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Commerce Dep't to Hold Public Workshop on DRM

Posted by timothy on from the digital-rights-bottleneck dept.

ttyp writes: "The United States Department of Commerce Technology Administration (TA) announced a public workshop on digital entertainment and rights management. They're taking public comments here according to the announcement, but they sure have hidden it well. Can anybody find the form? The deadline is July 11!!"

6 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. Just show up by KrazyFool · · Score: 3, Informative

    FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Further information relevant to the substantive issues to be addressed by this workshop may be obtained from Chris Israel Deputy Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy, Technology Administration, (202) 482-5687. Limited seating will be available to members of the general public. It is recommended that persons wishing to become general public attendees arrive early, as seating will be first come, first served.

  2. National Medal of Technology by pmsyyz · · Score: 3, Informative

    From http://www.ta.doc.gov/Medal/default.htm

    The National Medal of Technology is the highest honor bestowed by the President of the United States to America's leading innovators.

    Guess who won it in 1992?

    http://www.ta.doc.gov/Medal/Recipients.htm#1992

    William H. Gates, III., Microsoft Corp.
    For his early vision of universal computing at home and in the office; for his technical and business management skills in creating a world-wide technology company; and for his contribution to the development of the personal computer industry.

    Competition crushing monopolists sure promote innovation.

    --
    Phillip
    1. Re:National Medal of Technology by SwedishChef · · Score: 4, Informative

      In 1992 Bill Gates deserved the medal. His vision of computing was much more coherant than the visions of other industry leaders of that time. Take into account some of these factors:

      1. This was before the Internet. Sure, some people in universities and some large corporations had Internet access... but mostly it didn't exist. If we wanted to communicate we used bulletin boards (like FidoNet) and 300bps modems;

      2. This was before Linux and in the infancy of the GPL;

      3. Unix was fragmented into dozens of incompatible versions each of which was priced out of the reach of mortal users (over $1,000 for SCO Xenix, as an example);

      4. Novell owned the small business network environment and charged over $1,000 for their operating system;

      5. Virtually no one had any idea what email was or why they'd need it.

      In this period of time Gates appeared to be leading us out of the wilderness of Big Computing Iron and giving us what we wanted (and needed). Who could have seen then the course MS would take in the years after this award?

      --
      No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
  3. Form by rgbrenner · · Score: 2, Informative
    Did the submitter even read the workshop announcement? From the announcement:

    DATES: This workshop will be held on July 17, 2002, from 1 p.m.-4 p.m.

    ADDRESSES: The workshop will be held at the Herbert C. Hoover Building,
    1401 Constitution Avenue, NW., Room 4830, Washington, DC. Entrance on
    14th between Pennsylvania and Constitution Aves., NW.
    In other words: There is _NO_ form.
  4. Re:Remember: Write... And Be Polite! by Amizell · · Score: 2, Informative

    Coincidentally I had just typed up a nice message for the customer service department at MusicNet. I thought it was only fair that I check out their service, just in case it might be a viable product. Not to worry: upon examination it's just as bad as it seems like it would be. This note may be one notch less than polite but they are valid questions that the industry needs to address.

    Hi. Just a few questions:

    1. You fail to mention the bit rate of your content anywhere on the site. 128k I assume? Or worse?
    2. You don't offer any way for me to see what I might want to download from your catalog. How do I know if you have what I want (hint: it's not necessarily Britney and nsync). If you don't have the song I'm looking for do I have any other option besides going to four or five other major label marketing machine sites until I happen on the one that has the music I want? Then I have to register again, download another client, pay again, etc...??
    3. How does your software enable CD burns and rips that are "faster than ever"? I thought my drive limited the burn and rip speeds and my CPU limited the encoding speed.
    4. What happens if a download stops before it is finished? Do I get my download credit back? What if I don't like the song?
    5. What if I DO like the song? Can I get a higher quality version without going to Tower? Can I burn anything I might hear on your site? Even streams?
    6. Does your software collect any information about me, my listening or my surfing habits? Can it be disabled? Is it going to install some inane and unecessary "download manager" which will play commercials without asking me while taking up loads of my precious screen real estate? Can it be easily uninstalled without ending my subscription?
    7. Is the video content encoded in an unbearably small resolution with a low frame rate and accompanied by tinny low bitrate sound? Can I fast forward and rewind at a reasonable speed? Why shouldn't I just turn on my TV? Can you make sure it doesn't drop out while I'm watching? I hate that.
    8. Why would a consumer want to shell out $10 a month for a product that is of inferior quality compared to an ordinary CD? If I buy the CD then I can do what I want with it, including backing it up for security, giving it to my friends on a mix tape, digitally encoding it without DRM in any format and quality I want, urinating on it, etc... I would NEVER put it online. But I could do all that other stuff without breaking the law, right?

    If anybody there can give me some reasonable answers I will plunk down my money for a month right now. It looks to me like your service is highly limited, expensive for what it is and inconsiderate of my personal privacy.

    Alex Mizell
    Atlanta, GA
    music fan, sound engineer, dj


    Don't even THINK about adding me to a mailing list. I opt out.

    --
    --- Wherever you go, everyone is always connected...
  5. not the first... by kubla2000 · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is not the first such workshop that has been held.

    The previous was held on December 17, 2001: http://www.ta.doc.gov/PRel/MA011214.htm

    Participants included all the usual suspects including the MPAA, RIAA, Microsoft, and Intel

    Interestingly, one of the participants was Forrester Research who, in their public archives which unfortunatly only has summaries available, include several reports such as:

    http://www.forrester.com/ER/Research/Report/Summar y/0,1338,10020,FF.html

    whose summaries with punch line conclusions like "Media companies turn into eBusiness network" alone would have been enough to curl the nose hairs of any movie / recording industry executive still stuck in the 90s (1990s that is).