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BPDG Not Much Of A Threat?
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)."
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...)
Didn't they learn anything from the Sony's mistake? You can spend millions, but someone will always be able to defeat the technology. Ah, well, I guess they have to do something to protect their assets...
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...if they didn't waste so much time and money trying to prevent copyright infringement they'd be so wealthy the could just rely on the honor system.
Can I bum a sig?
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...
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.
Boy, I bet those babys will be a joy to design. And market. And dirt cheap, to boot!
Of course, it's possible that we'll all be mandated by law to switch to TCP-DRM/IP-DRM and UDP-DRM/IP-DRM and all other protocols will be outlawed. Patent lawyers, start your engines!
Meanwhile, I'll be programming in the Cayman Islands.
The studios have to have figured out that anything that allows fair use allows swapping on Kazaa. For that matter, without fundamentally crippling the hardware, anything that allows VIEWING allows swapping on Kazaa, and I think the CBDTPA makes clear that they understand that, as well, at least some of them.
They're in a much better position to demand some kind of legislation if they can't get an agreement out of the tech industry.
So, they WANT these meetings to end in failure so they can get legislation b/c the tech industry is refusing to self regulate. The tech industry isn't going to agree to anything that hurts their bottom line, and that means content on demand (in some form) is here to stay. Only legislation can save the studio's sorry business model from widespread civil disobedience. So, either one side or another gets fooled (who thinks the Disney people can get the better of AMD in technobabble armwrestling? I know who I'd bet on.) or nobody gets fooled and it's settled as legislation.
If they could find a compromise where all the corporations make out like bandits and all the consumers get screwed, they would have made it already!
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Can't stnad most conservatives?
By most measures, everyone on your list (with the possible exception of Franklin) would be considered conservatives by today's standards.
before modinf me down, read further.
the largest producer of movies is India. France AFAIK has restrictions in importing intelectual production from overseas, worlds largest potential consumer market (china) has also restrictions on these subject.
so let the american studios byte theyr own tail. if they start pushing to much control crap over the consumer, the level of rejection against their products will grow in other countries too, then 2 things can happen:
1- media produced in US will end up restricted to a niche market (US itself) OR;
2- The media industry in US (studios, recording companies, etc.) will end up losing money and learning what other industries already know: The consumer is KING. do what the consumer wants. give the consumer liberty and they'll respond buying your products.
What ? Me, worry ?
When I read the NYTimes articles, I get the feeling that it's not that the studios want to block the sending of the recorded programs, but to make sure that the digitial content is strongly encrypted as possible to even require a hidden unique device ID as part of the key for decoding. Thus, while you could send the encrypted programs left and right, the receivers couldn't do anything with the data. This is a much more technologically feasible way to doing things, and would take the question out of how to avoid problems of blocking older computer hardware. However, as the article does point out, this would mean that if/when DVD-R are used as a recording medium for digital TVs, current DVD models won't be able to play them due to strong encryption.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Hollywood will simply buy the distribution rights for non-native sales. Not that Bollywod films sell much outside of India anyway.
You already see this happening in Hong Kong. Used to be 3-4 distributors releasing DVDs region free. People would import these into the US for sale. Recently these distributors went down to 1 or 2 and have begun restricting distribution. It is alleged Disney is behind this as a means to control distribution outside of Asia. They certainly clamped down on online stores in the US that sold the region free DVD versions of Shaolin Soccer and Warriors of Zu, both films that Miramax (Disney subsidiary) bought the North American rights to.
No doubt when Disney deigns to release these on DVD in North America they will be region 1 only, have edits from the original and be crippled in other ways. This despite the fact that the Region Free versions are available outside the US.
"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.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
mod chips.
If I understand corectly part of the protection systems recording/studios companies are proposing is based on hardware right ?
and IIRC there's mod chips in the market that allow game consoles (Xbox, PS2, GC, etc) to play DVD from any area, boot copied disks and stuff.
now I ask you, how hard it'll be for a mod chip maker to produce a dirty cheap component that defeats the studios/recorders stupidity ?
the question is serious. how hard it is ? can it be done in a short time frame (like a couple of months) ? and how hard such a chip would be to install ?
and as a last question: what'll prevent overseas manufacturers such as brasilian companies Gradiente and CCE from selling devices that can be unblocked via RC ?
What ? Me, worry ?
As a fellow patriotic American I'd like to politely suggest that assuming all the important decisions about media are made by the US Congress might not be accurate.
We've recently seen China and Taiwan discussing a separate DVD standard despite the fact that this appears to be totally illegal to many American observers. Now Taiwan is following in Mainland China's footsteps by insisting on free as in both beer and speech software in the government and schools.
