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Broadcast Flag All But Approved
Are We Afraid writes "The FCC is about to approve the broadcast flag for HDTV, according to Reuters. The EFF has been vocal in its disapproval, but the suits appear to be pushing ahead anyway. We may soon need an updated dystopian parable: The Right to Watch."
SPDIF (Sony Philips Digital InterFace) has a copyright bit which can be set for audio signals... has that been stopping people?
Any wall a man can build can be torn down by another man... Is it really worth all the fuss?
.: Max Romantschuk
Everyone cries about the horror of the future where we'll only be spoon-fed what they want to feed us.
What a crock. There has, and always will be, alternatives. While it's entirely appropriate for concerns to be raised now, to expect that we'll end up with some sort of "Evil Corporate Control" over what we can do with our lives is kind of paranoid, don't you think?
I mean, we COULD actually just go outside, sit in a hammock and read a book, couldn't we? Television entertains me less and less as time goes on (though I won't even try to claim I'm one of those who doesn't have one / never watches it).
I think "Right to Watch" would be a bit of a misnomer. It's much more like the "Right to Record". Nothing is going to stop anyone from watching something when it's broadcast.
But consumer advocates warn that it would make obsolete 50 million DVD players already in Americans' homes.
Why the fuzz. Haven't we all learned about mod chips by now?
"FCC to Head Off Internet Piracy of TV, Officials Say"
"It will simply prevent consumers from illegal piracy, from mass distribution over the Internet, which is the problem with the music file sharing," Kenneth Ferree, head of the FCC's media bureau, said in a telephone interview.
Ugh, this is a press release, not a news report. It makes my skin crawl just reading it. There's lots more disgusting propoganda in there, I just got ill trying to paste it and quit.
HAHAHA.
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20554
Dear Jonathan Adelstein,
Commissioner Kevin J. Martin
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20554
Dear Kevin Martin,
Commissioner Michael J. Copps
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20554
Dear Michael Copps,
Commissioner Kathleen Q. Abernathy
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20554
Dear Kathleen Abernathy,
Chairman Michael K. Powell
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20554
Dear Michael Powell,
Please allow me to take a few moments of your time in order to express my opposition to the proposed adoption of the "broadcast flag" for digital televisions. I strongly believe that this misuse of technology will do little but stifle legitimate innovation (including slowing the adoption of digital television) and infringe on the consumer's fair-use rights.
One of the most serious problems with the "broadcast flag" proposal is that it places control over marketplace innovation in the hands of the MPAA, an organization with no vested interest in innovation. In fact, the MPAA can be viewed as having more of an interest in the LACK of innovation, in that they are rooted firmly in the current technology and content distribution model. Allowing the MPAA to veto new features in digital television equipment is like giving organized crime the power to veto new wiretap laws. As a business organization, the MPAA will always act in the interest of it's members, and not the public. The result is that marketplace innovation will suffer, and consumers will have to make do with fewer features and no way to exercise their legally protected fair-use rights.
In conclusion, I urge to you avoid "broadcast flag" technology at all costs. It is a system tailor-made to appeal to the Hollywood content providers, striving to protect their distribution-based business model in the face of new technologies. Rather than adapt to the realities of the current situation, they choose to adapt the current situation to that which they desire to be reality. This situation is unworkable, in that it places unreasonable restrictions on both consumer electronics manufacturers and the consumers themselves. Please do not adopt the "broadcast flag" technology. It benefits only the MPAA, and abridges the rights of consumers.
Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
YOUR SIG HERE
Check out my eclectic infosec blog at InfoSecPotpou
Why should anyone in the world buy bottled water for $1.00 each if they can get water for pennies at home?
Closing the analog hole
Keep in mind that a two hour DTV show would be 17 gigs in size. So the broadcast flag will stop a football fan from emailing a 34 gig Superbowl DTV attachment to his cousin overseas? Those entertainment folks must have some awesome ISP support to think that the average citizen is capable of such feats.
Phoenix
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
What if Ford Motor company suddenly decided to include a clause in the contract that stipulates, something like: "if you purchase a Ford vehicle, you agree to purchase all accessory and or replacement parts from Ford Directly" ? I think you would see allot more Chevy's running arround town. let the FCC pass all the regulations they want. I for one will be sticking to Regular Tv/DVD combo, At least untill the FCC decides to make THAT illegal too.
The last Slashdot article on this topic had a post that contained the various lengths of time within which you could view a HDTV recording. After "forever" the next longest length of time was "one week".
One measly week.
Well, one week might be fine if you record something becasue you know you're going out for the night, but what the hell do you do if you're going away on a two-week vacation? What choice do you have except to miss out?
Can you imagine missing the last two weeks of 24, The West Wing, ER or whatever you're hooked on because some silly timestamped restriction is set to one week (or less)?
How do you tell your young kids that the show that you promised they could watch when they got back home from a long car journey to visit the grandparents can't be watched anymore because you exceeded the time limit? Ever tried explaining silly things like that to a screaming three year old?
Let's face it, for a lot of people, life is more hectic now than it was ten years ago. Ten years from now, it'll probably be more hectic still. What good is a timeshifting device like a VCR or a PVR if you can't timeshift with it?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Look, we know Hollywood hates TiVo. OK, more like terrified of it. Seems like this will be one way to kill a TiVo (or other similar device) foray into HDTV.
Since I have DirecTV, I'm not too worried, seeing as I got the TiVo from them... but things change...
As a veteran timeshifter (we still have programs recorded from 10 years ago that we have not watched yet), I am appalled at the notion that I might be forced to watch in realtime. I guess I'll still be using my trusty old analog VCR (or maybe older gen DVR) for some years to come. Hmmm... I wonder if broadcaster's video storage equipment will ignore this odious bit and let me record HDTV?
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
News like this will be very funny in 20 years. Incredible fuss over something as boring as simple push-entertainment.
Wake up! TV is dead. Or will be quite soon. I don't give a damn if I can watch sit-coms in high definition in 5 years and not record. I want to kill people online in high-res. I want to walk on other planets and meet interesting people in high-res.
Guess what? I already can! So good luck to broadcast technology (the name kinda says it all). A "don't copy" flag will not save you.
So what - this means nothing - .....
It will be circumvented in a matter of Days if not hours.
Now HDTV will enjoy the popularity and success in the marketplace previously reserved for SDMI! Bottom line--if "Joe Sixpack" figures out that the shiny new TV won't let him do what he does now, he won't buy it. So get out there and let him know.
Heck, don't watch TV, movies, etc too. If you cannot get what you want out of it (i.e., fair use) don't buy it. Tell everyone in Hollywood to go f*ck themselves.
--rhad, who is sick of this shit
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
Broadband killed the Broadcast.... etc, enough said. With the rate of Tech advance what difference does it make.
