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."

Comments

Wait a second

[Pingular]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the MPAA only control motion pictures? Legally, that is.

Re:Wait a second

[krog]

Television is a Motion Picture.

And legally, the MPAA doesn't control anything. They're a lobbying group. They control things illegally.

Re:Wait a second

[Skye16]

No, they control things legally. They do it immorally, however.

Re:Wait a second

[garcia]

They are talking about controlling the "broadcast flag" on movies that are put out over the airwaves. Once the TV monopolies realize what this could mean to them (especially with DVD releases of shows) it will shift to them as well.

Re:Wait a second

[squiggleslash]

Once the TV monopolies realize what this could mean to them (especially with DVD releases of shows) it will shift to them as well.

You know, from my point of view, that might not be a bad thing. I don't subscribe to cable/satellite, and generally just watch DVDs and videos. Right now, getting TV shows is awkward - some shows get on, usually many, many years after they've been shown, aimed at a rather small market of diehard fans who are willing to pay up to $40 for a "season" rather than everyday viewers; but the majority are usually not available in any way.

If TV channels start seeing DVDs as a potential revenue source by default, this will increase the number of programs available on DVD, creating an opportunity for those of us who'd rather not spend $80-100 a month on dross to pick up the occasional boxed DVD set of something we actually want to watch instead. We're looking at cafeteria TV by the back door, essentially.

And yeah, it sucks if you're paying the subscription and wondering what the hell you're getting for your money if all you can do is timeshift a few hours worth of TV, while suffering hundreds of ads. But there's a solution to that: If you're given a better choice, and to me ad-free programmes I want to see when I want to see them is a better choice, then grab it with both hands.

Overuse of the broadcast flag may be the death knell for television channelling as we know it; TV could easily end up being as different and as of little importance in the future as radio is today in comparison to its position fifty years ago. This may be a good thing for everyone.

Re:Wait a second

[DarkOx]

Well yea but, its more like $60 a season for most programs other then the cartoons. If I watch more then say four programs the savings over cable/sat are not that big only about 50% and I don't get any of the other benifets like access to news anytime I want and decent coverage of local stuff like city council meetings. Cable TV is one of the few things I pay for that I actually feel is worth the money I spend on it. I will grant you I might not be watching the same stuff the majority are.

Re:Wait a second

[Bendebecker]

The dvds we see out there are out there becuase the tv companies think they can make money off of licensing them for distrubution. If they don't think they can make money then tough, you'll just have to watch them when they are on. And if they decide to take them off? Tough. Maybe they'll start creating whole new channels (beyond Spike and TVLand) for the old shows - extra charge of course. The problem with your solution is what about the shows that suck on television and suck on dvd? You'll end up with a net loss.

Solution?

Solution 1: They'll raise the price of every single DVD season set to $100+ to make up the loss. To make up for the boatloads of cash they'll lose trying to pawn off old episodes of Beverly Hills 90210, they'll push the Stargate:SG1 episode prices to the limits of reasonable sanity. That probably won't happen.

Solution 2: In fact they will probably stop putting as many shows on DVD forcing you to only be able to watch them on cable - cable you will have to spend more and more on for the sake of new channels but no new shows. Not the death of TV but the necessity of it is what the future holds. You will only be able to see some shows on cable and so you will be at the mercy of the companies. You will have no option but to subscibe. Byebye VCR, ByeBye fair use rights.

Re:Wait a second

[El]

Please, remember to share all those DVDs with your friends... in fact, why not form "buying clubs" where each member obtains a different set of DVDs, then every week they pass them on to another member? And while we're at it, lets do this with movies, CDs, and games too!

Re:Wait a second

[Scroatzilla]

Yes yes yes, thank GOD there is somebody else out there who feels this way. I'm going on probably 2 TV-free years (with an occassional peak at friends' houses of course, plus the SuperBowl). It's about $70USD/month for digital cable, and I think most morons are willing to pay because they are so happy they can fool with the cool onscreen TV Guide menu; they don't even realize that all that's out there is crap.