People in the US often talk about controlling the media in ways that might not be practical no matter what kind of rhetoric is used to justify the measures. Fox's plan is fine. They've been putting watermarks on their shows for years now and so do many broadcast affiliates. But so what? Assuming that the US walks the entire digital media world around on a chain is a feel good proposition, but certainly not a realistic description of how things work in this day and age.
And as other posters have mentioned, we --here we being all Americans-- are the government. If restrictive measures are passed that result in higher costs for products that have to be customized to suit the restrictive US market, it's going to be seen as a hidden tax and that's not gonna fly too far.
These companies would be so much better off putting up their archives on the net right now and taking just enough to keep the operation profitable while they've still got the option. Sadly it looks like many of them would rather "kill every motherfucking last one of you." It's too bad they take that approach, but if that's what they want then they get what they deserve.
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.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
A technology that would allow tracking of individuals who break the law would be more acceptable than one that infringes upon the fair-use rights of law-abiding consumers.
However, shooting is a bit excessive for bootlegging, and ought to be reserved for spammers and other such varmints.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
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.
No, twenty years from now they'll call this phase the domino effect of collapsing monoplolies that led to the second Great Depression and possibly the Third World War.
The media thing isn't the cause although there is a very scarry proposition that certain flavors of politician are going to try and frame it that way because it appeals to simple minded asswipes that like to get violent on their neighbors. No, actually the media issues we're seeing today aren't causes, they're effects.
The cause of all this controversy isn't people sharing information as they have in all great civilizations. No, this one-sided tempertantrum that gets framed as a supposed controversy is actually the effect of the creation of monopoly powers unseen since before the previous depression. It's not just the media companies by any means look at Microsoft and now look at Citigroup. Holy shit. We've set ourselves up for a hell of a fall by voting for generations of conservative asshole politicians who's primary skills were appeasing monopolies and bad mouthing liberals. The only reason the media element of this mess gets so much attention is because it's the freakin' media. However, the problem we're facing with un-American monopoly business practices is a vast cancer on the entire nation.
Investment banking, re-insurance and the largest financial institutions in the nation have grown so large they're totally beyond oversight and are currently riddled with scandals. Indeed, organizations like Citi and BofA are no longer properly considered banks at all, but financial services agencies distributing their risks through derivatives so complex that they require teams of physics PhDs to maintain. If you don't smell a shell game here then god bless your kind heart. I for one am wary.
Did I mention Moore's Law just ended? Mask costs at TSMC, UMC just went up by a factor of 10. Game over.
The only way that I can see this working is with a new standard for gateway digital devices that will pass content only to other devices of the same class, and (I suspect) over a proprietary, non-IP network. Then (whatever actual encoding is used) there's going to be an identifying watermark that the receiving device must look for. It will either be a simple identifier (so that you can copy from one PVR to another if you plug them together) or a "copy never" bit so that you can stream it to another PVR, but this second PVR will not make a copy, it will only stream on to a display. Technically, there might be a "copy once" bit, but only on the original broadcast, so once it hits your PVR, it's "copy never". If it's the former case, and you can make copies by plugging two PVR's together, I think that's fair enough, because I can take my PVR round to my brother's house and make a copy of Buffy for him. That's raising the bar far enough, as it effectively restores the situation that case law has decided is fair use: making a few copies explicitely for known friends and family. However, that theory is replete with flaws. For one, it doesn't match the way the industry has been going. It's far more likely (I suggest) that it will be a "copy never" bit, and only local streaming will be allowed. For another, there's still that bloody great gaping hole at the tail in either case: sending to a display. Because unless the display also has to be one of these new devices, you just stream to a video capture card, then it's straight onto the internet with the content, and people will download it and stream it to their own non-compliant display devices. That's the sting. It has to cover display devices (TV's, monitors) and it has to be mandatory. Don't think this will stop with PVR's. For it to have even a hope in hell of making a difference, every display device sold will have to be compliant, and it will have to refuse to show content without the watermark. That means that PC video cards will also have to watermark their content. You see where this is going? It snowballs pretty rapidly. But unless they get everything, there's little point in them pushing ahead with it. To support this rather alarmist attitude, ask yourself this: if this is truly an industry consensus, why does it need to be legislated?. I suggest that the answer is that for it to work, it has to be mandatory, and it has to be across the board: every channel, every cable decoder, every PVR, every TV, every monitor, every video card, every DVD player, every VCR. Everything. Wake up, the coffee is brewing. This is Son of SSSCA, yet again. They're just hoping nobody notices this time until it's too late. Please, please, get out that pen and paper, and ask your elected representatives to have a good, long, hard look at this, because it has the potential to be as bad as you can possibly imagine, and then a whole lot worse.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Consumers have the final say. Don't like what's being offered? Don't buy it (and don't steal it).
Actually, he was from Connecticut, but he worked in LA or SF