Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Licenses Analog Anti-rip Technology
photojournaliste writes "CD copy-protection specialist Macrovision is to work with Microsoft to ensure their respective DRM and anti-rip technologies are interoperable, the two companies said this week. Sounds straightforward enough, but the deal runs deeper. Microsoft agreed to license a number of Macrovision's patents, in particular those relating to analogue copy protection technology and more recent extensions to that system that cover video-on-demand, pay-per-view content and support for the US 'broadcast flag', which determines whether consumers will be able to record digital TV broadcasts."
People hack their Tivo's to go "Broadcast flag - very nice - I'll ignore that and record it anyway"..
Same for Myth TV etc
TheLogster
I hope Microsoft take over Macrovision, then we can have Microsoft and Macrosoft. Microsoft can deal with insecure software and Macrosoft can deal with securing copyrights, what a world it will be then!
I like the broadcast flag. If we couldn't record stuff off the television, perhaps the nation would find better things to do with their time that watching endless television programs. Like extra exercise, or socialising. We'd all be a whole lot better for it...
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
what a waste of money on Microsoft's part :(
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
Since when was interoperability a goal for access protection systems? Surely they mean inoperable!
I'm sorry but that song you can't get out of your head is in violation of copyright laws. We are going to install a little chip now to ensure we are compensated.
Imagine Provider A sells music and other media content without restrictive technology. Provider B has strong restrictions. Artists who publish with B will not benefit from "bootleg cassettes" to gain popularity (think of Metallica...)... Artists who publish with A become popular, Provider A ends up selling the most popular artists....who makes the money?
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
What is this television thing anyway? Does it involve moving away from my computer?
from TFA:
"An Internet-delivered movie, downloaded to a PC, can now be protected on analog video playback out of a PC"
They're actually concerned with someone outputting a digital format (MPG, DIVX, WMV, etc.) to an Analog source like a VCR? C'mon
I thought the purpose of ripping the media was to have a perfect (or near perfect) digital copy
The master of the eye-killer blinking videotapes gets in bed with my unfair lady of blue screens of death.
If there have any offsprings, shoot'em.
Instead of the XBox and a PC in a home, I think they're on the way to the XBoxPC. It would make sense. The XBox plays games at a great speed with great graphics, so what's to stop MS from making their operating system run out of the XBox ONLY? They could drop licenses with other companies and force everyone to beg and pay more if they want a non-XBox version of Windows. Scary thought, but I think they might be taking a hint from apple and I think they're going to try this "digital lifestyle" thing with making proprietary hardware for Windows. Time to move to Linux I guess. *shrug*
Ubuntu, the way linux should be.
Try Ubuntu FREE! --
Who makes the money?
A
Who complains about piracy?
B
Lars after he sues everyone else.
HDTV equipment manufactured or bought before July 1 without respect for the broadcast flag will be grandfathered in.
If you ever thought you wanted a hdtv pvr, buy a card now or you will not be legal.
http://www.pchdtv.com/
I just got mine, and I am working through the mythtv setup...
I assume they have to allow for future tivo / pvrs for HDTV that will respect the broadcast flag. But what kind of respect does that entail? Some programs cannot be time-shifted at all? I really dont' know what is to come.
So, how will this work outside US? Or will they just assume the laws are the same in every country? And if it only applies to US, how do one determine properly if the computer in question IS in the US? I guess they simply implement it for everyone and won't care about laws in different countries.
I find it amusing to see these companies invest millions in technology and licensing to fight a battle they know they are not going to be able to win.
All it takes is one person to circumvent the protection (we all know how good macrovision has been in the past...) or to have access to source material to distribute it to millions using P2P.
They need to change their business model, give us what we want (DRM free mp3 or similar) for a reasonable price or eventually suffer the inevitable... (which could be a good thing too, the music industry reborn)
...flag until July 5th?
I actually am so apothetic on this issue (I rarely watch TV).
I would like adecent mythtv setup (in the works) for recording the odd stuff, the rest of my associated like to watch tv, so it gives me a platform to tinker.
I say, buyer beware, don't go paying the cost of these patents, which give little value to you.
Why should we pay the cost of DRM, i'd happily by DRM music at 25% of the cost of the non-DRM version.
