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FCC Adopts Broadcast Flag Scheme
sbrown continues: "However, the FCC isn't changing the format of DTV broadcasts at all. As a result, DTV equipment bought right now will continue to work forever, even though future-generation equipment will have fewer features. (For example, a current-generation DTV tuner card like this one can save any DTV broadcast as an MPEG-2 file on your hard drive. But that feature would become illegal in DTV cards after 2005.)"
And The Importance of notes "Note that the facts of the release include 'The broadcast flag protects consumers' use and enjoyment of broadcast video programming. The flag does not restrict copying in any way.'" CBS/Viacom says 'Today's decision by the FCC is an historic step forward for consumers.' The decision was unanimous, with detailed statements by the commissioners here, in PDF:
Doublespeak infiltrating our communications, eh?
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
I wonder what effect this will have in DTV equipment between now and 2005? Will the devices made today have good resale value after that time due to the larger set of capabilities? Will they make it illegal to retail this equipment, or just illegal to mfgr (DNRTFA)?
How long after 2005 until they change the format just enough so that it is no longer compatible with pre-2005 equipment?
Don't worry, this will just sign the death of digital TV as we could have known it.
These guys think backward. People want more, not less than whatever they have today.
So tomorrow you'll buy a Digital TV and you'll find yourself unable to record your favorite show because of the fscking flag. Then you'll spread the word of wisdom: Don't buy this sh*t! And nobody will shift to this wonderfully restricted technology because it is worse (end-user wise) than what users have today....
Digital TV is dead. The FCC killed it. Will there be a trial?
Write boring code, not shiny code!
With no encryption, I'm not sure that distributing hacks to disable the flag would qualify as a DMCA violation... that's the interesting question.
I know everyone here thinks that the freedom to copy other people's IP should be totally unfettered, and I guess I sorta agree :), but all things considered, to me this plan doesn't sound so bad.
At least, my cursory five-minute perusal of the FCC statement seemed to indicate to me that:
1) You can still copy and archive with perfect digital fidelity, you just can't redistribute it outside your home network.
2) You can still copy and redistribute digitally at a lower resolution.
3) Unprotected analog output is also allowed.
So what exactly is the problem here?
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
A broadcast flag is meaningless given that there are a number of solutions that already ignore it. I happen to have three such systems:
1. Samsung SIR-T150 ATSC receiver, not known to recognize broadcast flag or de-rez component analog outputs.
2. MyHD MDP-100 ATSC receiver card, not known to recognize broadcast flag or de-rez component analog outputs.
3. HD-2000 Linux Only ATSC receiver card, with source code, which does not recognize broadcast flag, and can be reprogrammed to ignore it.
And of course there's GNU Radio, a software only system to receiving, processing, and decoding digital television (and other kinds of) broadcasts, which can ignore the broadcast flag.
The only way a broadcast flag will be useful is if the FCC, the MPAA, and our in-the-pocket politicians take the next logical step: make ignoring it illegal.
There is nothing on tv worth viewing anyway. It is more economical for me to buy the dvds of the shows I like (mostly anime) than it is to actually pay for cable. So let them flag all the shit they want, I won't be watching it. Though it does give an unsettling feeling: what if the news companies flag all their broadcasts so they can't be copied? No way to archive what has already happened, so what will stop, lets say fox, from changing news broadcasts after the fact and then claiming it was that way all along since no one could copy it and say differently? And what about the loss of future culture simply becuase no one ever recorded the episodes. I mean, say if something is flagged as no copy and then only broadcast once. Then that is lost to us, the moment it is either destroyed or the technology to view is lost. Didn't they study history? How many books were only one copy was ever made survive from ancient greece? Heck, the books copied were largely lost. I've heard about how our culture is a throwaway culture but this is taking it a bit too literal. I can see it now: "This was the 21st century children. We know they watched this thing called television but the record of these shows ceases beyond 2005. The reason for this gap or what happened during the ensuing decades is unknown to us, since their records are undecipherable or lost but we believe this marked the beginning of the rebellion against the panglobal corporations."
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
The "digital providers" will offer "Enhanced TV+", at a low cost initially. These boxes will allow recording of non-feature shows (95% of TV), and won't let you fast forward through ads. A few other trinkets will be thrown in.
Basically, Big Business will provide the lowest level of service *that they know users will put up with*.
DVDs: can't copy them, can't fast-forward through ads
public reaction: "great picture quality"
Twenty years ago, when the majority of software changed from being Free to being proprietary, there was no revolution, despite the public no longer being able to see what the software was doing, modify/fix it, or share it.
