It's super easy to do.
Ooh. On second thought, maybe I do want this legislation to go through. I'll make a friggin' fortune making mod chips for all kinds of devices. It's not like US law applies to me.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
It's their choice.
Now they're trying to limit our freedoms because of their choices.
(And all this is based on the assumption everything they have said is actually true....)
"In time of war, we cannot dawdle around in carrying out our constitutional obligations."
The link directly to the debate in question is here.
Really everyone, think about the potential here!
Play a copy of Pocahontas out of your car window, and never get another speeding ticket again. You are now invisible to radar.
Plan to hold up a bank? Bring along a portable TV and shut the cameras off. Also works at ATMs.
Worried about being wiretapped? Develop a tolerance for N'Sync. Always play it in the background.
Still want to rip cd/movie/analog data? Replace your a/d chip with a simple resistor tree and bank of opamps as comparitors and you're good to go.
This is a hacker's dream come true.
Weaselmancer
PS: It's a sad, sad world when a frikkin resistor tree is illegal because it's a circumvention device.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I've never even posted to slashdot before. This is my letter which I am snail-mailing to my Senators and Representative (noting that I just want my Rep to hear my opinion for future reference.) Please write your own and help out.
This letter is in reference to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary's request for comment regarding "Protecting Creative Works in a Digital Age: What is at stake for Content Creators, Providers and Users?" More information can be found on the Internet here: http://judiciary.senate.gov/special/feature.cfm
I have submitted this letter using the above mentioned website, but wanted to bring this to your attention directly. I feel this is an important issue and needs direct and immediate attention. Please oppose any efforts by the content industries to regulate other industries. They do not have a right to profit, and they do not have the right to presume all "consumers" are lawbreakers.
I am a citizen of the United States. I am also what the content industry likes to call a "consumer," although I believe that is a demeaning term. I listen to music and watch movies, like everyone else. Calling me a "consumer" implies that "consuming content" is my sole purpose, and it is not. My purpose is to live life, fight for liberty and pursue happiness.
While I detest the term "consumer," I nonetheless own over 600 CDs, dozens of DVDs and probably 75-100 VHS tapes. I have even repurchased some of my audiotapes to get CD copies, and repurchased some VHS tapes to get DVD copies. While I don't really enjoy doing this, as I already own this content, I do it to get the better sound and video available in the CD and DVD releases.
I would like to mention that if the content companies begin "watermarking" or somehow preventing me from time-shifting or format-shifting content that I have legally purchased, I will simply not buy that format. CDs are fine; I can see nothing they can add to them to make them more valuable to me (other than ceasing their illegal price fixing to make a CD a good value again.) Many of my CDs however are now converted to MP3s. I like to do this because it lets me take lots of my music with me, in the car or on airplane trips, or to work. I can also protect the expensive original copies by keeping them at my house where they will not be damaged.
If I cannot convert, back up, time-shift or format-shift a new kind of video or audio distribution system, I will simply not buy it. My money is valuable and does not grow on trees. I cannot afford to throw away all my CDs and DVDs just to upgrade to a protected format, nor will I ever purchase crippled music or movies. I will not "rent" music, where I am required to continue a subscription in order to continue to listen to music. I will not buy a computer, or a cell phone, or a TV or a stereo or a car or a microphone that is required to detect "watermarks" in any possible content. I legally purchase my music and movies. I am not a thief. Prosecute thieves. Do not presume I am guilty. Do not think you can cripple the technology industry because the MPAA and RIAA have now realized they do not deal with a scarce material. Sorry, but while a hundred years ago the idea of an audio recording WAS scarce, it is no longer true.
We can move into an amazingly rich world full of infinite entertainment, by letting the Internet connect people of the world and let individuals create content and give or sell it to others. Or, we can cripple all microphones, computers, cell phones, tape recorders and move further towards a corporate welfare state, where technology (a hundreds-of-billions a year industry) is crippled for the sake of corporate-processed crap entertainment (a tens-of-billions a year industry).
I am not stupid. I am watching. I vote. I will not tolerate the destruction of my fair use rights, the destruction of the first sale doctrine, or the desecration of the Constitution. Copyright should be for limited times "to promote the progress of science and useful arts." If I purchase a CD, I am allowed to copy it to tape to listen to in my car, and I am allowed to convert it to MP3 to listen to at work. Those are my rights and I will not lose them. I will vote against MY senators who do not recognize MY rights. I will vote against senators who do not recognize their purpose of SERVING THE PEOPLE and not SERVING CORPORATIONS. Remember your place and never forget that you are there because we have chosen you. We can choose another.
The idea that my senators and representatives would even entertain the thought that they should regulate Analog-to-Digital converters, the most BASIC AND FUNDAMENTAL PART of ALL ELECTRONICS is absurd. Please concern yourself with real problems like health care. Please work with the gun manufacturers to create guns that can only be fired by their owners. Remember that guns don't kill people, people do. Remember that computers don't infringe copyright, people do. Remember that Analog-to-Digital converters do not infringe copyright, PEOPLE DO. ENFORCE LAWS THAT ALREADY EXIST. INFRINGING COPYRIGHT IS ALREADY ILLEGAL. DO NOT MAKE TOOLS ILLEGAL. LOCK-PICKS DO NOT ROB HOMES. DYNAMITE DOES NOT KILL ON ITS OWN. Lock picks are necessary tools used by professionals. Dynamite is a necessary tool used by professionals in quarry work. An analog-to-digital converter is a necessary tool in nearly EVERYTHING electronic today.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
A few years ago, the RIAA pushed for laws to protect them from "exact digital copies". They played this card for years claiming these exact digital copies were a problem killing the industry. Now they seemed to have changed thier mind and this was a ploy to set the stage for further restrictions. MP3's, movie bootlegs, and other derived sources are not even close to exact copies of the original. This seems to be what this legislation would prevent. Maybe they would like to return to the days when everyone chucked thier 8-tracks, albums only lasted a few years and tapes were destroyed by sticky mechanisms. People were re-buying the same thing over again. Almost a pay-per-view concept that would ensure a revenue stream or repeat buyers.
As others have stated...
They can create thier own technology and sell it to the consumers. Why should someone expect an entire industry to change for them? Sadly enough, the winner will be determined by the best lobbying effort..
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Legislators need to realize that with their power to legislate also comes the responsibility to understand the issue. If they fail to understand the major ramifications and issues they're legislating, then some form of the Hippocratic Oath ought to hold: "First do no harm."
When literate, educated people are forced to frequently violate laws because they are impractical and unreasonable, it will lead to a general disrespect of all laws good and bad. This is the slippery slope toward anarchy.
Were this the only such misguided proposal floated in front of Congress I would say it's the industry association's fault or it's congresscritter ____'s fault. But this is not unique. It happens at all levels of our government on a regular basis.
The problem is that the technically literate people are not adequately represented in government. We do not normally review stupid legislative gaffs unless they're so egregious that they would change the lives of everyone in our society for the worse.
The technical groups in our society are getting soft. There is more to this fight than working for the EFF. The EFF only fights the dumb laws already on the books. Other organizations ought to advocate sustainable, reasonable technical policy and legislation. The issue isn't whether a decision benefits liberals or conservatives, but whether it is understood well enough, and whether it can work at all.
With stuff this egregious, where are organizations such as the IEEE or ACM? Can't organzations such as these have point out that this legislation is impractical and misguided without passing judgment on the RIAA's and MPAA's efforts?
Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
"Digital economy" is a null term anyway.
But the real problem is that CBDTPA and its ilk are attempting to make it impossible, in your terms, to photocopy our own artwork on the pretense that we might also try to photocopy $20 bills.
"We" do not have a "serious problem" here. It's the "content industry" that has a problem. It is up to them to solve it or go away.
On the off chance that you're not trolling.
They'd have to develop means to control people's ears, eyes and about every kind of neural feedback. Senses are analog-to-digital converters, the sample a continuous value (air pressure in my ear) and transform it into a discreet value (number of neuroelectric spikes per unit of time).
Time for lobotomy, people ! When you see big black rectangle floating before your eyes, it means you're staring at copyrighted material.
Just remember, we may not have the economic muscle to BUY Congressmen and Senators, but WE can do something the MPAA CAN'T do. We can VOTE. Mybe we can't BUY them, but we DAMN sure can REPLACE them.
... "If you don't vote, you deserve the government you get."
As my father always told me
If you breathe and are eligible, register and vote. Even if you are NOT eligible, volunteer to help in a campaign. Only by participating can we take back our government.
utter rubbish
No, I'm not trolling, I'm dead serious: just because their solution is broken doesn't mean that there is no problem here: either bits have no value, or if they have value, that value has to either be:
1> given away
2> protected
Do you see any other options?
Stealing things is wrong: if Microsoft sold a product based on a modified Linux kernel, we'd scream blue murder and drag them into court.
But it's OK to download music?
We've got a double standard going on here: the GPL rests on copyright, but we don't want to enable big companies to implement technical measures to protect their copyrights....
If we don't take responsibility and solve this problem, it's going to get solved for us and we aren't going to like it one little bit.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
It won't make any difference what I think, but I'll be voting against my Congressman and Senators in the coming election if they give an indication they plan on voting for this.
"Dear Honorable Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
To put it plainly, I believe this legislation is a serious mistake. It takes the same defeated before it leaves the gate approach as gun control, the war on drugs, and any number of laws that regulate inanimate objects.
This proposed legislation will also put the final nail in the Fair Use Doctrine's coffin. (I'm not being at all melodramatic either.)
In the recent past 2600 Magazine was sued by the United States and MPAA for distributing a program that decrypts DVD movies.* (here is a reasonably detailed description of the proceedings for anyone who's never heard of this case: http://www.wtlug.org/~pepper/mpaa_vs_2600.shtml) In the appeals, 2600 claimed that the DMCA was unconstitutional because it killed off fair use. But, it admitted that it was still possible to point a camcorder at a television screen and get a clip at lower quality. The federal appeals court judges ruled that a person doesn't have a right under fair use to necessarily make use of a work in its most pristine form. If this bill becomes law, it will not be possible to make fair use of a protected work in anyway.
The MPAA's report to this subcommittee also makes a rather disgusting presumption that any use that the Studios have not authorized is illegal. I've read the copyright code, and any uses not infringing are legal. Period. No "authorization" is or should be required.
*It should be noted that in order to watch a DVD movie it must be decrypted. Obviously then, DVD players decrypt DVD movies when they are watched. The encrypted data on DVDs is fully readable and in no other way protected. So, in order to "pirate DVD movies" byte for byte copying is all that is necessary. DeCSS doesn't help in the illegal distribution of copyrighted works."
I have now officially lost any respect I ever had for US legislative bodies. That anyone could even SUGGEST such a ludicrous idea and get it floated this high in the media shows that the very concept of Law as a construct of civil society is dead and buried. How ironic it is that the *AA seem to have read Gibson, Stephenson et al, and decided that they're happy to be the bad guys. Well fine, if that's what you want, that's what you get. I am going to do anything I can legally do to destroy those companies and their businesses. It's a shame to have to expend valuable cycles on destruction but it's going to be destruction through the creation of something better, which is what I will be trying to help with. Cos these bandits, these crooked, thieving, coniving, hypocritical, moronic, flabby, complacent, lazy, arrogant, greedy BASTARDS have decided that they want to do this the hard way. Well, *AA lawyers -- (you know they're out there, scouring these comments for more posts to try to damage the name of the Free Software community, as Seth thingumebob of the FSF pointed out eleswhere, they've already done this with deCSS in New York - read the court docs, there are quotes lifted straight from Slashdot!) -- to those lawyers I say, enjoy your fees, folks, and I hope you can sleep at night.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
In order for this work the law would have to stipulate
There are *significant* differences here.
* It's not legal to copy a $10 bill 'for your
personal use' - so preventing it from being
copied doesn't impinge on peoples rights.
* There is no legal use for a copy of a $10,
where there are plenty of legal uses for a
copy of a CD.
* Adding copy protection to a $10 doesn't
degrade it's worth - adding a watermark
to a CD does degrade it's sound quality.
* If photocopiers had to be modified in order
to prevent them from copying currency, we
might still have qualms about doing that
modification.
* Copying a $10 harms everyone since it devalues
everyone's money. Copying a CD only harms a
small subset of the population. Hence, there
could be an agument of "Greatest good for
greatest number".
* The only function of a $10 bill is to be a
token that's uncopyable. Almost every aspect
of it can be designed for copy protection
without degrading it's usefulness in any way.
A CD has a completely separate function (to
carry audio) - and modifying that to make it
uncopyable is an ancilliary function.
Hence, I don't see this as a valid analogy.
www.sjbaker.org
The other issue is A-D conversion, this is crazy. We are talking about everything electronic.
Phone system, digital cell phones, the switches and routing. Cameras, video cameras, flatbed scanners.
Heck you want to be crazy point out your computer mouse, your driving wheel and that joystick all infringe.
I think we'd all love to have our drive by wire system overriden because we drove in an "infringing" manner
It'd never work.
Just like assault rifles etc I'm sure there would be a provision for the police, army, fbi, etc to have "special" recorders.
I am glad to see Ingsoc is progressing according to plan!
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
... I can see this happening. Ever read the Night's Dawn trilogy by Peter Hamilton? That's where I see computers going - not just wearable, but embedded, using nano technology. Threads that weave into your optical nerves, etc. So to me, content control that shuts off your eyes, or portions of you field of view is completely possible. Not even that long from now - after all, people rode horses as a main mode of transportation, burned oil or wood for light only 100 years ago. Christ, one of my friends had the phone number 56 when he was growing up. Change happens fast.
