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EFF And MPAA On Broadcast Flags
mpawlo writes: "Greplaw reports that a broadcast flag is a digital tagging technique used for television programs distributed through digital TV stations. The broadcast flag is used as information stating that the program may not be redistributed. It is not your everyday digital watermarking technique. The idea is to mandate a standard for a broadcast flag. The content providers, through The Motion Picture Association ('MPAA'), will most likely aim for the standard to be lobbied into a law through The Broadcast Protection Discussion Group. Hence, the law would require all hardware able to play the digital TV content to carry broadcast flag equipment (not playing unmarked content). The Electronic Frontier Foundation ('EFF') fears that a law stipulating the standard would threaten creativity. The MPAA has published a list of frequently asked questions ('FAQ') regarding broadcast flags. The EFF has commented the MPAA FAQ."
People who do bulk pirating can get rid of that kind of protection easily. At the extreme, they would do one step of analog copying, then put it back into digital for an unlimited number of generations.
I agree it does seem a bit pointless. It's already illegal to record something and make 50,000 copies of it for sale in Taiwan, so how does this flag help anything? They want to make recording to VCR illegal, just because the recording media happens to be hard disk rather than magnetic tape?
Since it's digital it's also trivial to remove said flag, so it won't even slow the pirates down, let alone stop them.
Where are you?
Once they lock down electronic media, they will want to plug "the analog hole."
We are in the middle of a slow descent back into illiteracy. It's no economics and lack of education driving it. It's the people in control. They want to control you, the information you can get, and how you can use that information.
Broadcast news is insipid, but print is a little better, for now. This is largely because it's easier to spot stupidity in written form, when you're not distracted by boobies, animated graphics and short sound/video clips.
Once you can't control your electronic entertainment anymore, because of DRM, broadcast tags, Fritz Hollings's legislation, Palladium, etc., what will you do?
Newspapers and books? How long will those be allowed to exist in their current forms? Paper?!?! How insecure! There will be e-books and e-paper, as in Minority Report. And you won't have control over those either.
In Minority Report, there was scene of a guy on a train reading an "E-USA Today." The front page, which he was reading, changed to the Official Story about the A-Large PreCriminal without the reader requesting it. The reader was told what to read.
Who doubts that this will not be turned into reality?
The problem with science fiction is that it's pretty depressing. So much of it depicts a totalitarian future of some sort. These stories capture and guide the imaginations and creative energy of the current and future generations of designers and engineers. How long have people been working on making things they've seen in Star Trek and Star Wars? And more depressing works, like Minority report?
It's all very anti-freedom, anti-citizen, and stupid.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Broadcast flags will do absolutely nothing to deter the Internet trading of copyrighted broadcast video. Anybody interested in publishing recorded video will just use known hacks to extract video from their Tivo or other recording device.The flags may deter Joe Sixpack from copying a recorded video, but Joe is not the person who publishes original videostreams to filesharing networks anyway.
As with the RIAA, the MPAA is using filesharing as a pretense to make a big powergrab over their potential competitors.
They want to be recognized as the only legitimate video content publishers, thus locking out potential upstart competitors that may be empowered by new video distribution networks.
And they want to dictate all terms to consumer electronics manufacturers, who in many cases are their direct competitors. It becomes much easier to shut out electronics manufacturers that are not part of the MPAA when you are drafting the legislation that governs their rules of business.
Q: Even if the motion picture and other industries come up with a system to protect this content with a broadcast flag, the security technology will just be broken into and made worthless in a very short time. Given that, whats the point?
MPAA answer: It is unfortunate that some people may attempt to illegally hack or break into this security system. However, even if a few are successful, the flag will not be worthless. Most people are honest and will not attempt to circumvent the flag.
So if most people are honest and will not attempt to circumvent the flag, why not just trust the people not to do the horrible, dishonest deeds this measure wants to prevent?
The only intent of the broadcast flag is to restrict the unauthorized redistribution of broadcast content in order to insure that high value content will be made available to consumers over free TV
If the flagged content is going to be free, why are they so concerned about "unauthorized redistribution" of it?
The trend I am talking about is the recent trend of organizations who supply services and/or content are no longer thinking about what the recipients of that service want? The MPAA and RIAA are continuously aiming for more restrictive controls, legislation, and whatnot. This just does not make sense to me. How can it be possible that an organization whose sole purpose is to make money by supplying consumers with what they want no longer be paying attention to what the consumers want? It baffles me, that they are now attempting to lock-in the recipient of their services, rather than adapt and give the recipient what they want.