The distinction? I wouldn't pay 400% the costs for a non DRM version (or buy the DRM version) that is, keep non-drm cheap, and make DRM cheaper if you will... I will not pay for DRM (or subsidise non-DRM licesing)
Put that in your | and smoke it.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Regular users don't really contribute that much to piracy. Lets ignore the people downloading things for a moment and concentrate on the uploaders (the real problem). The people distributing most of the content are "hard core" pirates. They are the one's who will be paying lots of money for ways to get around copyprotection (or manually doing it themselves). I should imagine that as soon as a method of getting around the broadcast flag is published every single one of the main rippers nd distributers will be using it widely and carrying like they are right now. Sure, home users wont be able to record off of the TV/Radio until startups start offering the hacks for a small fee, which wouldn't take too long.
"DRM never has been about absolute control. It has, from its inception, been about making piracy enough of an inconvenience that regular user don't bother to do it."
And they usually don't. They just get the material they want off of somebody else who does bother.
DRM schemes ONLY stop regular users (and even then, only until someone writes up an easy to use program/utility that the public can use) while they are a mild inconvenience to the professionals.
It only takes one unscrupulous person to make one DRM-less copy of something (be it actual material or a box that ignores DRM) and distribute it and then everybody can have a copy.
I'm tired of the industry trying to use technology to solve a social problem.
Silly rabbit
They're focusing on how to prevent consumers from accessing material when they should be focusing on making it easier for consumers to pay for material. In the days of Napster's popularity, if the record companies decided to integrate a payment subscription system with high-speed downloading servers, then they wouldn't have to worry about piracy. People would pay to be able to download MP3s with no proper tags and no errors at the maximum speed their connections could handle rather than unreliable and unstable P2P sources. They could have worked on producing software for ISPs to use for automating the billing process. They could have bought into Napster during it's popularity and turned it into a subscription service, and even if other P2P applications were around, Napster had brand-name recognition that people would go for. But instead on focusing on how to use the technology's potential, they sent in the lawyers to block it. Brand name has more pull for consumers than cost-effectiveness. Just look at sneakers- people don't try to buy the cheapest ones around but go with expensive brand names instead.
This would be the best move ever ... for open source that is. The minute my friends can no longer rip their CD's to mp3's, they'll ditch Windows and move on to something else. I'm serious. None of my friends are techies. They use their systems to browse the web, write email and the occasional word processing document and to manage their music and photo collections. If Microsoft ever were to cripple their OS in such a manner, they'd jump ship in a heartbeat. Especially if the alternative OS and supporting software is free and can be installed on their current systems.
I agree
The problem being that _no_ major publishers are making their work available without DRM.
If they were, the others would follow, but none of them are moving in that direction.
My Journal
If it's perceivable, it's copyable. They never seem to learn.
I think you miss the point as well.
The point of the broadcast flag is that the user says, "Hey I'll record the Pay per view X on the DVR so I can watch it later or so I can watch it with my wife" The DRM prevents him from doing this.
He instead just goes out and rents the DVD.
The DRM and the ways to circumvent it are not convenient enough to get him to commit the act of piracy. (and playing movies from a computer to a TV is not really that common in the mainstream)
Thus it add a layer of inconvenience to committing the act thus dissuading people from doing it.
There will always be pirates. That is a given. The inherit law of DRM is that it will be broken, eventually. That is why what I said above is insightful DRM has never been about complete control because even the movie studios know that is impossible. DRM has and will continue to be about making the piracy enough of an inconvenience that the mainstream will not do it.
As an aside,
By the way it is the convenience of P2P and bittorrent that bugs them, not the fact they exist. If P2P and BT were tiny do you really think they would be so up in arms. It is the fact that anyone can click next on a windows box to get through a default install and then have access to huge amounts of pirated data.
It sounds almost as funny as Microsoft security.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
M$ gets more involved with copy protection. M$ is pushing their "Media Center" version of Win XP Home. Sooner of later they will be able to break an old VCR by remote.
Why anyone would take things that work well and reliably like, TV, Radio, Stereo, and hook them to something with M$ track record for reliability, performance, and honesty.....? Are people really that dumb? With their push for DRM You will be lucky to record a commercial without paying some ridiculus fee.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
i've said it a million times...
if you can hear music, you can record it, and copy and distribute, etc. DRM and copy protection can never work.
If Microsoft was mass, stupidity would be gravity.
Where can I see exactly what the possible values for the flag are (e.g. "cant record this show at all", "can record it once then not move the recorded copy" etc)?
what Microsoft really needs is a good anti-ripoff solution. Sadly, I fear that will never be voluntary...