Well, almost everything. When I hear about a good show, I watch it on DVD. Like the Sopranos. I can watch the whole season in a few nights. Netflix. $20/month. Only stuff I want. No commercials. There is zero reason to buy into TV anymore.

Re:Wait a second

[squiggleslash]

Well yea but, its more like $60 a season for most programs other then the cartoons.

I probably buy different stuff (or stuff that's too old.)

In any case, that's the situation now. Right now, people who are expected to want to buy DVDs of TV shows are supposed to be die-hard fans, who'll pay through the nose. This is why the DVDs cost so much, why it takes so long for them to come out, and why choice is so limited - relatively little ends up on DVD at all.

Change the situation a little so TV channels think they have little or no competition from the VCR/DVD-R, and that situation is likely to change.

I don't get any of the other benifets like access to news anytime I want and decent coverage of local stuff like city council meetings.

I didn't say TV would disappear, I merely said it will end up of the same importance and impact that radio has today (compared to fifty years ago, when radio was in the same position as TV is today, in terms of the impact it made on people's lives.)

My belief is that, should the networks be overly enthusiastic about use of the broadcast flag, cable operators will increasingly have to sell other uses of their networks (Internet, telephony, etc) to make up the revenue as increasing numbers of people dump the television side of the system. This will ultimately reduce the price of the television service, and this will also reduce the expenditure on television itself. This may be made up for, by programme makers, by DVD sales. So television will gradually become a forum for "first viewings" of shows, together with news and weather, live sports coverage, etc, and most people will get the shows they want to watch via other means (PPV, DVD, etc.)

Kind of like radio today. The only traditional radio station left in the US is NPR (ironically, as it post-dates the vast majority.) The rest provide basic news services and background noise (music, etc.)

Old Radio was replaced by Television, an arguably more powerful medium. So can Television be replaced by something better.

Re:Wait a second

[squiggleslash]

The problem with your solution is what about the shows that suck on television and suck on dvd? You'll end up with a net loss.

That situation already exists. Indeed, change the parameters in the way I describe and it'll happen less often, because something that doesn't suit current, commercial-funded, television may well be supportable via a DVD route.

Example 1: Fox cancelled Futurama. They cancelled it not because it didn't have enough viewers, but because they could make shows that would have more viewers for the same time slots. If most viewers of Futurama bought the series on DVD, with the DVDs being available at a low enough price ($10 for four episodes (two hours) would fit the budget end of what DVDs currently fetch for movies.), there's little doubt in my mind they could make it profitable. They can't do that, of course, right now, because the market conditions are not right, they don't resemble what I've just described.

Example 2: A more theoretical example is one where a programme cannot be produced today because it would offend advertisers. Advertisers are notoriously conservative and do not want their products associated with programmes widely seen as offensive and/or immoral. Right now, the only way to get such programming on the air is via HBO, but HBO has limits to how much it can show and how much it can fund.

Solution 2: In fact they will probably stop putting as many shows on DVD forcing you to only be able to watch them on cable - cable you will have to spend more and more on for the sake of new channels but no new shows. Not the death of TV but the necessity of it is what the future holds. You will only be able to see some shows on cable and so you will be at the mercy of the companies. You will have no option but to subscibe. Byebye VCR, ByeBye fair use rights.

And bye-bye TV, because you can bet that if the TV stations try to force people to watch specific programmes at specific times, viewers will watch less TV. Quality will drop, people will rent more DVDs and again quit it with the cable.

Essentially such an act on the part of mainstream TV stations would be an attempt to turn back the clock to the 1970s when, they believed, people could be forced to follow set schedules and be prevented from taping the shows they wanted to watch. The problem is they can't turn back the clock. DVDs already exist. Independent film makers who have nothing to do with TV or the MPAA exist. Force people into the hands of such a competition, and that's exactly where they'll go.