These broadcast flags may be a Bad Thing. But, if we all watch less TV, the world may be a better place.
More time to learn, to play, to volunteer, to socialise.
Maybe, parents will actually raise their children, take care of their households, and improve the lives of their loved-ones.
People will have the time to learn about the things their government is doing, how the politicians who represent them are acting, what the issues really are, and how to change things for the better.
Or not. I could just be dreaming.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
For years, people have been trying to replace the CD with something else for various reasons. Nothing has replaced it because for most people it is "good enough".
They have to plan for the future. When CDs came out could people rip them, encode to MP3 and share on P2P networks?
Nowdays you can find lossless rips (typically Monkey's Audio) on the edonkey2000 network. Entire (non-transcoded) DVDs are also being shared somewhere. I haven't seen this firsthand but I've seen people talking about it. It's only a matter of time before those DTV shows become easy to share. In fact smaller DTV (though not high-definition) rips are already being shared (mostly music videos).
I'm not defending the broadcast flag, and I'm sure it'll get hacked and the stuff will get shared anyways, but I can see why they're at least trying to do it.
You raise a good point. In a few more years computers will be fast enough (and the algorithms refined enough) to strip the broadcast flag and transcode to an open format at a reasonable speed. Then the networks (if they're still around) will howl about how people prefer the unencumbered formats. It won't stop internet piracy one bit, all it will do is make HDTV consumer electronics less functional, and therefore less useful (to me, at least). I know I won't be buying any of this crud, but I can't help but think that maybe that's the whole point.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Why has this been allowed to happen? Why have our "representatives" sided with big business? Whose pocket is your senator in?
It is we the people to whom belongs the broadcast spectrum, and not to fictional legal entities dictated into existence by rogue courts 160 years ago.
I tell you, we have no representatives in our government, and those who purport to be are illegitimate, for they certainly represent no one I know, old or young, slaving away for the fictional creations of sick and twisted bigots, every day of our lives.
Demand, friends, that if these entities wish the privilege to exist and go about their ways in our nation, that they submit themselves to the will and common good of the people.
That they are fictional legal entities and we are living breathing human beings is all the justification that we need, and do not let anyone tell you otherwise.
Demand that if they wish to have the right to use our broadcast spectrum, or to sell electronic devices in our great nation, that they will do so on our terms; they will allow for and not so much as move an inch to infringe upon our ability to record, replay, and redistribute what is broadcast into our homes and across all of our lands, even through our bodies.
It is our right.
It's also very unlikely anyone will every need a computer on their desk, or need more than 512KB of RAM, or more than 20MB of hard disk space or...
this is very simple to record. have the software IGNORE the copyright bit.
while this rule would allow HDTV shows to send a bit witht he signal saying it is unrecordable, it most certainly cannot mandate that recording devices mind it.
and even if congress passed a stupid law, I am sure people would bitch to high heaven if they lost the right to timeshift a recording and that provision will probably be added.
so if a show is DRMed, the TVIO just needs to know it is not allowed to send it out to a VCR....
of course the alternative is that HDTV boxes will have the ability to remove artifacts that would show up in your recordings if the copyright bit was activated....that would blow.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Of course that goes against my guiding mantra of "You can never underestimate the intellegence of the average American consumer."
if an ACT says we have that right, then it is a right.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
According to a NYT column there has been a huge drop off in the 18-24 adult male viewers the networks crave. I wonder just how much all this Broadcast Flag crap has to do with it?
"Can you imagine missing the last two weeks of 24, The West Wing, ER or whatever you're hooked on because some silly timestamped restriction is set to one week (or less)?"
If one is hooked on West Wing or ER, one has much bigger problems than the broadcast bit.
Get a life - Kill your TV.
--Slashdot: News for Turds. Stuff that Splatters.
You are thinking along the same lines that said "music CDs cannot be copied - they hold 650 Mb of information and the largest consumer hard disk out there is 250Mb! - IMPOSSIBLE TO COPY!". That is just plain wrong.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Why should anyone in the world buy if it's on the Internet
That exact same sentiment was expressed here recently in response to the Windows iTunes launch: (paraphrasing) "I'm not going to buy something when I can get it for free!"
Frankly, the honor system doesn't work, and the cheaters spoil it for all the honest 'fair use' folks, but that's the way it's always been. In the home theatre you buy a ticket, you see the movie. It's that simple. The system of 'here's the movie, suggested donation is $4' just won't work. Just ask any 'shareware' author who gets, if lucky, one payment for every 10 downloads.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Does this remind anyoneelse of the Region codes on DVD? You know, the ones that stop we watching a DVD from another region in my DVD player. Unless I eject the DVD press 1234 on the remote, then enter the region code?
What will I need to press on my new HDTV recorder to ignore this 'bit'? Please can we urge the manufactures to adopt a standard on the 'secret' key sequences required deactivating this 'feature'?
Listener's license here we come..
While I agree with most of your points, your post has the hint of quiet desperation from an "MCSE" point of view. Ad hominum attacks and what not..
I am not a Linux user, fwiw. (BSD however..
Gee, If they can make $150,000 on each pirated song, then why would the content providers want to close this source of revenue?
HDTV is NOT the same as digital television. HDTV is High Definition TV, which is where your ultra-large plasma TV will display in all it's beauty and can be recieved with standard over-the-air signals without the need of digital TV, as it's already there now (While I think the FCC is interesting in promoting HDTV, it's not a mandate yet). DTV is digital TV, and that's the transferring of everything, including the mandated shutdown of analog-out from broadcast towers, by 2006, though most likely this will go even later. And if you read carefully, and look at older issues, you will be able to make at least one copy for personal use of any non-premium/PPV show on the network, at least, with unlimited duplication of standard over-the-air broadcasts. This has been voted by the FCC back in July/August at some point.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
If that's what you're worried about when you go on vacation, you should probably take a longer vacation.
"How do you tell your young kids that the show that you promised they could watch when they got back home from a long car journey to visit the grandparents can't be watched anymore because you exceeded the time limit?"
You should really be more concerned that your children need to suckle at the electronic teet. Try buying them a book, or heaven forbid, play with them outdoors!
"Let's face it, for a lot of people, life is more hectic now than it was ten years ago."
A myth. There's just more escapes from life, and people can't cope when they have to actually live.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Ok, I know it's not the done thing here to look at the whole picture but I think a little bit of realism is necessary.
Making TV/Movies is an extremely expensive thing to do. Why do they do it? Well, because we like what they produce and are prepared to pay to see it.
So in the new digital world, where the distribution mechanisms have changed, anyone with a broadband connection and a reasonable PC can set themselves up as broadcaster to the world, the people who spend the money on making these movies are rightly worried that their millions spent on producing the movies will recoup next to nothing. I'll state the obvious that the production quality of these products will reduce to the point where people cannot be arsed to record the programs because its just not worth it. We all lose out then.
People quote the fair use rights they were given in the Sony VCR law suit that established the principle that the VCR was legal and fair. Well people, times have moved on. When this case was originally settled it was not considering a recording scheme where copies of copies would be EXACTLY the same as the original. We all know what happens when we make copies of Video tapes.
OK, so here's the challenge to SlashDot readers. You propose a scheme that gives Fair Use rights to broadcast programming without enabling a user to broadcast their ill gotten gains to everyone on the internet who chooses to receive it.
Analog transmission stops in 2006.
Anything that lets VCRs work will have to respect the broadcast flag (i.e. will have to fail).
Nothing will air with the broadcast flag disabled. This includes news.
Ergo, it seems perfectly reasonable to claim VCR's are being effectively banned between the next two presidential elections.
--Dan
Anywho, the quality of television is low. I may end up shunning it completely well before the 2006 mandate.
With the same result:
1. My DAE program plainly ignores the copyright bit.
2. My CDR program offers me no means to switch that bit off. But I don't care because of #1...
3. My $7 audio card with SPDIF i/o comes with a handy checkbox in the driver to ignore the copyright bit on incoming data.
So don't worry, let them have their stupid bit. It will be just like all those "reserved" bits in TCP/IP packets which are eating megaherzes of bandwith: Ignored, but taking up space.
Musicians don't die. They just decompose.
I don't think Nielsen looks at timeshifting in its viewership stats, but I know that TiVo collects data on it. Timeshifting does mess with advertisers because even if the timeshifter watches the ads, they may be inappropriate. We are always amused to see "will there be snow" ads for the late night news when we watch a old recorded show in the middle of summer. Likewise, ads for long-past sales at local and national retailers fall on dead ears if they are watched past their intended broadcast date. Brand-building ads have the longest VCR/PVR shelflife, but even these can become inappropriate if the brand shifts strategy.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Will the broadcast bit also be part of VCRs or DVD-Rs? I use my TV as a dumb monitor only for my VCR which has the channels tuned and is set up so I can record my TV for later viewing if necessary.
I can't see the technology taking off if Joe Sixpack can't buy his new HDTV VCR and continue to operate as he has done for the last twenty years.
I predict this tech being dead in the water around six months after it is introduced.
Visceral Psyche Films
is lucky if he get's one payment in 1000 downloads. 1 in 10 would be a smashing success, the kind of success that creates companies like ID Software.
If it was that good, wouldnt Central Licensing just bill the person doing the reading?
Read: "I am super geek! See how I create FREE operating systems! I shall help her break the law because I love her and that makes everything ok! Then all the world will know that FREE software is best, and perhaps finally I will GET LAID!!!"
This isnt encryption, there isnt any kind of code cracking to be done here, its just a stupid little flag that could probably be bypassed using a quick firmware flash. As soon as HDTV becomes more popular (in other words, as soon as all the asian companies start pumping out the receivers like they did with DVD players), there will be heaps receivers availble that have an option to have the flag turned off. Doesn't matter if its illegal or not, and the illegallity is probably only valid in the states. Hell, in Australia, where I live, its hard NOT to find a region protected DVD player.
When the first article about this was posted it mentionned that the flag would be used for over the air broadcasts only because "people already paid for cable" or something. I don't see this in the current article. If this affects only HD over-the-air broadcasts I doubt many people will notice the difference. However, if it affects all cable, dish and OtA digital broadcasts it will definitely hurt HD adoption. Finally, my HDTV accepts only DVI and component inputs and uses an external decoder. If the info has to be sent to my TV unencoded how hard can it be to intercept that signal?
These people look deep into my soul and assign me a number based on the order I joined.
Can you give me an example of not being able to say anything you want (other than yelling fire in a crowded theater)? Indeed, your post is an example to the contrary.
What about the other rights that we have lost. Which ones are they again?
Personally I don't think I need "protecting" from piracy. What do these marketroids think we're on? Anyway, there's another promising technology killed by The Man.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Uh, I'm sorry for having a girlfriend who watches TV and for enjoying the time we spend together snuggled up on the couch. Silly me! There was I thinking it was a relaxing way to chill out after a stressful day!
I'm also sorry for having a life and daring to venture out of my house frequently enough to merit wanting to record something once in a while. There I go again, enjoying myself when I could be doing something "productive".
And, lastly, I'm sorry for not liking the things that you do. Apparently, that's a mortal sin nowadays. I'll just sit hit waiting for my personal stoning squad, shall I?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Maybe not, but that 17GB HD capture will sure make a tasty DivX...
"the right to record" or "the right to time shift"?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Remember the PATRIOT ACT?
We all know that legislation doesn't win customers. No customers, no product. No product, no business. No business - more legislation - because that'll fix it.
Build a better mousetrap and the world will come knocking on your door.
The Broadcast flag is NOT a better mousetrap - what the world needs is a better Buffy!
And they think this is going to help further the adoption of HDTV? I already have an HDTV set. I'm damn sure not going to buy a new one thats compliant with this Digital Restrictions Management and I'm sure there are many more in the same boat.
mbbac
I see you point, and you are right.
The point is the consumer has a choice, buy into the restrictions or stay with the "old model"
I for one (probably like you) will be staying with the "old model" untill this sort of propriotary bs is weeded out.
I honestly think if the consumers were aware of these things at "purchase time" companies wouldnt as often get away with it.
It all comes down to educating the average consumer, IMHO. In other words an educated consumer makes for a healthy market.
What I don't understand is why the industry thinks it can "broadcast" a signal through the public airwaves and maintain this level of control. If I get a permit and hold a parade down a residential street, don't the people in the houses along the route have the right to record the sights and sounds which can be seen and heard from their own property? Certainly they don't have the right to sell sheet music derivied from listening to the performance, but by the virtue of the performance being "public" some rights should be lost.
I don't have an issue with a "flag" on a signal sent over a privately owned and funded cable, but the airwaves are different. If they won't let me do what I wish with a signal with enters my property, why can't I tell them not to trespass? (I sound like a militia member here....)
The broadcasting industry wants the right to send a signal into people's property without consent and then they want to place restrictions on what can be done with it?
I don't watch enough TV to care about HDTV right now. As long as I can still watch Cops, South Park, and some FNC shows, I'm fine.... well, that and the Races, too... (Not necessarily NASCAR, I also like the local dirt track racing.)
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
The actual FCC rule does NOT madate shutdown of analog TV in 2006. Read the amendments and later findings.
:)
It states that 2006 is the earliest date possible, and shutdown will NOT occur until at least 85% of the households in that particular broadcasters service area are capable of recieving HDTV broadcasts.
Noting that the US as a whole did not hit 85% capability in _color_ TV until roughly the summer of 1999, I don't see a chance in hell of analog shutdown until 2030 at the earliest.
By then, there won't be any need for broadcast, and if a social-engineered leak hasn't occurred, I'll eat a McDonalds burger.
They didn't need to stuff this down my throat to get me to stop watching it, but it certainly won't make me take a second lood at it either now.
So I say let them piss off their own customers; in the end they'll just become irrelevant that much faster.
AC comments get piped to
Mr. Springsteen was right.
And as the attached piece points out, the fall season is proving to be a bust. So who cares? Why would you want to tape/copy/record any of this tripe. Kelly Ripa will not be the saviour of TV, period. I can honestly say I haven't watched a single show end to end this entire season. And I don't feel deprived. If more people would do this and let the ratings drop into the toilet, maybe the suits would get the message. Nah.......
Interestingly, he says: "You cannot admit that no one in their right mind would do professional video editing in Linux." We all know that Pixar and ILM use Linux; the question of whether George Lucas is in his right mind is open to debate ;-)
The Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF) Action Center has a very easy to use form for sending a letter to the appropriate folks.
Please take a minute to fill out the form and submit. If you're a member, you need only enter your e-mail address, another great reason to join the EFF.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
HDTV is a digital signal.
I'm all for technology that will make broadcasters and copyright holders allow more, higher quality programming out over the airwaves. And the arguement that it's ok to make people buy new DVD players, because that happens when new technology comes out, is not too hard to swallow when I spent less than $100 on my last DVD player, and expect to replace it soon with one that has more features.
However, in the article they talk about TV's that will read the new copy protection bit. Now I buy about 2 or 3 CARS for every TV I buy. Any I just plunked down about $2500 on a TV and accessories this past weekend. The ONLY reason I spent that much is because A) The long life-cycle of a TV and B) I was able to get all the latest features (HDTV, DVI w/ HDCP). If I can't watch anything I want on this TV for at least the next 5 years, I'm going to be very, very ticked off.
Thankfully, it probably won't be implemented as soon as they'd like - just like how everyone's talking about analog broadcasting ceasing to exist after 2006, I just don't see it happening. Part of the deal before that happens is that 85% of households have to be able to receive Digital broadcasts. I just don't see it happening that quickly.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
Sports? Vacuous comedies? Insipid crime shows? Reality TV? Network news that's not even "long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to be interesting."
Not when all books are electronic, and you're only allowed one reading of a book.
So, perhaps, you COULD go outside with your e-reader, if the wireless authentication mechanism works, and read an e-book in your hammock.
Of course, we (the people) could create all our own entertainment, if all the tools for doing so aren't considered "copyright circumvention devices." Want to write a book? You'll need an e-reader writing license, and all the authorship slots are currently full. Paper is illegal, because it allows easy recording of potentially infringing information.
That may sound insane, but my point is that our rights are being eroded on multiple fronts, specifically, corporate control and legislation.
Honestly, I don't think it will be as bad as some people think, but I imagine it will get Pretty Bad(TM).
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Try posting instructions on how to make explosives. Try discussing something 'racial', you will be charged with a hate crime. Discuss the overthrow of your government. ( which should be allowed under free speech, remember its how the US got here in the first place ) and you will be jailed for terrorism.
.
For independent verification, talk to paladin press ( a book company ) about having to pull books off their catalog due to harassment by the government.
Yes, I agree I was able to say something here, but I guarantee, if I said something large enough, id be under investigation ( actually I already am since I'm out spoken in R/L too ) and if it was too out of line, id be jailed. Regardless of my love for my country. ( though I HATE what its becoming ).
In time even minor dissadent speech will be disallowed.
In several states they have removed the 2nd amendment from existance to their citizens. Free Press ( see above ), Free Speech ( see above )...
I could go on, but lack of time prevents it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
HDTV means digital broadcast. Right? The broadcast flag will prevent the ordinary consumer from maken digital copies of transmitted digital content. Right? The main question for me is: Will it still be possible to 'tape' the shows, films,.. in an analog fashion same as I can on current standard TV sets? If that's the case I don't see any problem.I can time shift now and will lose nothing (except for an INCREASE in quality of the taped content) in the future. Of course, if they force HDTV makers from removing any analog copying capability, they effectively STEAL my timeshifting capability and I'll probably say f*ck that to HDTV. I'll just settle for the latest analog Plasma TV. After all, most stuff on TV is crap anyway and the current crop of Widescreen TVs will do very nicely for the 10-20 years to come.
This is baaad, very baaad...
I thought better of the FCC...
I'd switch to video editing on Linux in an instant if Avid ported their software to it (probably not too hard now they're running on MacOS X). It could hardly be worse than XP.
Nope. But the "average citizen" is capable of such stupidity.
There are still people out there who don't understand that files take up space/bandwidth. And will create high-quality images and wonder why they wobn't fit on a floppy disk.
Tiggs(I only wish I was joking!)
Tiggs
"120 chars should be enough for everyone..."
/me looks out window.
I don't see barrels full of burning trash.
I don't see large numbers of people with spiky haircuts.
I don't see Blank Reg.
I don't see Max.
My TV still has an OFF button - they aren't illegal yet.
If the Nutworks insist upon preventing me from "consuming their content", then I shall retire to my books, my pre-broadcast bit DVDs and CDRs, and the 'Net. And as independant media fills the void, the mainstream media will realise they have screwed themselves but good.
Look at the adoption rates of HDTV in the US - the FCC has already had to extend the go-dark date on analog TV once due to a thunderous non-adoption of HDTV.
Sure, by all means write the FCC and try to get them to see reason. But if they do not, then it is most definitely NOT the end of days, people -
GO READ A BOOK FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!
www.eFax.com are spammers
I tell you what kind of flag I would like to see broadcast along with TV programmes, and that is a flag to indicate whether the content is "editorial" or advertising.
..... you record the first, say, 10' or so of a show to HDD. Then you start watching the recorded programme. Obviously you would need some buffer memory for this to work reliably ..... As soon as the VDR detects advertising, it skips forward to the next chunk of programme. That would be almost like fast-forwarding live television ..... a surefire selling point. The new Record-o-mat AdBuster 3625 - lets you fast-forward live TV. Why, this could be the very last advert you ever watch! [shot of family, salesman in foreground, all with forced cheesy grins]
Imagine the possibilities
There are some stations -- particularly on satellite -- where you practically have to record the programmes, just so you can fast-forward through the advert breaks; otherwise, by the time the second half comes along, you have already forgotten what was going on in the first half.
In the event of any violation, both the broadcaster and the advertiser should be punished and damages paid to all viewers.
Or, we could go back to how it used to be, ban all advertising on TV and make viewers pay for what they watch. The cost of watching TV would go up, for sure, and maybe 24 hour broadcasting would come to an end; but the quality would improve beyond measure, and isn't that the main thing?
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
This is what I sent the FCC last January.
The proposed Broadcast Flag Mandate would allocate to a few corporations a valuable government monopoly to produce and manipulate digital media. This is a vast theft from the American people and I strongly oppose its adoption.
I already see the affects of similar government mandates in the area of book publishing. I own a small company that produces electronic texts distributed over the internet. The Bowker company has a government-granted monopoly to sell and distribute ISBN numbers. Bowker in turn has developed policies that greatly favor large companies over small startups; for example, they sell 10,000 ISBN numbers for $3,000 ($.30 per ISBN), while requiring $800 for 100 ISBN numbers ($8.00 per ISBN).
Similarly, the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress, which has a government monopoly on copyright registration and assignment of catalog information for the Library of Congress, has a list of priorities for books that it will catalog for its collections. At the top of the list are books published by large publishers, which get their books cataloged through the Catalog in Publication program even before the books are published. Officially, as a small publisher, books I send to the copyright office have the lowest priority for cataloging.
This is relevant because I can compete with large publishers with a computer and free software for designing, typesetting, and distributing digital media in the form of electronic books. If the Broadcast Flag Mandate goes into effect, I will be legally prevented from acquiring or developing hardware and free software to compete with large corporations in other areas of digital media. This would encourage anti-competitive activities and monopolies, while discouraging innovation and free development of new products.
The approval, expected as early as next week, would be another step along the long road to the higher-quality, crisper digital signals, which have been slowed because of worries about piracy, high-priced equipment and limited available programming.
...We'll have copy-protected signals that are subject to limited availability and still require high-priced equipment to view? Sweet.
Ever heard of this term called boycott?
It means a large group of consumers *not buying* a product that they would otherwise buy because they find parts of it defect or morally offensive.
I don't ever plan on buying a HDTV mainly because of reasons like this.
Hopefully this will irritate enough people that they will revolt against the TV. Then they will be forced to *gasp* enjoy outdoor activities like excercise or hiking through parks, or worse yet, forced to read books such as "Lord of the Rings" or "The Fountainhead"!
Seriously, though, you do not have a divine right to receive television signals in the format you demand. If broadcasters want to encrypt signals so they only work with DRM enabled TVs then so be it. (Though you do have a right to hack the TV you own and manufacturers have a right to make their TV however they want, regardless of what government says, as per the most basic principle of property rights upon which all rights are implemented.) So stop whining about how this will cut into your ability to see every episode of "Surviver" reality TV and start opening your mind to real reality.
"The State is that great fiction by which everyone lives at the expense of everyone else." -Frederic Bastiat.
One group that will love it are advertisers and the TV execs that whine about people who "steal" TV by not watching commercials.
If you can't record the show you can't skip the commercials. Want to watch the premiere of your favourite show? Well you'll probably soon have to either watch it "live" or wait for a rerun if you want to record it. Advertisers will push to have recording disabled on premium shows if only to gaurantee an audience for their commercials.
I assume that the same will be the case for some sports as well.
"It will simply prevent consumers from illegal piracy, from mass distribution over the Internet, which is the problem with the music file sharing," Kenneth Ferree, head of the FCC's media bureau, said in a telephone interview.
Well, thank God they aren't preventing legal piracy!
1. Take TV.
2. Take baseball bat.
3. Apply bat to TV.
4. Repeat until bored.
Seriously, I haven't watched any significant amount of TV since, uh, well, I don't remember actually, but since sometime last century.
And you know what? After a few weeks you come to realise that it really doesn't matter... you get lots more time to do things that do matter, and the only disadvantage is that when your TV-addicted friends are discussing the exciting new events in the latest soap opera, you just stand there looking at them like a bunch of aliens with no lives. Admittedly there is the odd really good TV show that is worth watching, but if it's that good it will come out on DVD eventually anyway.
Aivid's OSX port absolutely sucks. As for video editing on Linux, Pixar merely renders on Linux..
There are devices which allow you to set the SCMS bits mid-path, that are less than $200. Also, there are relatively few professional dat decks that cost $1500. I bought my dual-deck Tascam DA-302s for $1k several years ago, and they allow you to choose whatever SCMS bits you'd prefer. Even with a portable, a DA-P1 doesn't cost $1500, and lets you set SCMS to whatever you want, or on the cheaper end of the spectrum, a PCM-M1 is under $1k, and also lets you set SCMS. Also, there were hundreds of commercially released DATs, not one. I don't like SCMS more than anybody else, but don't lie about it.
No doubt in the UK or USA it would have taken years for everyone to change over to the new side.
After all, the US tax department starts its year in April, thinking that that Julius Caesar bloke's reforms to the calender would never catch on.
Network executives are baffled by a season unlike any seen before. Returning hit shows like "Friends" and "E.R." are losing significant numbers of viewers from previous years....
a /2 2ADCO.html?ex=1067486400&en=82f335c3c62caef9&ei=50 62&partner=GOOGLE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/22/business/medi
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
I really hope they're successful. It'd be a shame to actually preserve what's being broadcast on television nowadays.
go the next $PARTY fundraising dinner, provide a large contribution. Then, using the telephone, you can call the boss of the FCC head and tell him you think that a particular point of view is very important to you.
TRANSLATION:
A picture's worth a thousand words, especially if it's a picture of Franklin on a crisp green federal reserve note. Or, to state it more plainly, a bribe is worth more than a lot of bitching.
Is there any reason to believe that this Broadcast Flag scheme will actually *work*? Has the means of encryption already been determined? Schemes to make bits uncopyable don't have a great history of success...
when this goes through I will just stop watching tv. i watch maybe 5 hours a week now and i have plenty of videos/dvd's the kids can watch. without having the money to through at the politicians that the MPAA, RIAA and other entertainment monopolies have to give them they won't listen and now that all the voting systems are going to electronic ( with no security ) the country is no longer run by the will of the people as it once was but by who has the most money to thow at the politicians.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
We keep talking about Joe SixPak and what HE cares about, and the fact that he DOESN'T care about geek issues.
Guess what? Right now DRM, broadcast flags, and the like are geek issues. Pretty soon they're going to become Joe SixPak issues, about the time he finds out that he can't do the things he used to be able to do.
Our challenge is to be prepared, and guide Joe into pushing for the Right Things as he gets incensed at his legislators. No doubt the Dark Side will also have some proposals to attempt to placate Joe and maintain Profit. If we're thoughtful and lucky, we can guide the course of events, soon.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
so hdtv is going to take longer to penetrate into the market. because this seals its fate with me. Now I WILL NEVER BUY a hdtv, i was actually going to look into one this year. but i guess i can spend money on that new computer i wanted. it would be really great to see hdtv sales slow to a halt after this is passed. "see I told you so"!
The sale of all those new brodcast flag sensitive DVD players are just what we need to jump start the economy.
I welcome copy-protection of TV programs. If there are restrictions on where and how I can view television broadcasts, I'm much more likely to sell my TV at a garage sale and live a healthier lifestyle. Combine that with RIAA's restrictions and DRM-everything. I'll soon out-and-about be listening/watching live performances and buying recordings direct from the artists. Hot damn! Corporate greed really can bring about positive societal change.
>Ever tried explaining silly things like that to a screaming three year old?
I did something very similar. My son was 3 and mildly annoyed although not screaming. It went like this:
* Dad, why can't I watch my Ultraman DVD [present from auntie in Japan] on the normal DVD player?
* Well, son, there are these evil people called MPAA who decided that you shouldn't be able to buy in Japan and watch elsewhere...
* (Wife screaming from the kitchen): Stop it! Don't get the kid involved in your politics!
(Note: we have enough dvds and dvd-roms to play the silly encripted disks from all regions without even bothering with region cracks and the computers are connected to the TV anyway. It is a nuisance being forced to play movies from the computers because of some stupid business decision that is useles anyway)
Because most of the HDTV televisions out there do not have their own tunners they use an external tunner.
This can be connected in multiple ways.
Many of the current TV/Monitors use component input to display 1080I. Since that can not be protected, but DVI can expect the component outputs of your HDTV reciever to start only sending a downconverted 480I signal for any content with the Broadcast flag set.
This will make a large protion of the current HTDV displays, that you paid good $$$ for, incapable of displaying 1080I.
My question is what liability do the manufactureres have that sold us those HDTV displays that no longer display any HDTV content?
It's about stopping low-budget Mac-wielding filmmakers from threatening Hollywood.
This is not really an issue in the current entertainment industry; there has never been an article in Variety that hints that anyone feels threatened by ultra-low budget filmmaking.
I suspect that this is Hollywood moving on auto-pilot: any technical innovation that alters the flow of product and product payment is opposed on legal grounds regardless of its potential usefullness or lack of current threat.
The entertainment industry simply has created a machine-like legal structure to fight any technical change and what we are seeing here is just the machine going through its motions. The legal arm of the entertainment conglomerates is as important to the business structure as the product production (the talent, the scripts, the sets, the technicians, ect...).
Hollywood has a bigger problem gathering on the horizon; only about 2/3rds of the big budget films that have been released in the past year have recouped their production costs at the box office.
Box Office receipts have been growing strongly for the past five years but that is due to the admission price rising many times greater than the inflation level. The actual number of core audience that goes to see movies has not grown in proportion to the budgets of major productions. If production budgets continue to rise while the audience starts to level off as young people have less disposable income to spend on going out to the movies, then Hollywood will find itself backed into a corner where the total receipts from a giant product can't cover the costs. The expected rise in interest rates (studios borrow money to make films) due to the federal government's new deficits will affect Hollywood's bottom line also.
Take for instance, Terminator III. This film costs (estimated by www.boxofficemojo.com) $200 million to make and $30 million to promote. It returned $230 in box office receipts worldwide. All the profit that will come from this product will come from DVD and video rentals, which will taper off after six months of the home media (DVD and video rental store) release.
If Terminator III tanked hugely like Gigli last summer, then it would have taken the studio out with it. If the most popular films are only delivering profit from auxiliary sales, then a series of giant failures could dry up all available funds for future productions of large blockbuster films filled with expensive CGI and gross-point stars.
Yet, production budgets continue to grow while the theatre audience has peaked.
This is the real problem that Hollywood is facing in the long run. Having the ablility to find people who can produce interesting and salable product from inexpensive PCs and Macs is seen more as a 'farm league' R&D center, like Sundance, than a threat.
Thank you,
Simonetta
It's like the guy said "A rectangle is not necessarily a square." And then you reply with, "Ahhh, but a square is a rectangle!!"
HDTV is a digital signal. Yes. That is not what he was saying. He was saying HDTV and DTV are not interchangeable, and that this flag is going to be used on all DTV, not just HDTV as was implied.
I may be heading into tinfoil hat territory here, but it seems to be more about control. This would allow broadcasters to further control the distribution of their programes - no taping a programme for a friend here. I'm getting flashbacks to the whole DVD Region coding thing, with media giants being shocked that they didn't have control over the distribution of their films, regardless of the fact that they'd been paid for the DVDs.
Hmmmm. That naked-pc link is interesting:
Insist that your next PC is fully equipped with a legally licensed operating system preinstalled by the dealer. Demand the accompanying CD, and Certificates of Authenticity. Otherwise, who knows what you're leaving yourself open to?
I thought Microsoft gave OEMs incentives (e.g. lower prices) if they didn't distribute Windows CDs with their machines, as part of their effort to stamp out "casual piracy"...
Digital Consumer
s/slashdot/placewhereleftiesgotorot/g
I'm having a hard time caring about this because it's been so long since I've watched TV.
Has anyone else considered that they have the right *NOT* to watch?
~Knautilus
Does the Constitution give the federal government the power to mandate this?
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
If the manufacturers of HDTVs, DVD/HardDrive recorders/burners, VCRs and such hear that people won't buy their equipment that supports this flag, guess what? It won't be made.
Write letters to Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic, RCA, Philips, Mitsubishi, etc.
Perhaps what angers me the most is that it is only the consumer who will be forced to swallow this flag. "Professional" equipment will undoubtedly be able to ignore the bit. And in Asia, the bit will be ignored on most electronics. Way to go Corporate States of America! Freedom for everyone else but none for your citizens. They have no rights to content, you have no responsibility for content and they must pay, pay, pay!
Are there any 24/hr internet non-DRM TV style streams yet? I expect there will be soon if not now.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
It is about time technology issues started screwing over poor people.
I'm not sure I fully understand this concept. Currently, most HD broadcasts eminate from the 4 major networks over the airwaves, at no charge to the end-user. How is a broadcaster like CBS hurt by someone distributing a show on the internet? They receive to revenue directly from the end-user. I can understand HBO being upset if people are distributing episodes of their shows. So basically, my quesion is, will the 4 major networks be implenting this technology even though they should have no reason to?
I don't see the point in paying $4,000.00 for a set that won't let me record the precious little content I want to see that comes from the nutworks now.
Cool. I think I'll take that money and sock it away.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Ok, so it is becoming clear that if I want the ability to freely record flag-encoded broadcasts, I'll need to purchase a HDTV tuner before they start adding the software to recognize the broadcast flag.