Nuffsaid
________
Don't know about his cat, but Schroedinger is definitely dead.
All of this 'sue them until they bleed, and put a coin slot on the very air they fucking breathe' mentality I think will drive people to more live performances. Now unless the MPAA thinks it can license me my own ears we're probably going to be ok.
So they put even more protection on it. Does anybody really care. If they are going to want to sell this at all, they are going to have to put Composite (RCA) cables on it. Otherwise, it won't work with 95% of the equipment out there. Now, plug those into your VCR. To record use a second vcr hooked up through Coax. It won't give the best quality. But does anybody really care. I mean, for hollywood movies I want high quality. But for weekly episodes of the O.C. I could care less.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I mean heck! At one point you have to disseminate an analogue signal to which we are able to listen to.
Methinks that the only feasible technology is to pour tar into the ears of every citizen on earth.
And that really seems a bit intrusive.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
My wife'll be all over anti-rip technology. She was just saying last night that if I let one more fart rip, I'd be sleeping alone.
Wait until Ms. Soccer Mom finds out that she can't tape American Idol or survivor and Joe Sixpack cant tape the game while he works the late shift.
We may finally get the public outcry we need to get rid of the broadcast flag and it's ilk.
I'm tired of the industry trying to use technology to solve a social problem.
Double plus insightful.
Bazing.
And why should the consumer not have the ability to record the Pay Per View X on the DVR? It seems the business model of Pay Per View is inherently flawed in that it requires the mandatory adoption of a technology that prevents the consumer from seeking the most convenient use of technology. Since the Betamax decision, consumers have had the legal "right" to record shows for their own enjoyment later. Now, because a business model shows up that depends on the customer not being able to do that, the entertainment industry should have its way and treat all customers as potential criminals?
I never said they should not. I never made any indication of my position on the subject. I simply stated the motivation of the companies involved in the DRM.
Please move you soapbox down 3 posts.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I would like to weigh in with a comment on these assholes.
Macrovision has been touting their "Secure" tech for a number of years.
It has been broken time and time again.
I have a hard time believing that Microstupid is dumb enough to buy into this.
After the early efforts to get a halfway good anti-spyware package together via the buying of Giant. They have to sink down to the low-lifes like Macrovision.
This is why I keep refusing the DRM "upgrades" to my media player 7.
Firefox just kicks IE up one side and down the other IMHO.
Put it this way, in the big trade shows. Macrovision employs a very humble booth.
I had such high hopes for the Bill Gates security speech.
Oh, well.
More and more people are moving over to HD sets. While some lucky people might live in an area where they can get a half dozen OTA channels, people who get satellite or cable can't use those products.
Cable companies are already moving to simulcast all analog channels in digital form. At some point to reclaim bandwidth they'll drop all but the 2-13 channels from their analog service anyway, and people will have to use CableCard-compatible sets or digital cable boxes.
MythTV will never support those, as the likelihood is that there will never be a cablecard adapter for a PC, precisely because its intended to prevent interception of the digital content. Who knows if Tivo will survive long enough to come out with a CableCard unit, and who knows if the broadcast flag won't be implemented in hardware.
"It only takes one unscrupulous person to make one DRM-less copy of something"
Huh? Making a copy of a TV show is now "unscrupulous"?
Pretty soon, the Chinese will be laughing at our "freedom". Increasingly, the only "freedom" we have is the "freedom" to spend our paycheck consuming.
The provider with a strong backlist and the most wanted artists and titles.
Provider A is not Pixar or Warner Brothers, which means that it won't be shipping The Incredibles or the next Harry Potter.
Well, normally I would make a comment stating that it's a bad thing to make a deal with the devil, however in this case, we have 2 devils making deals with each other.
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
Looks like they didn't listen well enough to Cary Doctorow explaining them the basics of cryptography. Cryptography is used to protect secrets exchanged by Bob and Alice and protect them from Carol's prying eyes. When the recipient of the message, Bob, is also the pirate, Carol, it means the pirate gets the cypher, the cypher text, and the key. As Doctorow explains, better than me, this simply cannot work, end of story.
blah
Macrovision video "protection" is so easy to defeat, it's laughable. Go to Ebay, buy a time-base corrector, and--presto--no more Macrovision. Does anyone think that this stuff _really_ works?
