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Losing Control of Your TV
sp00 writes "The MPAA is now trying to prevent high quality copies made from TV broadcasts. The latest anti-piracy move will prevent you from making high-quality copies of broadcast TV programs. And the new "broadcast flag" technology enables all manner of other restrictions. In the future, the Motion Picture Association of America will control your television set."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the MPAA only control motion pictures? Legally, that is.
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
Does this include low-quality copies, like standard VHS recordings?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
The broadcast flag could be expanded into a whole family of little flaglets, and together giving the system a much more expressive repertoire. One flag might say, "you may not time-shift this program." Another flag might tell your TiVO "you may not fast-forward or skip this program's commercials." A very special flag might disable your TV's channel changer and "off" buttons. There might even be a Mission Impossible flag that makes your digital video recorder self-destruct in five seconds (or at least erase every movie owned by Universal Studios.) Who knows what Hollywood will dream up next!
I realize this guy is sort of pushing the bullshit lines with controlling the OFF BUTTON and the MI sequence but I can actually see them banning you from timeshifting, etc. Look at some DVDs. You already can't skip some commercials on those. I can see it being that way on a rented movie but on one you purchased? That's bullshit.
HDTV was mandated by the government at YOUR expense so that these people could control YOUR choices. Make sure you thank them.
Then I want control over the price....
If I don't own the TV set outright, I shouldn't have to pay $3000 for a plasma TV. I think I should only have to pay $3.
"...the shortest distance between two points may be straight line, but it is by no means the most interesting."
how about an evil flag, so when the latest fox reality show is on, my signal quality is automagically reduced to nil.
Who'da thunk the MPAA would be the ones to institute the ominous Evil Bit?
Like streaming audio, there is always a way around that. In the age of digital cable, and MPAA controlled TVs, the frame grabber reigns supreme.
There's always going to be a way to get around it though. Look at XP's Activation, that was cracked. Even the activation in Longhorn has been cracked. No matter how strong of a wall you put up, all it takes is a big wrecking ball to bring it down.
Creating a market for tv's imported from countries that don't have the restrictions and a black market for chipping sets.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
The vast majority of these restrictions are only going to keep away casual joe from recording American Idol (which he probably won't every see again anyway). I'm sure there's always a way around any protection mechanism, like an exception to every rule.
Yea. I know.
High quality? TV broadcasts? This does not compute.
Come to think of it, it is impossible to make a "high quality" anything if the TV show concerned is "Dharma and Greg". I think the entire UPN network will be exempt from these restrictions too. (I'd mention the ABC network, but I didn't think it was around anymore)
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
the Motion Picture Association of America will control your television set."
;-) You know what? I don't miss it either.
At which point I won't have one.
There is something to be said for getting older and not giving a *&@# about keeping current as-far-as TV shows are concerned. I could'nt even tell you who is sleeping with who on Friends
BC
There will be a modification of some sort, whether a chip of some sort, or a simple pencil mark, to disable this. And again we will all point and augh at the time and money spent on something so worthless.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
There are many many good reasons to stop watching TV, so many that I can't really list them all. But I know that I am finding I have less and less inclination to watch TV. All the new shows that come out are crap, and as all my old favorites end their life time, I find I watch less television.
With all the crap on TV these days, and things like this coming into play, I can only hope people will at least reduce the amount of tv they watch.
no comment
What will happen to good ol Tivo if this happens? I'm thinking it doesn't get any higher quality than a digital copy.
Guess we'll have to pay extra "taxes" or "licensing fees" or rent our TVs from now on since apparently you can't do anything with things you buy now.
When will this stop!
Der Tod ist der einzige Weg hier raus!
Someone will create a new "blackbox" not to dissimilar from a cable-descrambler nowadays to change the bit. Bingo, flag off, problem solved. :)
# fuser -v
#
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
Dunno about your tv.. but mine has all kinds of cool moving pictures. They dance, and laugh, and shoot each other, and on Cop Rock, they even SING!
I hate spyware and spies
With TV, the only way to force people to accept unreasonable controls is to legislate... but fucking with something that virtually everyone does on a daily basis (rather than MP3s, still something the voting middle-aged and elderly populations aren't entirely au fait with) is going to score them some serious heat and scrutiny.
We can but hope, anyway...
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
It's Outer Limits for real this time!
I will keep my old stuff for as long as it works. When I am confronted with HDTV crippleware, it's time to get rid of TV altogether. There isn't any problem MPAA can create that I can't solve with the power switch.
These MPAA people are determined to follow in the footsteps of RIAA. Crappy content, obnoxious protection, struggling for more and more control over media that has less and less content. Pretty soon they will control 100% of nothing.
First they came for the ooffshore pirate DVD factories,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't an offshore DVD pirate.
Then they came for the Kazaa users,
and I didn't speak up,
because I didn't use Kazaa.
Then they came for the VHS copiers,
and I didn't speak up,
because I still used Betemax.
Then they came for me,
and I turned off the set.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
For quite a long time there WILL always be analog video out, at least in the form of component video for high-quality.