As a sidenote, I really liked the hand-to-hand combat software you could load in those books - Didn't teach you any new moves, but made balance points, range of motion, etc EASY.
Well, the Feds find out, and put the owner of the shop in prison for multiple violations of the analogue hole act. Maybe at the behest of one of his law abiding competitors, such as Walmart, who have been scrupulously complying with the analogue hole act and only selling screwed-up camcorders.
You, the uber-geek individual can still take a trip to Hong kong, Taiwan or wherever they still sell non-screwed-up camcorders, and probably get it back into the U. S. with no problem. Just as individuals purchasing pirate DVDs in those places probably won't have a problem, but shops that import them are basically only able to operate under the protection of organized crime.
Of course, God help you if you get someone with any governmental power after you if you have any of these things. They will cheerfully see to it that you, the individual, are prosecuted for the crime of having a non-screwed-up camcorder, even if your real crime was embarrasing them politically.
I wouldn't dismiss this, it can and will be used against us.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Dear Senators,
I am not an electronics engineer (as per having a paper degree), however I
do engineer electronics that could be said to be equal to someone who has
such a degree. I am an inventor, a musician, a digital creator, an
electronics tinker'r whatever you would like to call it, the name really
doesn't matter as much as the intent. I take thoughts and create material
objects, it doesn't take a degree to do what I am saying. I would also
remind you I am a vetran of the United States Air Force as well as I am
currently a voter (libertarian.) Without creative folks such as myself
and others like Henry Ford, Thomas Jefferson, you wouldn't even have
electricity, lights, computers, and cars.
Statements like the following by the MPAA, "in order to help plug the hole,
watermark detectors would be required in all devices that perform analog to
digital conversions." are not very carefully thought out statements, they
worry me, as to exactly what is going on in my government and here is why.
At least four years ago, I was heavilly into building electronics, I was
engineering a device that converted from analog to digital and from digital
back to analog again. (It was basically a digital audio delay.) I started
with parts from old electronics that people had thrown out on the street. I
have spent many hours desoldering chips, and parts from electronics which
were discarded in this fashion.
I have a full personal library of technical manuals (several different
years) from Motorola, Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, Supertech, Zillog,
Intel, mosteck, National Semiconductor and MANY OTHERS. Basically I can
look up part numbers from nearly any chip and figure out how it works and
what I can use it for.
Durring the course of events I decided one day I wanted to build a digital
delay for my guitar. There were many D2A A2D chips to choose from, flash
converters, etc the list is endless. I won't bore you. To make a long
story short I decided to go with parts from Analog Devices for my A2D/D2A.
I ended up buying some parts from Analog Devices specifically part ADJ569JN,
and I used some memory that I had laying around from all the parts that I
collected. I had to build a counter circuit to make the ram work in each
memory segment for each sample. A fully blown electronics engineer I am
not however such an engineer can easilly verify what I say to be true. So,
basically the MPAA want's someone like me to add a watermark detector to
my digital audio delay. Well first off I do not care about digital
watermarking, that is not my problem, that was not part of my design, and
to be forced to learn how to engineer this into my design is...well insane.
And anyone who passes or suggests such laws is also...insane. So, before
you quickly dismiss me off as some wacko, I would suggest that those who
push such bills and legislation are the true wackos. Where I would rather
be more concerned about removing digital noise from the output (all digital
circuits have noise) and figuring out creative methods of how to modulate
the clock circuit for different sound effects, they *MPAA* would have me
spend my time working on how to put their watermark detector into my
circuit. Frankly with the lack of information (I had to buy books from
overseas to explain how to do digital to analog and analog to digital) that
is available in the United States I would warn those who would decide to
pass such legislation that a.) unless your ready to nuke our economy b.)
ready to make the purchase of electronics illegal. c.) have the brightest
engineers leave the United States d.) anger the public e.) ruin music
f.) ruin creativity by the future youth who take electronics classes in
schools g.) probably ruin your own political career then do not pass such
insane legislation. It is _not_ your place to make such decisions in my
opinion since you are _not_ qualified.
If your so smart to pass such legislation, answer me this. How many memory
segments will I need to use from my 8x8 ram to incorporate digital
watermarking into my Digital Audio Delay Device? Which pins does it need
to be connected to on the AD7569JN? What CHIP (which has the digital
watermarking in it) do I have to buy? How much does it cost? Who is the
maker of said chip? What is the part number on the chip? Is it compatable
with my circuit? Does this chip have any digital noise associated with it
which will bleed into my device? If so how do I supress such digital
noise? If your not ready to answer these questions, then your not ready to
pass this legislation.
I know that most senators and lawyers are not electronics (digital and analog)
experts so what qualifies them to pass law on a technology they do not fully
understand? Furthermore it comes to my attention that other bills like
the SSSCA which have had their name changed over and over, are insane,
poorly thought through, placing the burdon on the wrong folks to solve the
problem.
It also seems to me there are already laws against piracy, so no further
laws are needed. Another thing that upsets me is how these bills slip
through without even consulting the public, or letting someone like me
vote, in many cases government websites are broken and feedback forms
do not work, other times phones are busy, and nobody is around to answer
them, and some political candidates have NO EMAIL ADDRESS! this is
unacceptable. Forcing me to physically stand face to face in order to
get my point across is bad. Forcing me to make political contributions
for legislation is also bad.
Although I am no longer designing electronics at this current point in time
I may want to again. And I know that others like myself in the future will
become interested in Transmitters, Receivers, Digital and Analog
electronics, what in effect you are doing is pushing a new electronics
law (A very stupid law) into the natural laws of electronics. Especially
the young should be encouraged to get into electronics design early on in
their lives. It keeps them out of trouble and away from drugs and alchohol.
Another thing that frankly angers me is by passing the CBDTPA act you are
condemning me for using Linux, which is an operating system that does what
I want. You would be making the personal computer into some bastardised
piece of equipment that plays mickey mouse videos, when I do not even want
that on my computer at all. I use my computer to write code. In some
cases the code can do the exact same thing my earlier discussion on the
AD7569JN does. I do not want my resources being used by the media.
I want my resources being used for what I purchased them for. And that
is development. CBDTPA stifles development. It sacrifices the IT sector,
at the expense of the MPAA.
I do not pretend to have the money that the MPAA has. However is is
unfair to destroy education about electronics and dumb down america.
Which is, despite all, the BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!
I may not live long enough to get back into electronics design again, but
PLEASE DONT ruin the future because of a damned mouse.
Thank you for reading my comments.
Let the MPAA have it's way. When the day comes that everything is protected, boycott. Don't buy the players or the content. The material the MPAA seeks to covet is not necessary to survival; you can live without it. As far as their latest scheme goes, it's just like the DIVX (the original, not the software) players they tried to foist upon the public a few years ago. A short reenactment:
Consumer: "Let me get this straight- I buy the player, the DIVX DVD, and then PAY to watch the movie every time?"
MPAA: "Yep."
Consumer: "Screw this, I'll read a book."
DIVX failed, and other overreaching schemes will fail. Despite the general consensus here that the masses are horribly stupid, they're wise enough to know when they're getting screwed. When Hollywood's revenues drop and they have no one to blame but themselves, they'll be screaming to turn over the DMCA, et al. Don't fret.
I just have an image of all the senators manning a fast food joint
... only it's a fantasy that the people will rise up and turn the scoundrels out of office for selling out like they have.
I have a similar vision
utter rubbish
I am a test engineer with an electronics manufacturer. This proposal by the MPAA to require watermark detection in all analog to digital conversion (ADC) devices would affect virtually all modern electronic equipment, most of which is NOT capable of doing anything with copyrighted material. Digital thermometers are based on an ADC chip. All test equipment is based on ADC chips. Even the automatic teller machine controllers we build include ADC.
In making this proposal, the MPAA has shown that they do not care how much havoc they wreak on the economy in general. You should not only reject this particular proposal, but take steps to reduce the power of the MPAA and similar organizations in the future.
Feel free to copy and paste, but please make some changes so they know each of you has commented individually.
but only entitled to what you pay for, if the content is sold under a license. If only more people agreed w/ this statement we might not be in this predicament. What's happening here is largely our own fault. While a agree w/ fair use, I see too many posts saying "just downloaded LOTR from the internet" or "bootleg of Episode II released", which I'm sure represent just the *tip of the iceberg*, to think that the MPAA's fears are totally unfounded.
:)
*COPYING* should be discouraged when it is in violation of the license for the material in question. *TOOLS* should *NOT* be made illegal. It is *actions* which should be made illegal.
Perhaps stuff like this wouldn't happen if there weren't so many people out there willing to make bootleg copies because they feel that the are "entitled" to it.
I am a Free Software advocate and contributor. I, personally, am totally *against* this and I intend to write my congressmen about it. But, I can't shake the feeling that to some degree we've only ourselves to blame.
GJC
P.S. Go ahead... mod me down, I just needed to speak my mind here.
P.P.S. I don't think that the MPAA has a chance in hell, since the entertainment industry is much smaller than the computer industry.
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
But there are also significant similarities:
* each copy of a given bill degrades it's value (dilution of currency by counterfieting)
* the owner of the bill (the Federal Government - well, probably the Federal Reserve actually) asks you not to copy it and takes technological measures to ensure that you do not.
The analogy is worth while if only because it highlights what I see as the real problem: you can't run a digital economy without property rights.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
They are intentionally asking for something completely ridiculous, so that later on they could 'back down' and 'settle for less' - for instance, not *any* AD conversion, but only 'computer assisted' (or whatever the name it will get assigned). This is pretty common practice in any negotiations.
3.243F6A8885A308D313
When was the last time they had a reality cheack, and the internet stuff is crap... if you need a watermark on all stuff how are you going to put it on this computer infront of me wich had 2 (not just 1) audio line in, i recorded all 5:30 of the hichhikers guide to the galaxy from tapes on this computer it was real simple (so why cant i record cds). how are you gonna detect these watermarks imagen the size of the scanner that would be needed to identify the marks (a coputer the size of a foot ball feild). Its all bullshit they should be shot
24 May 2002
I am particularly concerned about the "Content Protection Status
Report" filed by the MPAA on 25 April 2002, which speaks of an alleged
need to ``plug the analog hole'' (their words) in the distribution of
copyrighted works such as movies and music.
The MPAA would like to implement universal analog watermarking of
their music and movies, and would like to encourage legislation that
requires all A/D converting devices to detect (and, presumably,
respond to) their watermark signal. This idea is fundamentally
flawed, because it seeks to solve a global problem with a local
solution. The MPAA's tract contains at least three hidden assumptions
that are wrong: (1a) that it is possible to prevent _all_ illicit
production of digital copies of analog works, or (1b) that reducing
illicit A/D conversion will also prevent illicit distribution of those
works; (2) that it is reasonable to require manufacturers of A/D
converters -- extremely general devices with applications throughout
society -- to include useless (to most applications) detection
circuitry; and (3) that it is right to prevent citizens from enjoying
the fair use of copyrighted audio and video information that they own.
In short, the MPAA idea is wrong because it cannot work; because the
restrictions they propose would be overbroad, imposing impossibly
difficult restrictions on an entire industry; and because the restrictions
would violate the quid pro quo exchange of rights that is the basis of
copyright law.
(1) The MPAA proposal cannot work
The MPAA hopes to solve a problem -- the allegedly widespread copying
and illicit distribution of audio and video works -- by attacking a
slightly different one. The current proposal seeks not to prevent
digital copying but to prevent the conversion of analog signals to
digital ones, presumably preventing widespread copying by making it
more difficult to convert hard-to-distribute analog signals into
easy-to-distribute digital ones. The problem is that, once a single
digital copy is made, that digital copy may easily be spread far and
wide via file sharing or the world wide web. Raising the difficulty
of the initial conversion will not prevent the production of
high-quality digital copies.
A very similar case now exists with ``pirated'' digital movies which
are often recorded in the theater by people with digital video
cameras. Considerable effort is required to generate a digital movie
by copying it in the theater, but (as the recent pirated pre-release
of the _Star_Wars_ Episode II movie shows) once a single copy is
available tens or hundreds of thousands of copies may easily be disseminated.
Even if, as the MPAA suggests, ``analog watermarks'' become universal
in movies and audio streams, and A/D conversion devices that do not
recognize those watermarks become illegal, such A/D conversion will
still continue both within the United States (by scofflaws) and
outside of the United States (by foreign nationals who are not
restrained by U.S. law). But because of the power of the digital
distribution medium, even a tiny number of people can let the digital
cat out of the analog bag proposed by the MPAA, nullifying the goal
that they hope to achieve.
(2) The MPAA proposal unduly restricts an entire industry unrelated to
the publishing industry
Analog-to-digital converters are simple, general purpose circuits with
uses at every level of society. For example, digital still or video
cameras, nearly all modern automobiles, all cellular telephones, all
digital telephone answering machines, and most PC computers contain
A-D converters that are capable of digitizing music content. A-D
converters have too many specialty applications to mention, both as
individual modular integrated circuits and as complete appliances.
Preventing analog to digital conversion of copyrighted material would
require every such circuit to have a watermark detector and
corresponding digital signal processing capability. That would impose
undue burden on the manufacturers of such devices.
(3) The goals of the MPAA proposal are flawed and contrary to the spirit
of copyright law
The MPAA seeks to prevent certain types of access to copyrighted
analog audio and video works, but doing so would also impopse sweeping
restrictions on perfectly legitimate activities using those
copyrighted works.
For example, once a piece of music is digitized it is possible and
(with modern software) easy to analyze exactly nuances of voice and
timing that are otherwise very difficult to discern. Furthermore,
music is often stored much more compactly in compressed digital form
than in the original CD form. By copying and compressing the music on
CDs, a music lover can store the equivalent of 2,000 CDs in a single
hard drive with less volume than 10 CDs (in jewel cases), reducing the
need for large racks of CDs. By digitizing and compressing music
signals, users can transfer audio signals to much more mobile and
convenient devices for travel, remix sequences of audio tracks, enhance
particular aspects of the sound, and generally make much better use of
their copyrighted material than they could without doing so.
Similarly, broadcast video is often digitized by the modern digital
equivalent of a VCR -- a digital personal video recorder such as those
made by TiVo. This enables much easier time shifting and storage of
video than is possible with a conventional analog VCR. These uses of
broadcast video have been upheld by the Supreme Court for analog recordings,
and digital storage is simply a more effective way to engage in these
legal uses of broadcast material.
Conclusions
In general it is not wise to restrict the _tools_ required to engage
in an activity rather than the activity itself. Doing so requires
legislators -- who are wise but not inhumanly so -- to anticipate
every possible use of the tool. For example, an unmodified hi-fi
stereo amplifier can be used to fill a room with music, as a high
precision AC power supply for delicate equipment, for degaussing video
monitors, as a sound synthesizer, as a PA -- all legal. But it can
also be used for public performance of copyrighted music, for
telephone wiretapping, for eavesdropping, or to make unlicensed
LF radio broadcasts -- all illegal. Yet we distribute hi-fi stereos
without requiring them to have subsystems that prevent them being
attached to the telephone network or to a large external antenna, and
without limiting the amount of output power (which would prevent using
them for public performance).
A/D conversion of electrical signals and even of audio and video signals
are general enough activities that the MPAA's ideas are not only infeasible
but also just plain wrong.
In Progress: Open heart surgery.
Someone turns on a walkman and the sensitive medical instruments pick up the pulses from the electro-magnets in the headset of the user
Every screen goes black ..
"Collateral damage" it will be called.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Yes, duh. It's symmetrical. Drag the copyright violators to court, just like you said.
Clean, simple, and (unlike the crap legislation they're trying to hand us) totally constitutional.
Next problem?
They should just check out their local pr0n sites for many ways to plug anal log holes. er ... whats that ... analog ... oh
I would like to urge those who claim to represent me to please recognize that the existing proposals are clearly not in my interests.
* Enacting the type of controls proposed by the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America would, if perfectly implemented, completely eliminate my ability to exercise Fair Use rights in the content I have legally acquired.
* Any attempt to implement digital watermarking on every Analog-to-Digital converter would make literally thousands of common products impossible to manufacture economically. For a few examples: Consider that you would, as a conservative estimate, more than double the complexity, size and cost to manufacture of hearing aids; design of medical sensors and tools would be set back decades as the increased size of components would make them unsuitable for microsurgery; automobile emissions controls would become less efficient as their behavior would be dictated by artificial constraints imposed by the watermarking technology.
* Common consumer devices would function erratically as they attempt to prevent recording of watermarked content. For example video cameras might become non-functional at wedding receptions if the DJ is playing any watermarked content. Digital telephones would cut out if there is a TV or radio nearby playing watermarked content.
* Content would be unavailable after copyright has expired. Any content controls would have to be automatic, with special actions necessary to access it. Once the copyright term has expired, there is no economic incentive to the previous copyright holder to provide this mechanism. All content controlled by such a mechanism would disappear forever into a vault to which it is illegal to create a key.
* Finally, even if it were possible to create a technological solution that provided exactly what the content industries are requesting, there is no precedent for requiring the $600 billion tech industry to absorb the expense to satisfy the $35 billion entertainment industry. It is not at all unreasonable to suppose that the direct costs of complying with these requirements would cost more in real dollars than the entire value of the entertainment industry. Given that the only possible justification for enacting these controls is to protect the entertainment industry, it seems that causing a greater loss to the technology industry is the wrong way to go about it.
Nope, no sig
this is a US law, not international
I mean, black text on white paper is 'analog', and once it's translated into neural impulses it's 'digital' (though not necessarily binary). So... where to put the widget to prevent you from seeing anything copyrighted (because it's just too tough to let you see things you might have a legitimate claim to.)
...and thus maybe your phone wouldn't broadcast _anything_ on the off chance you were James Earl Jones.
This is the text of my comment, as submitted to their comments page. I am posting it here in case it does not pass review.
-----
I would like to focus on one very specific measure suggested by the status report.
It suggests that the only way to plug the analog hole is to require watermark detection mechanisms to be included in every device capable of converting from analog signals to digital data.
This, unfortunately, shows a woeful ignorance of the process of analog-to-digital conversion, and its uses.
Analog-to-Digital converters (ADCs) are all around us, and an entry-level ADC chip typically cost less than $0.50 in quantity. Due to economies of scale and the speed of digital electronics, virtually all ADCs produced are, in principle, capable of converting music from analog to digital form, even if their intended application is elsewhere.
They are used in many applications, some of them mission critical. Fly-by wire aircraft, for example, get input from sensors via ADCs which, as I mentioned above, are in principle capable of performing conversion of music from analog to digital form. They would therefore come under the remit of this document.
Aircraft manuafacturers would then be forced to specify a component which is designed to turn itself off given certain inputs. In addition, the nature of those problematic inputs would not revealed, since this information would itself be subject to restriction under the DMCA.
We are therefore in the highly worrying situation that, in order to protect the rights of the recording artists, we are forced to risk our lives in aircraft which contain components which can turn themselves off at any moment if they spot something resembling a watermark in the signals they receive.
Even if legislation successfully enforces the rule that commercially available integrated ADCs are required to have this technology embedded within them, analog to digital conversion is not rocket science.
It is perfectly possible to create a good quality analog-to-digital converter using discrete components (transistors, resistors, etc.) which by their nature cannot have watermark-detecting technology built into them. The analog hole will remain wide open to those who can do the most damage to the industry, legislation or not.
This document, as drafted, would impose a punitive cost on the embedded electronics industry, for whom reliable and durable ADC technology is a must.
If this document is enacted into law, then I am afraid to say that I will be waiting for news of the first aircraft crash caused by an engine temperature sensor erroneously shutting down. No doubt their friends and relatives will be comforted by the fact that this sacrifice helped Britney Spears' record label keep her music under wraps.
Yours,
Sean Ellis
Farnham
Surrey
UK
-----
Sean Ellis
Follow OfQuack's antics on Twitter.
Except the analog is "fuck you" and the digit is the middle one.
"Life has improved immeasurably since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously." - Hunter S. Thompson
Wouldn't this make it easy for terrorists to sneak a walkman on board an airplane, and play a pirated copy of the "watermark" signal, thereby shutting down all the ADC's on the airplane and causing it to crash into, say, the White House?
Use your enginuity to continue thwarting the efforts of these companies and governments at copy protection. We all know some smart person will always find a new way to use a sharpie, and if you can see/hear it, you can copy it. We all know that, the industry just doesn't want to accept it. They need to realize that these schemes only cost them a lot of money and in the end will just ammount to punishing honest consumers. So copy music, copy movies, and share them. When someone comes out with a CD/Movie that you like, buy it and support the artists but don't give away your rights to fair use. If I buy a CD/DVD, I'm going to listen/watch it on my computer, I don't have a goddamn DVD player or even a set top CD player and they can't make me buy one.
...are belong to us.
OK. I read waaaay too much slashdot.
Did anyone else have the same problem I did? The first thing I thought of when I read the headline was the goatse.cx guy!
Obviosly the US is running without a working government. The same incompetent government that _didn't_ fix the problems of airport and cockpit security, is now trying to oust its self again. After coming up with the absolutely brilliant "DMCA" they had to go for another winner with the "SSSCA" now, before thats even up and running, and as if their blatent incompetence is already not enough, they are going to try again. Lets not even go into the encryption backdoor thing, the patriot acts or any of the other things. I wouldn't trust these people to run a country let alone a... oh, no wait, thats not right, ok: - i would be very afraid if these people had the nuclear codes... no sorry, ok: - I wouldn't trust them to run an airport let alone a co.. no, ummm: good thing politicians are good people, otherwise, with all those bribes they might.... oh nevermind.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
In today's NYTimes (registration blah blah) there's a big op/ed piece on the subject of Hollywood versus, well, everyone else, and why the public and it's representatives in Congress just don't get it.
This is beginning to sound a lot like the "Temples of Syrinx" movement of Rush's album 2112:
"The massive grey walls of the Temples rise from the heart of every Federation city. I have always been awed by them, to think that every single facet of every life is regulated and directed from within! Our books, our music, our work and play are all looked after by the benevolent wisdom of the priests..."
We've taken care of everything, The words you hear the songs you sing, The pictures that give pleasure to your eyes...
Creepy.
Link to the quote?
Anyone? Anyone?
Bueller?
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
NEWS FLASH!
Hollywood anounced today they have decided on their watermark system to stop copyright pirates. From now on all copyrighted material will be marked with the age old symbol 666.
I'll say that at least the true colors are showing through. (I hope some go back and check Congressional testimony too, and see if perhaps it wasn't exactly truthful.)
If I recall correctly, when industry folks testified they indicated they wanted to protect the digital formats because piracy would be permitted of exact pristine copies of the original digital format. They indicated they didn't want to interfere with VCR's, etc, but the digital originals and that people could get 'fair use' through those analog type devices; fair use didn't guarantee that copies had to be in the same resolution and quality as the original. I think they believed they could say that becuase they figured analog devices (VCR's etc) would disappear as the digital age devices replaced them.
But the truth shows through since they have decided they won't disapper fast enough. They want to now insure that these devices can't even make analog copies (so much for the 'protecting digital copies' testimony). It also means the comments that analog copies degrade as copy after copy is made so that's not a problem to them like digital copies would be. (That was lame anyway. I'm sure pirates don't make copies from copies from copies.)
They figure since digital TV will force the replacement of sets, they'll incorporate all of their controls in the sets to let them have control over all of the remaining devices, the VCR's, old PC's with tuners, etc., and that DVD audio or similar will replace CD's so they'll insert that in all the new DVD players.
The TRUTH??? It's ALL about CONTROL. They never accepted betamax and figure they can circumvent it this way. It also lets THEM decide the when, where, what you can see on their timetables and basis.
Two questions for the industry. For those of us who went the HDTV route early; If our sets don't work, are you going to replace them for us? If cell phones have these chip cops, what are YOU going to do the first time someone tries to call an ambulance and can't because the user is too close to an audio track or concert that has watermarked audio. Are you going to accept the liability? Of course not, you'll say the government made you do it. (Though it'll be interesting when a politician like a Hollings is slandered by an opponent in a speech but nobody will be able to record it so they can be exposed. ha ha ha. Maybe there IS a plus to this chip cop)
I've never pirated. I've never p2p copied music. If all this stuff comes out? I'll be the first in line looking for the black market devices. This makes 1984 look amateurish.
They keep passing insane laws- ones that we swear are too nutso to be allowed and strip away what all save the businesses consider to be rights.
The people in the government tend to not listen to anyone except those with the most cash- because they're unafraid of being held accountable for their actions by their constituencies.
Both groups think nothing of what we want- they just view us as a resource, a source of funds or a "vote" that they can strip-mine at their whims.
This is because the populace has become apathetic- they view that there's little that they can do about it. There's nothing for them to take a stand over.
You HAVE to spell it out in clear, understandable terms what you're doing and why. You have to use analogies like the wedding recording one to show people just exactly what RIAA and MPAA are asking their legislators to make into law. And you have to stick to your guns and not go and buy their stuff. Make sure you explain to people exactly why you're doing this (incl. that lovely example...).
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
And the solution is: allow RIAA to sell records that are simultaneously a bank bills...
From reading the article by the EFF, it seems that this legislation is in some ways a threat to get the computer companies to play ball. They may realize that this proposal is way out of line, but by starting out in the fringe, the MPAA would show how they are "compromising" with the tech companies to force some methodology to "protect their copyrighted works."
It makes me wonder if Congress thinks Hollywood brings more money into the US than our tech industry. I mean do you think an ADC built in China for use outside the US will have this technology built in. NO WAY! Therefore, noone will ever buy US products again outside the US. Don't even get me started on the creation of a black market for foreign technology goods that bypass future US copyright laws.
The scarier part of the article to me was the other aspects/changes they are looking to put in place. How do they propose to change the internet? Who are they the Chinese government? Block all access to P2P networks, yeah right.
---------- POST BEGIN ---------
Esteemed members of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary:
I favor copyright, digital rights management (DRM), and the philosophy that government should protect the rights of its citizens (both private and corporate). I object strenuously, however, to the behavior of the Congress on these matters. Copyright, DRM, and the protection of rights in general are expedients; they are means to desirable ends. They are not, and must not be construed as, ends in themselves. To consider them as proper ends is philosophically repellant and consitutionally unsound. Yet the Senate Committee on the Judiciary seeminlgy considers them so.
The positional statement of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary is to engage in "keeping our nation's copyright laws up-to-date in the face of new and evolving technological advancements." The method of updating our laws that the Committee proposes is to "craft copyright policies that advance the complementary goals of protecting copyrighted works, serving consumers and the public interest, and promoting the development of innovative technologies."
These goals are not numbered among the powers granted to the Congress by the people, and go quite against the protection of rights with which government is charged.
First, to the issue of promoting technology. One must assume that because "promoting the development of innovative technologies" follows from "copyright policies" the Congress means to promote technology that bears upon copyright. Congress has no such authority granted to it by the people. I fear that I need to produce the text of the Consitution, which seems to have been conveniently disregarded. Article I Section 8, Clause 8 states that Congress shall have the power "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." Further, Amendment X to the Constitution states that, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." It is irrefutably clear that Congress has not been granted the power by the people to affect "the development of innovative technologies" with respect to copyright. The people will innovate and develop copyright technology as they wish, and as our free market will support, without direction from Congress as to the nature of technology in which they will invest.