The real problem with the broadcast flag is that no distributor is ever going to err on the side of openness. What modern company would? Look at the EULAs and contracts and so forth that companies pad themselves with in order to avoid frivolous lawsuits and issues with IP and ownership!
Do you really think that there are going to be lots of broadcasts conducted where the operators go, "Ya know, we probably don't need to prevent someone from recording this. Let it go."
No, we're screwed. Every program has at least something that the producer or the distributor will consider "theirs" and will therefore decide to limit it. Even something as simple as a logo overlay (a-la SciFi Channel, USA, et al) might be considered a "branding" and therefore something that would prevent redistribution. Probably the ONLY thing that would even come close to being open would be things like the State of the Union broadcast -- but even that would be considered proprietary, because it was a *particular* broadcast by a *particular* station with their *particular* boneheaded reporters struggling to come up with something intelligent to comment about.
I dunno. I just think the broadcast flag is a false sense of fairness when it'll turn out to be nothing but solid DRM that everyone will get screwed with.
Blog,Twitter
Agree totally. The industry should be trying to make money rather than convict their users. The best analysis I've read is that MS are trying to take the content industries down this route then own them when it fails, just like the same DRM techniques failed during the 80s.
As a supporting anecdote,when I wanted to change my mobile to another service provider, I took it to a shop and they said "no, it's locked. Take it to that bloke with a stand in the market. He'll unlock it". So, I went to that bloke, who unlocked my mobo in 2 secs flat.
You might say that I'm not the "average user" and I might agree however it turn's out that my *mother* has done this piece of piracy as well.
If there's enough incentive and enough "blokes with a stand down the market", the broadcast flag won't mean diddley squat.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
You know, I just realized why, in TNG, they never listened to anything but classical music and never watched anything other than plays.
Copyrights and analog locks trapped all modern culture in outdated media that ended up being lost to the ages.
And people say that series lacked foresight.
All I needed to know about digital rights, I learned from Star Trek.
And assuming they somehow manage to come up with a technological miracle and I actually can't rip it (unlikely) I'll re-record it via my amps digital out. Failing that I'll use my DAT machine to do the DA conversion from my amps output and transfer that to my PC.
Hell... in the very case worst I'll rerecord it using my amps analogue outs. And you bet I'll p2p this stuff out of spite if nothing else.
SCMS/DRM/Copy protection etc. etc. etc. What a waste of time.
Still at least I suppose it's keeping some tech people in jobs coming up with this totally unworkable, unnecessary and consumer unfriendly crap.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Who cares? The PHB running company B will still make enough money before it goes ka-boom and after it does go ka-boom he will surely find a new (no less paying) "managerial" job much easier than some sys-admin/programmer who worked for the same company B that he drove into ground. The difference is that the PHB would be able to afford a nice vacation on exotic islands in between. The "long-playing" companies business model is _sooo_ obsolete. The groove of the day is to make money on the "establish-up-down-sold" type of business. The shorter the cycle the better.
Good, that will drive up sales for the likes of Magnatune.
Plenty of hard/software hacks that let you just turn the bitstream back to a zero and record the digital stream directly already. DA/AD always drops quality - nyquist theorem and all. It's one step too many - solutions already exist - google knows best.
The whole reason they're doing this isn't so Windows can do DRM. Both SBC and Verizon are going ot be using MS software on their set top boxes to deliver IPTV. I guess they need some kind of DRM in the box.
This is no different from encryption on HDMI signals from the current crop of HDTV boxes. As far as I know, nobody has turned on the encryption, but the option is there.
Its not pay per view that I'm worried about. Pay per view is crap, I won't do pay per view. As noted before, you can just rent the DVD and then you don't have to watch the show at "their" time.
My worry is that eventually the networks will get into the act and throw the copy bit on for a major network show. They'll do this to "defend" their coveted timeslot for one of their best shows. What happens next is that you will have millions of very, very pissed off people who will not be able to record their favorite program later.
The network will of course say "tough" and demand its viewers on its terms at its time. It is their dream TV back to the, watch it only when its on way from before VCRs. They'll finally be able to kill off recording like they so desperately want to. They will be happier then hell.
Until....
What I believe will happen next is that millions of people will put so much pressure on Congress. Yes, I'm serious about this. It will become one of the most important issues in the country. The media will try to poo poo it, but some will cover the controversy and word of mouth will be rampant for this.
Congress will be forced to do something to restore our fair use rights. I don't see any congressperson who doesn't restore our rights gettting reelected. Screw social security, if I can't record CSI, there will be hell to pay. It sounds silly but its true.