;-)
So long as you have that, you can make a recording.
Yes they can try to put restrictions on it (like Macrovision does) but like Macrovision it will be fairly easy to circumvent. So don't go crazy yet... unless you live in the USA that is, where the DMCA would make it illegal
Then I want control over the price....
... i.e. they (and HDTV) will be a complete flop, and television will be replaced by the Internet completely, once and for all.
If I don't own the TV set outright, I shouldn't have to pay $3000 for a plasma TV. I think I should only have to pay $3.
We (collectively) have complete control over the price. Do not buy an HDTV with these sorts of crippling features. I own an HDTV, which I use as a 61" computer monitor and DVD playback device. I own an HDTV (Linux PCI card) tuner which does allow digital recording. I will not purchase a device with these flags enabled.
If enough other videophiles are informed enough and smart enough to do likewise, the product will go the way of the original DIVX self-destructive DVDs
(There is a lot to be done on the content side to offer entertainment alternatives to the Corporate State's Bread and Circuses program, but Red v. Blue and other content online is already showing the way, and Blender et. al. put the tools in our hands to make our own high quality content. The rest is up to us).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Just stop watching TV... speak with your wallet and stop watching TV. Notify your provider in writing that you object to this limitation of the service you enjoy. Write your MP or Senator and state that you do not enjoy the fact that someone is limiting your freedom to enjoy a product which you pay for.
My point being is that the TV/MPAA industry is bound and determined to make money whatever way they can in order to both profit and to 'subsidize' 'providing' broadcast television. This typically means advertising. It is up to you to determine whether you will put up with restrictions or not. The problem is that all of us viewers allow these corporations to do what they want because its not worth 'your time'. That's your choice.. your time. These days I am chosing to not use TV anymore. I live with the lack of entertainment.. but I am finding my way with.. gasp.. reading... exercise... developing social networks for work, friends, and family.
Its amazing what you can do when you plug those 4 to 8 hours a day into something other than watching television.
Admittedly there are a lot of folks quite happy to do so... hoorah for them. They've made their choice whether they actively did so or not.
(1st sig) If this were a snappy sig, you'd be reading it right now. (2nd sig) I'm a karma whore. >Insert FUD here
I have not had a TV since May, 1978.
I have not missed a darn thing.
There is too much in life to enjoy without
having a TV.
How can the MPAA control the empty space where
your TV is not?
Cleara
A few years ago, this kind of action would look ridiculous. Why stop someone from copying a show when it won't rerun again for another year (or more)? But now that entire seasons worth of series (like Buffy, 24, Simpsons, the list never ends) are available, they can continue to make profits long after a show is cancelled.
In Soviet Russia, your television set will control the Motion Picture Association of America!
:)
How can we get that technology over here??
# fuser -v
#
Your friendly neighborhood public library still doesn't treat you like a criminal. Amazing as it sounds, you can walk in and ask for a book, and they'll lend it to you. All they ask is that you return it when they ask you to. That's right, they'll actually take you at your word. No deposits, DRM, FBI warnings or EULAs involved. Why not go today, and remind yourself how it feels to be treated with a little respect?
The closest thing I have to a TV is an NTSC monitor at work, for video capture and output monitoring. I watch the DVDs I borrow from my coworker on my computer- a 20" screen is just fine, thank you.
News flash: YOU DON'T NEED THE TV. There's plenty of OTHER things you could be doing- personally, I hate the thing and see it as an incredible waste of extremely valuable time. Gathering 'round with friends for a John Carpenter marathon is nice social thing, but watching TV alone is like going to the movies or a restaurant alone- an asocial act of mental masturbation.
I stopped watching TV for several reasons- most of it was shit, I didn't want to pay out the ass for 50 channels I don't want to get the three I do, and I REALLY HATE the advertising- specifically the difference in audio levels and overall brightness.
I don't miss TV at all. With technology like this being pushed, I miss it even less. I'll stick with software DVD playback once or twice a month, so I can watch movies and comment about how {good|bad} they are on IRC at the same time. Good use of existing hardware, excellent monetary savings (one of my machines has RCA/S inputs, so it's not like I need a TV for my old Nintendo, either...)
The industry's great fear is that high-quality digital broadcasts would be scooped up by techno-geeks with digital television cards wedged in to the back of their PCs.
And it will be. You don't think "techno-geeks" will be able to tweak the firmware on the capture cards to ignore the flag?
The only thing this does is take away consumers rights to timeshift this digital content. I should be able to capture the 6'Oclock movie and watch it at midnight - not in some lossy second rate format, but exactly how it originally aired. Did the courts not already decide this?
If they dont want me watching this material, why the fuck are they broadcasting it? The push medium, the your-life-revolves-around-our-schedule school of thought within the cult of TV is ending. With all the PVRs out there, on demand programming from the cable company, etc, people are watching what they want and when they want.
The silver lining? This will probably bite them in the ass. Less people will see flagged movies/shows, which means less ratings, which means less advertising dollars, which makes the movies/shows worth less.