Today, people think "stupid hippies want everything to be free". In twenty years time, people will laugh at you for expecting to be able to record a TV program.
It's going to take a lot of work from a small number of people to prevent digital TV etc. from spoiling modern culture/freedom.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
"MPAA advances the use of a redistribution control system which would limit the redistribution of digital broadcast television content, but not restrict consumers from copying programming for their personal use."
I don't see what's unreasonable about this. If the system allows copying to a limit of 3 machines, like the Apple iTunes DRM, that wouldn't be unreasonable. That seems like the direction in which things are headed.
Vote for Pedro
From the PDF:
MPAA advocates adoption of the ATSC flag system and characterizes it as an effective and unobtrusive content protection mechanism that will serve as a "speed bump" to ensure that DTV broadcast content is not indiscriminately redistributed. MPAA stresses that an ATSC flag system would only limit redistribution of content and not prevent consumer copying. (III.A.14)
We do not believe, however, that individual acts of circumvention necessarily undermine the value or integrity of an entire content protection system. The DVD example has been instructive in this regard. Although the CSS copy protection system for DVDs has been "hacked"... DVDs remain a viable distribution system for content owners. The CSS content protection system serves as an adequate "speed bump" for most consumers... (III.A.20)
So not only do they admit that CSS cracking wasn't all that terrible for them... But they imply that CSS is meant only to prevent unauthorized distribution, and not copying? Then how come they've gone after every DVD copying software they can, and gone after DeCSS?
Well, that's sort of the point of intellectual property today. It imposes limits on the liberties of everyone other than the creator/rights holder, in order to protect that individual's rights. Most people would say that that isn't inherently a bad thing.
There are two problems below the surface, though. The first is a sort of teleological point - whatever the practical purpose of IP today, there's an ongoing debate about what that purpose SHOULD be. What is the best balance between using IP law to protect the rights holders and using it to encourage the creation of new works? There is a lot of overlap, but they aren't the same goal - there are a lot of nuances that have huge impacts on consumers.
And that's the second problem, and where I think your frustration is coming from. Congresscritters, regulators, and judges don't seem to be doing a very good job of finding a good balance - the incentives of influential rights holders (not necessarily IP creators) are leading further and further down the path of commoditization of intellectual property, and those holding the reins aren't doing enough to look beyond those short-term goals to either the basic premises behind IP law or the eventual effects of the curent trends.
Final result? Who knows. I tend to think that once these restrictions start to bite down on regular consumers (as in, not early adopters or techno-fetishists) there will be more push back towards consumers' freedom to use and enjoy the IP of others. If not, well, I'll buy the rights to some starving artist's masterpiece and live off the proceeds in perpetuity.
I was afraid this would happen. I bought a TV last year that has one of the finest quality pictures you can get, ask anyone on AVS Forums, the pioneer elite pro 520 is amazing. I had it calibrated by a world renowned ISF engineer friend who works on Pixar, ILM and PDIs monitors. $6000 later I'm dialed into HDTV nirvana. but my TV does not have DVI digital connection with copywrite protection crap. Just good ol analog component video inputs. I was bummed when they came out with the new DVI input but thought nothing of it since I could enjoy every bennefit without it.
That was until they started making inexpensive DVD players which would upconvert the 480p material to 1080i. Wow, this sounded AWESOME, but oh no, they only allow this upconversion to take place over the DVI connection. Why you ask? Copy protection, the powers that be would not allow samsung to send high res upconverted video over an analog connection which could easily be recorded. So here I am ready to buy a new DVD player just for that feature, getitng rid of my perfectly good exisitng player, but oooooh noooo, you dont have DVI with HCP so you must be a pirate.
Which makes me wonder, who the hell is going to be trading uncompressed HD video files of some shitty sitcom over the internet? I dont see this as an immediate threat.
Same thing will happen with the broadcast flag, they will use it to screw over all the suckers like me who dont play by their rules. They are slowly eliminating what we used to be able to do with our electronics.
So yes, I can keep using my tv and the existing hardware, but their plan is to make the shit obsolete every few years. Every time they introduce some manadatory copy protection and it gets cracked, they change the specs, make it illegal to use anything but those specs, making upgrades impossible because it would sacrifice the integrity of their precious copy protection.
This rant wasnt very coherent, no real good points were made and it wasnt really well thought out. I have so much freakin anger and hatred for the RIAA, MPAA right now that it makes it difficult to think.
