Slashdot Mirror
New Yorkers Get a Taste of Digital Restrictions
InfoMinister writes "From SiliconValley.com, another peek into the future of Digital Rights Manglement. A software conflict at the set-top invoked copy restrictions on all unscrambled digital TV programming delivered to Cablevision's 3 million subscribers in metropolitan New York."
This isn't DRM in action, this is a plain and simple case of a bug. Sure some channels are "open" but they still need to be decoded by something. The config or code or whatever it is was done incorrectly so all channels were scrambled.
This isn't getting a taste of DRM, its the digital equivalent of your analogue signal being blocked by bad weather or the antenna falling off the roof.
DRM already exists on cable, that is exactly what subscribing to HBO is about, so they already have experience of it. This however is giving them the same experience on their TV that they know and love on their Windows box... failure.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Maybe it wasn't a glitch so much as it was a test of the system to see if it would work.
Cablevision isn't stupid - they can see the coming of the DRM Age, and a quick test to see how many people were affected by it now will help them guage the response when DRM is required.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
I'm not sure I see "the future of digital rights management" in this situation. The future IS that you will find more restrictions on what you can copy (barring court rulings that uphold consumer rights in the digital age). However, I think the idea that we won't ever be able to record any digital show (as seems to be suggested by this article) is a bit extreme. There are too many giant electronics companies that make big money off selling home video recorders -- they won't go quietly. Likewise, Joe Consumer WILL get up in arms if he can't record one football game on one channel while watching another on a second. Will we enjoy all the same freedoms that we currently enjoy? Doubtful. Will we find all our rights gone in the digital age? That's doubtful too.
The article points less to the future than to the present: software bugs keep people from being able to do what the set out to do. That's nothing new...
Life is short: void the warranty.
From the article:
``The content industry denies it will affect how consumers watch, enjoy and record television,'' said Kraus. ``
Isn't that exactly what the feature is designed to do? If it won't affect how we watch, enjoy and record television shows, then why did they invent it?
Yes, I know that the article goes on to say it is mainly for Pay-per view events and such, but it clearly has far wider potential, and it wouldn't have been designed this way if they didn't have the intention of using it to "Affect the way we watch, enjoy and record Telvision shows"..
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
> Cablevision has raised rates everytime I look at the bill. Don't get me wrong, Optimum Online is very fast and nice and few problems occur. But lately, between Cable and the Modem and an $80+ cable bill every month, I'm getting very close to switching back to basic broadcast television.
Don't fear the rabbit ears.
I ditched premium cable ages ago, for exactly the reason you describe. More recently my apartments quit carrying basic cable, so I went out and found a pair of rabbit ears. I haven't regretted it.
Yes, there's hardly anything on but trash, but there's still more on than I ought to spend the time watching. I get ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, WB, and PBS. If they each only have two hours of fun stuff per week, that's still a whopping 12 hours eaten out of my 112 waking hours per week.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
"The future looks like the world where you press record and it doesn't work and you don't know why. You no longer control the media you pay for." - Some guy who can't record.
Well.. I hate to break it to this guy, but you've never _really_ controlled the media you pay for. Your only control is the very limited ones the media companies afford you under extremely narrow conditions. Step outside of the bounds of those conditions and you are now a pirate according to the powers that be.
- Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
Hey Cablevision! Before you start alienating your viewers with all this DRM hoo-hah, maybe you should consider letting them watch the Yankee games without going to a sports bar.
Cablevision has refused to carry the YES Network since the beginning of the season, resulting in many fans becoming pissed off and a booming demand for satellite service. And yet they still have the balls to run commercials saying how customers need crappy Long Island news channels and boring local programming instead of a popular sports team.
If I end up living and working on Long Island, I'd consider Cablevision for their cable modem service alone. Give me a dish any day.
For more information, click here.
Can we cut the crap here and start calling them Digital Restriction Mechanisms or something. If the whole of slashdot starts doing it, then maybe other sites/media will take it up. If anyone asks you what it stands for its not Rights Management, this is a cheap marketing tactic, dont let then get away with it.
This is pretty offtopic i know..
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Cablevision says it does not prevent recording on more familiar consumer devices, such as a videocassette recorder or a Tivo-like digital video recorder
Really means.. Oh the analog hole and the Tivo that we don't have control over (yet). If they could take it away they would take it away. I suppose Macrovision might accidently slip its way into the cable lines next. This is a perfect example of what rights you are losing due to the media cartels. What are your advantages to using this?