I bet you'll see the flag off by default almost all the time. Except guaranteed captive audiences, like live sports events.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I don't own one :-)
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
On an off-topic note - what Linux HDTV tuner do you use, and how open are the drivers?
The broadcast flag is old news. The FCC can control hardware, but not software.
e s. html
Thus the GNU project brings us an open source software tuner, which is not subject to regulation, and can tune/record HDTV.
Check out these HDTV screen shots:
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio/hdtv-sampl
Sadly, the software controlled tuner cards, powerful processor, DRAM, wide screen monitor, good computer stereo, etc put this toy out of the reach of most geeks - for now.
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
Who is actually recording television anymore? With what they consider quality television, I'm surprized more people aren't doing more interesting things like taking a Craftsman cordless drill to the soles of their feet or jamming needles in their armpits.
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
If you've watched at least three minutes of a program, you will be prohibited from changing the channel during the next commercial. Mute, power off, and volume reduction will also be disabled. User control returns after three minutes of commercials or when released by the broadcaster.
This prevents people from stealing program content by not watching the commercials.
As I understand it, this is just one more flag in the ATSC (MPEG) stream, since we're mostly talking about Off Air DTV right? Unless the stream is encrypted, unlikely for off-air, you just need hardware that ignores the extra bit.
If it ever gets to the truely annoying point where you can't do anything but sit in front of the TV and watch it real time, there will be a whole slew of hacks to dissable this on your various hardware pieces.
This strikes me as something like the region code for DVDs. Annoying, but if you really care, you can get around it.
Yes, it would be nice to deal with this from the top by eliminating stupidity from policy making, but certainly not the end of the world if it happens.
My 2 cents.
When ReplayTV's show-sharing accross the Internet came out, it took about a day to move a 30-minute show over a consumer grade Internet connection, even though it just had standard resolution and no more than two channels of audio, and had already gone through the Replay unit's MPEG compression. We're talking about a gigabyte an per hour of content, and that's a lot of data to move. Besides being killed by the courts, the feature just wasn't that useful because it took just so long.
A digital TV station has an effective throughput of about 6 mbps, which is faster than the typical consumer download connection, and much faster than the typical consumer upload speed. The advantage is that the 6 mbps can be fully compressed before they send it out, so the uncompressed version is something like 18 to 24 mbps of data depending on the exact standard being used.
What the so called "Broadcast Flag" (a term I don't like either, it's really an Anti-digital-copy Flag) does is it orders the decyrpting device to shutdown its digital outputs, but it's still allowed to use analog outs to its heart's content...
Now, here's the catch, MPEG is designed to be a process that's easy on the decode side, and puts as much of the processor load as possible on the encoding side. So, your MPEG will never be as good as one the studios can afford to make, which means your 6 mbps file is going to look worse than the one on TV... and you might even end up with a bigger file with less quality than the one that was broadcast.
When it comes down to it, TiVo has always honored that rule as best they could, trying to make digital extraction out of its machines as hard as they could. That was always the "forbidden hack" on the TiVo-sponsored forums. Now, that hack's going to become illegal.
So really, they're doing nothing to close the analog hole, except for the fact that they realize that passing through the analog hole will always result in either quality loss or bandwidth bloat or both.
The revolution will be televised...
Please check with the MPAA to acquire a license to view the revolution.
Quote: In the future, the Motion Picture Association of America will control your television set."
Yes, but by that time, TV will be obsolete. The internet is taking people away from TV because it's a superior format - albeit different and not directly comparable, yes.
However, 'how long can television last?' is the real question, particularly in light of the paternalistic control mechanisms the MPAA is considering.
I find it funny that people whose political views are right-of-centre often argue that social programs should be 'run like businesses', and thus privatised. However, looking at how the MPAA treats people who pay $13.50 to watch a film in a theatre - by treating them like potential criminals with their anti-piracy ads - I can't believe that running a social program 'like a business' has any merit as an argument. If the government put ads like that in theatres, they'd have their skin ripped off by an understandably furious public...but when the MPAA does it, I suppose we just have to swallow it (?).
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
I'm a proud voter, and I'm happy to see that more people are taking the 5 minutes required to do the same.
And as another post-er already pointed out, the failure of DivX based DVD players was a consumer shug-the-shoulders, "I wonder who would buy that," response. But those consumers did not buy that.
How can they call it high quality when all of those damn logos are plastered all over the bottom of the screen. I don't see how it benefits me as a viewer or them as a broadcaster. The only thing it does is annoy me. It gets especially bad when you have the network logo on one side and the local channel on the other side of the screen. I was watching that awful Steven King series last night and every so often during the show my local broadcaster would put up a brightly colored not even translucent logo in the bottom part of the screen that was probably a third of the width of the screen. To me that is not high quality. Calling it quality is probably a stretch too.
In Republican America phones tap you.
