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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:
Its perfectly legal for them to beam these signals through our heads, on our property, but its not legal to decode the broadcasts that were in the clear without locking them down. God bless America.
When life gives you crap, Make Crapade.
Sluggy Freelance.
I am becoming more and more convinced that intellectual property is on a collision course with personal liberty. Unfortunately, neither the Republicans or Demorats seem to get this yet.
-- $G
What is to keep me from building a device to mask out the broadcast bit and then passing it through?
Can't be that complicated, and I'm sure someone will even start selling such devices, "for educational purposes only."
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Crudely Drawn Games
This will work just as well. So the average consumer will be hampered while the clued techy will be able to do what they've always done. Seems silly to me, to requiring others to provide a means to protect somebody elses property. Thats like the government requiring all theives to respect a "please do not steal" sticker on any car that has one.
How do you reconcile 'The flag does not restrict copying in any way' with 'required to check for the presence of the flag and apply DRM restrictions to its outputs'?
What is the purpose of the DRM if not to restrict copying in some way/shape/form?
Of course, it doesn't matter. Just about everything on TV these days, broadcast, cable, or satelite, is pure shite these days.
-paul
It looks like literature is the last refuge of the free these days. When they take that away, I'll memorize a few books and live down by the train tracks.
personal attacks hurt, especially when deserved
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.
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.
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!
Oh boy, this is really bad. I remember when they put that region encoding on DVDs, and boy, you sure can't find any region-free DVD players on the market, no sirree.. And it's not like big name brands make DVD players with "unintentional" "secret" "maintenance" backdoors that can switch off the region code restrictions by entering some code that was "accidentally" "leaked" to the internet. That never happens! If it did, why, perhaps people would start buying the models that did have those "accidental" backdoors, in preference to the models that don't..
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
all this does is add the flag to the stream. and it says that receivers must SEE the flag. it does not say what the box does with the flag..if the box lets you record it to DVD, allows you to make a DRMed file for your PC, if it lets you TIVO it, etc. companies will come up with tools that use the flag, and all they have to do is make sure the content is protected from being transmitted over the internet on a massive scale.
this is just a bit that lets the box know "hey, you need to make sure what ever you do to me, I can not easily be thrown onto the internet"
no rule exists as yo what the restrictions are. so we have the power to buy a box that does what we want it to do (as long as it does not give us unrestricted use on the internet.
of course, many of you will say that it still hurts you. I say, worry about it when it actually does hurt you, if you can not do your basic things like TIVO or DVD-R or VCR, that is a problem that limits your ability to use the data. but if I can use the data that way, I am happy and don't care about being able to move a DiVx encoded file to Kazza.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
This sounds like the flag they have in Redbook audio. Whenever I copy a CD in Nero, I see that the tracks are flagged as protected... but that doesn't affect the software in any way.
The problems are many: 1) How do you tell what's "Home network"? 2) Does my workplace count as part of my "Home network"? What about the lounge TV in a dorm? 3) Why does the redistribution have to be at lower resolution? I happen to be home to tape a show, my friend Bob isnt. He wants to borrow my copy. He, however, has to watch it in crappy-o-vision, despite the fact that the SAME FREAKING SIGNAL was beamed through his house. 4) Who decides what "Crappy-o-vision " is? It could well be unplayable. and these are just a few of the fair use issues.
When life gives you crap, Make Crapade.
Sluggy Freelance.
I haven't read the whole thing yet either, (MAN is it long.) but I suspect much of the outrage is due to the proposed spec which may or may not have been implemented exactly. The last slashdot article I saw on this showed a list of the possible values the flag could take:
Retention_State_Indicator Retention Time
000 Forever
001 1 week
010 2 days
011 1 day
100 12 hours
101 6 hours
110 3 hours
111 90 minutes
And that WAS for archival. Meaning that any recording that was not "unrestricted" was going to last a maximum of one week on your tivo/VCR/DVD+R/whatever. And who wants to guess how much TV will be "unrestricted?" And yes, sometimes your recordings would disappear in 90 minutes!!
Anyway-- like I said, I don't know if this made it into the adopted version. But until *everybody* gets through reading that thing (and we all know the slashdot crowd isOh Look! A Puppy!)
You can see why they might be a tad upset that this passed, thinking that something that ridiculous might apply to their recordings. Who knows if it's actually in the final spec, or what license-negotiation hoops Tivo or Samsung or DirecTV or whoever will jump through to protect THEIR investment in recording tech. We'll just have to wait and see.
I know the day my tivo gets castrated like that is the day i'm done with television altogether.
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?
Their new season is sucking in the prime 18-49 demographic. And the networks want to implement technologies that make it more difficult for these young people to watch their shows (Tivo, taping, etc.)
These folks are scared. They're content distribution monopoly is getting taken over by the Internet.
Slashdot and other independent content mechanisms are the the future. Not flags on broadcast signals.
I doubt it will be long before people are selling equiptment that ignores the broadcast flag.
That's the funny part. Right now, *all* equipment ignores the broadcast flag...
The pathetic thing is this will have wide ranging implications outside of the US. DTV is now fucked in Canada pretty much across the board thanks to the FCC being the MPAA's bitch.
Quite how this can be seen as a "step forward" for consumers is beyond me. CBS/Viacom must be using a WAY different dictionary to me...
Of course, it could be seen as a step forward for consumers. Kinda like the witch burnings in medieval times were a step forward for decent folk...