He says rules are designed to reflect home use -- while addressing piracy fears that prevent Hollywood from releasing more high-quality content
Another twisted comment. So I guess for the last 20+ years that the VCR has been around, Hollywood has been holding off on quality content because they knew it would be copied. Now that there is suddenly a chance of controlling it, the really good actors and directors that were "holding out" are going to start making shows. I do not foresee any change of the quality of programming based on this.
And the movie studios and broadcasters ultimately get to decide what shows to protect
If this concept is FULLY explained to the potential consumer and not hidden as a footnote on page 25 it will not sell! Why would you pay hundreds of dollars for a piece of equipment that has a strong chance of not recording what you really want to record in high quality digital?
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
There's one point the DRM opponents should be harping on here. The industry has claimed that there's provisions in the systems that insure fair-use rights can't be restricted. The 5C rep says the same in the article. Yet, here we have it, those rights that were supposedly protected were shut down completely at the accidental flip of a switch. DRM opponents should drive home the fact that this shows that those provisions aren't any insurance that fair-use rights can't be interfered with, they're merely a promise by the industry that while they can shut down fair use any time they want they won't actually do it. If they decide to go back on that promise, maybe because a major studio decided to twist their arms, the people affected have no recourse and no way to recover their fair-use rights.
Keep hammering home that point.
Isn't that this happened. IT's that "digital" technology as it's been implimented has been done in such a way as to KEEP any control from the consumer.
With an analog cable TV, an analog VCR can be used to record anything from it you want.
Not so with digital. I believe it's unethical to sell something to someone and then tell them how they can use it AFTER the sale...
Frankly, if we ever have a chance to wake up rageing hordes to burn down the offices of Jack Valenti and Hillary Rosen, the two individuals we have to thank for the fact that DTV has been implimented in this way, it will be the day that Joe Blow can't record a show or movie from TV.
This is a "right" that most people have enjoyed since the 1980's. It's something nearly everyone has done, even the most nontechnical. Once taken away, they WILL react.
Corporatism != Free Market
Anyway, that's been my experience, I'm no longer paying $45 CAN for crummy service and only about 5 channels of worthwhile content in a 100.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
An attorney for the consortium of technology companies that developed the 5C copy-protection technology said just the opposite is true. He says rules are designed to reflect home use -- while addressing piracy fears that prevent Hollywood from releasing more high-quality content.
Hollywood doesn't realize that piracy is rampant right now because it's not worth paying for the good-quality copy. They're very foolishly making a chicken-and-egg problem out of this when they dont' need to be: Consumers say "If you don't make quality stuff we'll just pirate it because it's not worth paying for." and Hollywood says "We're not going to make quality stuff if consumers aren't going to pay for it.
To put it more simply, I paid for "Fellowship of the Ring". I downloaded "Dude, Where's My Car?"
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
...perhaps DRM will lead to a new renaissance in reading. Books, you know? Nice, analog, books. No mod chip required.
With a cable subscription, you're subscribing. You have not purchased the content being provided. You have not purchased any exclusive or specific right to make recordings of that content.
I doubt they're pulling a bait-and-switch by signing up customers with promises of utter IP freedom before locking down restrictive clauses. Read the fine print in the contracts, I'm sure it already states that many forms of copying may not be legally allowed, technically feasible or not.
Broadcast television viewers have even less right to complain: nobody sold you anything but the TV, which yes you bought on the good faith that there would be broadcasts for it to receive. Stations which put these signals into the air have zero obligation to you on what they have to let you do with the contents of those signals.
Perhaps Hollywood has already won by converting the masses to media consumers rather than just witnesses: when was the last time you bothered to record (rather than purchase) a broadcast movie? television show?
Neither are particularly worth the hassle any more - if they are, get a Tivo. The point being that media has a very short shelf-life anymore, people don't spend so much energy revisiting collections of TV shows they've taken from the airwaves over the years; even these are being released in seasonal packs on DVD, which you can *then* actually by and claim your fair use rights about.
The Simpson's have hit the nail on the head again:
CBG: "As a loyal viewer, I feel they owe me." Bart: "What? They've given you thousands of hours of entertainment for free. What could they possibly owe you? If anything, you owe them."
Any spoon would be too big.