But they think that if you can't record your show, you'll go rent or buy a DVD of it. Take "Sex and the City" for example, you can record it, and yet they have DVD's available for renting, and knowing quite a few girls in their 20's, it does get rented by them. Now take away their right to record it (some do record it, in case they miss it) and you'll have a few more girls renting it. They're trying to create a market where there isn't a need to. It's all in the name of greed, and not neccesarily about piracy.
Slippery slope arguments always make me suspicious. Garfinkel assumes that the use of flags to prevent high-quality recording of digital broadcasts will inevitably lead to a "in Soviet Russia, your TV watches you" scenario. Of course, if the RIAA provides an analagous case, Garfinkel may be right, and we'll have yet another battle fought between Orwellian copy protection schemes and geeks wielding magic markers. Come July 4, 2005, we'll read on Slashdot about how to build your own black box to get around the flags. The "Soviet Russia" scenario assumes we'll take this lying down, like the puppets of corporate America we are. Again, if the RIAA's efforts are any indication, I don't think that's a valid assumption.
"Den som vover mister Fodfaeste et Oieblik; den som ikke vover mister Livet." -Soren Kierkegaard
On an off-topic note - what Linux HDTV tuner do you use, and how open are the drivers?
... who knows how long before the thugs in Washington ban the technology outright.
I use a PC HDTV card. The drivers are free software (GPLed) and available online (they are v4l2 based, rather than v4l, but can be made to work with mythtv and xine-hd).
Buy 'em early and often
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I remember all the flak the recording industry got when crippled CDs wouldn't play on computers, some car CD players, or even regular old portable CD players. And guess what, crippled CDs really haven't flourished. I don't see this going anywhere either once people like my Dad (who loves his Tivo with a passion) can't use it the way it's intended.
Though my one question is, they can send little flags all they want, it's still just a stream of 1's and 0's that can be grabbed before they enter the TV and redirected to another recording source.
Just like no matter how much DRM they put on MP3s, there's still nothing preventing me from taking the line out from my computer and putting it into a digital recorder.
Now when they put gov't controlled ear plugs and blinders one me, then I'll be worried.
ce n'est pas un Sig.
I take the opposite tack: I just don't buy televisions at all. I have a mediocre television hooked to a cheap DVD player so I can watch movies, and I can use money left over from not paying for cable to buy more wine. Think of it: satellite TV for a year is two cases of drinkable wine, or one case of good wine. I also have a lot of extra time on my hands, to think about which bottle I will open tonight.
I may also be a little bit bored.
You'll be able to buy a simple device whose sole purpose is to NULL that flag in the input stream.
It'll probably retail for $9.99 on the web.
That's until a college student figures out that all it takes to disable the DRM feature is holding the SHIFT key on your remote.
I can't wait for 'the flag'...
there's no place like ~
Even if all of the videophiles in the nation united, it would not compare to the number of people who would buy them anyway because they just don't care.
... telling their family and friends not to buy obnoxious products will most certainly kill them dead.
... if the early adopters are informed enough, and intelligent enough, to make the right choice.
... video and audiophiles have a disproportionate impact on which consumer electronic devices succeed and which ones fail.
Wrong.
Early adopters are critical to a new product's success. If the videophiles, who are the early adopters of HDTV, do not buy the products, there is a good chance few others will.
Remember, not only do enthusiasts buy the expensive ("development-cost recouping") equipment, they are also the ones their friends and families turn to for advice on what to buy and what not to buy. Withholding their willingness to purchase will almost certainly be enough to kill obnoxious new products
This has already happened, with DAT tapes and divx DVD's. It can happen again with crippled HDTV
Don't kid yourself about the potential impact
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I think the DVD industry realizes that too many obstacles between the viewer and the movie will cause widescale hacking of the firmware. As mentioned in another thread, altough DVD companies have the ability to force people to watch a commercial at the beginning of each movie, many are opting out of this temptation. The last DVDs I've watched did not have forced previews or other commercials. My bet isn't on the movie industry playing fair with the public, but miracles happen. My guess is that the advertisers who pay for product placement in the movies are upset at those that pay for product placement on the DVDs. I can't see Hollywood ever doing anything that isn't set against the consumer.
Pretty soon the HDTV experience will be as displeasurable as the DVD experience - my power button will be disabled during the intro, we'll have "FBI" warnings that cannot be bypassed in any manner, the TV will change channels when I turn it on, and I'll have hypertension. And I will give up on TV entirely. Oh, wait, I already have. Thanks you MPAA - it will help people see the world outside of the bland "art" produced nowadays in Hollywood.
What don't they get? The RIAA screwed its customers, so now its customers (and potential ones) are returning the favor. If the music industry hadn't screwed its customers over in the first place, copyright infringment would be a small problem with little import to their profitability. Instead, they made copying into a problem that they can't control - every time a Napster dies, ten Kazaa's rise to take its place.
You'd have figured the MPAA and its members would have learned from this - when you have digital media, your audience will rob you blind unless you treat them well. Copying your work is tedious but trivial - thus if you give your customers a reason to do so, they will. When people can't do what they want with their TV and its content (time-shift, copy to disc for personal use, etc.), then people will find a way around the MPAA's restrictions, and then the MPAA is stuck playing a losing game.
