The RIAA's Push for an Audio Broadcast Flag

aaronsorkin writes "The Recording Industry Association of America has discovered that digital radio broadcasts can be copied and redistributed over the Internet, and so it is pushing the FCC to adopt an audio broadcast flag, which would likely prevent users from sending copyrighted radio programs over the Internet. But it could also hamstring other legitimate uses by preventing a digital radio program from leaving the device on which it was recorded. The FCC has initiated a notice of inquiry (pdf), typically a step leading to formal rule-making. The public may submit comments to the FCC between June 16 and July 16. A lobbyist friend sent me copies of the private correspondence on the subject between RIAA president Cary Sherman and Consumer Electronics Association president Gary Shapiro, and Cryptome just posted them here (pdf) and here (pdf). Yes, they're legit. Mindjack just posted an article I wrote on the subject titled, 'Will Digital Radio Be Napsterized?'"

Comments

Evil bit...

[b.e.n.n.y_b.o.y_1234]

Why don't they just set the 'evil' bit?!

Re:Since when does

[riptide_dot]

If the FCC lets it dictate their policy, then whenever that happens...

Until then, Radio content is still regulated by the FCC - an equally biased organization nonetheless...

easy to bypass

[eisenbud]

How lossy is hooking up the line out of your digital radio to your computer's sound input? Obviously you wouldn't want to do that over and over again, but I bet after one iteration of digital to analog to digital you'd still have very good sound quality. So this won't even work terribly well to "prevent piracy".

Re:easy to bypass

[Entropius]

I'll answer that question: not very lossy at all. You probably don't want to do it on an onboard sound card, but any decent PCI (or even USB) sound board ($~40) will provide for this purpose perfect recording.

This is compounded by the fact that radio signals (as someone above pointed out) go through a process called "dynamic range compression", which basically makes the soft bits louder and the loud bits softer. This does a couple of things: 1) it makes setting recording levels for FM recording a snap, since it's all close to the same amplitude, 2) it makes sound card fidelity even less important, since you don't have a huge dynamic range to deal with*, 3) it screws up the quality anyway, so who cares if your card puts a -50 dB noise signal in there?

(Comment about dynamic range compression: I suppose boosting soft bits of the audio helps to raise the signal-to-noise ratio for weak FM signals--otherwise very soft passages would get lost in static. Even with range compression the local classical station has issues with this.However, wouldn't it be trivial to do the range compression, then broadcast the dynamic shift on a sideband channel? Then the FM receiver could reconstruct the original dynamic from the (compressed) signal and the sideband dynamic indication. That would be the best of both worlds... and would be backwards-compatible since older FM receivers would just get the compressed signal, same as they do now.)

You're not going to get audiophile-quality sound off an FM broadcast. This isn't the fault of the recording equipment, the radio receiver, or the FM transmission process; it's what they do to the signal before it hits the transmitter. This is a good thing for this purpose though, since it means even crappy hardware doesn't mess up the recording!

*Some of the most challenging signals to record accurately are those with both very loud and very soft periods. The recording gain has to be set low enough to accomodate the loud passages. Then, the combination of the low gain with the low intrinsic volume of the soft bits makes for a very low signal--which, on bad hardware, can be comparable to the noise floor. But we don't care about this on the radio, since it's *all* loud.

Flag

[nkh]

And the broadcast flag is automatically cleared when the packet leaves american computers? We should tell Cisco to put this new feature in their routers.

Remember DAT?

[PeeAitchPee]

They did this about 15 years ago with what was the last promising tape-based format, and ended up killing the medium for pretty much everyone but pro audio studios. Wonder how much potential revenue they missed out on w/ that fiasco?

Reminds me of Atlas Shrugged

[Gothmolly]

where the villains' scheme depended on the "fact" that no matter what type of regulatory and taxation hell the industries were put under, they'd still produce, and this provide power to the very people who were strangling them.

How long until people just give up and listen to local music? Leave the RIAA to the sheep, and the sheep to the RIAA, and the sheep will get what they deserve. Remember, the only reason that ??AA organizations have any influence is that people buy their stuff. You have two options: buy their stuff, but don't complain, or don't buy their stuff, and try and support alternative markets - local bands, live concerts, low power FM, etc.

Re:Reminds me of Atlas Shrugged

[Wylfing]

You have two options: buy their stuff, but don't complain, or don't buy their stuff, and try and support alternative markets - local bands, live concerts, low power FM, etc.

