BPDG Not Much Of A Threat?

Captn Pepe writes: "According to this article in the NY Times, the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group could be less dangerous to consumer freedoms than has been suggested, because they apparently can't agree on anything. As happened with SDMI and similar efforts by the content industry to cram restrictions into digital devices, 'the central stumbling block to arriving at a broad agreement on the proposal may simply have been a bid by the studios for too much control over carrying it out.'" Read below for a related but very different take on the state of the BPDG.

DigForFiles writes "It seems that the media companies and the tech companies may be near an agreement concerning fair use of digital broadcasts. Apparently the basic plan is FOX's and is to have broadcast programs be digitally flagged by the media guys and the tech guys are responsible for building all home digital recorders so that they recognize the flags. Consumers would be able to record the broadcasts for home use and data transfers within their local LAN but the flags would prohibit the transfer of recorded data outside the household. Thus they hope to prevent P2P networks from trading the broadcasts online while allowing fair use within the household. Some of the presentation material can be found here. The guys in charge, Copy Protection Technical Working Group, meet on 5 June for further discussions. A list of attendees can be found here (it's in Excel format)."

Comments

Interesting, but huh?

[weave]

I can copy a digital signal for use inside my household, but not usable outside the local LAN? How is THAT accomplised? First, almost everyone's local lan is in a 192.168 block or 10. block. But besides that, I cap my TV shows on my computer, edit out commercials (oh oh...) and burn to VCD and watch in living room. Once on VCD, what then? It melts if it wanders out of my home, like a holodeck character walking out of the holodeck? (Unless he has one of those devices on his arm of course...)

when will they learn?

[havaloc]

When are people going to learn that these kind of restrictions only hurt people who would not pirate anyway? Its only going to inconvience the vast majority of people who do not steal/pirate.

I don't understand why hollywood does NOT want their shows rebroadcast. Any exposure is good exposure for them, and will only increase the following of their so called entertainment programs.

Also, I will not buy any device that restricts me in any way. I only bought a DVD player because I was able to get one of those Apex machines.

In any case, its going to be cracked, and the digital copies will be on p2p anyway. Too bad...

Not much of a threat? Maybe more of a threat...

[dinotrac]

This could be a good sign, but I'm not sure.

Failure to reach consensus in the industry group may be all the reason our good "friends" in Congress (are you listening, Fritz Hollings and Diane Feinstein?) need to impose some really wretchedly awful solution.

Things may be better now.
The tech companies may have learned a thing or three about lobbying Congress.
The Bush administration may be more receptive to tech companies than the Clinton administration was.
Maybe.

Here's what I know for sure:

The last time that the entertainment industry went head-to-head with the tech industry over intellectual property protection, we got the DMCA.

That's reason enough to get worried and stay worried.

And then some.

Re:When will they learn

[Rogerborg]

• Didn't they learn anything from the Sony's mistake [slashdot.org]? You can spend millions, but someone will always be able to defeat the technology

That's taking a short term view. In the mid term, they can claim that because a few guys are savvy enough to crack it and put the latest Buffy out on gnutella, that they need to set the flags so that no content can be recorded. They'll do it with a big sigh, and they'll use phrases like "regrettable", "a few hard core pirates spoiling it for everyone" and "protecting the national economy", but they will do it.

Of course, this won't stop the same few guys from recording and distributing the shows anyway through good old video capture, but that's not the point. The point is to stop most of us making any recordings.

I know this is speculative, but it fits the pattern, and frankly I'll be happy to forgoe the pleasure of saying "told you so" in favour of nipping this in the bud right now. We need to remind our elected representatives that the explicit purpose of copyright law is to protect the individual creators (and implicitely, consumers) of content from big publishers, and not to give publishers carte blanche to control creation, distribution and consumption. That's a travesty of the intent of copyright law.

Here's why

[ProfBooty]

"I don't understand why hollywood does NOT want their shows rebroadcast. Any exposure is good exposure for them, and will only increase the following of their so called entertainment programs. "

They don't want their shows rebroadcasted because of several reasons:

1) they don't get paid. If no one actually sits infront of the tv, the broadcasters won't pay them with the money they recieve with their advertsing income.

2) Hurts syndication rights which also hurts actors too. Actors can get paid residuals for when shows go into syndication (unless they were on the show giligans island and missed out on a ton of money http://www.gilligansisle.com/court.html)If everyone buys the dvd it hurts the value of syndication rights. Thats why you have to wait so long before tv shows go to tape or dvd.

3) Hurts dvd sales. why buy it when you can download it. Granted their is a quality issue, but this is moot when you have a replaytv or filesharing tivo.

Do most people pirate. No, it takes too much time and effort. Besides, at least in my experience most pirating college students wind up buying most of their media/software after they get money in the jobmarket.

Does the media need to change its business model? yes. the easiest way i see doing this is to bring back sponsorship to programs. For example, the reason soap operas are called that is because they were sponsored by soap manufacturers.

Remember with PVR technology, primetime isn't an issue, you can broadcast any content you want 24 hours a day, people will just watch it when they want. Besides, if you include 1-2 short sponsorship messages ala pbs before each program (i.e. 5-10 seconds) the time you save is not worth skipping. This basically means you can offer more content to your viewers since they don't have to be there to view it at a set time. A somepoint someone will catch on to this, probably once there is suffiecent dvr market penatratoin.

Give them enough rope...

[bryan1945]

With the increasing amount of crap we have to put up with to watch anything, and with the decreasing creativity of the media conglomerates, they will eventually push me right out the door because I won't care enough to watch. Throw in the increasing prices of cable and/or satellite, and that's one more step closer to the door.

I guess that the majority of the US public won't really care and will continue to watch "When Animals Attack Survivors in Extreme Celebrity Cop Chases Part 4" (that might actually be interesting), but I've found myself reading books and re-watching my DVDs a lot more than TV. I even (gasp!) went for a walk yesterday.

The harder these fools push their crappier fluff the more people will just give up on it. It will be a rather shallow curve, but I think it is inevitable.

Re:Give them enough rope...

[acceleriter]

and people will find other ways to amuse themselves if DVDs and CDs become more hassle than they're worth

And, in the fine tradition of colonial capitalism, the entertainment industry is trying to find out empirically exactly what that maximum amount of hassle is for 90% of people. Once they know that, they don't care that people like you and me walk away.

They ARE a threat.

[Irvu]

Right now these groups command the attention of pooly informed but nevertheless powerful Senators and Representatives. Even if they do not agree on everything they do agree that the provisions of the CBDTA and the DMCA should be enacted/strengthened. They are serious about plugging the analog hole.

In some sense this may be worse news. If they could agree on provisions then they would draft a single, oppressive but consistent piece of legislation. If they cannot agree then we are likely to get some hideously general bill that is so vague and unspecified that only the rich can afford to do anything. Either way its not good.

See here for a nice asessment of the BPDG and the CPTWG. See here for more info.