The movie and music companies act like foreign dictators with their own private armies and Swiss bank accounts. Don't they remember what happens to tyrants? (Here's a clue - they don't have to worry about collecting retirement benefits.) The worse the dictators treat their people, the harder it is on them when their time comes up (as it always does). What makes these people think that they are immune to this? Even worse, unlike countries with despots, I can walk away from them. So can everyone else. As the parent said, eventually the movie companies will control 100% of nothing. How are they going to pay off^H^H^H^H^H^Hmake campaign contributions to legislators to protect their (nonexistent) market without any money?
The reason this is not considered news is that it's been like that for DECADES and most people put up with it. The benefit for all that cost is that the license fee supports the BBC, whose programming is vastly superior to what you get on American PBS or network television (or so I understand, not being a Brit myself).
We have the same system in Norway. It is basically a tax on Televisions and is used to fund the state television channels like BBC (in England) and NRK (in Norway).
It is meant to provide an alternative to commercial TV-channels and they produce some really good things that may never normally be commercially viable.
Since practically everyone has a television I guess it would make more sense to just take it in as income tax.
And so far, no one is complaining. So sad.
Are you sure nobody is complaining? Sometimes, people don't "complain", they just silently change their purchasing/consuming habits. Haven't you seen the stories on Slashdot where people are spending time on the web or with video games, taking the time out of their television viewing?
That is even better than complaining.
DiVX, the Circuit City self-destructing DVD technology, in the end wasn't killed by geek complaints. It was killed by people who didn't buy it. (Sometimes, the "sheeple" aren't. "Sheeple" is mostly a term for feeling yourself superior anyhow, but I digress....) DVDs, IMHO, have already crossed the line of what people will tolerate, as evidenced by being forced to back down from forced previews to allowing people to skip them. Don't expect them to get any worse, or if they do, expect rapid punishment exacted on the offending studio by the market.
I'd not bet on it yet but it is a perfectly plausible outcome that by 2006 or 2007, no broadcaster will use the flag, because they can't afford the viewership loss! PVRs aren't going away over the next year. The Internet isn't going away. Video games certainly aren't going away. The optimal time for TV to pull this shit was about four years ago; now too many people have tasted the "forbidden fruit" of interactive media, especially PVRs, and many of them are already choosing to decrease their TV usage, before the TV industry implements the squeezing! (If you've got the disposable funds, buy your representatives a TiVo; that donation will probably have a greater effect then anything else you could do with the money.)
Oh, there's valid reason for concern and I still would like to see a lawsuit that labels this as unconstutitional restriction on our speech, and personally I find attempts to control viewers who aren't sharing effectively unethical. The fight should be fought... but I'm pretty sure that in this arena, we've already won. The TV industry would like to think otherwise, but they are, in the end, dispensible now. Viable alternatives exist and most of them are one-way transitions for the people who try them; the television's only choice now is between declining slowly and maintaining a real but smaller existance, or throwing a hissy fit until we starve them as a society. (No laws necessary; we can't be forced to watch TV barring a sudden UK-like tax law.)
I say, if you don't want me copying or altering TV shows, then don't send them to me. I didn't ask for TV shows to be beamed into my house. Tough shit for them. I'll copy any damn TV show I want, 'cause it's mine once they beam it straight into my house. (In reality, I don't even have a TV antenna, never mind cable/satellite... I only use my TV to watch my DVD backups)
I lost control of my TV long ago.
I have a teenage daughter.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Bring on the DMCA lawsuits when people mod their HTDV's hardware and firmware to ignore the broadcast flag - EVERYONE DO IT so that it become civil disobiendience.
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
Then it dawned on me that DVD's get ripped and posted to the internet months if not years before the TV version gets Tivo'd and posted. So my question is why are they wasting all this time and money to implement a broadcast flag when it is pretty much irrelevant?
Now I am beginning to wonder what the real use of the flag is for. It isn't for copying because at this point the copies already exist. Maybe it is for tighter control over Tivo, timeshifting, skipping adverts.
'Same speed C but faster'
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Consumers: What happen?
Slash-Dot: Somebody set up us the Broadcast Flag.
Slash-Dot: We get SUED.
Consumers: What!
Slash-Dot: Main screen turn on.
Consumers: It's You!!
MPAA: How are you gentlemen!!
MPAA: All your TV are belong to us.
MPAA: Your rights are on the way to destruction.
Consumers: What you say!!
MPAA: Your rights have no chance to survive make your time.
MPAA: HA HA HA HA!
MPAA: Take off every "zig."
Consumers: You know what you doing.
MPAA: Move "zig."
Consumers: For great justice.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Be careful, it is fiction for a reason and where the line between research and story is not always crystal clear. Just like TV, there are good books and bad books and it takes a discerning reader/viewer to make good choices.