Re:Wait a second

[WorkEmail]

I agree to a point. Being an avid (addictive) internet user, I have not watched my television in months, probably almost a year. Sometimes someone will be at my house and want to watch something so it gets turned on, or if I play Xbox Live I use it, but for actual television it hasn't been on in almost a year.

In my area (Minneapolis and burbs) Comcast charges about 70 bucks if you only want internet, or 55 dollars if you have internet AND cable. Does that make sense...it doesn't seem like it, but after probing the lady on the phone with about 1,000 questions she finally told me that they want to control the cable market, and not give up subscriptions to people like DirecTV and Dish Network, so by chargin a huge rate for internet unless you have cable too, they increase the number of cable subscriptions drastically.

So there are a bunch of people like me who ahve full cable and never turn on the TV.

I have rarely ever found a TV show interesting, but when I have, I think around 30 dollars for a whole season is a really good price. Unfortunately, one of the only shows I have ever liked is the X-Files, and their seasons go fo rabout $119.00 a piece, and there was 9 of them. I am not spending over $1,000.00 dollars to watch the X-Files. lol. Anything over 50.00 a season is out of control.

However, the good thing about this, as mentioned in the above post, is that networks will have people buying the seasons on DVD in mind when thinking of shows, and then want to make them better so that they can make money off of the DVD sets, so it will probably lead to more quality programming in the end.

If I can watch seasons of a good show and own them forever, and have no commercials to watch, I don't mind paying 30 dollars. If they start to overcharge for the DVD's as X-Files has, I will lose interest quickly, and the pirating of them will go up drastically.

Re:Wait a second

[ePhil_One]

My belief is that, should the networks be overly enthusiastic about use of the broadcast flag, cable operators will increasingly have to sell other uses of their networks (Internet, telephony, etc) to make up the revenue as increasing numbers of people dump the television side of the system.

I don't buy it. Set the broadcast flag so I can't TiVo my shows anymore and I'm still not going to buy the DVD's, I'm less likely to because I won't "get into" the show in the first place. Major networks will have to rely on me remembering to be home and tuned to their channel when that show who's commercial or write up caught my eye two weeks ago; trust me, that aint going to happen. Instead, I'll go back to watching the discovery channels, FoodTV, Infomercials, oddball cartoons, etc., like I did in the days before Tivo. I'll bitch about their repetivness, though I imagine its a lot better now that there's 40 different Discovery channels. No, if anything this will increase teh need for cable, because I need more options when *I* watch TV, not during that 3 hour band that TV exec's consider "Prime Time". Fun stuff like Myth Buster's, or Iron Chef, or those insane knife auctioning guys (Havent watched them hawk their "collector's knife sets" since I got Tivo).

Here's my idea. If the MPAA is concerned about piracy because of HDTV, don't show the damned movie on TV. If I want to watch a movie these days, I go to block buster, or I'll buy the DVD. Or I watch it on HBO. The damned pirates will just rent the DVD and rip it from there anyway, I doubt they are concerned about getting those last bits of resolution an specially preped HDTV movie copy (1024i vs 480i, I see no reason to convert a 24fps movie to 60fps video) before they compress it down to VCD quality anyway. So unless they movie studios are planning on abandoning the installed base of DVD owners the broadcast flag does them almost 0 good anyway. I imagine given a choice between paying for technology to cripple their TV viewing habits and not watching the content of overly paranoid movie studios, 80% of Americans would opt to pass on the extra content and watch my Big Fat Obnoxious Bride

And here's the kicker. This technology has already been rolled out; check out the MiniDisc player. Now, check out its secret implications: Record your Wedding toast on you're digital MiniDisc recorder, and it will do you the favor of enabling the "do not copy" bit for you. After all, it can't tell that you own all the rights to your speech, so to be safe it assumes you don't (else you could make unlimited digital copies after having gone through just 1 D>A>D conversion, and that would be downright un-American.

