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Predicting The End Of Digital Copying

Posted by timothy on from the we-control-the-vertical-we-control-the-horizontal dept.

prostoalex writes: "Christian Science Monitor warns about approaching era of digital prohibition. With FCC requiring the use of copy prevention mechanisms in future generations of television sets, soon 'Americans may not be able to copy a song off a CD, watch a recorded DVD at a friend's house, or store a copy of a television show for more than a day'. Of course, no article on this topic can go without a mandatory quote from Jack Valenti, who points out: 'It is not legal to make a copy of a DVD now. Everything people are doing legally today, they'll be able to do legally tomorrow'."

3 of 571 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed by Stonehand · · Score: 1, Troll

    "r14A_d00d" has joined #mp3z

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    r14A_d00d: ne1 gOt Br1tN3y?
    lan_man: Dude, she sucks, and l33t-sp33k makes you look like an idiot.
    classicist: Yeah. I've got some fine Beethoven though.
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    lan_man: Loser. :: r14a_d00d has been banned from #mp3z.

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    Only the dead have seen the end of war.
  2. Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed by God!+Awful · · Score: 0, Troll


    Sorry, but I'm not interested in maintaining the RIAAs bottom line. If they can't find a real way to make money in the digital age then they should get another job just like everyone else...
    Oh you are the worst kind of elitist. Producing movies, music, video games, and other digital products is a perfectly legitimate industry that employs millions of people. No, they shouldn't collect money from a hidden tax; they shouldn't have to. The intellectuals on /. should stop trying to rationalize the theft of their products. You are worse than people who walk up to bums on the street and tell them to get a job. You preach to people who have a job and you tell them to get a different job just because you feel like it. You know, for all the time that is spent on /. protecting academic freedoms, I would like some academics to go out and get real jobs. Why should my taxes and/or tutition fees pay for some university professor to attend a conference in Germany or to sponsor his research into breaking DVD copy protection?

    -a

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    How to rationalize theft.
  3. Re:Hrm... by ch-chuck · · Score: 0, Troll

    The problem with 'fair use' is simply that the 'honor system' of 'no I won't give away copies to friends, promise' just flat out doesn't work, at least not for a good third of consumers. Anyone who says otherwise is just practicing political postering. For example, say a grocery store operated on some communal good-will principle, where you go in and pick up what you want and leave the money at the counter as you go out with no checking of items at all. That store would lose money and go broke in a weeks for all the people who would fail to pay for the goods they take. Those who weep and wail about loss of 'fair use' are paying the price of those who hand out copies willy-nilly. The true 'fair use' advocates should go beat up on the real pirates, if they can find them. Putting copy protection on products is identical to putting anti-theft tags on pocketable good, with mirrors and cameras and pickups by the door to stop shoplifters. It's not the producers or authorities who are slowly eroding your precious freedoms, it's the petty digital criminals, period.

    Go ahead, mod it troll. In this crowd it is, but it's quite true and you know it, that's why you're going to lose fair use.

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    try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }