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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."
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.
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
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.
The more I think about it the more I agree this is [i]exactly[/i] what the broadcast flag is about. It's not about stopping piracy*. It's about stopping low-budget Mac-wielding filmmakers from threatening Hollywood... Amazing consumer-level media tools do no good if they can't record anything. *I love how the article positions the broadcast flag as a "magic bullet" against internet piracy. As if one bit is going to stop anyone from doing anything...
Any wall a man can build can be torn down by another man... Is it really worth all the fuss?
;)
Good point. I'll get rid of the password on my root account immediately.
You miss my point. If 95% of the world's population wanted to 0wN your box you probably could do just as you suggested.
My point is simple, why build walls where everyone wants to walk? If the system tries to impose restrictions which seem pointless to mostly everyone we'll end up with a majority doing just what we didn't want them to do in the first place.
If so, the system is flawed, or society
.: Max Romantschuk
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.
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.
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
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!
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?
An HDTV is a fine DVD viewing platform. Heck, that's about all it's good for. Considering the cost of an HDTV receiver and the dearth of programming for it, I doubt I'll be getting one - ever. This obnoxious flag can't make them any less enticing than they are now.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
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."
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.
Perhaps you haven't considered that the water flowing through the pipes of your neighborhood and home isn't the purest and/or tastiest water available. I myself would rather purchase purified bottled water to avoid the musky, metallic taste of my house's water. I do know that not all bottled water is the same, with some being only marginally better than that of my home. So I choose wisely. Additionally, the water you consume at your home is not free. It is less expensive than bottled water. You can check this out by reading your utility bill next month. Personally, I would gladly pay for content that is delivered to my house via Satellite, Cable, DVD, etc. if the quality is better than what is available for free. I buy music from Apple's iTunes music store because I hate the hassle of P2P systems, and I want a good quality, readily availabe music source.
So basically what you're telling me is not that I'm missing something about the broadcast flag but the slippery slope argument that it's a foot in the door for those evil thought control media corporations that own the Congress. I see.
:-)
Dang, and I thought my tinfoil hat was tight...
How do you reconcile the fact that hardware/software vendors and consumer groups with an interest in innovating technologies are also large contributors to political campaigns? This is a big complicated issue, and the fact that it's taken this long to get this "mandate" tells me that it's a long way from over. There are just too many diverse interests in the mix.
I'm very worried about technological mandates, and I don't like the broadcast flag because I think it puts unnecessary inhibitions in the path of users, but I think your conclusion here is a little tenuous and contrary to pretty much all of recent consumer, technological, legislative, and judicial history.
For myself, if I can't get the use I want out of a device or content, then it's irrelevant because I just won't buy the shit. DVX comes to mind as a perfect example of how consumers voted with their wallets to give a big FU to an overly restrictive technology.
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
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.
They'll really hate it, though, when they discover they've pissed off their audience so much that the only people still watching are dead or on welfare; people with money to spend on their products are precisely the people who don't want to watch stupid ads.
he elimination of Tivo-type PVR devices
I agrre with you, this is their ultimate goal, however, as soon as my Tivo is rendered useless, I will cancel my cable service. If I can not watch TV on my terms, then I will not watch TV at all. There is no such things as "Must See TV".
"You don't need a weatherman/ To know which way the wind blows" -Bob Dylan: Subterranean Homesick Blues
>> I would consider that a free gift
Then you are a thief. You know it's not a free gift but because it suits your thieving personality you choose to treat it as such.
No one is forcing you to watch this stuff. Vote with your wallet and don't by into their product. But by thieving it you admit they have a product you want, but are not prepared to pay for it. No different than going into a store and taking candy.
Truth hurts.
Thank you for your interesting comment.
But, what exactly is a FPGA? Is it a Field-Programmable Grid Array? And how would this chip be related to the previous discussion?
I'm not disputing your claim, I'm only trying to understand what you're referring to.
On Slashdot, given the wide range of the audience, expanding acronyms and including a URL or two for some background info goes a long way.
thank you,
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.
What I find most repellant about the "broadcast flag" is that nowhere does it codify fair-use. The flag is all about PREVENTING copying; it serves as a technological proxy for copyright law. But unlike a human, a technological system can't make judgments about whether you are within fair use. You can't tell the broadcast flag "I'm just time-shifting for my own viewing" or "it's to show my students." It just automatically assumes you are a criminal.
I fully expect the "broadcast flag" in all media will be set by default to the most restrictive setting (no recording at all?). Why wouldn't they do this? It would shut down all home recording of TV for any purpose (time-shifting, education, watching shows not carried by your local broadcaster, etc). I haven't seen the final rules, so perhaps the most restrictive setting will be less than "no recording at all." Maybe "record, but play back only once and delete thereafter?"
Mandatory copy-prevention laws are MUCH more dangerous now that we have the DMCA. I was never too concerned about Macrovision, since there are ways around it if you really want to record something, and it's within your legal rights. But there is no legal way around a digital system. (technically you *are* allowed to hack it *yourself*, but you're not allowed to distribute automatic hacking tools - and very, very few people have the knowledge to hack a DRM system on their own)... Outside DMCA jurisdiction this is not a big deal, but here in the US it will get harder and much more expensive to obtain "unrestricted" equipment
Or consumer-level recording equipment will add the broadcast flag automatically, preventing you from making copies of your own stuff. If this sounds like fantasy, it's not. I use a consumer MiniDV deck for dumping my CG animation to tape. Several times it has refused to record DV streams or dupe VHS tapes (of my own work) with some kind of "copying prevented" warning. I expect this kind of behavior to show up a lot more often if copy-prevention bits are mandated.
Plus it seems that mandatory copy-prevention is the best way to kill new recording media (R.I.P DAT for consumers, SDMI, "Secure" Digital, etc).
The replies may be right about this being a knee-jerk reaction by the MPAA. Perhaps they do not currently see the consequences for consumer recording, but I feel it acutely, and it's just too tempting to close the "final loophole" and shut off all consumer recording forever.
My hope is that Apple or even Microsoft will end-run around this whole mess by encouraging media distribution in a format not controlled by the mandate (Quicktime, WMV, etc). MS seems really eager to convert broadcasters and optical video discs to WMV; if that happens, anything goes. Of course MS will have its DRM system, but I'm actually a lot less scared of DRM by Apple or Microsoft than DRM by the MPAA or TV broadcasters.