Re:Wait a second

[ratamacue]

You can hardly blame a lobbying group for succeeding. They can lobby for anything they want, but government holds the key. The problem is not the act of lobbying per say -- the problem is that it actually works. The lobbying group may offer the bribe, but it only works if government accepts the bribe. Government is the root of the problem.

Reduce the size of the pie, and the incentive to bribe government will disappear. Lobbying groups only attempt to bribe government because they know it works.

What about low-quality copies?

[AtariAmarok]

Does this include low-quality copies, like standard VHS recordings?

Re:What about low-quality copies?

[SoupGuru]

Low quality? You mean there's something better than VHS out there?

Re:What about low-quality copies?

[pilgrim23]

Indeed. Seems to me that if this only applies to High Quality TV then, given the current status of the art, there is nothing to block. I stopped watching TV over a decade ago. Only High Quality on TV any more is the drug ads.

Re:What about low-quality copies?

[tverbeek]

Your VHS recorder (at least the current one, with marginal - if any - copy protection built into it) doesn't know that any of the these flags exist, so it presumably wouldn't honor them.

Re:What about low-quality copies?

[drinkypoo]

On the other hand, the decoders will probably output a macrovision signal on their analog outputs when the broadcast flag is set...

Re:What about low-quality copies?

[WolfPup]

From reading the articles on this. The protection is something that is handled through the TV tuner. So yes if you feed the signal to a VHS it will work, but if you try to record something from the higher quality outputs from a TV, such as S-Video, etc. Those outputs will be disabled when the Broadcast flag is set. So even you have a device that could record, they will not be able to get a signal to record from or get a lower quality signal than the port is capable of providing.

Re:What about low-quality copies?

[cdrudge]

Which is easly defeated with an even older VCR (put that old beta machine to use!) or by a 24.95 device.

Re:What about low-quality copies?

[sik0fewl]

Low quality? You mean there's something better than VHS out there?

Where have you been? Of course there's something better. It's called Betamax.

Re:What about low-quality copies?

[nosilA]

It only applies to digital outputs - S-Video and even Component Analog and RGB (VGA) are perfectly legit. Copies can be made digitally so long as they are made using approved technologies, to be determined by the FCC later this year.

From http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/ FCC-03-273A1.pdf:

(a) A Covered Demodulator Product shall not pass, or direct to be passed,
Marked Content to any output except
(1) to an analog output;
(2) to an 8-VSB, 16-VSB, 64-QAM or 256-QAM modulated output, provided
that the Broadcast Flag is retained in the both the EIT and PMT;
(3) to a digital output protected by an Authorized Digital Output Protection
Technology, in accordance with any applicable obligations established as a part of its
approval pursuant to 73.9008;
(4) where such Covered Demodulator Product outputs, or directs to be output,
such content to another product and such Covered Demodulator Product exercises sole
control (such as by using a cryptographic protocol), in compliance with the Demodulator
Robustness Requirements, over the access to such content in usable form in such other
product;
(5) where such Covered Demodulator Product outputs, or directs to be output,
such content for the purpose of making a recording of such content pursuant to paragraph
(b)(2) of this section, where such content is protected by the corresponding recording
method; or
(6) where such Covered Demodulator Product is incorporated into a Computer
Product and passes, or directs to be passed, such content to an unprotected output
operating in a mode compatible with the Digital Visual Interface (DVI) Rev. 1.0
Specification as an image having the visual equivalent of no more than 350,000 pixels
per frame (e.g., an image with resolution of 720 x 480 pixels for a 4:3 (nonsquare pixel)
aspect ratio), and 30 frames per second. Such an image may be attained by reducing
resolution, such as by discarding, dithering or averaging pixels to obtain the specified
value, and can be displayed using video processing techniques such as line doubling or
sharpening to improve the perceived quality of the image.
Federal Communications Commission FCC 03-273
42
(b) A Covered Demodulator Product shall not record or cause the recording of
Marked Content in digital form unless such recording is made using one of the following
methods:
(1) a method that effectively and uniquely associates such recording with a single
Covered Demodulator Product (using a cryptographic protocol or other effective means)
so that such recording cannot be accessed in usable form by another product except
where the content of such recording is passed to another product as permitted under this
subpart or
(2) an Authorized Recording Method in accordance with any applicable
obligations established as a part of its approval pursuant to 73.9008 (provided that for
recordings made on removable media, only Authorized Recording Methods expressly
approved pursuant to 73.9008 for use in connection with removable media may be
used).
(c) Paragraph (b) of this section does not impose restrictions regarding the
storage of Marked Content as a Transitory Image.
(d) The requirements of this section shall become applicable on July 1, 2005.