Second, the copyright authority granted to Congress is a power of expediency -- the power to enact a means to an end. That end is to enrich the public with arts and sciences. The goals of "protecting copyrighted works" and "serving consumers and the public interest" are therefore not complementary. These two do not stand equally before the Constitution. Rather, one is tolerated as a means to the other. Thomas Babington Macaulay stated in a speech in 1841 that, "It is good that authors should be remunerated; and the least exceptionable way of remunerating them is by a monopoly. Yet monopoly is an evil. For the sake of the good we must submit to the evil; but the evil ought not to last a day longer than is necessary for the purpose of securing the good." With this sentiment I wholly agree. Not only must Congress refrain from elevating copyright protection to an equality with the public good, it must decline from its position that copyright protection is a worthwhile end, as it is in truth a pain that the public must suffer (for a limited time). This reversal is imperative from the Constitution and from common sense.
A final point regarding Article I Section 8, Clause 8: once again I call out its aim of enriching the public with arts and sciences. Nowhere can be found in its contents the aim that "authors and inventors" shall have the right to profit from their exlusive ownership. They will profit as they are able, by the creation of business methods that gain the voluntary participation of buyers. If the owners of copyrighted material do not believe they can profit from the sale of their goods in the current marketplace, they ought to immediately exit the industry. Congress may not undertake to ensure they are compensated. If otherwise, what other business might we ensure in this manner? I suggest the oft-cited example of buggy-whip manufacturers, who surely wish Congress to mandate that every automobile purchase require the purchase as well of a buggy whip, to compensate them for the fact that horse-drawn buggies are out of style. No; they should instead discover where else demand is present in the economy and spend their capital in that direction. But of course in the case of copyrighted works there is very much a demand in evidence, and there is very much a desire to fulfill that demand with a supply. Further interference by Congress to secure profits is unnecessary and unlawful.
I wish last to call attention to the grave deception of loss due to unauthorized distribution. There have been innumerable arguments against this concept, and there is nothing I can add to them. I merely point out the plain fact that those who cry loudest of their losses do not record those losses anywhere for public inspection. These are publicly traded corporations who are bound to display their profits and losses in order that the public may invest or withold their investment accordingly. In a recent C|Net article, the RIAA was reported to claim that "the sale of pirated recordings exceeds $4.2 billion worldwide, not including losses due to online piracy." In addition, the MPAA claimed that, "the film industry loses about $3 billion to non-Internet piracy per year." (It is noteworthy that these estimated exclude on-line activity, which is, oddly, the principle focus of the lobbying efforts of these orginazations.) If these losses are not duly recorded for the benefit of investors, then what economic loss is at issue? The mere hand waving and shouting by chief executives does not make the loss real. Congress certainly cannot proceed as if buoying the profits of these groups to offset unreported losses will have anything but a ruinous effect. Because these losses do not appear on the account books, there is no genuine poverty for these companies but only an imagined poverty. However, the $7.2 billion is spent already in the economy -- it is spent on clothing, perhaps, or medicine. Requiring the transfer of a this additional capital to these companies transforms an imagined poverty into a real poverty. The public will be impoverished by $7.2 billion in clothing and medicine, but not one cent benefitted with copyrighted content in return: the MPAA and RIAA claim they are due this payment for their current level of supply. They will require yet more of the public's dollars to increase their production.
I conclude that the drafting of legislation that extends and modifies copyright law on the astounding basis of the digitizing of the protected work is both exceeding of the authority of Congress and absurd in its premise. Do not propose to enact new laws where none are required. Especially, do not propose to enact new laws that take copyright as a good in itself, thereby eroding or eliminating the rights and freedoms of the public for the sake of the profit of a few.
Regards,
Brian Takle
Citizen
C|Net article April 24, 2002
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-891521.html
The speech by Thomas Babington Macaulay has entered the public domain, and I quote with impunity. I trust Mr. Macaulay would be pleased to see his words fuel debate in our century and not wish them locked away from use.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
Now, that would be cool, a watermark emitting device that shuts off a cell phone. No more having to listen to someone babble on the train, no worries about current jammers which (are illegal in the US) use rf on the same frequencies as the cell to jam them.
I'm sure hackers will find away around watermarks for anything we need to do, but I doubt the guy who's going on and on about his hot date won't have a clue.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
I say that watermarks will always be easy to defeat. They have to already be at a low level in order to not interfere with the content enjoyment. Eventually, it will be known exactly how these watermarks are formed. But that doesn't even have to be known in detail to defeat them. And this defeat only needs to be done for the analog to digital step, unless watermark detection is also implemented elsewhere (the current proposal being to detect it at the analog to digital stage).
An example of such a watermark might be a very slight change of brightness level between frames or groups of frames with sufficient redundancy over time to eventually be detected despite scene brightness change. The codings might even be specifically "fitted" to the brightness changes in content in order to be detected. The key to making this approach work is that over the course of some time, but not over the entire content, there is enough brightness stability averaged out to allow the signal through.
To defeat this, a radical noise signal can be added. It would have spectral components at all frequencies so as to have a greater probability of impacting a watermark of unknown specifications. While this might not be as practical with a hidden camcorder in a theatre, it certainly can be in the confines of your home. Still, an LED injecting luminance behind the lens in a little hole drilled into the camera can do the trick even on a small scale.
Once the recording is made and the watermark detection fooled, you now have to remove the "countermark". But this is easy if the original noise is known. If the noise generator uses a pseudo random number generator with a known initial state, it can be precisely reproduced by replaying from the same initial state. Just get it syncronized (not hard to do in software) and subtract it back out. If linearity/gamma of the analog pickup is an issue, you can simply play the whole "countermark" against a white or gray solid background to measure and compensate for the effects.
Doing this for audio would be similar, but with a different range of spectra and signal levels.
The goal the ultimate watermark protection scheme has to have is to not only prevent attacks like that, but also do so for 100% of those attempting it. Let just one accomplish the task and P2P will see traffic.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Governor Tarkin: The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I have just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.
Commander: But that's impossible. How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?
Governor Tarkin: The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station.
Because of rapid advances in computer and telecommunication technology, it is necessary to come up with new ways of ensuring that artists and creative people have incentive to produce and disseminate works to the public, while at the same time not placing unreasonable restrictions on how the public uses those works. Relaxing, rather than tightening copyright laws, I believe, is better aligned with the public interest. It would be beneficial for Congress to pass legislation expanding definition of fair use, reducing the amount of time for copyright terms, and a repealing the anti-circumvention measures in the DMCA that prevent citizens from practicing fair use with works that they have legally obtained.
I urge the House and Senate to reject current attempts by special interests to put under lock and key our nations digital future, and reject some of the very disturbing proposals put fourth recently that would seriously endanger our nations vibrant tech sector, which generates more jobs and economic activity than the recording and movie industries combined. The public needs more power to exercise fair use, and benefits from a healthy public domain. Congress' actions over the past several decades has seen to it that both these institutions are in decline. It is time to reverse that trend.
"Developed by Intel Corporation, the HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)
protocol is designed to protect digital entertainment content as it travels across a Digital
Visual Interface ("DVI") connection, which connects digital devices to digital displays."
F that
To identify copyright violators online, and drag them to court, requires strong identity verification for transactions on the internet: you'll be accountable for everything you do on line, and surveilance will be mandatory to enforce copyright law: it's the equivalent of the russian system of watching every photocopier to make sure nobody is copying anti-Sovient propoganda.
Is that what you want?
I didn't think so. Next solution?
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
N'Sync is a manufactured band, these boys never met each other until they were assembled by the record company. It's not like they slaved away in a garage for ten years while working at McDonald's.
Oh, please. Show your ignorance.
Obviously they were 'assembled by the record company' because they had talent as individual musicians. They 'slaved away' becoming the skilled musicians who the record company selected.
We've gotta get away from this romantic notion that 'Great Bands' start in a garage and work their way to success. You, yourself, seem realistic enough to know that that almost never, ever happens. Most of the great bands from the past were composed of people who had talent, yet, but who also were the rich kid in the neighborhood.
You may laugh! Once you realize that this is really about an industry trying to get the same protection for it's warez that the government gives cash, the whole thing takes on an entirely different light, doesn't it?
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
Prohibition and digital copying are not really the same thing. But, I appreciate and agree entirely with the point that if enough people raise their voices in a way that the establishment is willing to hear (or cannot refuse to ignore) then we can change things.
But here is where the prohibition parties analogy breaks down for me:
Farmer Joe makes beer/moonshine/whiskey/other illegal at the time alcoholic drinks is his barn. He throws a party. It's likely that the surrounding community who attend chip in somehow to help Farmer Joe keep making the alcohol or to help him have a dinner to eat. After all, they're appreciative of what he's done for them. Or, Farmer Joe willingly gives his alcohol away and that was his choice.
Now, if you can prove that all copyrighted songs on file-sharing systems were put there deliberately by the artists who recorded them, or, that money gets back to the artist every single time a song they recorded is downloaded, you'll have a good point.
-r
Just because something is free does not mean you have to take it.
It probably isn't as effective as a phone call, but the ability provided in the article to DIRECTLY respond to a Senate discussion is very valuable. Rather than post your thoughts only on /., post them to the Senate where they have a chance of doing more good.
Wait a sec, China promotes freedom. Who is communist now?
This isn't just horrifying, it's impossible.
It seems to me that the implication is that I need a license to purchase a single transistor, since I can build an ADC given a few dozen of these and a few resistors and some wire.
Unless the law is construed to require licensing possession of any electronics whatsoever, it's not hard to build an ADC. Real pirates aren't finnicky about such licenses and will have no trouble finding a supply of unlicensed op-amps and flip-flops in old equipment.
Parts houses, small-scale electronics board assembly shops and their suppliers, research institutions and small engineering shops, on the other hand, should be completely freaked out by this. If they've been silent, maybe it is because they find the implications of this lunacy so ridiculous as to be unable to give the matter any credibility.
Ultimately, physical reality is unlicensed. Of course the proposed law will fail miserably to "plug" the "hole" a.k.a. "physical reality", but it could do an amazing amount of damage in the process. This is like trying to license every food item everywhere on the grounds that it might contain alcohol or be used to create alcohol, which is justifiably a regulated substance.
If this passes or even gets out of committee the way it's described here, the congress is dramatically less competent than one would hope.
mt
> The technical question is: How on earth do you put watermarking in a visual medium without people seeing it and in an audible medium without people hearing it?
I've heard this over and over again, so let's put this issue to rest. Believe it or not, human beings cannot see the entire spectrum of light, and human beings cannot hear the full range of possible sounds.
A visual watermark would be right smack dab in the middle of the picture, displayed in some harmless band of ultra-violet or infra-red. Audio watermarks would be too high pitched for us to hear (though hopefully they'd also put it out of dog hearing range too.)
And, of course, it'd be illegal to own an output device that couldn't display these innocuious signatures.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
What makes you think the Internet is so special?
Copyright enforcement is up to the copyright holder. Why should it be different for certain favored "industries"? The burden is on them (you) to justify their intrusive legislation, not on the public.
Right. You can't buy beer w/ a warezed c0py of "The Matrix." So a digital copy is not always the same as counterfeiting. Counterfeiting is the act of making a fradulent replica with intent to deceive (usu. by offering for sale). There is no deception in warez because it usually doesn't involve a sale, though warez is still illegal. Counterfeiting is the making and selling of fake copies of "The Blair Bitch Project."
However, counterfeiting is rampant in asia. The factories that pump out the real stamped copies for consumption also pump out pirate/counterfeit copies for the local black markets and gangs at 1/4 the price. Go anywhere in asia and your sure to find a Region 1 copy of Titanic for about $5.
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
Go ahead. That way you can literally ban ANY ADC! Sound waves don't carry a digital signiture, and personally, I'd get a real kick out of hiring lawyers to crack down on every audio equipment maker on the face of the earth, who couldn't BUY enough engineers to even BEGIN to figure out how to do something like this.
next story: "the MPAA want to ban unlicenced light: light can carry visual signals which can DESTROY OUR COPYRIGHT!"
It's not scary at this point, it's funny. It's damn hilarious. If there was a way to copy protect analog signals, it would have been everywhere by now. At this rate, they will want little Timmy to give up his little tape recorder because he can record the latest Metallica CD in the best tinny, bassless, mind shatteringly low quality recording that little tape recorder can manage from 2 inches away from Billys CD-Player.
It's been a long time.
function MM_jumpMenu(targ,selObj,restore)
That's not a Microsoft_Menue is it? I did not see the Front Page advert, but it looks like front page bloat.
The front page EULA forbids use of front page in the pulication of anti-microsoft material. This is something I mentioned in passing in my comment before I checked the page source. If you take that statement as anti-microsoft, the page is now not in complience with M$ EULA and must be taken down and all coppies destroyed. I love irony.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Their "right to profit" is interfering with my "right to rock".
For those about to be sued...we salute you...
"Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them."
My very first music media experience was getting a tape of Rush's "Permanent Waves" with a crappy tape recorder via microphone-to-speaker recording. Analog rocks!
That sounds like a pretty complex gun. And expensive.
If it has mostly mechanical parts I predict anybody with a Dremel tool will be able to defeat the 'protection,' which most will just view as a risk the gun won't function as needed in an emergency.
This is waaaaaay to long and boring for any overworked and overpaid
legislator to read.