Its also more serious than that. If they stop the recording of TV, they will be emboldened. We will copmletely lose control of our TVs, our music, and , worst of all our PCs. We will lose control of all our devices, constantly asking (paying for) permission to do what they allow. Its utterly evil. You would think that an industry that turned its worst nightmare into a multi-billion dollar business 20 years ago would realize that they have exactly the same chance today, but they're trying the same thing today they did then. If they suceed this time, they will finally earn their reward they didn't get last time which is the death of their industry.
I don't really understand the arguments popping up about how this DRM broadcast flag will only be applied to digital or digitalHD signals. By 2006 all cable will be digital anyway. DRM in and of itself is a joke. I can understand them wanting to slow copying and distrobution, but the idea that it's going to completely stop it, HA. If you can encrypt something someone can decrypt it.
How else do you propose for them to finace their dubious content?
In the early days of television, shows had names like "The Texaco Hour." Shows were sponsored a one or more sponsors. There is also product placement. Expect TV shows to have a ticker along the bottom of the screen to show ads in the future.
The Apprentice is sort of (but not completely) a hybrid of the first two concepts. Last night's episode, for example, was basically an ad for Nestle. The two teams had to come up with a marketing campaign for one of their coffees.
If it can be viewed/heard, it can be ripped. These people are idiots.
Oh cripes, they tried that crap back when DAT tape decks started to hit the scene. 20 minutes after people discovered that they can not copy a copy two things happened.
1 - DAT dies a miserable death in regards to consumers.
2 - those of us that saw it's potential discoverd how to circumvent this and published the details.
my last Sony DAT deck I bought came with a photocopy of the instructions to disable the copy protection.
Hell most MiniDisc recorders have this same copy protection, it also killed that format AND spurred tons of modifications to circumvent the copy protection.
Macrovision in every form is trivial to defeat, you can buy a $19.00 "video stabalizer" at your local best buy to remove it.
All I see is Microsoft making a deal for other reasons. Buying licensing to macrovision is a smoke screen.. Why would you buy rights to DRM that has been publically broken and consumer devices exist that remove it? And yes, a SHARPIE overrides the macrovision CD protection, so even their latest stuff is easily removed.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Drop it in. Use your Open Source tools. Then return to your mundane Windows existance.
Dual personalities on your PC without the hassle of dual boot.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
it just means people will have to download everything they want, without adverts over p2p.
as this law only applies to america, its fine.
Ok so these things called the PC were created and over time consumers really started to dig the FREE, or mostly FREE things they could do with them...
Eventually this PC thing found a way to communicate with other PC things and then something wonderful happened... they all got connected and the internet was (re)born...
Some new things were a little too close to breaking the law but were mostly tolerated because the big players... Microsoft especially were making and continue to make insanely gross amounts of money...
This internet thing really started to catch on and consumers found LOTS of really cool uses for it. Email, games and sharing. Sharing jokes and greeting cards eventually became photos and music... in the meantime lots of folks realized that they didn't need big guys like Microsoft and they unleashed alternatives and Open Source software was (re)born... its mascot quickly became Linux.
Back to the big guys... Most big guys missed the many opportunities the internet could offer their business models and instead turned to the "wise" politicians to see if this "sharing" thing could be stopped... The politicians thought long and hard and after a significant amount of cash-for-thought was spread around the DMCA was born.
Ah the DMCA... pure genius... this gem makes tinkering, copying, sharing and most fair uses illegal... its pretty broad in scope and isn't well defined in intent but the big boys loved it because now they now had the perfect club to start smacking down any innovation that even appears to be threatening their empires.
Well... all the money in Washington was just a bump in the road for free use, sharing and innovation so now the big boys have decided that everything must be locked down from start to finish... back to Washington for more spreading of the cash-for-thought and voila... the broadcast flag is born!
This things is even more genius then most of the other road blocks to innovation any of the big boys could have thought of. The flag (required by ALL recording devices) will be controlled by whomever has the rights at the time... movie guys, software guys, distributors... hell even the cable guys can turn off recording access. Of course the cash spreaders assure this is NOT going to be the case but history proves otherwise. The flag will eventually bring us to the era of pay-per-recording at home... now how fuckin' sick is this concept. Oops... hope the charma cops were blinking!