-Alison

Re:What about low-quality copies?

[threephaseboy]

This DVD Decoder removes noise and disturbing signals.

I dont think it works. I watched Hannibal thru it and it was still disturbing.

Re:What about low-quality copies?

[akajerry]

Thanks for the pointer.

I'd like to point out the content of section "73.9008 Interim Approval of Authorized Digital Output Protection Technologies and Authorized Recording Methods", which sets forth the very open and very public process of getting your favorite "digital output protection technology" and/or "recording method" authorized.

Unlike DVD and other digital media formats which may use only those copy protection technologies approved by the content owner with the broadcast flag the FCC as reserved to themselves the right to authorize copy protection technologies.

This means that Tivo can build their DTV receiver anyway they want so long as they can get the copy protection mechanism authorized by the FCC (section 73.9008 also covers what the FCC may consider in making this determination).

So if you want to get control of your TV back make sure an open source copy protection technology is approved by the FCC and only buy tuners that implement that technology.

This could be a golden opportunity to get a decent open source digital rights management system widely adopted.

Abstinence isn't a vote.

--Jerry

Thank our government for this!

[garcia]

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.

Re:Thank our government for this!

[Zed2K]

"Look at some DVDs. You already can't skip some commercials on those"

Actually when the studios first started putting trailers and stuff before the movies on dvd's they fixed it so you couldn't get around them. Especially the warning pages. But every new dvd I've rented over the past few months has allowed me to hit chapter forward to skip past them. Even the FBI warnings. It shows up but chapter forward decreases the time you have to sit there watching. You still can't just hit menu sometimes to jump past the trailers but you can skip them. Obviously not ideal but better than it used to be.

Re:Thank our government for this!

[rs25com]

This is ALREADY happening, don't you see? If any of you have a DVD player, then you know what I am talking about.

Pop in a DVD, press play, and you are FORCED to watch the Piracy Warning, and the Company Name banners. Some previews are even hard to get past. This takes up to a few minutes for some DVD's.

You cannot fast forward.
You cannot rewind.
You cannot stop.

This kind of technology being suggested just serves to stop people from having any control over their TV's. Pretty soon I can easily see TV's that will not allow you to change the channel during commercials, mute the volume during commercials, or turn off without watching the last few commercials. It's already gotten to the point where some channels have decided to pad a 2 hour show to 3 hours by adding an additional hour of commercials.

And so far, no one is complaining. So sad.

This will not stop piracy, in my opinion, it will only make it worse. The forbidden fruit, so to speak.

When I buy DVD, it should begin playing the movie the instant I put it in the machine. I paid for it, it's mine. Commercials are fine on TV stations, because that is how they make their money, but not on my PAID FOR retail DVD.

Hollywood, MPAA, and RIAA are all a bunch of greedy bastards, IMO! :)

Re:Thank our government for this!

[pegr]

Pop in a DVD, press play, and you are FORCED to watch the Piracy Warning, and the Company Name banners. Some previews are even hard to get past. This takes up to a few minutes for some DVD's.