Out here in France when the governemnt gets out of line we throw a huge
street demonstration, they shit in their pants and the proposed
legislation is withdrawn (or they create a comitee to "reexamine" it,
meaning to kill it quietly).
It works everytime, believe me.
Our policicians have a collective memory of 1789-93, a.k.a the "Terror"
period, when thousands of heads rolled off the guillotine.
You guys just keep complaining about all this power they've got from all the MONEY YOU GIVE THEM.
:)
I threw away my TV, but I kept the VCR so I could (at some later date) watch movies of my little girl when she first started walking. I threw away the cable box (digital, even). I steal ALL of my music (so it screws the artists, but it fights their fight for them).
Granted, I have to buy a computer and keep it fairly relevant with technology, but since I never throw my old shit away then I will always have available numerous AD converters without any embedded cop-crap.
Bottom line is, I don't support these media mongers. You slashdot guys can complain all you want, but I read my first review of Spiderman here on Slashdot. It is very difficult to live in society without paying your MEDIA taxes, and no matter how hard I try some of it always leaks back to them somehow, but there is FREEDOM in being ANTISOCIAL.
It isn't: minidisc went through all this ten years ago, resulting in abominations like the "data / music firewall" (which is why you can't buy an MD drive for your computer, and why MD was never sold as a data storage format on a significant scale), why you can't copy your own music infinitely on Minidisc, and why hardware which unsets the copy protection bit is so hard to find.
The internet is just the next digital technology to come under the hammer.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
As long as people continue to buy obliviously, these guys can do whatever they want.
The only want to make them hear anything is to hit them in the pocketbook. This means:
1. Stop going to movies and concerts.
2. Stop buying DVDs and CDs.
3. Stop renting.
While it would suck to not have all that, it's the only way to get these groups to stop trying to control the content in this manner.
What they need to learn is that if they make it so people are inconvenienced by the whole thing, people will just stop buying.
With stuff this egregious, where are organizations such as the IEEE or ACM?
Well, the ACM has said publicly that it is opposed to the CBDTPA I am corresponding with the faculty advisor of the Indiana University Bloomington Student Chapter of the ACM as well as Tom Murphy (the infamous "font pirate") proposing the formation of a grassroots student movement to oppose legislation such as this. Information can be found at http://www.bloomington.in.us/~jswitte/ADFI.html . I would ask whoever AB3A is to respond to me concerning this.
Wow, thats a good idea, All I need is a watermark on my license plate and the those cameras that take pictures of speeding cars won't see my car.
If this sort of things continue, soon the goverments will be replaced by corporations and instead of tax we will all pay royalities to corporation.
Does this mean that my Pacemaker will cut out when I listen to the radio?
The lawsuit should make my widow VERY Rich!
to get psyched up for their mission the terrorists listened to a audio cd and watched american war movies
What we need are some brave souls to do the following:
:)
1) Intercept a shipment of DVDs and/or CDs.
2) Call the local & national press to cover the following:
3) Have a protest while dumping said shipment of DVDs and/or CDs in the sea (or local river).
Note: This is illegal. You will be fined and/or jailed for this. So do this in a liberal community. Boston would work best.
Note 2: Try to make it so that the DVDs & CDs are easily retrievable so you don't pollute the river.
"You have the option of insanity. I do not. And that makes me crazy!" - Brian to Angela, My So-Called Life
...plug the RIAA's anal hole!
If passed it would be required in ALL tech.
So you make a device that brodcasts the signal for video. Strobe light or however they send it.
You take your transmitter and a gun into the bank.
Start the transmitter up.
All the bank cameras get shut down by the cop chip cause they are detecting the copyrighted material.
Easy getaway its a electronic cloak.
Godai
Here's the comment I submitted:
The CBDTPA is something that the government should not be involved in. The bill should be dropped immediately. The measure is not about copyright protection, but the protection of a stagnant industry unwilling to adapt its business model to new technology.
The technology industry is, to quote a widely circulated figure, a $600 billion behemoth. It arguably funds more jobs in two years than the $35 billion per annum entertainment industry does in twenty. However, the entertainment industry has an erroneous belief that it is entitled to legal protection from future challengers, and this bill is proof that fair use is nothing to be considered when profits are at stake.
Mainly, the crux of the issue is the purpose of computing devices. Computers have three main purposes: to read, write, and copy data. The entertainment industry is proposing nothing less than complete destruction of one of those three purposes, and for what? To protect their monopoly on an image of an animated character for a few more years? The idea strains--no, breaks--the limits of rational thought.
Contrary to the statements of Hollywood, computers are far more than expensive media devices. Their uses range far beyond playing audio or video clips; they are also instruments for content creation, for creativity and development. One wonders that if such "solutions" to copyright infringement were in place a few years ago, whether some recent movies (i.e. Shrek) could have even been developed. Given the heavy use of parody in that film, the answer is no.
Under this proposed bill, creating anything will become prohibitively expensive for the common person. Disregarding other obvious problems regarding the feasibility of such solutions (and the lack of appropriate technology to create them), this bill places inordinate constraints on technology with numerous legitimate uses to allay the fears of a small industry.
The entertainment industry seeks to exercise complete control over its content, trampling on the fair use rights of consumers and users everywhere. The CBDTPA is a product of monopolistic practices by a group of companies unwilling to submit to market forces. It should not be debated nor even considered; it is not viable, it is inefficient, and it is wholly irresponsible.
Let industries solve their own problems. Congress has no right, and no responsibility, to ensure the continued profitability of any company or monopoly.
got standards? --- http://www.w3.org/
Minidisc went through SSSCA-style legislation? Did it really?
I must have missed that.
But you still haven't explained the need for the geek community to provide an alternative to Hollings-style legislation. That's an extraordinary claim; it requires more than an emotional rant to be justified.
As an addition to this excellent point:
The Correctional Officer's union is -against- the legalization of drugs (but specifically marijuana) because their jobs DEPEND on high prison populations. If frivolous long-term sentences drop, then what will happen to them?
That is their thinking, at least.
i just got it and features an mp3 player that records anolog and was making fun of the riaa for never mentionuing anolog before, funny how this just now came up
Someone is going to assassinate one of the MPAAs/RIAAs CEOs. If we were willing to do so to stop the agenda's of politicans, why wouldn't we do so to the corporations that are trying to get all this power?
Personally, I'd hate to see something like this happen, but terrorism is going to move from religious beliefs to fighting back for our constitutional rights. They just won't listen to us and someone is going to snap at some point.
I live life on the edge
Here is what I wrote...
Dear Sirs or Madams
The effectiveness of DRM will be proportional to the damage it does to both the Personal computer market and to effectiveness of enforcing United States intellectual property law overseas. The global market will not accommodate the legal enforcement of digital rights management and will benefit financially from the restricted position of American business, while American business suffers. The personal computer market is as successful and lucrative as it is as a direct result of the flexibility personal computers allow, if that flexibility is reduced it's value to the information market and it's positive influence on the economy are reduced as well.
Discouraging American citizens from infringing on copyright would be just as effective and far less financially damaging to our economy if it was done through compulsory licensing. This would more closely match an ideal free market. In addition, shorting copyright stay would force the industry to become more competitive with their time limit and subsequently more appealing to customers with their products. A copyright reform solution would also match more closely with a strict interpretation of the constitution, which explicitly states copyright is to be for "limited times", "To promote the progress of science and useful arts".
As a strictly technical matter, DRM is only effective if the free use and processing of information on computers is diminished to nearly nothing. As an economic matter, we should not cripple the massive industry of flexible electronics in the United States for the smaller copyright industry.
Thank You for your time.
Matthew Newhall
A.S. Computer Science
President of LILUG
Long Island Linux Users Group
http://lilug.org/
president@lilug.org
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
Talking about A to D converters is pointless...
1. They will obvious make exceptions if they want this law to pass.
2. As long as you're debating about A to D converters, no average person is going to care what you're saying.
Make this situation relate to people
If you tell people this bill aims to outlaw thier Tivo's, and copying from VHS to DVD, they will wonder why.
THEN you can talk about A to D converters
There will be more laws
Even if the MPAA doesn't pass this bill, they will submit another. I'm sure they've gone through a number of ideas for bills and scenerios for getting them through.
One will get passed
As soon as this issue reaches a critical mass the MPAA/RIAA is BOUND to pass another law, as the general sentiment from the public will be, "they had to do something, we can't let mass piracy go rampant."
How can we detour mass piracy while preserving fair use?
Unless you don't believe in copyrights, you should be talking about this question, because it's the question the public wants an answer to. You're trying to convince the average person we need to preserve fair use, right? Isn't P2P piracy an abuse of fair use? People want to preserve fair use, but not at the expense of the copyright. How can we return the system to what it was before Napster?
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
This will be known as the Senate A-hole bill.
The comment form on the senate's page that was linked had it's last (visible) post on April 15th. We REALLY need to get everybody who has read this story and cares about their computer to put in intellegant comments about why this doesn't need to fly. All of those who say "it can't happen" read the story again... it's running virtually unopposed. Nothing's more scarier than that.
I'm heading out to circuit city tonight and buying hundreds of tvs, vcrs, and camcorders so when they're all banned i'll still be alright. Anyone want to join???
ahh, the egg in the basket..
It cant just be me, is this making any of you people actually want to go out and sell a few pirate CD's just to show two fingers to the MPAA & RIAA?
:(
I wonder if an attempt to implement these laws in the UK would work. Sadly, under the new "Yes Mister Bush, No Mister Bush, Three Bags full Mister Bush" Tony Blair, It probably would
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
When everyone is setting up tolls to collect $
on every patent, copyright, etc, and you can't fart
without some sticking their hand for coin,
then everythings eventually grinds to a halt.
This isn't how we got to where we are today
technologically and culturally.
When the situation becomes intolerable it will be
time for a new Magna Carta.
Excessive power will have to be wrested from
the powers that be... or we can live in servitude.
Coroporate Feudalism is here.
the mantra of digital distribution is low cost
hi volume.
If you don't understand that, you are that most
pathtetic of hybrids, a Fucktard.
As others pointed out, this could outlaw much we take for granted.
Hearing aids would be useless.
Medical sensors (CT, MRI, even digital thermometers)
Your mouse, or your drive by wire car controls.
Even your answering machine and digital phone (digital signal, not touch tone)
This is crazy
Neither will contacting your senator.
What will help is supporting geekPAC.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
As best as I can tell, this would break all UDP-based apps, since there is never a connection set up and the ISP could not tell which is a client and which a server. Although I suppose if such a draconian step were taken, breaking all UDP apps (I think games generate the most UDP traffic) might be a small consideration.
I doubt this comment will get noticed amid the Screamings of an Outraged Slashdot (TM), but here goes...
This is in a report provided by the MPAA to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is looking into the matter. The chair of the committie is Senator Leahy (D-Vermont), an old-school proponent of citizen's rights who has delayed the SSSCA by a whole year. The ranking minority member is Senator Hatch (R-Utah), who is most definitly not in the pocket of the MPAA or RIAA.
This isn't even a bill yet. Be alert, but don't lose your heads.
~Chazzf
No statement is true, not even this one.
I don't believe the public has any interest whatsoever in deterring mass piracy. They don't want an answer to that at all. The public LOVED Napster. The only people who need this "answer" are the big copyright holders, and the Congresspeople in their pockets.
And no, I don't believe in copyrights. I'm willing to compromise on that point, but my idea of a compromise would be a radically LESS restrictive copyright regime than what we have now -- including, above all, a return to sane limits on the term of copyright. I absolutely will not be contributing my creativity to thinking up ways to further the corporate agenda (deterring piracy).
In the way of a thought experiment, let's create an imaginary scenario where the tenets of this bill are accepted by the Congress, and the legislation passes, thus causing all the changes desired by the commercial proponents of this bill.
Is there any guarantee that the above scenario would result in an increase - or even maintain the status quo (in terms of real profits) - of the digital content industry? What if profits continue to decrease?
What happens if widely available workarounds to CDBTPA-inspired technology are created and made available via distributed networks - do we turn the hardware industry and consumers upside-down again to keep the creators of digital content happy?
What if some creators of digital content *want* - as a part of their business model - to encourage the free copying and distribution of their digital content? What if the number of people/companies desiring this as a means to distribution eventually *outnumber* those who currently hold copyright (e.g. the proponents of the CDBTPA legislation)? How then does the proposed CDBTPA technology *impinge on the rights of this new group*? Furthermore, what if variations of the latter model were so successful as to be adopted by current producers of digital content? CDBTPA legislation would make it impossible to do so.(note: there are already profitable examples of this model in existence - more will surely appear as creative entrepreneurs find ways to attach unique value to digital content in ways that result in profits *in spite of* the prolific (encouraged by said companies) reproduction and distribution, by consumers (i.e.viral marketing), of their digital content)
The problem scenarios listed are but just a few that could occur if this bill were passed.
The proposed CDBTPA legislation - if passed - will cost consumers, technology equipment manufacturers, and ultimately the very producers of content that it purports to protect , *more* in terms of lost revenues and inconvenience than the theoretical savings promised by the bill's proponents.
Additionally, if one considers 1) the massive task of altering probably hundreds - if not thousands of discrete hardware and software products slated for manufacture and distribution to consumers; 2) the cost of infrastructure to monitor (police) behavior at both the commercial and consumer level; 3)the real confusion - and likely mass resentment - caused by introduction of a technology that forbids behavior (fair-use copying of digital content) that has heretofore been understood as a non-issue by consumers (who, by the way, are voters); 4)the real cost of consumers having to either replace current hardware/software products that permit the copying of digital media.
If one considers the above - in addition to the fact that eventual workarounds to even the best digital copy protection technologies (whther implemented in hardware or software)are all but inevitable - one has to wonder how the CDBTPA legislation has made it into serious consideration.
