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Hollywood Tastes New Copyright Victory - Act NOW
Geekwannabe writes "The FCC is about to pass regulations requiring all television
manufacturers to include copy-protection in any television receiver or
recorder. The 'broadcast flag' regulation is intended to allow TV
networks and broadcasters to determine which of their shows you can
record (essentially giving control of your VCR, TV and Computer back to the
broadcasters.) In order for the new, copy-restrictions to succeed
the FCC will make it illegal to manufacture or sell non-copy-protected
devices in the U.S."
...even if everything on T.V. is crap and not work recording anyway.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
A lot of slashdotters attack libertarians, but the root cause of this kind of FCC mandated regulation of your lives is your trust in big government. Both liberals and conservatives want big governmetn and what that creates is huge departments that have no accountability to anyone, except congress, and even then they are not held in check.
The FCC has no right to prevent me from buying any product I want form anyone who wants to sell it to me-- whether it has copy protection or not.
Every time you vote democrat or republican or green, you are voting for these unanswerable, unchecked government powers.
You're just reaping what you've sown.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Design the damn DRM system so that it doesn't need laws to stand on its own. Laws that exist just to ensure a company a profit because they have subpar technology are stupid.
May we never see th
Well yes, but there are several problems with laws like this:
1. They suddenly make an assumed legal activity illegal. People have come to expect that they can time-shift broadcast TV with VCRs. In fact, their right to do this has been upheld in the Sony v. Betamax case. While this can change, it hardly serves what the public wants to do with the content it receives.
2. Because of history (see 1, above), there is something that seams fraudulent about suddenly depriving people of a capability they had. I doubt that this new "feature" will be widely advertised.
3. Criminal laws are enforced at public expense. If it is impractical to enforce the law (i.e. the technology can be easily circumvented), expect either increased taxation to fund the "war on time-shifting" or selective enforcement.
don't you own your house?, what about the broadcasted waves that go through your place?. can't someone make it ilegal to broadcast copy-controlled content through his/her house?.
Difficult. Yes, you own your home, subject to eminent domain, zoning laws, and HOA covenents. But, your elected representatives explicitly permit broadcast television. About the only thing you could fight are excessive radition levels (i.e. someone getting a broadcast license and putting up a tower right beside your home -- but that doesn't happen).
In the case of cable, since you permitted the installation in the first place, you'd have no case.
i don't live in the us, but if this gets passed, it probably will spread to third world countries such as mine who are always passing laws in order to get more money lent.
Dunno. The dynamics aren't the same as with, say, the drug trade. I'd expect that similar laws would get passed by pressure from local content owners for the same reasons as in the U.S., rather than because of pressure from the U.S. government.
You could've hired me.
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not to be a dick...
ok, yeah, to be a dick:
it's not Fing piracy. there are no boats involved. "Piracy" is a PR term dreamed up by M$ to make something sound worse than it is.
Did you see the article in the register last week showing that microsoft could sell Office for $40.00 and still make a profit on it? how is this morally better than me giving my friends a copy of it when i've had to pay $400 for it?
Sitting Walrus Blog
Every six months or so I turn on a TV (or get stuck someplace where one is on & too loud to ignore. Given what I've seen the past few years, I'd be in favour of some sort of flag bit that not only prevented recording the programs, but also prevented broadcasting them in the first place.
-- MarkusQ
If they pass such a stupid law it would be the best thing that could happen to our argument. It would be a good hard slap in the face to consumers, rather than slowly boiling a frog. I hope they make the laws cross TVs and Digital VCRs, and that there is a rush of people buying the older (non-crippled) components, and then a falloff on buying as the market becomes saturated with the new devices.
Then, hopefully, someone raise their voice and make the point that it is hollywood and special interests hurting the consumer electronics and computer industry, rather than the "end-user". Say goodbye to Jack Valenti's influence in Silicon Valley.
So what does that mean for you. If you were planning on "sharing" hi-def movies over the web, you are probably out of luck (of course the multi-day downloads for a hi-def movie might also discourage you). Otherwise, this won't affect you much. When you buy your new hi-def TV, it will show you great looking hi-def video from your antenna or cable. You can still play your old video tapes and DVDs. Your new hi-def DVD player will look great.
So where is the problem? In most cases, you will be able to tape shows onto your existing VCR and TIVO as well as your nifty new hi-def VCR or TIVO. But there are several "flags" in the HDCP protocol that allow the broadcasters to either limit taping to low-def resolution or to prohibit it all together. The intent is to prevent you from making copies of hi-def DVDs or pay-per-view movies. The networks are unlikely to decide to prevent you from time-shifting, they understand it's value, but there is nothing stopping them. There has also been talk of a flag which would disable the fast-forward function (aka commercial skipper) on hi-def recorders/players. Then there are those of us who have spent thousands of dollars as early adopters and helped work the kinks out of the DTV system. If HDCP gets implemented, all existing DTV equipment becomes useless.
In many countries (such as Australia), it's just as illegal to tape broadcast TV as it is to set up a camera in a movie theater.
I see no harm in this regulation as long as it does not intrude on my fair use rights. The ability to record TV shows for free and keep the copies indefinitely is not included under "fair use". You're not even paying for it, so you have no rights to it except what the broadcasters permit you.
This is vastly different from the CBDTPA, because the latter is a cumbersome and futile scheme that would inhibit hundreds of perfectly legal things that you can do with a personal computer. The former is more akin to the regulation passed by the FCC several years ago requiring VCRs to be made so that they can not dub copy-protected video tapes.
Repeal the DMCA!
So...if the FCC is a branch of the Executive, charged with executing the laws, it isn't allowed to make laws -- regulations that incur penalties if broken -- especially laws that Congress itself is not permitted to make.
Maybe we should require anyone who wants to serve in government to pass a test on the comprehension and use of the Constitution. We'd have a smaller government in no time =8^D
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
I couldn't be farther apart from the Cato Institute! Even a liberal (me, and that doesn't mean socialist or communist) will tell you the same, it's about stomping on another's person rights and welfare because you want something.
And I damn well consider it a moral entitlement to be paid for my work. I work for you, you pay me. Ask the union movement if there was no moral dimension to their work. Sure, getting paid it's an economic matter, also, but economics is a proxy for people's welfare. Also, the artist expects to get paid when putting the item on the market. There's no right of the public to ignore the artist's wishes and impose their own idea of the way to market the artist's stuff. If the artists wanted to give away free samples, he or she would; if they don't that's their business. Don't patronizingly say your theft is good for them. That's unethical and offensive.
You say you're good about it and consider it sampling. I'm sure you delete everything you don't pay for after a while. Fine, you're rare. But that's not the consensus. Piracy is routine in some parts of the world because the law simply is unenforced, and real people besides the big bad studios lose money, and, surprise, prices for the honest buyers are higher. That is economics, but it's also offensive.
Reality check: all this copying of copyrighted stuff is pretty trivial in the scheme of things. But it's still wrong. See what % of artists you can get to agree they don't really know what they're doing, that you are smarter.