In the end what the legislators and big boys don't seem to realize is that without free and FAIR use and yes sharing, the internet would not have grow to its ginormous size and influence, without free and FAIR use and sharing the big boys like INTEL, Microsoft, game companies and even the movie boys would not have grow to such seemingly unstoppable empires... so if they take away the free and FAIR use of these technologies consumers will either find or create free and FAIR alterntives despite what laws these robber barons of the 21st century buy from those hopelessly corrupt legislators in Washington.
There just doesn't seem logical that business is going to continue to grow by locking consumers out their right to fair use and by restricting access.
In my country, copying and sharing for personal use is very much LEGAL and we still have BILLIONS made from the consumers herds. Yes, unfortunately there is still and large majority of the herd that doesn't realize the feed is free. Oh well... MOO!
European did not eat dodos, they tasted horrible.
The pigs and other animals brought by Europenas eat dodo's eggs and exhausted their food sources and chased them out of their ecological niches.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
well I truly hope John can make it work. I fear however that I-tunes publishing will knock him out (along with the rest of the industry) but at least apples drm is not ridiculous...
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
I read the headline as
...ensure their respective DRM and anti-rip technologies are inoperable,. . .
The day suddenly seemed brighter, and hope arose in my heart. Then I read it again - (*SIGH*).
The network will of course say "tough" and demand its viewers on its terms at its time.
They can demand whatever they want. I still have the option to not watch if its not convienent to me. My life will not revolve around the TV schedule. With recording I make the schedule revolve around me. If I can't do that then the programs will not be seen, and neither will its commercials.
They may *own* their content, I own my time. They can do all the stupid crap they like. At some point a small network will pop-up and never use these flags to prevent ripping, they'll find a more creative advertising model, and they'll gain viewership by catering to the desires of the public.
Has anyone noticed that broadcast TV is dying. Viewership is going down. If they mess with the viewers they'll see this acelerate. Whats the difference of a user who skips the commercials with his PVR and one who doesn't even bother to watch?
Passing these laws will probably kill the dinosaurs. Meanwhile internet broadcasters will probably gain ground. Especially as the costs of production drop, cheap computing power increase and broadband poliferates.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
I thought this was a good observation. The media companies no doubt know that they're walking a fine line, bribing the government to pass teh laws they want, pushing the consumer a bit at a time and hoping not to provoke the backlash that could undo all their work. It's the old story about distracting the lazy masses with bread and circuses. In our modern society we've got plenty of bread, so if they mess with our circuses too much, they might be in trouble. It's interesting to me that even people who are fairly poor (by American standards) will often have a big-screen TV, VCR, DVD player, and sometimes a PVR as well. The media conglomerates have gotten their way thus far, but there's an invisible point beyond which the common couch-potato slob will get roused from his plush chair and do something. The difficulty for everyone is that nobody really knows exactly where that point is.
What is this Metallica thing you speak of?
Gnutella says they don't exist. They must suck if they are not being traded.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
What a worthless technology. I have a cheap TV, a cheap VCR, and a cheap DVD player. So I have to hook the DVD player to the VCR and then go into the TV via the cable jack. This works brilliantly.
Try to do the same thing with the more expensive set of equipment in the living room and you get nothing but rubbish on the screen thanks to Macrovision.
All this plus the fact that the cheap stuff is over 10 years old (except the DVD player). What a crock. I have no desire to buy any new electronic equipment because of all these ridiculous DRM schemes. I'll take a computer, a nice monitor, a comphy chair, and bittorrent anyday.
-t.
All you need do is buy a cheap Time Base Corrector, and it strips all that crap out.
So you have your player (to) your TBC (to) your recorder, and YOU'RE DONE.
Sure - you lose a generation through analogue distortion, but we're talking analogue striaght from the gate here anyway!
Here's a question, though: does anyone know what HDTV TBC units go for lately? The last time I looked, it was WAY expensive. I can usually find NTSC units of very decent quality (component in and out) for less than $400, crappy units (composite in and out) for around $200 and change.
What MS and the MPAA and RIAA don't realise is that we professionals in the field- the people who MAKE the crap these weasels sell - Don't Do DRM. WE REQUIRE clean, clear, free signal, unencumbered by mythical notions of Intellectual Property extending beyond point of sale and NOWHERE to be found in a professional studio (except in the narrow case of certain software packages that require dongles and whatnot). And by extension, SO DO THE WEASELS - this whole RIAA/MPAA nonsense is such utter hypocrisy, it's painful to watch. It's like watching a belligerent retard beating up his pets...
