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."

Comments

From MPAA's FAQ

[dattaway]

...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?

Guy Montag!

[1010011010]

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.

Most people are honest

[SashaM]

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?

Does anyone else see this trend?

[Seekerofknowledge]

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.

Bundling up restrictions is a *bad* idea

[Anonymous Coward]

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)....

Re:Obligatory "Right to Read" Link

[1010011010]

From the notes at the end of "Right to Read":

[...] the idea that the FBI and Microsoft will keep the root passwords for personal computers, and not let you have them, has not been proposed. This is an extrapolation from the Clipper chip and similar US government key-escrow proposals, together with a long-term trend: computer systems are increasingly set up to give absentee operators control over the people actually using the computer system.

But we are coming steadily closer to that point. In 2001, Disney-funded Senator Hollings proposed a bill called the SSSCA that would require every new computer to have mandatory copy-restriction facilities that the user cannot bypass.

Well, it's been proposed now. It's called "Palladium." What's a good non-computer career that pays well?

New Pledge

[fnurb]

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.