...until I found a hacked firmware for my DVD player that makes it multiregion, disables macrovision, and allows my to skip past FBI warnings and the like... (also known as using MY DVD player with MY DVDs in any way I want...) Is it a DMCA violation? Probably... But the more people do this, the more obvious it is that this type of encumberment is NOT what the market wants.

Re:Thank our government for this!

[FrostedWheat]

In the UK, all the latest DVDs from Fox have adverts at the start that you cannot skip. They go on for a while aswell.

What's worse is that these are the retail disks, not rental. I've written a letter of complaint and won't be buying any Fox DVDs from now on.

Same goes for Disney and there Ad-DVDs.

Re:Thank our government for this!

[Christianfreak]

[tin foil hat]

Yeah and next they're going to put in a battery backup so that even when you unplug it just keeps playing forever.

And then they'll make them so that it contains nano-bots that repair everything if you try to physically break the hardware.
[/tin foil hat]

Re:Thank our government for this!

[DrCode]

And if you remove the battery backup, it will start singing "Daisy, Daisy..."

If they want control.....

[gillrock]

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.

Re:If they want control.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that I favor the broadcast flag, but it is not a new phenomenon for equipment that you own to be highly regulated and for its capabilities to be micromanaged by government. There are restrictions on the emissions controls of a car, the radio frequency and power that a cordless phone may use, etc.

Perhaps you should only have to pay $3 for a car, since you don't own it outright (you're restricted from changing it in certain ways).

What's different here, is who is restricting. With a car's emissions equipment, the restriction is placed upon you by everyone; we all (theoretically ;-) agree that it is in all our interests to limit pollution. So your neighbor isn't getting any more out of supressing your rights, than you are, also.

With the broadcast flag, it appears that the only party benefitted by the supression, is the MPAA. Thus, it's a blatantly corrupt law.

But they will then argue that it isn't true, because copyright law benefits us all, since it encourages the creation of works that we all enjoy.

Hard to do

[Annirak]

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.

But...

[insmod_ex]

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.

All they are doing

[smartin]

Creating a market for tv's imported from countries that don't have the restrictions and a black market for chipping sets.

Re:All they are doing

[garcia]

and do you think that 99% of the people out there care that they are doing this? NO THEY DON'T. People seem to feel that TV is a necessity in their lives!

My gf is actually pretty pissed off that I don't have cable. This interrupts her Reality TV bullshit with fuzz and intermittent loud buzzing. She can't understand why I am not ready to fork out $55/mo to watch what they feed us.

Ok, so back to the topic... People out there don't care about a broadcast flag. It's not going to affect them. It's just something else that they will hear about, shrug their shoulders, and say, "so?" Remember... We live in a time where people will vote for American Idol contestants (25+ million a week watch that shit) but we can't get anyone to vote for who runs our country. We also live in a time where people look at you crazy when you tell them that their freedoms are being infringed on.

Re:All they are doing

[BobSutan]

"...and a black market for chipping sets."

I'd think its more acurately described as a grey market. Last I heard its still legal to do what you want to stuff you've legally purchased. Smashing a TV or XBox is your right since you bought. Why should puting a chip in a device to enable features that you are legally entitled to do be any different (fast forward, play backups). Oh, wait.... I forgot that in the US now you don't have the freedom to do what you want any more unless the corporations say its okay first.

Can't change the dedicated crackers

[g0qi]

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.

Something about this confuses me

[Anonymous Coward]

High quality? TV broadcasts? This does not compute.

It's the show

[AtariAmarok]

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)

"In the future...

[BigChigger]

the Motion Picture Association of America will control your television set."

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 ;-) You know what? I don't miss it either.

BC

Re:"In the future...

[d4v3v1l]

Agree 100%. Who needs TV anyway?

As long as we have pirated Movies to download...

Not quite

[Rick the Red]

In the future, the Motion Picture Association of America will control your television set.

They won't control my TV set. I intend to vote with my wallet. Of course, I may not be able to watch broadcast TV after 2006 unless I buy an MPAA-owned digital TV, but I don't consider that a great loss.