This is undoubtedly what the long term future holds. However, for the next 50 years, if you don't buy their stuff outright, they'll just get a law passed under which the government collects money from you on their behalf. You will pay the RIAA whether you want to or not.

Re:FCC

[kemapa]

They just need to give up...

I agree with you that they need to lighten up a bit, but based on history they will not. Remember the whole 'crisis' over video recorders way back in the day? A more contemporary example is the TiVO controversy, with many broadcast networks saying that TiVO will end their business model and cable will be the only option for TV, which is simply untrue. New technology often spurs fear because people fear what certain things _might_ be used for. Just like a gun, it _might_ be used for illegal purposes, but it might not as well. But what _might_ happen is not a good excuse for stifling technological development

Re:Since when does

[jdunlevy]

he RIAA control radio programs?

Since they found out they actually can control webcasting. That was a crucial slide down the slippery slop, and the RIAA will see how far down they can push us.

*sigh* they still don't get one simple fact

[acroyear]

any digital protection system can be broken, no matter HOW complicated.

the one way that breaks ALL digital protection systems, and still leaves the content with decent audio, is to go through an analog phase. record from the output of your sound card into another computer via the analog lines, you only lose one analog generation (negligable given how lossy mp3 encoding was on the original content), and get a perfectly rippable copy on the other side with no history of any DRM preserved whatsoever.

so you DRM bastards: KNOCK IT OFF!

All DRM does is make the stupid feel empowered, the common person feel condescended to, and the pirates feel bored as to how easy it was to crack it...

You are mistaken

[A nonymous Coward]

Consider someone listening to a radio show and writing an article about it. That would be fair use, no? Then if that someone happens to be a radio journalist, is it not also fair use for said radio journalist to include a snippet of the original broadcast?

This happens all the time. Ever heard that famous Hindenburg broadcast? How about snippets from famous radio shows?

It's no good to say you should make your own analogue recording. That's an artificial limit to fair use. What if said journalist is a poor starving student who does everything on a home computer? Are you saying students have to buy D/A and A/D converters to become journalists?

You can't start limiting fair use, or it becomes unfair use.

All your radio...

[Lead Butthead]

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!!
RIAA: How are you gentlemen!!
RIAA: All your radio are belong to us.
RIAA: Your fair use rights are on the way to destruction.
Consumers: What you say!!
RIAA: Your rights have no chance to survive make your time.
RIAA: HA HA HA HA!
RIAA: Sue you all
Consumers: You know what you doing.
RIAA: Landsharks, engage
Consumers: For great justice.

Re:Song of the piracy apologist

[ichimunki]

What a load. Immoral? Prove it using any established moral code. Is it in the Bible? How about the Q'uran? Or the Torah? The Baghavad-Gita? Egyptian mythology? Zoroastrianism? In the precolonial social mores and religious traditions of any of the five hundred various Indian nations native to the American continent? Does Ralph Waldo Emerson or Henry David Thoreau come out against it? Does the Buddha once speak of it? Is it mentioned anywhere in thousands of Zen Koans? Are there any tribal religions in Africa that cast aspersion on copying stories, songs, and artwork? Did the Inca and Maya curse the names of those who infringed copyright? Did Plato or Socrates or Pythagoras or Aristotle teach at length about this subject? Well? Huh?

Fact is, the very notion that songs, stories, ideas, images, and all the other ephemeralities restricted by "copyright" were for the bulk of human history passed along and shared only by active infringement by those who carried these works along for us later. Without copying we would have no folk songs, no scriptures, a great deal fewer plays, stories, paintings, buildings, inventions. Our cultural traditions would have lasted only as long as the material on which the first author ever fixed them-- in most cases less than 100 years.

Do you anti-copiers ever decry the vast body of commerce that exists in making copies of "public domain" works? Of course not. Ripping off the past is a hobby for the media cartel. Look at Disney with "The Little Mermaid", "Cinderella", "Snow White", "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", "Fantasia", etc. Look at movie releases like "Troy" and "Romeo & Juliet". Look at how often Beethoven, Bach, Tchaikovsky, and countless others have their works "stolen" and reused in contexts they could never have dreamed of. The same for Michelangelo, DaVinci, Monet, Manet. Where is your outrage at this?