Any recommendations on which tuner card to purchase?
"Must see TV now enforced by law."
No Broadcast Flag over Public airways!
Over non-public resources, use permitted.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The plan is that by the time the cutoff date arrives, there will be plenty of cheap ATSC to NTSC converter boxes available for people who still have NTSC receivers. It will work like a cable converter box. It will have an antenna input and a channel 2/3 RF output and probably a baseband video output.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
[rant]
These people are clueless. It will take someone about 0.05 seconds to figure out how to strip the broadcast flag and it will be just as transparent as CSS is today when ripping a DVD. What it comes down to is that they will create all of these ridiculous limitations and it won't make a damn bit of difference.
[/rant]
Ok, now my own insights. Quoth the article:
Consumer advocates have warned that consumers will have to buy new DVD players if they want to play programs that have been recorded on machines that recognize the digital flag. But agency officials stressed that that always happens when new technology hits the market.
I have a huge problem with this statement. People purchase new technology when it offeres a significant improvement over what they have now. The only difference is now you have to buy a new DVD player because the MPAA/US Government conglomerate is afraid that you will warez movies. The consumer usually has a response for crap like this: Anyone remember DivX? And I'm not talking about the codec.
The big problem now is that the MPAA has the government on their side catering to their every whim. The switch to an inferior technology will now be legistated. At best, we can hope everyone will just stop watching TV.
And also, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the DMCA allow reverse engineering for the purpose of backwards compatibility? Technically, wouldn't it be legal to break the broadcast flag so you could play it back on your old DVD player?
-R
I for one am happy that they'll put in a broadcast flag into the TV sets. It'll be a piece of cake to throw the signal into a little filter and make it look like everything is being broadcast. All you'd have to do is get a cheap DSP chip and program it to set the output to match the input with the "broadcast" flag set to true. If they make it a pattern, it's a simple matter of matching the pattern.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
This paragraph got me thinking about the idea of a law to make software manufacturers liable for creating faulty software.
Since this "new technology" is not new, but just a patch to the existing DVD technology, it could make DVD manufacturer's liable for creating a product with security faults. I like the symmetry.
--
Luck is just skill you didn't know you had.
...is not in corporations themselves, but in special-interest policymaking in Washington.
When lawmakers single out one particular sliver of the population (because admittedly everything we all do is "business" of some sort) and decide to pass legislation that advances only those elite anointed few's business initiatives, everyone else is left to twist in the wind.
We all do business every day, and profit motive (or self-interest) is really the only restraining force in the economy. If a business wants to integrate something into their product that frustrates customers and erodes the value of their product, the market will shift around it. People will buy what they want, and not what pisses them off. Businesses don't want to cut themselves off at the knees so they give people what they want.
Like Intuit with TurboTax: The market spoke, and they rolled back their idoitic license management scheme.
The problem is when what pisses consumers off becomes law and consumers don't have an alternative available off the shelf at some place like Target, on cable or satellite TV, etc. Lawmakers do a disservice to everyone when they remove the right for people to choose between products freely and shape the marketplace with their free will.
It is so arbitrary that these limitations are selected. It wastes time and benefits nobody ultimately. It's just a "switch" for you to tip that can be objectively measured when the suits come to sue you. This is just another joke. If you can decode something to play it, you can decode it to convert it. DeCSS all over again.
Stop buying VCRs and buy digital camcorders instead. A friend of mine recorded space missions long before the VCR era by filming the TV with a handheld camera. With a modern camcorder and a tripod you could do reasonably well, and get a signal that you can clean up on a computer using techniques used to clean up photos from space probes.
That's the best one I've seen since:
SAT - Saturday Afternoon Test.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Time-shifting is legal in the United States. The Supreme Court said so back in 1984. Wouldn't a Copy-Prohibition Bit go completely against that?
Oh... I get it... every new medium that comes along should have a new set of laws surrounding it, right? No. Fair-use should mean fair-use... regardless of the medium.
On the other hand... why would anyone want to go to the trouble of recording a movie that's aired on TV? I mean seriously... they're gonna have commercials and be edited to hell. Go rent the DVD if you want to watch it... or borrow it from a friend.
I can understand why there's so much outcry against the copy-control bit, but honestly, if applied to cable TV, do you think networks like Comedy Central are going to use the bit to prohibit people from TiVo-ing stuff like South Park? Fuck no. The only practical application this thing has is for the movie channels (HBO, et cetera) and personally, you're better off renting the flick. Get NetFlix or something.
I knew it was only a matter of time before the evil bit was implemented in a commercial application.
1. Stop watching TV.
2. Cancel your cable subscription.
3. Stop buying DVD's of movies or CD's of music.
People who really care about freedom would be willing to give up owning that last season of Star Trek, or whatever is popular with geeks today.
Peace, or What?
Peace, or Not?
Instead of investigation, law enforcement and special interests have turned to regulation at the expense of civil rights.
They are stepping way across that line between Federal and States rights, and those rights left up to the people to regulate.
If I want to make a copy of a TV show, and share it inside the walls of my house with my family across my private LAN, then that is my business, and no one elses.
The shotgun blast that is the progress of anti-piracy coalition and governmental control is taking out more innocent bystanders than anything else.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
wait, so you're telling me we're so stupid that we pay $1.00 or more for something that's so cheap it's freely available at public drinking fountains? You're telling me that something so abundent as water is actually more expensive than a comparable ammount of gasoline for no reason? You're telling me throwing away 25 million plastic drink containers out every hour isn't a good idea?
Frankly sir, I don't beleive you. No one could be that stupid. Take your leftist hippie agenda someplace else!
Do you REALLY think this "broadcast flag" is going to stop that? Or the NX01 project that makes available all the Enterprise episodes?
I'm sure they'll come up with something even more invasive just down the road - after all, once they have forced encryption into the public airwaves (and the technology needed to decipher it) then they can do just about anything else they like. But that's years away - in the meantime, this "flag" will be about as effective as "a very stern warning."
It sounds to me like prohibition is slowly coming back. Not the prohibition of alcohol, but the prohibition of technology. The focus is currently on `The War on Drugs', `The War on Terror' and `The War on Technology and Customers'.
All the effort to convince people to `Buy American' and `Support American Business' will be stifled by the efforts by the government to block innovation on its own soil and force it to places like Europe and Asia. Do these companies think that they can run America? It's not that Big Business is bad, just seems that they are taking the place of Big Brother. (c;
Just my $0.02
'I am become Shiva, destroyer of worlds'
The Federal Communications Commission will likely adopt rules that will allow programmers to attach a code to digital broadcasts that will in most cases bar consumers from sending copies of popular shows around the world, said the officials, who declined further identification.