Re:Not quite

[Creedo]

Finally, a voice of reason. People tend to act like TV is a must have. It's the same as the whole mess with people suing fast food joints. If fast food makes you fat, don't eat a whopper. If (insert media group here) is taking away your rights, don't buy from them.

And that is one reason to stop watching TV

[zapp]

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.

TIvO?

[Deflagro]

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!

TV's future?

[FattMattP]

In the future, the Motion Picture Association of America will control your television set.

In the future, I don't think the TV set is going to be that important. It's extremely easy to make your own videos. As time goes on people will start making their own high quality content. Those people will find other delivery mechanisms such as the net to get their work out and possible sold.

Re:TV's future?

[jhoger]

Well it would be nice if the masses really did start to create high quality art instead of just being passive consumers of "content". Released under a Creative Commons license... but movie production ain't all that cheap and I don't see it getting there anytime soon.

Yeah one can make decent home movies and wedding videos... maybe even videos of some live performances and sporting events (well, some sporting events...). But do you really think those will have a wide audience as to compete with commercially produced content?

Dunno about your TV

[jefdiesel]

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!

Hardly surprising.

[Denyer]

It isn't as if there are really many more quality advantages to be squeezed out of the technology, not for the average home user. DVD and CD are fine for most people... SACD and other formats are just repackaged material with more DRM.

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...

No they will NOT control my television set

[dcavanaugh]

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.

Re:Time to drag out this old chestnut, It might ap

[AtariAmarok]

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.

Video Out? Thats all you need...

[c_oflynn]

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 ;-)

You do have control of the price

[FreeUser]

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.

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 ... i.e. they (and HDTV) will be a complete flop, and television will be replaced by the Internet completely, once and for all.

(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).

Re:You do have control of the price

[MindStalker]

Only one problem is that hdtv is government mandated.

Re:You do have control of the price

[FreeUser]

Only one problem is that hdtv is government mandated.

Paying money for an HDTV isn't. The government can mandate that HDTV is offered, they can't mandate that we buy it.

Buy a computer monitor instead, and download your free, legal content online. Machinima, Blenderwars, assorted Povray sites, etc. are a good starting point.

Bored? Make your own TV show and disseminate it online. If you're good, maybe you'll be able to sell ad placements (Coke signs in the background a la Blade Runner, etc.) and make a living at it. If not, you have a cool hobby and are helping yourself and others choose a path different than that the thugs with the flack jackets and jack boots are ushering us toward.

Its all very simple...

[elrick_the_brave]

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.

Get rid of it

[mrs clear plastic]

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?

Re:Get rid of it

[Anonymous Crowhead]

I bet you have a 'Kill your television' sticker on your car.

I also bet that anytime someone mentions a TV show, you chime in with "$TV_show? Never hear of it. I don't even own a TV. Haven't since May, 1978. You really should get rid of your TV, etc."

Re:Get rid of it

[ChrisN79]

Obligatory link to Onion article about guy who doesn't own television:

http://www.theonion.com/onion3604/doesnt_own_telev ision.html

In case you've forgotten...

[morningdave]

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?

Re:In case you've forgotten...

[gkuz]

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.

Not only books. My neighborhood public library will lend me DVD movies and audio CD's. Imagine how the ??AA must feel about that.

One case where I can say "my tax dollars at work" and feel good about it.

Waste of time, misuse of public trust

[stratjakt]

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.

Software Tuners Are The Way "Out"

[Doug Dante]

The broadcast flag is old news. The FCC can control hardware, but not software.

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-sample s. html

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.

I don't think they need to worry.

[Java Pimp]

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.

Really that big a deal?

[pidhead]

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.

The revolution will be televised...

[Omega]

The revolution will be televised...

Please check with the MPAA to acquire a license to view the revolution.

Voting...