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.
if you want this fixed, the best way is grassroots so that people will complain to their elected officials.
there may not be very many tech savy people out there, but there are *lots* of people that have VCRs.
let me also make the following point: tv land is hurting. 10% drop in male viewers 18-24 (or such). it doesn't take a lot of lost viewership before lost revenue hurts. why am i saying this? because if a sizable portion of the viewing populations gets fed up (poor quality or punted into new tech), it costs them money.
two years until this happens or doesn't happen. i would say that it's still way up in the air.
eric
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.
I am becoming more and more convinced that intellectual property is on a collision course with personal liberty. Unfortunately, neither the Republicans or Demorats seem to get this yet.
The problem is more widespread than that. Here is a very brief email exchange I had with the anchor of a certain cable news program:
Me: I was dismayed to see Mr. XXXXX's interview with the new president of the RIAA on Monday night. The issue of downloading music from the internet is not quite as clear-cut as your show presented. It would have been much more interesting to have the RIAA president interviewed side-by-side with a representative from the file-sharing community. The issue of illegal music downloads is the tip of the iceberg for a range of important topics concerning the meaning and relevance of intellectual property and copyright in the 21st century. You are missing a valuable opportunity to examine these complex and important issues and are doing a poor job of reporting impartially when you conclude such a one-sided interview with a comment along the lines of "we wish you good luck" as you did with the RIAA president.
Mr. XXXXX: thanks for the note. My daughter shares your view. She's wrong too:) Stealing is stealing and this is theft. Do I think the industry has handled this correctly? I think my questions suggest probably not. But at the end of the day it is stealing. I am a bit at a loss that you see it otherwise.
I did send a follow-up email that made another attempt that persuing the file-sharing story beyond the shallow depth that they have been could lead to some interesting material for them. I never received a reply.
I was disappointed that this particular individual who, supposedly, is always interested in finding the hidden story behind the headlines, was so quick to compare me to his (persumably) young and immature daughter. I don't believe his quick dismissal of my point was due to spite or pressure from his boss. I think it's just because almost no one (outside of slashdot and a few other niche places) seems to realize that there are much bigger issues at stake here.
I think we need to somehow get "one of us" on one of these news programs to help "the masses" see that there is really an important battle coming in the very, very near future. That being, of course, the collison course you mentioned. How we get someone from our side on one of these programs is beyond me...
GMD
watch this
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"
The problem with this unit is what's DRM-free today doesn't have to be that way in 2005. Echostar could very easily add "broadcast flag auto-delete" support as part of a software update that's pushed down along with the guide data.
. 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 don't see what's unreasonable about this. If the system allows copying to a limit of 3 machines [snip] that wouldn't be unreasonable.
You own two machines, one for the living room and one for your bedroom. Of course you want to play your recordings both places, so there's 2 of your three copies. One day your home is burglarized and your machines stolen; you never had a chance to check-out the recordings played thereon. You buy two new machines. You have one playback left, so where would you like to watch all your existing tapes forever more, living room or bedroom? Choose wisely. If that machine breaks or you are robbed again, your entire archive is now useless. As soon as you tie the recordings to a limited set of playback devices, all recordings become temporary and are effectively timed out when those devices wear out, break, are stolen or destroyed.
Saying yes to DRM, even a little bit, is saying good-bye to ever really owning anything. These rules are really designed to circumvent ownership under the first-sale doctrine, and effectively convert your entire collection of video and audio media to rentals without directly saying so, and fair-use be damned. All in the name of stopping piracy. Bear in mind, we've only seen allegations that domestic home-copying is what's hurting the content industries, we've never seen it proven. And they've given this exact same gloom-and-doom sky-is-falling speech, practically word-for-word, about reel-to-reel tape decks, cassette recorders, and VCRs - and were wrong each time.
The real mass-scale piracy that actually costs the *AA real sales is in Asia and Eastern Europe, where the counterfeiters will be completely unaffected by this and every other copy-protection idea, not in American living rooms, where Mom will always be worried that if the VCR-alike breaks or is stolen, she'll never be able to play back the recording of the time she was interviewed on the local news again.
The only people who won't be harmed are the pirates, as it seems rather trivial to mask out the flags in the process of running a criminal copying enterprise anyway. Add a small grey-market cottage industry for enterprising geeks to break the flags for acquaintances so they don't lose their collections when they buy new equipment, or they forgot to check-in their recording and the power went out or something, and so on.
All this, just to avoid producing content people would want to pay for. Reasonable, it's decidedly not.
Well, aside from your example not quite working (the GPL doesn't apply to use), I at any rate would limit the right of copyright holders to restrict the future disposition of their work or copies thereof in some circumstances.
Namely, I would prohibit licensing to prevent non-infringing activities.
Thus, for example, licenses to prohibit copying TV shows where such copying was fair use, would be void. OTOH, licenses to prohibit putting the TV shows on P2P networks would be breeched, since that activity is infringing. Of course, such a license would be pointless, as that activity is already illegal. Licenses to permit the putting of TV shows on P2P networks would be entirely permissible, however.
Licenses to regulate the use of computer software (EULAs) would be void, since 17 USC 117 permits incidental copying and backups with regards to software that one owns (and w/o the license, there would absolutely be ownership of copies, no argument), and using it is not subject to a right of the copyright holder. However, a license to make non-incidental, non-backup copies, to make derivatives, and to distribute copies, that would be a permissible license, since you can't otherwise do that for copyrighted software w/o authorization.
I'm sure my proposal could stand a bit of work, but what's your general opinion?
-- 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.