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FCC Considers Mandating HDTV Copy Protection
HeavenlyWhistler writes "The Washington Post reports
that the FCC will make a ruling this month on whether or not to mandate
that all HDTV receivers implement copy protection when a 'broadcast flag'
is detected in the received television signal. Movie and TV studios
are pushing for this in an attempt to limit consumers' home-recording rights.
An October
8 article states that CBS, under orders from Viacom CEO Mel Karmazin,
has threatened to stop all HDTV broadcasts unless the broadcast flag is
approved. While the comment period on the proposal (Docket 02-230) is over, the FCC web site will still let you submit
comments.
The EFF also discusses this issue."
RIAA, MPAA, now the broadcast TV industry really just don't get it: the purpose of all this digital technology is to lower the marginal cost of copying and editing information. Every copy protection scheme is doomed to fail, even in a "trusted" computing environment. At the end of the day, it's all binary data and it costs NOTHING to reproduce it. If anything, the media should be embedding advertising and so on so they can sell commercial time on the traded files. It's an opportunity.
Incidentally, there would be substantially less file swapping going on of TV shows if the networks made them available on DVD or electronically. I'd love to be able to go FOX and buy the episode of the Futurama I missed the other night for a reasonable - considering it was free on the air price.
I hope congress and the FCC see Viacom's threat to halt HDTV broadcast for what it is: an attempt to ursurp the governement's power. In fact, I hope we all wise up to the increasing granularity of intellectual property and reverse that trend. At the end of the day, the people will wise up to it and the people absolutely will limit intellectual property rights.
-- $G
WHEN are these media people going to finally realise that if you can see it or hear it you can snag it ?
Stop the HDTV push?
And give up all that money from spectrum allocation and sales?
Sorry, can't stop laughing. Um no.
--Dan
The industry doesn't see how stupid this is. Many shows get popular _because_ people tape them and trade tapes. Many other shows are on in terrible time slots, but thanks to VCRs, they get viewers.
I would guess that half of daytime TV viewers watch it by taping it and watching later.
LordBodak's journal.
Not to mention the fact that you create a situation where a pirated copy of a show off the Internet is more useful than the official broadcast version.
These days lots of people download cracks to games they legally own just to get around the hassle of digging out the CD every time they play it.
No matter what happens, somebody will always be able to pirate the data stream, and only one person has to leak it for it to get spread all over the Internet. The TV broadcasters make their money when a show is first aired, and they make it with the convience factor. The VCR didn't kill TV, and the DVD+/-R(W)(AM) won't kill HDTV either. However, making all your early adopters toss their hardware just might.
If HDTV is going to have built-in copy-protection, then the simple result is that I'm not going to buy a HDTV. If this law passes, they're going to crush the market for HDTV before it ever takes off. Not to mention, the only reason I watch ANY TV is because I have a TiVo which lets me watch the shows I want when I want to. TV isnt important enough to me to schedule my life around. These anti-copy technologies more often hurt the people honestly using them. Like the ACC MP3s you buy from iTunes- it's supposed to only prevent you from making tons of duplicates of the same CD, but instead it's a constant hassle- it wont record at all onto CDs. The same goes for the recent case where TurboTax pissed off millions of customers with its copy protection. And finally, as someone so rightly said, if it can be seen or heard, it can be and will be recorded.
Yeah, I'd have to pick my jaw up off the floor if the FCC actually rejected this. They've gotten so bad about pandering to the media companies, even Congress has had to slap them down.
And this will kill HDTV. It's having a hard enough time as it is. If you can't record it, to watch shows when you want, it's not worth the money. The media companies want things to go back to the way they were in the 70's, before VCR's, when everybody rushed home to catch the evening news and Hawaii Five-O. Sorry, that square peg ain't going in that round hole.