Underloved Movies and Pub Quiz: donotquestionme.org
Can you think of a single FCC action under its Chairman, Michael Powell (nepotistic Colin Powell's son), that has benefitted consumers? Why do we let this clown keep his job?
--
make install -not war
This is ultimately a political issue. Our elected leaders either don't understand these technological issues, or else they don't care about the impacts. This is an election year, what does John Kerry think about this? What does he think about the RIAA suing teenage downloaders? What about your senator, or congressperson? I can promise you they aren't on 'our' side. Because what do we have to offer them? Only votes...There needs to be organization, a group that focuses solely on these technology-related issues. With enough supporters, politicians will be forced to take a side on these issues, and ultimately, if they see it might cost them votes, they will start to take 'our' side. As it is, though, we have senators saying they see no problem with the RIAA/Record companies hacking into and destroying data on someone's personal computer. Only when all of us who care about these issues know exactly where each candidate stands, and informs the candidate that this will influence who we vote for, only then will this trend be reversed. I'm not saying that if you're a die-hard conservative, you should vote for John Kerry, or vice versa. I'm saying that if enough people organize this movement properly, then you won't have to, because both candidates will be trying to win your vote. And what better place to start such a movement then at slashdot...
doesn't make bribery legal. It makes it unenforced. There's a HUGE fucking difference.
The fate of all this DRM really lies in the hands of innovators outside the US, because the American public isn't going to bat an eyelash about this. Fifty years ago anybody who even suggested a universal plan to so equip all televisions or radios would have faced angry public protests, boycotts, and probably accusations of being communist. Nowadays such announcements are greeted with [yawn] consumption-as-usual, by people who are mere consumers rather than citizens.
The American public today is an amorphous mass of market share, whose job is to respond to advertising and other stimuli, not to complain or initiate any meaningful action. So don't expect the masses to jump up and say, "NO, I don't want a crippled television!" Expect them to say, "Does it have SurroundSound?" and, "How much is the Big one?"
Baaaaaa, baaaaaaa... Moooooo....
Copy protection is nothing. Digital TV will have nastier surprises in store. All of us are abundantly aware by now that duplicating copyrighted films is illegal, but that doesn't stop some publishers from putting up THREE warnings that the FBI, CIA, Interpol and the KGB will come and get us. With videotape and laserdisc you could always zip through those notices, but not with DVD. Set-top DVD players are semi-literate computers, which means that you can give them instructions like "over-ride all user controls" so that you must sit through it.
Digital TV may do the same thing with ads. All of a sudden your volume, mute, change channel and power-off buttons will not work -- until the ad is over, of course.
Well that's simply an issue of enforcement. Historically this wasn't a problem as there was only the BBC. Now there are three free to air comercial channels as well as the Beeb. The same technology is used for all 5 channels, so how do we stop people who don't want to pay for BBC from watching the BBC.
Oh I know, we could put some sort of tag in the broadcast which would limit what people could watch on their TV... Oh wait.
Look for the MPAA to use the DMCA to sue anyone who disables the "anti-copy" circuit.
Or even worse than that, look for them to illegally sue anyone who purchases anything, like a soldering iron, that could be used to disable it.
Don't believe me? Look at how (1) (2) DirecTV is warping the DMCA in its own image. Sueing people for merely purchasing a smartcard reader!
Only 22,000+ people sued so far!
Watch for the MPAA to start this next, just like the RIAA and DirecTV have.First, the article implies that we will be able to make analog copies, but that isn't true, after 2005 it will be illegal for any television equipment to have analog outputs.
i ne er/f-MO-Earth_to_congress.shtml
i ne er/f_mo_the_masked_engineer-01.21.04.shtml
http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/Masked-Eng
Second, the article implies that broadcast flags will only protect high definition programming. That is not true. Broadcasters will even be able to place flags on public domain programming.
http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/Masked-Eng
It's a simple fact that in a few years, we will be unable to copy a TV show without breaking the law.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
(MPAA)
It's mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine! And you can't have any! Nyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
(/MPAA)
Buncha babies.
Come on... This only seems bizarre because we don't have it here in the US. The income tax also seemed ludicrous when it was first created (some would argue it still is ludicrous).
If the movie flops, piracy will again be blamed, even if it is a case of most people not wanting to pay more for a 2 hour "lease" on the content then they would for an indefinite "lease" on it.
No matter what the entertainment industry gets, it will not be enough for them until they control our culture (what's left of it) in its entirety.
The market simply will not bear these outrageous DVD/cable subscription/movie ticket prices any longer, and they are trying to find a scapegoat.
DVDs are going to eventually go the way of CDs, for the exact same reason - we are being made to shell out a purchase price that is at least 5-6 times over the manufacturing costs. It's greed that is killing these people, not piracy.
As to TV shows, basic cable (read: non-dish/digital) is a joke. It's not even worth having any longer. I don't even think of watching cable any longer, when I want to see something, I load it up over my xbox ftp. There's no reason for me to watch american idol 57 when my computer has 3 seasons of family guy on it.
