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MPAA vs. Television
Today brings several articles on the MPAA's attempt to create a "broadcast flag" to kill home recording of broadcast television. Lunenburg writes "Apparently too impatient to implement the Broadcast Flag in digital media through legislative means, both Sen. Hollings and Rep. Tauzin have both sent letters to FCC Chairman Michael Powell urging him to mandate the implementation of the Broadcast Flag under FCC rules, according to the EFF's Consensus at Lawyerpoint blog." There's a CNet story about a presentation given by the MPAA to pro-business lobbying groups, and a MSNBC story about digital video recorders.
At what point in time will the government and big business understand that watermarks and "broadcast flags" will not work? I can't imagine the ammount of money spent on technology that will (and has) failed in persuit of curtailing piracy...
When will they figure out that P2P file sharing networks (not to mention IRC, which apparently they are oblivious to) won't be going away? They need to play the cards life has dealt them and figure out how to use these to their advantage or provide a system that is better and more aligned with their business (selling commercials). The world is about change, did all the radio stations get angry when they invented TV? No, they all became TV stations too!
For example, if you assume all TV brodcasts are going to be pirated. Make it easier for the people downloading these shows by providing them for free on a website and keeping the commercials in the show. If you stream them then they cannot fast forward through commercials. So you basically provide all of your content on demand with commercials (more air time for advertisers thus more expensive commercials). Personally, I'd go watch Alias streamed (if it was a good 300k stream) with commercials rather than sifting around and waiting in queues on IRC or spending days trying to get it on gnutalla. And if we are worried about modem users, they can't download pirated TV anyway, files are too large.
Just a thought.
People like Hollings for non-re-election? Perhaps we need "The Geek Lobby Page" where information about key publicly elected officials is kept.
When is Hollings up for re-election?
Who is running against him?
Are the opponents views any better?
We all grumble, complain, and flame. We also say we're too small. But have we tried yet to use tried-and-true mainstream political techniques?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.