[GAVollink]

Actually, the tide is turning. Remember the Super Tuesday primaries actually had record turnouts.

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.

TV Logos

[Samus]

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.

Re:It Figures - My Bad Timing

[happyfrogcow]

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

[aelfric35]

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.

pcHDTV is your friend

[FreeUser]

On an off-topic note - what Linux HDTV tuner do you use, and how open are the drivers?

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 ... who knows how long before the thugs in Washington ban the technology outright.

Wrong

[FreeUser]

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.

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 ... telling their family and friends not to buy obnoxious products will most certainly kill them dead.

This has already happened, with DAT tapes and divx DVD's. It can happen again with crippled HDTV ... if the early adopters are informed enough, and intelligent enough, to make the right choice.

Don't kid yourself about the potential impact ... video and audiophiles have a disproportionate impact on which consumer electronic devices succeed and which ones fail.

Re:Wrong

[mcmonkey]

Early adopters are critical to a new product's success.

Ah, good ole days. That once was true. Television, and later color television, spread this way. Early adopters on both sides--folks taking a chance on some new gadget and folks taking a chance on providing content for that new gadget--set the path to a brave new world.

And for many years it worked. Color tv spread; AM stereo radio didn't. Market forces worked, and it was good.

Those days are gone. In the USA HDTV is law. Broadcasters have to broadcast it; manufacturers have to make it.

The market chose CD over DAT and DVD over DivX, but in this case there is no competing technology. If you don't want an HDTV, eventually your only option will be no TV at all.

BTW, if you're planning on buying in the USA a TV 36-inches or larger, and don't want to be forced to pay a few hundred dollars for HDTV hardware you don't need, butter buy before July 1.

As bad as DVD players

[vijayiyer]

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.

Re:TV Licenses in the UK

[Have Blue]

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).

Are you sure?

[Jerf]

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.)

Re:Are you sure?

[alan_dershowitz]

Actually, go back to the newsgroups, maybe it was alt.fan.laserdisc or something in 1997-98 or so. Back before there was a newsgroup for DVD, the DVD people all hung out in the laserdisc newsgroups.

Anyway, when Divx came out, there was a hugeass backlash in the DVD community against it, and basically a grassroots effort was formed of people hanging out in Circuit City stores, and telling prospective buyers exactly what was wrong with Divx. I never did this myself since my area has no circuit city, but tons of people were doing it, along with stories of turning people off Divx.

At the time, Disney was intending to only release their animation titles on Divx rather than DVD (live action was excepted) and Warner Brothers was looking at doing the same thing, so the community (rightly) perceived a great threat from Divx. I fully believe that this had a lot to do with Divx failing, although a large portion of it was that the players simply cost too much, and initially only one store sold the players.

My basic point being though, that I can guarantee that large numbers of people certainly were turned off Divx by geek complaints in an indirect way.

Licensing Agreement

[Detritus]

The DVD licensing agreement says that a player has to implement the standard set of software that controls the user interface to the DVD. That puts the producer of the DVD in charge of what you can and can't do with the remote control.

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.

Powell to the People: Drop Dead!

[Doc Ruby]

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?

Organization will bring change

[GandhiScript]

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...

Just because they wink and nod....

[Anonymous Coward]

doesn't make bribery legal. It makes it unenforced. There's a HUGE fucking difference.

Baaaaaa, Baaaaaa!

[serutan]

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....

Don't touch that dial!

[Metryq]

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.

Disable it in your OWN TV and you'll get sued!

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

It's even worse...

[Anita Coney]

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.

http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/Masked-Engi ne er/f-MO-Earth_to_congress.shtml

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-Engi ne er/f_mo_the_masked_engineer-01.21.04.shtml

It's a simple fact that in a few years, we will be unable to copy a TV show without breaking the law.

they said it would happen...

[nappingcracker]

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.

Haven't we seen this before?

[Cramer]

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?)

Japan doing this next month

[juebay]

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.