After all, consumers will have no direct ability to share content, even when they have a legal right to do so. They will have to go the marketplace to get the content they desire. In most cases consumers unintentionally patronize pirates whether it be for knock-off Microsoft products or for mod chips and duped CDs. They simply aren't aware they not using legitimate products. High quality knock-offs are going to be easy to create given the digital content and lack of encryption.
Scene in a fleamarket in 2009 :
child: Wow mom! It's a DVD of Treehouse of Horror XX! I haven't seen that yet! Can we get it!?! Can we get it!?!
mom: Hmmm.. $5? That's pretty cheap... sure.
I am sure there people in <insert usual suspect countries> rubbing their hands with glee. Thanks FCC, you just created a market for them.
-- "Most people prefer a popular myth to an unpopular truth"
So the average consumer will be hampered while the clued techy will be able to do what they've always done.
I kid you not: this last weekend I tried to play a DVD I rented from the video store and got an error message complaining that I needed a Region 1 player. I have a Region 1 player. I have never had this problem playing a rental disk before. I tried again and again and every time got the same error. What was I to do?
Well, fortunately, I happen to know there are many 'soft' hacks for DVD players listed on the web. So I used one of them (it basically entailed typing in the first few digits of pi into the keypad) to disable the region check and I was finally able to watch the DVD. I was kind of amused but also pissed off. It's fine for us techies to find some work around. My mom, on the other hand, wouldn't have had a clue how to get it to work.
Has anyone else ever had this problem with faulty region encoding?
GMD
watch this
Disclaimer: I presently work for Echostar/Dish Network.
Heh.... joke's on them. Dish just launched a major promotion that's pushing the Dish DVR 510 receiver to the overwhelming majority of the customer base. The promo basicly allows current customers to get one of these installed for free (programing agreement... but TANSTAFL).
For those of you to lazy to follow the link, the 510 is a DVR receiver with a plethora of happy output jacks. Add on a warrenty (and keep that warrenty) and you've basicly got a DRM free DVR as long as you want to keep it (with 100% digital today... not in 2005).
Ok, so some might interpret it as a blatent product plug, but I think it's pretty cool.
NB: I just checked the Dish website... the promo's not listed there for some reason. Sucks, I was gonna give a link. If you're insterested call in.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
. Then you'll spread the word of wisdom: Don't buy this sh*t!
While at my friend's apartment I said "Hey. check out my new CD of songs I recorded! See if you can come up wtih some Lyrics!"
And he said- "Sorry, charlie. This here is a Sony DCD/CD system. It doesn't play home-made CD's!" some DRM "feature"...
So last weekend when I decided I needed a new system, I completely by-passed Sony.
I'm sure this trend will continue until either manufacturers put in "backdoors" to turn it off or they just don't put it in to begin with.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I know hardware; I know TV signals; I have already worked on TV decoders for encrypted broadcasts and cable signals. I will be working on these.
However, I won't be selling decoders. Instead, I will release it through the hacker channels. Those that can, will build their own. Those that can't, will do without. Those that try to capitalize on my designs by selling illegal boxes, will be hunted down by the DCMA dogs.
Our political and business leaders forget how the USA got started. In time, we will remind them!
Nothing prevents you from making such a device. Of course, up until recently, US law prevented jack-booted thugs from kicking down your door and arresting you for building devices that bypass copyright security features. Now they can, even if you do it "for educational purposes only".
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
remember that the fcc is ultimately run by people that are *elected*. if in 2005 poeple are bitching about not wanting to lose old-analog, it's not going anywhere.
...gone.
I suspect that most people will not know that TV is going off the air in Dec 2006 until the commercials about it start airing Thanksgiving 2006.
Most of the people who will be affected will be the poor and illiterate; those who can't afford cable or a $4000 super-sized HDTV digital receiver.
There are going to be a lot of people (if this actually goes through - and I don't know how to predict if it will or not) in January and February 2007 that are just going to be starring at that snowy TV screen and slowly but surely realize that , yes, TV is
Actually now that I've written the above, and given it a little thought, I think you're right and it's absurd to think that broadcast TV will cease by fiat in just a few years.
Even if it were and the government had painted themselves into a corner technologically and actually HAD to shut down the analog broadcasts, people in Canada and Mexico would set up huge antennas and just keep on pumping out Oprah and Jerry Springer. FCC regulations don't apply there.
There's just too much money to be made by selling network TV boardcasting for it to just stop because of some nitwit regulation hidden in dense law passed way back in the Clinton era.