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
... networks will get into the act and throw the copy bit on for a major network show. They'll do this to "defend" their coveted timeslot...
You are right, this will probably happen. Personally I think it's insane - this whole timeslot BS. There are several shows that I would watch, but the timeslot doesn't fit into my schedule, or I don't remember. (Amazingly enough I won't let my life revolve around a stupid TV show)
Personally, as for my own experience, I'm currently very addicted to Lost, but I wouldn't be if I couldn't have downloaded the episodes I missed from bt. As a result, if I'm available, I will watch it when it broadcasts. If not, I can download and keep up with it. The "Big Three" networks are constantly losing market share, you would think they could figure out that we aren't reallly interested in sitting in front of our TVs at the time they perscribe every week and watch horrible shows with too many commercials - or worse yet, watch reruns of shows we've already reaarranged our lives to watch.
The world is changing. Thirty years ago everyone was happy to tune in to "All in the Family" or "Sanford & Son" at it's designated time slot. Now we live in an on-demand world. Everyone expects to do what they want when they want. Network TV (just like the RIAA and MPAA) are falling behind the times. They will eventually pay for it if they attempt to make everyone an automaton again and lock everyone back in to their designated timeslots.
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Microsoft Licenses Analog Anti-rip Technology
... still bypassed by using the shift key
(kidding, kidding!)
There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding in the music business about the nature of DRM technology.
Allow me help clarify things.
DRM on recordings means you pay us to listen to your music. Lack of DRM on recordings means we pay you to listen to your musical recordings.
Everything will proceed much more smoothly in the chaotic new music industry when this primal axiom is understood by all parties.
However, the bullying may backfire. Like when the UN forced the US to change the laws on steel tariffs. This was basically done by the European Union. Spain may have only one vote to the United States one vote. But Spain backed by the EU has 26 votes. We've also seen the EU do things to Microsoft that no single country could.
We may see this as other regions with similar socio-economic cultures decide to get together for their common benefit. My near term predictions are a Latin-American Union and an Asia-Pacific Union.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
Yeah, since they did such a great job preventing DVD copying, why not give them more business.
And they said zombies weren't real!
Look for a patch to Windows Media Player coming soon.
"Lets ignore the people downloading things for a moment and concentrate on the uploaders (the real problem)."
Um, with no demand, there would be no supply. Or at least, the supply would become irrelevant. If a tree falls in the forest...
The filesharing "problem" exists because the demand is there. Period. Same thing with the drug problem, the slave trade, child pornography... Nature abhors a vucuum.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I think what will happen is that it will completely backfire for the Broadcast market. Peoples are getting used to not having their lives revolve around the broadcasters time requirements. If they are no longer able to use their xVR equipment, they will simply stop watching the shows and wait for the DVD set to come out. The broadcasters that use this will see their markets shrink further inconvenience their non-pirating markets.
The only real market I can see this as working long term is Sports Events - since people are well used to watching/attending games at the time the game is held.
If this does come about to be true, then I forsee that book publishers would be a good place to invest.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
"The rich get richer and the poor get poorer."
What it boils down to is this. As long as people want to watch tv and movies, there will be some executive somewhere coming up with ideas on how to make more money for the company. If I pay for a show on tv (Pay-Per View X for example, as noted above) I should be able to copy that puppy down and watch it as many times as I want, wherever I want, whenever I want. I paid for it. I paid rights to watch it.
Then some executive will hear about TiVo (or whatever) and think of a way to make money from it.
Laws will be passed, companies embrace/license patented technology.
Some kid/college student/whatever breaks it, and figures a way around it.
The big industry starts a manhunt for those responsible.
Big industry comes up with another way to bribe the lawmakers (can anyone say campaign contributions?) into making laws that make them even richer.
The cycle continues. It will never end.
Well, maybe if we got some folks into congress that were BELOW the usual retirement age, then we might not have such a problem. (Can anyone say mandatory term limits for congress members?)
The fact of the matter is, as long as someone else can profit from restricting others, it will happen. Fair use is almost not even legitimate anymore. If I bought a DVD from a store here, and it got all scratched up and became unplayable, guess what... I have to buy another. With VHS, I was, under fair-use laws, allowed to make myself a backup copy. DMCA says I can't do anything that will violate the Macrovision on this DVD I have.
