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Disney Suggests Mandating DRM On All Media
Ethan Butterfield writes "Cory Doctorow posted this on his blog this morning. Essentially, Disney wants the FCC to regulate all devices capable of recording from any audio broadcasting medium or from the Internet."
This led to it being called the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act," which is essentially what it is.
I can't wait for next time MM's copyright is up for expiration....
If you actually read the filing (which apparently even Doctorow didn't do) their proposal covers digital radio only. Not that that isn't ridiculous anyway...
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Crudely Drawn Games
You forgot that Disney owns many other companies. (Disney's music division includes Walt Disney Records, Mammoth Records, Lyric Street Records, and Hollywood Records)
I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and dial again.
Is this the golden age of capitalism? We have laws dictated by companies for the profit of companies at the expense of the publics rights.
Will Americans fight back to return control back to the public or will they roll over and keep buying Disney's stuff just to pacify their youngsters?
"Distribution platform" in FCC lingo means a broadcast. Tapes, etc, are considered "storage".
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Crudely Drawn Games
No. Monitoring "inappropriate" content on TV is well outside of their original mandate. What the FCC is supposed to be is a physics of EM transmission standards body and frequency registry -- nothing more.
Everything to do with information content is not germain to the original FCC mandate and an unconstitutional abridgement of the 1st Amendment. However, with the currently conservative Supreme Court, a constitutionality challenge would never even be heard, let alone be ruled upon favorably.
Whatever happened to free speech? If I want to put something of my own creation, isn't that protected free speech?
Free speech doesn't include a free printing press.
Once Disney & Co. owns all the printing presses, guess how far your 'free speech' will reach.
The main problem the industry has with recording devices is lossless copying (or close to), not tape recording. That's why we didn't have this problem 10 years ago. Obviously, the argument suggested by the article refers to that kind of copying, while the parent seems to try to push the argument to its illogical limit.
Don't get me wrong though, I hate this DRM stuff.
What he's quoting
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Bear in mind that this is also simply the first step in the larger plan. It isn't just about piracy, it is about being to control media. In effect they are aiming for a world where you need to purchase a license from a corporation in order to to be allowed to use content generation technology and storage media of any kind.
In other words, pay them to exercise your right to free speech. In countries, such as Canada, with fees payed to private interests attached to media this is already effectively happening.
KFG
I hate when people are WRONG and get modded to +5 Informative.
To quote the FCC: "Although the CSS copy protection system for DVDs has been 'hacked' and circumvention software is available on the Internet, DVDs remain a viable distribution platform for content owners. 46 The CSS content protection system serves as an adequate 'speed bump' for most consumers, allowing the continued flow of content to the DVD platform.
By the FFC's definition DVD storage media is a "Distribution platform"!
The FCC has decided that their power is no longer restricted to regulating broadcasters. The FCC has decided they have the power to regulate receivers and even storage media, and to make any hardware and devices ILLEGAL unless they enforce FCC mandated DRM systems.
Yes, this amounts to a back-door attempt to impose the Hollings bill, also known as SSSCA, also known as CBDTPA. Now known as the TV Broadcast Flag and potentially expanding into a Radio Flag and mandatory DRM systems for ALL audio and video devices.
Welcome to the United States of XXAAmerica.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Yup, Lion King is actally a rip-off too.
They compied almost all from (in the asian are popular and well-known) Tezuka's "Kimba the White Lion"
That alone would not be that bad, but Disney simply refuses to acknowledge the deed. A simple "based upon the works of" or "inspired by" would have acknowledged the original creators work, and cost Disney only about... nothing.
More info here: http://www.kimbawlion.com/rant2.htm
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
DRM fasteners...
You think you are joking, but...
Perhaps you overlooked the development of digital speakers with built in encryption chips. Tapping the speaker wires gets you nothing but pure noise.
You still have the microphone route, but there have been some absurd (but serious) discussion of laws to make such microphones and recording hardware illegal unless they have embedded DRM-detection circuitry to kill any such attempt at recording. "Plugging the analog hole" they call it. Fscking nutjobs, but nutjobs that apparently have the political clout to get some seriously twilight-zone laws passed.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
How far are these people willing to go? The only way they can stop people from writing applications that don't bother to obey DRM is to make compilers illegal.
Who the hell do they think they are?
They got filthy rich on the cartoons of their founder. Now they're trying to lock up the world into encrypted DRM hell?
If you're worried about your movies getting leaked on the internet, deal with it yourself (like the special DVDs for screeners). I've got no problem with that.
Hire security guards to shoot filmers in the cinema. I don't give a damn.
Bring out your movies on super secure quartz atomic encrypted cubes - I dont care, I'll get a player IF I WANT.
But dont you DARE go sticking your nose into how I store my personal data and creations.
If it forcibly comes into my house (broadcast) and I can legally watch/hear it, then I can also find a way to record it, whether using a needle and hot wax or a fast learning talking parrot. TURN OFF THE TRANSMITTER if that upsets you.
Here we go again:
DRM will be a disaster once:
- keys start getting lost, corrupted or failed
- key providing/validation services go under/
ot they abandon your DRM format
(side note: if Win 2.0 had activation, would
MS still provide me a key if I had to
get an install going NOW to run some old
software????)
- your hardware fails or is stolen (and all
your media was tied to some unique key
therein)
- your media is partially corrupted
(good luck recovering DRM encoded material
off media with corrupt TOCs or bad blocks).
"The ones who leech off the talented are the ones who run the show."
Disney - pay tax and we may listen to you.