If it did stop then there would be a media vacuum and people would eventually fill it with something. There would be a lot of neighborhood unlicensed microbroadcast stations popping up and boardcasting on the old analog frequency bands intermittently, probably showing DivX files of old TV shows. They might even solict semi-commercial advertising somehow.
This whole thing seems to have a Y2K flavor: what will happen Dec 2006?
I suspect that the regulation in the 1996 TeleCom Act will be struck down by the Supreme Court as 'limiting free speech'. Or in other words, denying the opportunity for the politicians to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions on TV ads to make sure that people vote 'correctly'.
why should we be able to record creations other people have done if they don't want us to?
Fundementally, because we don't give a rat's ass about what they want.
Before you discount this answer, please let me explain. Our copyright system is founded on utilitarian principles. The idea is that copyright should satisfy the public -- specifically the public's interest in the promotion of learning -- as much as possible, while causing as little harm as possible in the process.
If the public decides, through our representation in Congress, that we would be happier with more copyright protection, then we should have more. If we decide that we would be happier with less, then we should have less. Again, we're aiming for whatever makes the public the happiest, accounting for the unhappy costs of achieving that.
What makes the public happy? Basically two things. The first is the creation of works, whether those works are original or derivative. The second is free reign to enjoy those works; to use them, keep them, copy them, change them, distribute them, acquire them for no cost, etc.
In practice, the two different ways that we can pursue happiness are somewhat exclusive. The way that we promote the creation of original works is to limit the ability of others to enjoy those works or to create derivatives based on those works.
That is okay if the public is left better off by sacrificing some of its enjoyment of works and the creation of derivatives, because so many more original works are created that we're overcompensated for what we gave up.
It's not okay if we are paying too much in terms of our freedom in works that are created, because we don't get enough original works created to make up for it.
Thus, returning to my original point, if the public would be better off by permitting unfettered recording of broadcast TV shows, even taking into account the possibility that fewer works would be created, then we ought to do it.
What the artist wants is irrelevant, with two exceptions. One, the artist is a member of the public at large, but not a very significant one. Two, the artist can refuse to create works if he doesn't believe that copyright favors him sufficiently.
However, as we've already discovered by looking at public utility, some artists will demand too much. They will demand more than their original works that they would otherwise create are really worth to us. It is unfortunate to lose them, but if we're all left better off without them (because we have more freedom) than with them (and little freedom), then it's what we've got to do.
A rough analogy would be, if someone would without question provide for your needs and maintain you in comfort for the rest of your life, would it be worth it to you if you had to be their slave? Would you value your freedom even with the warts of having to be self-sufficient, more than a luxurious life in which you aren't allowed to make a single decision for yourself, and are property?
I don't mean to compare the situation of TV viewers to slaves, but my point is simply that sometimes the best thing you can do will nevertheless not be as nice in certain respects as other, worse, options. So you must look at the net result of the good and the bad, to decide which option is OVERALL better.
Here on Slashdot people keep insisting that GPL is in harmony with copyright law, basically saying that you should be able to dictate how people are allowed to redistribute your works.
And the next day, same people line up on barricades to stop unnecessary copying/distribution restrictions imposed by the creators of digital broadcast content!
Well, no one ever actually said that there has to be consistency. Though if you dig deeper, I think you'll find that the two positions are perfectly reconcilable -- in that no one is bound by the GPL unless they volunteer to be, and that they are gaining an advantage (not redistribution, but initial distribution, and reproduction and d
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
between the internet and a good book there really isn't much need for television.
I wish people had the balls to stand up to this shit.
Ever since the internet came to pass, the television industry has been in trouble. This might speed it up a bit.
God, I don't read /. much but i don't think i have ever seen this much anger in one place. Anyway, as Guppy06 (410832) brought up:
"The widespread redistribution of broadcast TV content on the Internet would unnecessarily drive high value programming to more secure delivery platforms. The losers would be the 40 million Americans who rely exclusively on free over-the-air TV."
Except that those 40 million Americans you mention are the last people that would adopt digital television technology.
But even if each and every one of those 40 million people did manage to scrape together enough money
There are still people in this country on party lines for the telephone. For those of you who don't know what a party line is, it is one phone line for multiple houses. Each house has it's own ring combination that they know to pick up on. any way, people still have that, there is no way in hell they are getting cable tv, and here they want them to go out and spend HOW MANY THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS for a new tv when their old one works perfectly well as long as the TV stations dont screw them over? Something tells me in two years some of the representatives will be taking a second look at this.