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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."
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.
...protecting content, broadcast or otherwise, will spur the availability of high definition content and thus spur innovation for the systems, devices and services needed to deliver and support them in a broadband environment.
They sure love the word spur, which is derived from the term used to kick the shit out of a horse to get it going. A spur is a sharp instrument worn on the ankle of an abusive cowboy to beat a tired horse into submission.
Is this what the MPAA has in store for consumers? Wouldn't you love to have the MPAA spur your living room technology?
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.
The last point of the EFF FAQ:
Q: When the broadcast flag is implemented, can I record any TV program with my existing digital player/recorder and watch it later at more convenient time?
MPAA answer: Yes. If you own an early model digital player/recorder, you will be able to record and playback time-shifted digital recordings of flagged broadcasts. These digital recordings will also play on legacy DVD players. However, when Broadcast Flag-compliant DTV receivers are introduced in the marketplace, their recordings will only play on other compliant players and not on older (legacy) devices. Of course, you can still record and playback digital programs with any existing analog videocassettes recorders/players. The broadcast flag does not affect what you have been able to do in the analog world.
EFF comment: This answer confirms that "Compliant" devices produced under the BPDG-proposed rules are less capable than current-generation devices.
i wonder if they also record device-specific information. like preventing me to watch a movie i recorded at my friend's house (digitally of course)
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 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.
They go on to say what seems like... aw who cares. There's so much in that FAQ that just makes me want to grab one of their execs, throw em in a chair, and grill them about what they actually believe. Crazy stuff.
The whole thing smells like (is) propaganda, but that's the age we live in.
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)....
From the notes at the end of "Right to Read": Well, it's been proposed now. It's called "Palladium." What's a good non-computer career that pays well?
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
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.
You don't mean "already". You mean "currently (despite the efforts of the MPAA)".
2001: US prerecorded videocassette sales are approximately $4 billion.
I Pledge allegiance to the broadcast flag of the Motion Picture Association of America, and to the restrictions for which it stands; one copyright, restricted, with freedom of access for none.
Flout 'em and scout 'em,
and scout 'em and flout 'em;
Thought is free. - Shakespeare [The Tempest]