Errrr... so? Who cares? Surely, someone will come up with some nice technomalogical gizmo that will break this nonsense. I'm not worried. It's stupid and finally futile.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
Of course this is the case! Are you more likely to give the guy that knocks on your door 30 seconds of your time or the guy who spammed you?
You get thousands of spam messages, and very few (at least for me) people knocking on your door. You're more likely to take care of (give time to) whichever stack is shorter.
The RIAA has already taken* music away from me. I do not want to support an industry that labels me a criminal for wanting to lawfully use their product, so I don't (for the most part) buy or listen to new music. I don't download it either.
;)
The MPAA and broadcasters are now planning to block fair use access to movies and TV, so I'll have to stop supporting them, too.
Pretty soon the only thing left will be books. And, seriously, who wants to read?
blog
...dumbass.
I personally think that broadcast media is where the 20'th century made a wrong turn. You see it in the quality of the programming produced, the consumeristic culture that buys anything a celebrity endorses, the power of organizations such as RIAA, the rise of golf as a spectator sport (what better way to fill up all those empty broadcast hours?), and the way an average person can't name a single active ingredient in any soap product they use (unless you count adultery and denial).
I think at best the personal use rights on broadcast content is a Faustian bargain. I think of the broadcast bit as meaning "don't consume this". It should be regarded as a non-so-subtle hint that for the next century we should explore non-broadcast alternatives. It doesn't take a very close look at the kinds of people being elected in America to see that broadcast media was a huge mistake to begin with.
Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
I thought that the parent was referring to FPGAs or Field Programmable Gate Arrays
These devices are chips that can be programmed to perform a certain function. They used to mainly be used for prototyping, but recently are being used for all kinds of things (even processors) because they allow you to produce small numbers (even just 1) of a chip cheaply and quickly, without having th rely on the economies of scale that you get with the hardwired chips.
The specific application the grand-parent was probably referring to was Digital Signal Processing (DSP). This is a common application for FPGAs (don't ask me why....IANA-EE (yet)). DSPs are used to (suprise) process signals digitally. This could include (de)compression, (un)encrypting, filtering, and/or frequency modulation in hardware.
I haven't had my DSP classes yet, so I may be a little off, but that's the general gist of it...
I know your kidding (at least partially) but this is why the conservatives are so effective. They organize, fund, go door-to-door and vote their party line while liberals (me) talk idealism and drink beer. I mean why do anything when you can make a pessimistic joke (everyone likes pessimism) and turn the page.
I think its time liberals and liberalism wake up.
Quack, quack.
They're really cheap and once hdtv is a standard and stores can't sell analog tvs, it'll have to be affordable.
Also, they've got converters that take an HDTV signal and adapt it for a normal television. They should be an affordable alternative.
Broadcast flag still sucks tho.
m.
It's very true what you say about needing to get Joe Sixpack to care before things change. But sadly, Joe Sixpack probably doesn't even know the copy protection is there in the first place and will assume something is broken (like in the scenario I described)
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
you want the RIGHT to be mindlessly entertained?
.
. hmmm
Broadcast TV is at death's door anyway. Anything they do to further piss off viewers and hasten their own demise is just fine by me.
The approval, expected as early as next week, would be another step along the long road to the higher-quality, crisper digital signals, which have been slowed because of worries about piracy, high-priced equipment and limited available programming.
I doubt piracy has slowed it at all. The few movies I've downloaded from the internet, I could have saved myself a lot of time and bandwidth by just seeing them at the movies or waiting until they were available for hire. Even the movies ripped from DVD screeners aren't that great in quality and it usually takes up to a week to get one via any file sharing program.
As for the slow takeup of digital TV? Try the insane prices, lack of digital programs and just plain old shit programs for the cause. For a basic HDTV I'm looking at nearly 20% of my annual gross salary in this country. And I get an above "average" wage. I won't be upgrading until I have zero choice. Even then, I'll probably wait a while as I watch a maximum of 1-2 hours per week (even Star Trek isn't worth watching these days) and most of that is DVDs.
If they "break" all the DVD players out there, I think you'll find a large number of people will just go back to using tapes. Most people here probably wouldn't blink before buying a new DVD player, but most of the Real World just can't afford to go replacing their equipment on the MPAA's whim.
To know that you know what you know, and that you do not know what you do not know, that is true wisdom. --Scooby Doo
Wasn't DVD the same story? They said nobody would ever break , I think 128 bit crypto. They said it would take thousands of years. It took six months.
If it is digital, it can be hacked. The fundamental mistake MPAA/RIAA made was deciding to convert physical product, an object you go in the store and buy, into a stream of numbers. Anybody can copy down numbers (ask any dishonest 6th grader taking a math test), and anybody's computer can too. If you don't want people to copy your product, make your product a physical, analog entity in a physical, analog retail store.
but they wanted us to re-buy our record and tape collections, so they opened Pandora's box and went digital. The rest is history.
They will never stop until somebody makes the
Maybe not, but that 17GB HD capture will sure make a tasty DivX...
:)
especially if you burn it on one of them new fangled corn discs
This is just like the copy protection on DAT tapes. (SCMS stands serial copyright management system, and was one of the reasons DAT never became popular.) Anyway, M-Audio sells SCMS removers/rewriters without fear. (Its for studio use.) Under the Digital Home Recording Act, you are not allowed to sell anything that defeats SCMS unless it's for professional use. I suspect that this protection for HDTV will be defeated easially, or HDTV will continue to not be popular.
What if we can't record the free porn, due to the frickin' broadcast flag? Aieeeeeeeee!
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
The article states that the FCC will "allow" broadcasters to use a broadcast flag, but it doesn't say anything about the receiving end. What's to prevent (aside from the DMCA) someone manufacturing a piece of recording equipment that throws the broadcast flag out the window (where it belongs) and allows you to make as many copies as you want, or is the FCC mandating that receivers obey the broadcast flag too?
Reprise the theme song and roll the credits!
after all, people got along ok w/o watching TV or listening to music all the time in the days before radio and tv were invented, let alone all the portable stuff today.
nobody says you have to watch tv or listen to radio or music all the time.
What was that old Leary thing, "turn on, drop out" or something like that?
Maybe it will be "Turn off and do anything else" (someone will come up with something clever).
So if they make it a job to enjoy entertainment, and most of the entertainment isn't worth the work required, it'll be ignored.
But how come they still have such bad traffic jams, when every pickup truck has 10 people in the back?
Mail your complaints to:
Marlene H. Dortch, Secretary
Federal Communications Commission
Office of the Secretary
445 12th Street SW
Room TW-2048
Washington, DC 20554
Also mention other FCC abuses such as giving Clearchannel and Viacomm almost all the broadcasting market so they can control what we hear.
Volunteer Mozilla developer, RPI Student.
We *always* do.
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