The entertainment industry has to change or die, simple as that. How many times can consumers (we're not even customers anymore) be expected to pay out higher and higher prices for the same content? (you pay for the subscription to HBO so you can see The Sopranos, then you pay a ridiculous amount of money to see it again, ala boxset.)
...given the political climate here. In fact I'll bet the broadcast flags could be used (abused?) even MORE in Canada than the US. (I can just picture it...you have exceeded your viewing limit of foreign programming so your TV will only permit you to watch Peter Mansbridge read the news and re-runs of "The Beachcombers", "The Red Green Show" and "North of 60".)
It's a little known fact that by law ALL televisions sold in Canada sized 60 cm or over (20"+...not sure why the smaller ones are exempt) must be equipped with V-Chips (to allow blocking of content rated at a certain threshhold). By default it is set at maximum to let all content through and I don't think many consumers are even aware of the feature, much less know how to set it. Many TVs in the US include it too since although it is not required by law, it consumers percieve it as a convenient feature that hasn't impacted the cost of the TV, and as such they can sell the same model continent-wide.
Given the lack of concern over such mandates in Canada, and the fact that it is a small market compared with the US it wouldn't make economic sense to make non-crippled equipment just for Canada (it would actually cost a fair bit more since it wouldn't be volume production). Besides that there would be political pressure by the US on manufacturers not to do it and on the Canadian govenrment to legislate broadcast flags.
Digital sattelite is a good example--it existed for years in legal limbo and new legislation brought in under pressure from Canadian and American entertainment industries made American set-ups illegal--EVEN IF YOU WERE A FULLY-PAYING DIRECT TV CUSTOMER. Now if you don't want to break the law you are limited to ExpressVu or StarChoice--domestic choices subject to Canadian-content quotas and blocked from carrying most premium American programming (it is illegal in Canada to view HBO, Showtime and so on--even if you were willing to pay full subscriptions to them--because they have not been granted permission to broadcast in Canada).
HDTV might follow the same route...the gov't will drag its feet until it becomes popular to get "hacked tv's". They will be so common that industry groups and the US with bitch and moan loudly enough that new laws will be passed in Canada.
There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image; make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner party to the Target Market.
all your base are belong to us.
|plastic....or gasoline?|
This stuff is not just limited to broadcast TV (though it is even more obnoxious in broadcast TV, because it's OUR spectrum that they are using).
Check out this article which talks about changes that DirecTV is trying to implement. Here's a nice little nugget about controlling those damn Tivos:
News Corp. and Fox are striving to cushion their energetic embrace of personal video recorder technology in DirecTV's set-top boxes with limitations and standards that do not overly threaten the advertising revenue that is key to Fox's TV stations and broadcast network. They will include elimination of the 30-second skip button and place limits on the time allowed to download and store programs.
That's what you get when our wonderful FCC (the same guys that approved the broadcast flag) allowed a content producer - News Corp. (Rupert Murdoch's company, who also owns Fox), to buy a service provider. Don't you love our corporatist Bush administration?!? That sure was nice of Michael Powell's daddy, Colin Powell, to get him that job as the chairman of the FCC.
I've read a lot about this, and the reason they don't want people to have the ability to record high quality copies, and be able to post them on the Internet, is that most European Countries don't get American shows until 1-2 years later.
Even now, last season of shows like Scrubs, are being seen for the first time in Europe. Without the control over when these shows are seen be the Europeans, the MPAA loses the ability to get the higest price from advertisers.
I simply wanted to point out the MPAAs mindset behind why they wanted this. It isn't to "control your TV", it was only a way to make sure that they are getting the most return on their global investment.
I really hate Dan Patrick.
In 5 years streaming media sent over the internet will be the "TV" of choice for anyone under 30.
Between people putting their own content out and those operating "pirate" feeds either in places that the the United States legal system can't touch or in encrypted anonymous trading networks, hollywood will never be able to put that genie back into the bottle.
In the mean time I don't have cable and don't miss it. I refuse to pay $50 -$60 a month for crap!
Every time I am somewhere like a hotel room where I can watch cable I end up flipping through 60 channels and not finding anything I want to watch. Who wants to watch a bunch of stupid sheep's pretend lives when you can go and have a life of your own?
My kids watch video's and DVD's that we either own or have rented and they are happy. They watch about 30 minutes of video a night, none of it broadcast. They watch way less then any of their friends. As a result they have time for ballet, gymnastics, swim team, trick jumprope classes, T-ball, scouts, church groups, sleep overs, visits to the liberary, computers, train spotting, ice skating, riding bikes, bowling, and doing their homework, reading stories to dad.
Every wrong attempt discarded is a step forward - T. Edison
I can tell the future... the broadcast flag will be (mis)used in exactly the same manner as the "fcc" bit in DVDs. The bit that disables the remote while the FCC warning is on screen is already improperly applied to what seems like hours of f***ing previews and other worthless crap on more than just Disney DVDs.