Let there be no doubt that copying digital content for free distribution to others is stealing. New technologies have made it possible to make this kind of theft easy. There is however, no excuse for theft - whether it is easy to do, or not.
However, to make the assumption that because individuals who have access to the means to copy digital content for illegal distribution *might* do this - and further force upon those individuals real social costs and inconveniences to keep them from doing what they *might* do - is to in a not-so-subtle way criminalize those individuals, and make them pay penalties for the wrong behavior of a relative few.
My hope is that the Congress will take a more robust look at the original intentions of copyright; and, that the purveyors of digital content consider that as social and technological landscapes change, so can their respective business models. Change coming from the creators of digital content - constructed in a way that enhances current products, while adding new kinds of value that digital technologies permit - will in the long run be much more productive than creating inconvenience and cost to millions of consumers and thousands of consumer electronics manufacturers.
I think... ;)
Forget all the technological impossibilities that are involved here... where the heck are these watermarks going to be stored? Even with the smallest possible amount of data required for a copyrighted watermark... the ADC would have to compare against trillions of watermarks, upon which millions more are added every day. So either my new $20.00 tape recorder will have terabytes of memory and a super computer, or a wireless network hookup to do this on a server. And yet, despite the fact that such a thing can't possibly be implemented today, this may still pass? The sheer entertainment value of it all.
One possible method would be to have something BEFORE the ADC that plays with the analog signal. For example, if you invert and phase shift and generally muck with the signal such as it is no longer the same, I doubt the 'cop' chip will find a signature whatsoever.
Then, after the ADC, an algorithm reverses the original filter to produce the now digital-copy.
Perhaps they would have better luck trying to make our ears and eyes illegal.
(Btw... what would happen now to someone who had purchased copyright use... no equipment would allow them to use it, regardless. idiots)
I'm quite aware that humans have limited A/V ranges, both in terms of spectrum and perception (e.g., I'm stuck with glasses and don't have perfect pitch). Still, unless I failed to gather something, you can't project an non-humanly-visible spectrum from film onto a screen (yeah, if everyone switches to digital, and you have IR or UV sources, maybe). Same thing goes with the audio portion. You can jack up something's frequency until it annoys every animal in a 1 mile radius, but are consumer electronics capable of detecting that? Particularly, are they capable of detecting it amid the backdrop of all the other spectrum noise out there?
If you really want to do something, maybe bounce a low RF signal around a theatre or something...but even that is susceptible to being cracked....
What is your Slash Rating?
This is the key belief which places you on the side of the ??AA. You believe in ownership of information, even after it's published. I do not, our founding fathers did not, and our Constitution reflects this.
Our western idea of ownership comes from Locke - he who mixes his labor with nature owns the product. Ownership does not expire after some set period of time. Legal ownership is simply the legal recognition of a natural principle. Copyright, in contrast, is a completely artificial construct, created for utilitiarian reasons. It does not reflect a fundamental right; rather it was created to promote the Sciences and Useful Arts. Copyrights are constitutionally mandated to be for a limited time.
Copyrights are not property, and nobody can own a song or an idea.
If you have not done so, I recommend you read Thomas Jefferson's oft-quoted letter.
One could argue that this is more an example of how the system corrupts money.
:)
If one were argumentative that is.
How incredibly braindead are these hollywood people? Do they quite realize how simple of a device an analog to digital converter is?! Do they realize the "installed base" of sophisticated ADC chips and hardware that will *never* conform to their desires? Do they realize you can build an ADC from a few dollars worth of simple electronic components? (sometimes even circuits that outperform their IC counterparts..)
Attention Hollywood: the cat is out of the bag. The game is over. You lost. Get over it and innovate instead of being a sore loser.
For the rest of you, consider boycotting the folks that are doing this crap. Vote with your dollars. That means supporting local bands / indie films, not going to the movie theaters, not purchasing any CDs or DVD's distributed by offending parties, etc. Put your money where your mouth is and you'll see change. This need not last forever--just until this kinda nonsense stops. If that means hollywood dies because they refuse to adapt to the market, so be it.
When is 'ol Hilary Rosen going to learn that the genie will not go back in the bottle. All that this type of legislation is going to accomplish is the creation of an isolationist economy. Hello, free trade? Do you think international consumers will choose American RIAA "enhanced" products, or international open devices...hmmmmm. American music sales are strong internationaly, how will this impact those sales...hmmmmm. New artists will have to choose between RIAA "enhanced" labels, or international brands. I believe that the RIAA has become so greedy that the public will realize that it is all about the music. Publicity is the enemy of the RIAA, let's talk about this everywhere. I hope the EFF PR dudes press release/spin the / out of this.
|-:)
How is this supposed to work? I mean if there
is more than one kind of watermark then storage
and look-up requirements will make ADCs slower
(more costly too but that's an aside). The only
way not to loose performance on ADCs would be to
build watermarks and their detection circuitry
into the ADCs itself in hardware, and you can't
physically do that for more than just a few
watermarks because chips can only be made so big.
So now all music/movies/pictures etc. would have
to be protected with the same watermark and a
pretty short (simple) one at that. But then it
will offer almost no protection from copying or
retransmitting.
They pass the law, you can break into fort knox.
How you ask?
Going through the building, whoops! digital security camera. Just get your portable TV out, place it in front, and Viola! The security system shuts down.
You'll be on a bearch sipping mi-ties before they find out what happened.
Remember when the CD's were all new and really expensive? "Soon" they would be even cheaper than LP's (these big, black round things with a small hole in the middle your dad used to have), because CD's "were so easy and cheap to manufacture"? Well, they *would* have been really cheap now, if not the prices for American politicians had rocketed sky-high! If we would stop copying, the Music and Film Industry could allow themselves more politicians and maybe would even be able to cut prices a bit, so we would all be happy! (Well...some happier than others...)
What person will donate an airborne act of love?
Just so you know,
YHBT
And who is going to define what drunk driving is? You can't have it be hardcoded, as different localities have different ratings. So what are you going to do? Have the dealers set it? Make people voluntarily drive their cars in to have it set? Broadcast the setting?
And how long before a device shows up on the black market to set it yourself? Or to ignore settings/disable it/etc? Or just instructions on bypassing it?
Who is going to handle the liability when that woman being chased hops in her car and it malfunctions and won't let her drive it to get away?
Who is going to pay for all the older cars to get retrofitted?
How about limiters that prevent aggressive driving or speeding?
And when that out of control truck is bearing down on you and you can't get away? What about when you swerve lanes to avoid some idiot who doesn't have one and it thinks you're being aggressive? When you are being stalked/chased/etc?
Who is going to pay for all the older cars to be retrofitted?
Why have we not seen legislative mandates that require gun manufacturers to make guns that can't kill innocent people (or, at the very least, cannot be accidentally fired i.e. by a child)?
Despite what many people would like you to think it doesn't happen that often. More children die from drowning in buckets per year than die in a gun related incident. (If you wonder why your liberal friends figures don't match that, ask them to remove the numbers for gang-bangers that kill each other and compare again. Sorry, those aren't "innocent children"). Again, what are you going to do when those "smart" guns fail and someone who desprately needed to protect themselves from a rapist, stalker, mugger, deranged psycho, etc can't do so because it fails?
This is an issue for markets. Not some goon in government. The answer to bad laws and stupid lawmakers is not to try to redirect their evil at some other group. It's to stop the evil.
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
--James Madison
I'm so sick of hearing about piracy from **AA. Media creators and copyright holders should realize that sharing- or as they call it these days 'piracy' is good for their business. So what if some guy gets some poor crappy episode II on VCD, hollywood isn't in the biz of selling crappy VCD's on street corners(but they shure are scared of them) I'd rather have the official dvd with the boxset packaging and director commentary , they sell movies on tv and in stores... they sell movies in megaplex theatres.
These huge corporations don't care if they benefit from any type of sharing or as I like to think of it 'promotion'- all we hear is 'we lose 30 billion each year due to piracy!!!'. What about the billions they get due to sharing? New people being exposed to things they hadn't seen before. These huge corporations don't want that though... it's all about control... they'd rather have more control even if it means less profit for them. They're so worried about the analog hole now? they must be scared shitless about the digital canyon! Any analog capture of something digital is probably gonna be less perfect...than the digital version.... as far as I'm concerned baby... once it's analog it belongs to the consumer that bought it. Ohh well...we'll just have to get mod-chipped stuff from places like www.liksang.com
Copyright infringment is allready illegal, and stiff penalties already exist. Murder an d rape are much more serious problems, but NO ONE is proposing a technological solution (ie mind control devices preventing people from acting on violent impulses). Wouldn't the world be a safer place for women if men could not achive erection untill they hear the "magic words?" Quite simply, mind control could make the world a better place.
But the public (I hope) would never stand for such a slolution, because it infringes freedom in such obvious ways. this is the argument we should be making.
It still amuses me how the entertainment industry thinks it's the government's problem (By enacting and enforcing laws) that the entertainment industry is too slow to keep up with changing technologies...
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
things are not always the way they are because that is the way people want them to be. how would you keep drunk people off the road? or to convince people to drive slowly?
Yes, I think a successful government needs a steady flow of the right kind of criminals. The ideal criminals would be middle class, so they'd have property to seize - they'd be relatively nonviolent, so it would be pretty safe to process them, they should have no unity or code of honor, and yet they should be networked - thus investigators can leverage one arrest to product more with minimal effort. They should be harmless to the general populace. And their crime should involve tiny, hard-to-see objects, to justify lots of intrusion and searching.
Now witchcraft met these criteria pretty well, but seems to have fallen into disfavor. The drug war is the current staple crop, but it looks like IP infringers will be a highly desirable addition.
Minidisc never got to the legislative stage because Sony cut a deal with the music companies.
If we don't provide an alternative, then eventually one of these completely brain damaged pieces of legislation will pass, and then where will we be?
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
"How can we return the system to what it was before Napster?"
it cant be done. the internet is a NEW technology. those have a tendancy to OBSOLETE things.. like.. say.. the system.
"Shut up brain or ill stab you with a Q-tip" Homer Simpson
Can pirates take advantage of all this
CBDTPA / BPDG stuff?
For example, could a pirate package his warez
using the new government-mandated technology,
therefore making it illegal for anyone to
decrypt his filez to see if they contain any
infringing content?
With all files encrypted (including the pirates'),
won't the war zone simply shift from the "battle
of the filez" to the "battle of the keyz"?
Am I right to suspect that this whole thing will
degrade into a zero-sum game for the **AA?
Crap! It seems that they don't ever learn. But what they fail to realize is that an analog watermark would be hard as hell to write a digital detector for. If the watermark is in any way obfuscated (line noise, someone's head in the front row of the movie theater, etc.) Then what's going to detect it? I would love to meet the Nazis that are writing this plan and the software to enforce it.
You're an optimist, aren't you? Don't expect the "industry" to fight this battle for you. So far they've given no sign of caring. The law won't hurt them. People will continue to buy new hardware to replace old, and if a few dollars are added to the purchase price by this protection, nobody will notice. Better yet, a few years down the road the government will probably declare the older, non-compliant hardware illegal, which give the industry another spurt of sales.
The electronics industries interests are not the same as yours.
As for customer outrage - where's the outrage over Macrovision? Where's the outrage over SCMS, which effectively killed consumer DAT?
It's fun to claim that they can't do things like this because of unintended consequences, but actually they're smart enough to separate the intended from the unintended. They will inconvenience us; they will not inconvenience themselves. They will infuriate us; they won't infuriate the majority. They will cripple hobbyist use of computers without hurting professional use.
>minidisc went through all this ten years ago
No, that was different. Things like SCMS come about because manufacturers enter into voluntary consent agreements.
What we are talking about today, is Federal laws being passed to enforce such design decision with the force of law to back it up.
There is no law that says a minidisc storage device cannot be made, or that a non SCMS MD recorder cannot exist, or making it a crime to unset the bit.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Amusement or freedom? Stale dreams provided by the media or the future? Docile brainwashed masses of consumers or free, creative citizens?
Are the RIAA and MIAA really going to force us to make that choice? I will resign my membership as a part of their audience if bills like this go through and I suggest you do the same. 120 years ago all people could do for entertainment was read or have people they knew provide it to them. Humanity survived quite well. And more importantly - at least in the US, they were free to do it. Do we really love our babble boxes so much we would give up our freedom for them? Why the hell can't we have both?
Now all those CDs I bought will actually be worth money fifty years down the road, when we all pay $10 per track, which we can only listen to once, or our brains with be zapped with 50,000 volts and our credit ratings ruined.
Jake
Dating: while( 1 ){ call_girl(); get_rejected(); drink_40(); } return 0;
Didn't the entire watermarking effort get flushed after SDMI proved to be ineffective? The 'content protection' scheme was broken in no time by the guys at Princeton if memory serves.
So the music industry will have to subsidize new equipment to push their new technology increasing costs to the consumer in the end. The technology will get broken but they will have created so much momentum that they will continue to use it (like with DVD's) since they can't just recall it.
Foriegn markets will explode since folks like myself (and some readers here i'm sure) will go to Canada, UK, HK, etc get non watermarked equipment. Sales will 'slip' and suddenly pirates will be blamed again.
Coming soon! WaterWhiteOut! With your WWO device you can effectively strip out all broadcast flags and record whatever the fuck you want. only 19.95
New laws will be created to help curb the rampant recording of signals in the air without authorization. 15 years (plus 2MM fine) for recording some new WB teeny bopper show and additional 10 years for uploading it to a server.
It's just a vicsous cycle that we can't seem to break.
thothic
Right. A set of commercial agreements which completely stifled fair use of the technology. Does this sound familiar to you?