Why is it that organizations so huge can become so blatantly selfish? Without consumers, they cannot make money -- their ultimate goal. Yes this is also selfish, but not in the same sense that they are no longer paying attention to what is wanted of them. They have been forced with a situation where consumers wants have changed, and they can no longer continue to make money doing what they currently do. They have to options, keep giving the consumers what they are getting now -- but what they no longer want. Or, give them what they want.
The choice they chose is obvious.
It is just disturbing how organizations like this have lost so much respect for the buying public.
That is what will happen with this. Some electronic companies are going to release recorders that will bypass the compliance requirement once they relize that the compliant recorders are not selling well(who is going to buy a recorder that can't record anything?).
But if the MPAA get their legislation through, won't it be illegal to own a non-compliant device?
Will the new players be able to play unmarked video content? If not, I cannot view my own library of home videos I have created of my family. I will also be unable to electronically distribute my videos, even if I should desire to do so. Given the popularity of the "Reality TV" shows these days that depend on home video and security camera footage, this could be a problem for the TV networks looking for shows to broadcast.
Will I be able to mark my content in the same manner as the big studios do? If I cannot, then this "broadcast flag" becomes a means for the current content providers to effectively ban any new competition.
Will I be able to obtain technical details of the new flag in order that I may create my own recording/playback equipment that is compliant with this? If not, then it becomes a means of creating a monopoly in the consumer electronics market. If I can get the technical information, it becomes a joke as that same information would make it trivially easy to defeat the broadcast flag at will.
Now that it's virtually dead, I went to buy a Playstation recently, in order to play lots of old Square games.
I'm a Brit, and I have friends in the states, so I was planning on having them ship me some games (Chrono Trigger, etc, stuff you can't get here *at all*).
Now, I had a choice. I could not be able to play any import games, even ones that I purchased, or were purchased for me, or I could get my Playstation modded. I chose the latter.
Now, temptation wise, if somebody offers me a copied game, I probably won't say no. If they hadn't put stupid region locks on, I would probably never have bothered - it's nice to be honest sometimes, but since they force me to mod it in the first place, then it means odds are I will end up pirating something.
Everyone of these protections can be circumvented in the end - and if it's pushed too far (as with DVDs) you will turn a substantial proportion of your customers into criminals (or at the very least, people who are happy to change the way your system works)....
The consumerism goes beyond that. Consumerist culture says that if you want something you should have to pay for it, and if you're not willing to pay for it, you don't want it. That there is nothing to gain by making things available for free (ever heard of a library?).
I don't even think all of these technological measures enforcing copyright would be so terrible, if after 12 years, all copyrighted works would be available for all.
Our copyright laws are outdated. They were created in a time when there was no such thing as a free book, or a free movie, because there were printing costs, and there was a natural scarcity to these products. So no one was really hurt too much by giving the author exclusive right to sell it. But now we are imposing artificial scarcity onto art, locking it up forever, just to squeeze an extra 10% of revenue out of it, and preventing 99.9% of people who would've seen it if it were free, from seeing it at all.
But it will most certainly stop your average cheapass parent from recording Sesame Street for their little brats!
A lot of people will no longer have the option to be a casual pirate. It's either buy the damn stuff, break a harsher new law, or go without.
Exactly. Apparently "honesty" here is defined as technical inability to break the copy protection AND lack of any friends or contacts who are able to break the copy protection.
Hey MPAA, DVDs already have copy protection, and that doesn't stop them from being swapped on P2P file sharing systems, IRC, FTP servers, and person to person via burner (just like floppies in the old days). Do you really think that this will be better than DVD/CSS security?
BTW I was in Fry's Electronics yesterday and was astonished to see how cheap the various CD-RW and DVD-R/RW/whatever drives are (hadn't bothered to look at prices for a while). Remember the days (late 80s) when the main mode of copying software was floppy swap meets? One person cracked the copy protection, then folks physically went over to someone else's house where they made a copy for each person who then went home and did the same thing. CD-R[W] drives and media are in a similar price range now, and I see the same thing happening with CDs that I saw with floppies years ago. It's totally feasible to go over to your friend's house, bring a PC or two with you, and sit there and burn 100 or more CDs at a time.
This is just a historical reminder about why copy protection is a foolish endeavor. The only difference between nobody being able to copy something and everybody being able to copy something is that one guy who cracks it. If you know anybody who has acquired a cracked copy, then everybody you know can get one.
It's kinda like buying illegal drugs - if you want them, and you know somebody you trust who has them, you can get them. I bet that for every person who is sure they couldn't get them (and thus that the drug war is being won) there is a friend who can get them whom they just haven't bothered to ask yet. Hello, entertainment industry, welcome to your own private drug war. I can't wait to pay taxes for cops to put DVD copiers in jail right next to potheads.