(Incidentally, the previews are a complete waste of space and time as they hold very little meaning years after those movies have been released. How many times do people need to be forced to watch previews for Planet of the Apes?)
http://www.swingmusic.net/Big_Band_Era_Recording_B an_Of_1942.html
New York - From today on there will be no recording of music, classical or jazz, in this country by union musicians. Prexy Petrillo has not backed down by his claim that recording was ruining the jobs of 60 percent of the AFM membership and that he meant to do something about it. As a result only Soundies and Hollywood are exempted from the "no mechanical reproduction of any kind" order.
Petrillo has shifted his position as to the sale of records. He had previously told the companies that they could record for home and Army use, but when it was pointed out to him that the companies would be violating the law if they tried to regulate who bought their records, Petrillo made the edict a complete stoppage.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
The MPAA should worry more about the loss of TV viewership than people making copies of their programs. The way it is going now no one will want to make copies of the programs.
;-)
Which brings up another question! Are the people in Hollywood now so inbred that they can no longer determine what the public likes. There were so surprised by the loss of viewership that they question the figures provided by the Nielson rating company. They still have no idea why there are fewer viewers this year.
Even the latest Star Trek series "Enterprise" is suffering under there heavy hands. They are losing viewers and keep retooling the show...making it worse every time they tweak it. Fixing it would be SO easy yet no one in Hollywood seems to know how to fix either problem!
It is SO easy to fix I would work on a contingency basis, if they ratings don't go up, you don't pay me. Anyone out there in LALA land want to make the best invest you have made in years?
Everytime the RIAA or MPAA comes up with another hardware scheme of protecting their content, determined hackers always circumvent it in short order. So far they've failed to protect CDs, DVDs, even satellite signals. They're not likely to succeed for long with this new idea, either. You get a digital tuner with the new technology, flash the firmware with hacked ROM and do what you want, per usual.
While in the UK, the BBC has great plans to put all of its past and present programming online for free via a file sharing net. Crazy world.
You know you've been surfing /. too long when you see the word "losing" and think it's a typo.
---- Just another spud server.
Jerry Doyle, the actor who played Security Chief Michael Garibaldi on Babylon 5, said that the first season was filmed for about $950,000 an episode -- he figured it was about $19 million for the whole season.
With B5 doing extremely well in DVD boxset form (Doyle commented that 350,000 boxsets at about $80 apiece would bring in $21 million) he remarked that they could effectively film a season and throw it in a box set and it'll eventually make money.
Obviously, that has some pitfalls -- I'm not going to shell out $75 to $100 for a season of a show I haven't watched any of -- but it does lend credence to what you're saying.
Another example would be Red Vs. Blue. Sure, the episodes are free for download in a low-res form; if you donate money, you can get access to high-res versions of the episodes; at the end of the season, they sell a whole season on DVD, and the best part is, if you basically donate the amount the DVD costs over the course of the season, you get it for free!
Leaving aside the fact that Paramount would bury them in lawyers for basically doing fanfic episodes in the vein of Star Trek: the Original Series, Starship Exeter would be another good example of something that might be entertaining, at $8 - $10 a DVD for two episodes, to pick up once in a while. (I'm not sure how they're making money doing basically fanfic episodes in the vein of Star Trek: the Original Series; I assume it's simply for the fun of it.)
I haven't had cable for over 4 years, and it hasn't hampered my ability to socialize with the world; I get my news from Google News and the local paper; friends will record stuff and loan it to me once in a while (I watched Battlestar Galactica and the SciFi Dune miniseries this way) and if you're good at listening, you can get people to tell you what happened on that show you used to watch. (Oral storytelling takes on a new life...?) I'm thinking of signing up for NetFlix and watching TV shows on DVD that way, at least enough to know whether or not I want to buy the box set.
If the MPAA or the networks or whoever want to try to force me to watch shows their way, on their schedule, they will fail. In fact, I'd say they've already failed, not just with me, but with the demographic that's typically the most lucrative for them as well.
Jay (=
People in Japan are really taken advantage of. If they want to buy episodes, they are forced to buy 1 or 2 episode DVDs. But since digital recording is prevelant, most wait for people who supply raw rips of the shows (anime in this case), download them, and since they speak the language, can store a very clean episode on their PC. This April, the changes mentioned in the article will be taking effect so it will be impossible to download recorded shows since they will be in encrypted format. What some fansub groups are doing now are putting together all their unused cycles to try to figure out if the encryption can be broken through distributed processing. More information can be garnered here and here.
It's their content, but it's our airwaves. They get to use our spectrum for free, so in exchange we should be able to watch TV in a reasonable way (e.g. time-shifting, archiving).
OK, but that arrangement seems obsolete and the deal "free content for free airwaves" just isn't one they seem interested in anymore. They'll take "copy-controlled content for free airwaves" if we give it to them. But we should probably go for a "copy-controlled content on annually leased airwaves" deal.
(The revenue from leasing the airwaves could even go towards public television and pay for free content.)
You're in the finance business, but you don't know how to spell "lien"?
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005