The BPDG is the same routine, all over again, but with more government backing.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
ah yes...
and it would end all those criminals illegally retransmitting a copyrighted movie's THX audio tracks. Transmitted by cell phone in all of it's digitally compressed, Rayleigh Faded, 4Kbit splendour.
yeah! those would be some sweet vibes!
This argument doesn't work, for the simple reason that murder and rape are easy to penalize after the fact, while copyright infringement goes unpenalized far more often than not.
If 95+% of murderers and rapists never had to deal with legal consequences afterwards, and as a result there were millions of them, ANY sort of "technological solution" that gives law enforcement a reasonable chance, even at a significant cost to freedom, would be worth considering, because even more freedom is lost if everyone has to worry about murder and rape in their day-to-day lives.
Now, the consequences of being unable to enforce copyrights aren't as grave as that of being unable to deter murder and rape. But nevertheless there are consequences, and all other things being equal it would be good to have more effective copyright enforcement. The question is how to achieve this at least cost.
I don't think I've heard a great answer to this question yet. Ridiculous as enforcing a barrier between the analog and the digital may be, at least the guys are trying. What we should do is try to come up with better ideas, rather than dismissing the valid goal.
But you're forgetting all the drug addicts who BECOME POOR from their habit. All drugs do is put a LOT of money into the hands of people who don't respect the law.
If we are going to campaign, let's educate people in Hollings' state, and see if proponents like him still want to put forward crazy plans when it is clear that the net result is they will be voted out of office.
Strategy...
If you support piracy you support terrorism
</MPAA>
buh
Copyright protection serves an important function in our society. It is a careful balance designed to benefit the public at large. I fear that powerful corporate interests - the publishing industries - have presented our lawmakers with an extremely unbalanced view of the situation.
"ensuring that the public is able to enjoy a growing selection of new and different educational, entertainment and other copyrighted works"
I beg our lawmakers to remember that they have also been entrusted with the task of ensuring that the public is able to enjoy FAIR USE of the growing selection of new and different educational, entertainment and other copyrighted works.
By definition fair use is legitimate. It is also valuable to society. Corporate interests consider fair use to be a nuisance to be eradicated.
I further urge our lawmakers to remember that they have also been entrusted with the task of ensuring that the public is able to enjoy a growing selection of new and different educational, entertainment and other works in the PUBLIC DOMAIN.
All copyrighted works are required to fall into the public domain after a limited time of copyright protection. This is so all of society may freely benefit from it. Disney's most famous movies were created on this principle. Snow White, Pinocchio, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Beauty & The Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Hercules are ALL based on books that fell into the public domain. Disney was able to draw upon the public domain, and we were all enriched for it.
The current crop of "copyright laws" do not regulate copyright. They regulate technology, innovation, fair use, and hardware. They are motivated by corporations with a vested interest in old technology and a disregard for the public interest.
The latest proposal suggests mandating that all analog to digital converters must contain a "copyright cop" to detect the presence of a "watermark signal" and to disable the device if one is detected. I would like to point out that some PACEMAKERS and most aircraft contain analog to digital converters. It is ludicrous to propose a "copyright cop" in these and all other devices. Imagine the results if a pacemaker or aircraft detected a false or interference "watermark signal".
We already have laws to prosecute copyright violations. These new "para-copyright" proposals attempt to make copyright violation impossible rather than illegal. Without exception they have a far reaching negative side effects like the pacemaker example. The harmful side effects are inherent in para-copyright, they cannot be repaired.
Often the simplest way to make these flaws obvious is to consider what would happen if these laws applied to traditional media - books. It would eliminate photo-copy machines. It would eliminate used book stores. You could go to jail for changing the order of the chapters in your book. The publisher could make it impossible to skip a page. Libraries could not exist. Scientists/researchers could not analyze the text. You no longer own the book - the publisher just wants to give you a LICENSE you to view it once, and only in the manner they approve.
I urge our judges and lawmakers to stand by existing copyright protections and to refrain from meddling in the rapidly evolving market forces in the digital realm. Some companies will fail to adapt and wither. That is free market capitalism. Other companies will seize new opportunities and grow. These are the companies that will bring the benefits of new technology to the public. It is not for the legislature to pick winners and losers.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
There is no way that they would ever put this into all A/D converters. That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Don't these morons realize that an A/D converter is NOT just for audio and video?!! Are they going to put this on PLC's with built in converters? Methinks someone is on crack.
----
All of whose base are belong to the what-now?
And who is going to define what drunk driving is? You can't have it be hardcoded, as different localities have different ratings.
Having it hard-coded to the highest BAC that is legal anywhere in the country seems reasonable to me. A quick google search revealed that all states but Massachusetts and South Carolina (which don't use a numerical limit) are either 0.08 or 0.10, and Mass and SC could work something out with car manufacturers (a la California emissions).
And how long before a device shows up on the black market to set it yourself? Or to ignore settings/disable it/etc? Or just instructions on bypassing it?
Devices for de-scrambling HBO and Cinemax exist, but no one seems to view that as a reason to make cable theft legal.
Who is going to handle the liability when that woman being chased hops in her car and it malfunctions and won't let her drive it to get away?
Who handles the liability when your brakes malfunction? Or when your gas pedal gets stuck in the full open position (this really happened at a Wal-Mart near me, an SUV pinned someone against the wall of the building and crushed him to death)? Or when the tread of your tire separates from the rest of the tire?
Who is going to pay for all the older cars to be retrofitted?
Presumably older cars will fall under a grandfather clause, just as they do for modern-day emissions laws.
And when that out of control truck is bearing down on you and you can't get away?
Umm, pull over and let it go by me, just as I would if I didn't have a speed governor in my car.
More children die from drowning in buckets per year than die in a gun related incident.
And more people die each year of heart disease than are murdered. Should murder not be illegal?
Again, what are you going to do when those "smart" guns fail and someone who desprately needed to protect themselves from a rapist, stalker, mugger, deranged psycho, etc can't do so because it fails?
Despite what people would like you to think, none of these happen that often. I'd be willing to bet that a person who pulls a gun on the rapist/stalker/mugger/deranged psycho is more likely to be killed than someone that doesn't, just like the person with the gun in their home is more likely to be killed by that gun than they are to use it to protect their family.
Most of your questions could also be asked of the ADC watermark checking law (i.e. how long before a device shows up on the black market to bypass it? Who is going to handle the liability when someone's [insert device which contains an ADC here] fails at an inopportune time, resulting in a serious accident or death, etc).
Finally, I'm not necessarily agreeing that all the things the original poster asked for should be made laws. But I agree with him that if legislators are so bored that they just NEED to write a new law, at least make it one that's going to save lives and not line the pockets of some rich, old white men in Hollywood that don't need any more money.
i mean seriously...i'm thinking of building a tin foil phonograph...it cant be that difficult...it has been around for damn near 200 years :P
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
The idea is to prevent the wrong people from using it trivially, not ultimately. Anyone with a hacksaw and a torch can make a gun. You can't keep guns out of the hands of people.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Could people defeat both of these things? Yes. But it would prevent most of it.
And don't think that the government won't do it because it's too far-reaching. After all, they already require insurance and registration, which are really just a legal fascade so they can take your car away from you any time they feel like it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I speak of Marijuana separately from other drugs because it is in a fairly unique position. Everything points to it being safer in every way than the three legal drugs, caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine - Say what you want about diet pills and the like, but these are simply drugs. At least some people actually take diet pills to get thin; Caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine are solely intended to alter the mind. So Marijuana is really better for you than any of those, it's cheaper than the latter two, and it's illegal for purely political reasons.
Other illegal drugs, however, including MDMA and other Methamphetamines, Opium and its derivatives (including the legal ones), and extracts of cocaine are much more dangerous than the legal recreational drugs. Sure, alcohol can kill you, but you really have to work at it. In addition, since it's legal it tends to conform to certain standards. You never know what's mixed in with the drugs you buy, if you buy them from strangers (a dubious practice at best) and all of those drugs have been known to kill people somewhat frequently.
Anyway, yes, if you're talking about Heroin, Speed, or Coke, addicts do become poor, and in some cases even dead. MDMA has the additional danger of permanently fucking up your brain chemistry. But marijuana would be good for this country in many ways yet is kept illegal to maintain jobs by putting more people in prison. This of course puts more minorities in prison than non-minorities (IE, whites) due to societal momentum and immigration. (If you just rode a raft to America, you probably aren't flush with cash. If you are flush with cash, your life in your homeland probably isn't so bad.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Heil Korporate Amerika!
...put copylocks on all my homework from Signals&Systems class that contains Fourier transforms? Cuz that's gonna suck.
You probably already know that you can make an ADC from a resistor string and some op-amp comparators. It might not be the very best one in the world but it would be an ADC. Is the government going to force a recall of all semiconductors? Will you have to pass a lie detector test and an FBI background check before you can buy a government-approved soldering iron that has to be connected to your phone line as well so that it can "phone home" to report what circuits you used it on? Will lead-tin and other conductive alloys with relatively low melting points become controlled substances? Will the Solder Police break down your door late some night on an anonymous tip? Will they trip over the Semiconductor Police when they do?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
2nd amendment foes' statistics are ridiculous. Not only do they ignore self-defense without shots fired (which is rarely necessary once you prove you value your liberty enough to defend it) but they count, say, a 20-year-old drug kingpin shot by a rival as "child killed by family member or acquaintance"! And if you resist assault with a gun you're something like three times less likely to be seriously hurt than if you don't resist (resisting without a gun is even worse--the weak need a tool so as not to be helpless against the strong).
AMEN BROTHER, the government, MPAA, and RIAA need to wake up and get there fingers out of there Bungholes and get with more important issues. Doesn't matter though, most of the smarter Techies are on the outside laughing because we will always have away around these foolish idea.
Just posted this to:r m.cfm
http://judiciary.senate.gov/special/input_fo
My comments are in the form of this satire I just wrote:
Transcript of April 1, 2016 MicroSlaw Presidential Speech
(Before final editing prior to release under standard U.S. Government
for-fee licensing under 2011 Fee Requirements Law)
My fellow Americans. There has been some recent talk of free law by
the General Public Lawyers (the GPL) who we all know hold un-American
views. I speak to you today from the Oval Office in the White House to
assure you how much better off you are now that all law is proprietary.
The value of proprietary law should be obvious. Software is essentially
just a form of law governing how computers operate, and all software
and media content has long been privatized to great economic success.
Economic analysts have proven conclusively that if we hadn't passed laws
banning all free software like GNU/Linux and OpenOffice after our
economy began its current recession, which started, how many times must
I remind everyone, only coincidentally with the shutdown of Napster,
that we would be in far worse shape then we are today. RIAA has
confidently assured me that if independent artists were allowed to
release works without using their compensation system and royalty rates,
music CD sales would be even lower than their recent inexplicably low
levels. The MPAA has also detailed how historically the movie industry
was nearly destroyed in the 1980s by the VCR until that too was banned
and all so called fair use exemptions eliminated. So clearly, these
successes with software, content, and hardware indicate the value of a
similar approach to law.
There are many reasons for the value of proprietary law. You all know
them since you have been taught them in school since kindergarten as
part of your standardized education. They are reflected in our most
fundamental beliefs, such as sharing denies the delight of payment and
cookies can only be brought into the classroom if you bring enough to
sell to everyone. But you are always free to eat them all yourself of
course! [audience chuckles knowingly]. But I think it important to
repeat such fundamental truths now as they form the core of all we hold
dear in this great land.
First off, we all know our current set of laws requires a micropayment
each time a U.S. law is discussed, referenced, or applied by any person
anywhere in the world. This financial incentive has produced a large
amount of new law over the last decade. This body of law is all based on
a core legal code owned by that fine example of American corporate
capitalism at its best, the MicroSlaw Corporation.
MicroSlaw's core code defines a legal operating standard or OS we
can all rely on. While I know some GPL supporters may be painting a rosy
view of free law to the general public, it is obvious that any so
called free alternative to MicroSlaw's legal code fails at the start
because it would require great costs for learning about new so-called
free laws, plus additional costs to switch all legal forms and court
procedures to the new so called free standard. So free laws are really
more expensive, especially as we are talking here about free as in
cost, not free as in freedom.
In any case, why would you want to pay public servants like those old
time -- what were they called? -- Senators? Representatives? --
around $145K a year out of public funds just to make free laws? Laws are
made far more efficiently, inexpensively and, I assure you, justly, by
large corporations like MicroSlaw. Such organizations need the
motivation of micropayments for application, discussion or reference of
their laws to stay competitive. MicroSlaw needs to know who discusses
what law and when they do so, each and every time, so they can charge
fairly for their services and thus retain their financial freedom to
innovate. And America is all about financial freedom, right! [Audience
applause].
And why should your hard earned tax dollars go to pay public citizens to
sit on juries and render open justice when things could be done so much
more quickly and cheaply by commercial organizations working behind
closed doors? Why, with free law each and every one of you might have
to take time out of your busy schedules to sit in a court room and
decide the guilt or innocence of a peer!
And why pay a judge's salary out of taxes, such has been proposed?
Judges clearly should be compensated on a royalty basis by anyone
referencing decisions a judge produces. This encourages judges to
swiftly produce more decisions as well as decisions that big legal
corporations like MicroSlaw want to cite more often, which is good for
the economy.
Top law schools would have to shut their doors if most law was not
proprietary, as who would pay $100,000 up front to join a profession
where initiates release their work mainly into the public domain?
Obviously there would no longer be any legal innovation without private
laws requiring royalties when discussed, since who would spend their
time writing new laws when there is no direct financial return on their
investment?