So they're afraid of piracy? Well, I suppose killing HDTV is one way of shutting off a potential source of it. Bit like burning down the garage to keep somebody from stealing your car.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
When considered from the perspective of my TV viewing habits, this whole HDTV + copy protection gets to be rather funny.
I stopped watching most over the air broadcasts early in 2003. The shows have become less than mediocre, and I have lost my patience with the overabundance of unentertaining commercials (even if they were entertaining, the frequency with which the interrupt the primary mood and flow of the main show render them extremely annoying very quickly, usually after the first showing).
With the increasing frequency of the few good shows now being released on DVD, I can watch them at my leisure completely uninterrupted and at excellent quality. This further reduces my desire to watch even those shows over broadcast TV.
Even though I make a good living, I am quite miserly with my money. I have to spend time considering whether watching TV is worth even the few hundred dollars needed to buy a new analogue TV when my existing one dies. Spending thousands of dollars on an HDTV set is laughable. Nothing on TV or DVD is good enough to justify spending anywhere near that much on a mere viewing station (which is all a TV set really is).
This is where the media broadcasters become hilarious from my perspective. They want me to spend thousands of dollars on a viewing station that makes me endure the worst parts of broadcast TV (annoying commercials), won't let me store and watch the broadcasts at my leisure, and won't let me edit out the commercials (which is what I do with my VCR via the pause button on those occasions I actually watch and record broadcast TV).
So HDTV essentially boils down to being nothing more than an extraordinarily expensive DVD player minus all the benefits a DVD player provides, and minus most of the benefits that we currently have with analogue TV broadcasts (with transmission clarity being the only remaining benefit if you're willing to endure a high degree of even clearer crap).
Pardon me if I don't rush out to buy this garbage, and instead scratch my head wondering why anyone would want to buy into this. I already have better things to do with my time, so TV broadcasters have to provide an extreme incentive to pull me to the TV. Instead, they seem to be doing everything in their power to drive me away; so I shrug and do things other than watch TV.
This in turn saves me money on products I don't buy due to advertising exposure, even on those rare occasions where the advertising makes me aware of something that I would actually want.
The only downside is that legislation protecting these nearly worthless digital broadcasts would also adversely restrict the usefulness of other digital products that I would want.
The broadcast industry is in a transition right now to digital TV. That transition is supposed to take place by 2006/2007. At that point, stations are supposed to stop broadcasting legacy analog. In other words, your TV will no longer pick up any TV stations over the air.
Most HDTVs do not have a tuner built in. They also will not be able to pick up any signals.
In walks the digital (HDTV) decoder/receiver box. The content industry wants control of this box. They are trying to force manufacturers to lock the user out of any control of the signal, including any recording. They are pusing to force the manufacturers of decoder boxes to force down the resolution of any analog non content control outputs.
Now why would they do this? They claim it is so that people will not have "perfect" copies of their content like movies, TV shows, etc. They claim this is necessary due to the ability to copy and distribute content so readily.
The real reason is if they control the entire distribution system, they can control prices. They can sell you the same content over and over, just like they sold you the same tapes you bought on CD and soon SACD/DVDA, just like they sold you the same content you own on video on DVD and soon to be the HD-DVD.
Additionally, they don't want you to be able to record any programs to watch at your leisure, fast forward through, or skip commercials on (unless of course they control that feature and charge a usage fee).
This is a big deal. The content industry if unchecked, will make legacy HDTVs not function properly (low rez).
Okay, so you have a HDTV satellite receiver? Think you're immune? Think again. Who is really in control? You don't have control of your receiver. Only under the graces of the broadcaster does your equipment function. Just like cable, they can force an upgrade at any time which will render your equipment useless, or will charge additional fees for functionality.
The end goal of the content industry is total control of all content, where end users only license material and do not own anything. The industry would love to engage in discriminatory pricing, price fixing, artificial scarcity, etc.
And this would be one step in that direction. All they would need is some quirky US law that makes it illegal to bypass their control...
end of transmission.