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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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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*/
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.
This pair of handcuffs does not mean less functionality for your hands. Rather it adds to your hands the ability to keep them where we can see them.
All this talk of "plugging the analog hole" makes me feel like someone's about to rape me.
I mean, the government is always trying to rape us, but now they're finally talking about plugging the a-hole.
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
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.
Oh. Well, in that case, Sen. Hollings will personally tackle you and wrestle the camcorder away...
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.
Just imagine someone in the parking lot playing loud music. No car will start, since these will detect watermarks all the time :)
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
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
Even more extreme is the ADC's in digital hearing adis. I would be really pissed if my digital hearing aid kept turning off every time I tried to listen to copyrighted material.
Other than simple assualt, is it illegal to punch a senator in the face?
(That's probably terrorism, these days...)
What if you were a constituent?
(What if we just dig up Sonny Bono & drag him through the streets?)
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
More likely all equipment that a few select (patriotic) industry representatives point the Finger of Doom at. Hey, wanna bet that'll be mostly imported goods? I'm not being frivilous, the DMCA is being used to target imported goods right now (e.g. Dreamcast dev kit serial cables, Elcomsoft).
I'm wondering if anyone in the press will pick up on this and spot this situation. You're at a (smallish) presidential rally, where His Highness is speaking on record. Suddenly a (performance) copyrighted recording of "Hail to the Chief" starts playing... and every recorder in the room shuts down. In fact, you could have great fun at any press conference by playing a CD of the Star Spangled Banner and watching them scream in frustration, or just use a white noise generator that broadcasts a watermark at the limit of audibility. Actually, that might sell like hot cakes to all paranoid businesses (i.e. all of them).
I know all of this is so ridiculous as to make it seem beyond the pale, but we said that about the DMCA as well, remember? And I don't notice our elected representatives acknowledging that they pooched that law and moving to strike it. Do you?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
You know, a current trend in military electronics is to move towards using COTS (Commercial Off-the-Shelf) parts.
Imagine: Now foriegn militaries and terrorists will cover themselves in copywrighted images as the new camouflage. Screw the newly designed sophisticated Marine cammies. If that low-light CCD sees a Coca-Cola logo, it'll just shut down.
Perhaps instead of playing loud american rock music to get holed-up third world dictators to surrender, third-world dictators will be able to play loud american rock music to shut down communications to holed-up american troops. Boy band CD's become military weapons...
Whatever crack they're smoking, i want in on it. It really seems to make reality look much different.
today is spelling optional day.
They should just check out their local pr0n sites for many ways to plug anal log holes. er ... whats that ... analog ... oh
Well, if the copyrighted music is Britney Spears or N'Sync, I'd say that's a feature.
Uh, man, it's a Geo. No legislation required.