And of course, lawyers will not be paid well without earning royalties
on private laws, since if they can't sell all royalty rights to their
legal work directly to large corporations, how will they make a decent
living? Why, even if public money is spent on developing laws, say, at
universities, it is clear such laws will not be respected, further
developed, or widely distributed unless somebody owns those laws too and
so can make money from selling access to them. It's beyond me why people
sometimes act like there could be a spirit of volunteerism in this great
land of ours after all the effort we have put into stamping that out,
such as by making it illegal to help someone for free. Also, since the
Internet had to be shut down early in this administration to prevent
children from viewing pornography without paying, distribution of new
information will always be expensive.
Each lawyer out there should remember to uphold the current proprietary
legal system, because you too may win the law lottery and become as rich
and famous as the founder of MicroSlaw -- but only if you start with a
trust fund! [Indulgent audience laughter]
I know some lawyers out there are concerned about being replaced by the
lawyers most major law corporations are now importing from India and
China. Let me assure you, this does not threaten your livelihood,
because there is currently a lawyer shortage restricting our economic
growth, and those Indian and Chinese lawyers have extensive resumes
indicating years of experience developing U.S. laws. For you business
people out there, it is also my understanding those imported lawyers
make model workers because they can't easily change jobs. Thus I have
supported removing all restrictions on bringing over such imported
lawyers, in an effort to stimulate economic growth in this fair land of
ours.
[Inaudible shouted question] Citizenship? Naturally we would not want to
offer such imported lawyers any form of citizenship when they come over
because they are not Americans -- that should be obvious enough. We're
hoping they go back to where they came from after we are done with them,
since there are always eager workers in another country we can later
exploit at lower wages, I mean provide economic enhancement
opportunities for. Besides, dammit, have you seen the color of their
skin?
[Inaudible shouted question] Ageism? I remind everyone here that,
obviously, as has been conclusively shown by studies MicroSlaw itself
has so charitably funded, older American lawyers can not be retrained to
know about new laws, so I implore all lawyers as patriots to plan to
learn a new profession after age thirty-five so you do not become a
burden on your beloved country.
[Inaudible shouted question] Prisons? There are only a million Americans
behind bars for copyright infringement so far. No one complained about
the million plus non-violent drug offenders we've had there for years.
No one complained about the million plus terrorists we've got there now,
thanks in no small part to a patriotic Supreme Court which after being
privatized upheld that anyone who criticizes government policy in public
or private is a criminal terrorist. Oops, I shouldn't have said that, as
those terrorists aren't technically criminals or subject to the due
process of law are they? Well it's true these days you go to prison if
you complain about the drug war, or the war on terrorism, or the war on
infringers of copyrights and software patents -- so don't complain!
[nervous audience laughter] After all, without security, what is the
good of American Freedoms? Benjamin Franklin himself said it best,
those who don't have security will trade in their freedoms.
I'm proud to say that the U.S. is now the undisputed world leader in per
capita imprisonment, another example of how my administration is keeping
us on top. Why just the other day I had the U.N. building in New York
City locked down when delegates there started talking about prisoner
civil rights. Such trash talk should not be permitted on our soil. It
should be obvious that anyone found smoking marijuana, copying CDs, or
talking about the law without paying should face a death penalty from
AIDS contracted through prison rapes -- that extra deterrent make the
system function more smoothly and helps keep honest people honest.
That's also why I support the initiative to triple the standard law
author's royalty which criminals pay for each law they violate, because
the longer we keep such criminals behind bars, especially now that
bankruptcy is also a crime, the better for all of us. That's also why I
support the new initiative to make all crimes related to discussing laws
in private have a mandatory life sentence without parole. Mandatory
lifetime imprisonment is good for the economy as it will help keep AIDS
for spreading out of the prison system and will keep felons like those
so called fair users from competing with honest royalty paying
Americans for an inexplicably ever shrinking number of jobs.
Building more prisons... [Aside to aid who just walked up and whispered
in the president's ear: What's that? She's been arrested for what
again? Well get her off again, dammit. I don't care how it looks;
MicroSlaw owes me big time.]
Sorry about that distraction, ladies and gentlemen. Now, as I was
saying, building more prisons is good for the economy. It's good for the
GNP. It's good for rural areas. Everyone who matters wins when we
increase the prison population. People who share are thieves plain and
simple, just like people who take a bathroom break without pausing their
television feed and thus miss some commercials are thieves. Such people
break the fundamental social compact between advertisers and consumers
which all young children are made to sign. And let me take this
opportunity to underscore my administration's strong record on being
tough on crime. MicroSlaw's system for efficient production of digitized
legal evidence on demand is a key part of that success. So is the recent
initiative of having a camera in every living room to catch and imprison
those not paying attention when advertising is on television, say by
making love or even talking. Why without such initiatives, economic
analysts at MicroSlaw assure me that the GNP would have decreased much
more than it has already. Always remember that ditty you learned in
kindergarten, Only criminals want privacy, because a need for privacy
means you have something evil to hide.
[Inaudible shouted question] Monopolies? Look, nothing is wrong with
being a monopoly. It's our favorite game, isn't it? Sure, we might slap
somebody on the wrist now and then [winks] but everyone in America
aspires to be a monopolist, so why not just have more of them? Why not
let every creative lawyer be their own little monopolist permanently on
some small piece of the law. It's the American way; it's the will of the
people.
Look, these questions are getting annoying. The next person who asks a
question will have their universal digital passport suspended
immediately via video face recognition!
[Hush from crowd.] Or at least, someone who looks like you will!
[General relieved laughter.]
Here is the bottom line. If all law was not proprietary, lawmaking
corporations like MicroSlaw wouldn't be able to make as much money as
they do the way they are currently doing it. So the economy would
further collapse, plunging the U.S. into an even worse recession than
the one we are in now, which, as experts have shown, is the legacy of
all the illegal software and media copying in the late 1990s. Look,
we've already cut all nonessential government programs like Head
Start, monitoring water quality, researching alternate energy, and
improving public health. Free law would mean a further reduction of
tax revenues and we would have to make tough choices about reducing
spending on essential things like developing better weapons of mass
destruction, imprisoning marijuana users, propping up oppressive
regimes, and promoting unfunded mandates like higher school testing
standards. I assure you, these priorities will never change as long as I
am president, and I will always make sure we have money for such
essential government functions, whatever that takes. So I urge you to
never support the creation of free law, which might undermine such
basic government operations ensuring your security, and further, to turn
in anyone found advocating such.
By the way, I am proud to announce government homeland security troops
are successfully retaking Vermont even as we speak. Troops will soon be
enforcing federal school standards there with all necessary force. Their
number one priority will be improving the curriculum to help kids
understand why sharing is morally wrong. Too bad we had to nuke
Burlington before they would see the light, har, har, [weak audience
laughter] but you can see how messed up their education system must have
been to force us to have to do that. And have no fear, any state that
threatens the American way of life in a similar fashion will be dealt
with in a similar way. I give you my word as an American and as your
president sworn to uphold your freedom to live the American lifestyle we
have all grown accustomed to recently, and MicroSlaw's freedom to define
what that lifestyle is to their own profit.
So, in conclusion, a body of legal knowledge free for all to review and
discuss would be the death of the American dream. Remember, people who
discuss law in private without paying royalties are pirates, not
friends. Thus I encourage you all to report to MicroSlaw or your
nearest homeland security office anyone talking about laws or sharing
legal knowledge in other than an approved fashion and for a fee. Always
remember that nursery school rhyme, there is money for you in turning
in your friends too.
God Bless! This is a great country! [Wild audience applause.]
Addendum -- March 4, 2132 -- Freeweb article 2239091390298329372384
Archivists have just now recovered the above historic document from an
antique hard disk platter (only 10 TB capacity!) recently discovered in
the undersea exploration of a coastal city that before global warming
had been called Washingtoon, D.C.. It is hard for a modern sentient to
imagine what life must have been like in those dark times of the early
21st Century before the transition from a scarcity worldview to a
universal material abundance worldview. It is unclear if that document
was an actual presidential speech or was intended as satire, since most
digital records from that time were lost, and the Burlington crater has
historically been attributed to a Cold Fusion experiment gone wrong. In
any case, this document gives an idea of what humans of that age had to
endure until liberty prevailed.
Copyright 2002 Paul D. Fernhout
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in
any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
In regards to liability, you are right, there wouldn't be anyone to sue. Same as there was no-one to sue when the government mandated air-bags and childredn died from it because they didn't bother to wait and fully research its use. This lack of legal liability doesn't alter the fact that they are responsible.
RE: The truck, I wasn't as clear as I should've been. I meant a truck out of control. Accidents in progress, etc. There are times when speed and maneuverability are called for, and a speed governor and automatic controls can remove or impair your ability to skillfully avoid an accident.
If older cars fall under a grandfather clause for those devices, then people who want to drink and drive will simply drive older cars. I wouldn't expect that to last long if I were you. Before long the "for the children" mantra will either require them to be installed for make owning an older car illegal.
[I said] More children die from drowning in buckets per year than die in a gun related incident. [You replied] And more people die each year of heart disease than are murdered. Should murder not be illegal?
No. Should we make buckets illegal?
Despite what people would like you to think, none of these happen that often. I'd be willing >to bet that a person who pulls a gun on the rapist/stalker/mugger/deranged psycho is more likely to be killed than someone that doesn't, just like the person with the gun in their home is more likely to be killed by that gun than they are to use it to protect their family.
Well, you can bet all you want, but you'd be wrong. I'll be happy to take your money though. When you have some time, you should check out John Lott's research. The thing is, people don't make headlines for using a gun to defend themselves unless someone gets hurt. In fact, many times it goes completely unreported when someone defends their life with a gun. Especially when it happens in areas like DC and Chicago where even owning one is illegal.
I'm not trying to say that watermarking is a good thing. I'm definately against this absurd plan. My point was that yes, it's wrong for them to make laws because they are bored. But don't try to fix this by telling them to make laws to harass other people unnecessarily. Make them find something productive to do that actually contributes to society instead. Like getting a real job.
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
--James Madison
While buying used is a lot better than buying new, a sale of a used copy still does lift the market for the item, and contribute some fraction to the Industry's bottom line.
The reason is that used goods and new goods are substitutes, and as anyone who has taken microeconomics can tell you, an increase in demand for one of the two substitutes results in a feedback effect that increases demand, and thus sales, for the other substitute as well.
It's the same reason why the price of natural gas spikes up whenever there is a shortage of oil, even if there is the same supply of gas as before.
Isn't radio nothing but a digital (from CD) to analog device (radio)? Are they going to ban all stereos because they don't have watermarking protection? Obviously, this is rediculous--but let them pass this law. Why, you ask? The consequences of such a law will become so detrimental that voters will know who to point the finger to when it infringes on their rights. If it DOESN'T pass (which, IMHO, is the only reasonable choice), the MPAA/RIAA will continue to try to slip such frivolous laws right under the public's noses--however, if it does pass and it causes some very bad effects to the US Economy, you can bet your ass that Mr Senator Disney (or whoever supports this) won't be having any successful elections after screwing something like this up.
As a twist in the old saying goes,
"We know that the Emperor is lacking a pair, but what does it matter if the public doesn't see him without his clothes?"
The government doesn't care about speeding. They don't care about drunk driving. Nor about marijuana usage or possession.
What they do care about is money. The majority of funding for most small to medium-size law enforcemnt departments comes from three sources: DUI fines, speeding tickets and fines for pot-related 'crimes'.
Hey Taco! Looks like you're using the "infinite monkeys and typewriters" scheme to generate Ask Slashdots again...
You're right--I was thinking more of Cocaine et al.
All we need is a reversible scrambling of the signal. A simple analog scrambling circuit (phase invertor, something...) will do. The scrambled analog signal (with the watermark rendered unrecognizable) will be fed through the ADC. Then the digitized signal will be descrambled by classical DSP.
The scrambling/descrambling circuits are well-known. Their math models for the digital stage shouldn't be difficult as well.
This will work even for embedded players, though we will need the descrambler circuits there as well, and maybe modified codecs. Encode/compress scrambled signal, then play it as-is, and descramble it again before going to the headphones. Adds one more gadget to the discman or MP3 player of the future, but doesn't require any modification of the player itself (in case they would be built tamperproof or the modifications would be difficult for other reasons).
Next time MPAA will be pressing to have CopyRestriction build into every silicon crystal, to prevent ... bla. bla. ... terrorrists ... bla. bla. ...
I do believe that creators should be compensated
Isn't it fascinating that the "Recording Industry" and the "Motion Picture Industry" think that they are "content creators"?
When will people realize that these "industries" are middle-men for the actual content creators, the artists and craftsmen who actually create works of art? Their only function is to get "content" from the artists to the consumers.
Their efforts to eliminate all distribution channels other than their own is an agressive move, not only against consumers, but against the very artists they claim to represent!
Direct distribution from artists to consumers using digital technology is in its infancy, but it's not going away! Eventually they will have to join the majority or become a footnote in history.
No. But you may expect to be stopped on the street and have a police officer inspect your mp3 player. Also, as with narcotics, if somebody reports it, then you may expect your home entertainment equipment be seized for inspection. If it's homebrew, or modified then you will find yourself sprawled on the floor with a police officer holding a gun to your head.
Well, they're already grabbing every piece of computer equipment in the house when the evidence is only on the hard drive or other discs because they can auction off the complete system for more money, so expect to see video on the news of guys in blue windbreakers hauling off speakers and amplifiers and receivers and probably every piece of entertainment-related electronics in the house (except perhaps the microwave used to make the popcorn eaten while the illegal music or movie is enjoyed).
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.