Mod this up, mod this down, I really don't care. This country is going downhill, and it will take quite a lot to slow the descent, let alone get it going in a positive direction. I'm waiting for the day when I get my "Air Bill" in the mail right next to my water bill. I'll pay that right after I pay my Ohio 'Use Tax'.
And they said zombies weren't real!
The GPL is not a EULA. Nothing in it says that you are required to agree to the GPL to USE the software (EULA = End USER Licence Agreement). You only have to agree to the GPL to legaly DISTRIBUTE the software. So as long as you don't give the software to anybody else, you need not agree to the GPL.
Note that under copyright, and specifically the doctrie of first-sale, the user can do whatever he wants with the copyrighted item, EXCEPT copy/duplicate/recreate/extend it. Even then there are fair use exceptions, but they are very limited and widly abused by many here.
The GPL is what allows one to copy/duplicate/recreate/extend the copyrighted work. Outside of that, the GPL doesn't apply.
They try to sell you their "ipod killers" and digital music. Someone, please, hit them with a clue-by-four.
DRM is fool's gold for content providers on its own. What it's really there for is Palladium/Trusted Computing/... Now, if you can hear it, you can rip it, and the content providers can go fish. If TCPA is enabled in hardware (as new PDAs are beginning to do), then even if you can rip it, you can't distribute. You can't tell people how to crack the protection, because of DMCA. Each person that wants a copy (even for themselves) has to break the protection, one by one or buy from the people that have the copyright.
On its own, DRM is stupid and evil. Alloyed with TCPA, it is stupid, even, suffocating, and unavoidable. Stopping DRM is not the key - stopping Palladium is.
wink, wink
Last night I rented the "Sky Captains of the World of Tomorrow" on DVD and the copy protection is so good, I couldn't watch it!
Way to go Microsoft!!!
That shouldn't surprise you too much. If you watch a large amount of TV, the cost per hour of all that stuff is not that bad. Compare that to the cost of a night at the movie theater, dining out, drinking at a bar, or even drivng the family car...er...truck, out to go camping.
Get a good TV, get the neighbors to buy the pizza & beer when they come over, and you might actually come out ahead.
sounds like to me microsoft is going to be a media company with their media center crap os as the focal point while they make their business crap os for businesses and probably all the home user will be able to get is the crap media center os. no thanks - I already got my dvr with my pc and linux - works just fine thank you - now quit fucking with god dam shows with the broadcast flag crap - gee sounds like watching tv is going to be so much fun in the future - can't wait
With a ECON 101 type anaylsis:
When an industry provides x good, there is so much demand for it. If a subsistute good y comes into play that is considerably cheaper, then the demand for x good would drop considerably and the demand good y would rise considerably.
So if the price of beef dropped considerably, then chicken producers would notice a big drop in the demand for their product.
What the *IAA industry is worried about is that P2P music and such is a considerably cheaper subsitute to what it sells (CDs and DVDs) and thus would cause the demand for their product to drop considerably.
But why doesn't P2P media completely obliverate the *IAA? It is because that P2P media and *IAA products are not 1:1 subsitutes and that there are intagable barriers to P2P media. You need time, inconvience tollerance, computer knowhow, a computer, a computer broadband connection, a small nagging fear of getting prosecuted possibly, some sort of CD/DVD burner and worse quality. (A theatre is better than a computer screen for example). This all adds up to an intangable price for P2P, some that are higher and some that are lower depending on the person.
This varible cost to a person is why P2P media usage is more common among poor students, kids, lower-middle class, and computer professionals rather than buisness execs and other highly paid/unskilled people who's time is worth more to them, thus raising the price of P2P media.
So to effectively stop the "threat" of P2P, the *IAA must make the price of P2P media higher than what they provide. Lawsuits, lobbying, DRM, and "piracy is bad" advertisements are all an effort towards this.
I dont have time to explain the time effect that delays the effect that P2P media has on *IAA media. Maybe someone else can.
"This new regime is corporate, immortal, and unkillable." and it's likely to be somehow like the 'brave new world' described in the book 'the brave new world' (by aldous huxley). So the question isn't: Are dictators bad or 'is terror evil' (which is answered with a yes by Bush and I guess by most people supporting him). But the question is much more like: Is a democracy better if it stops to be one? If you don't see the point in asking these questions: when Hitler came to power that prozess was seen (at his time) as somewhat democratic by most the people (the weimarer republik was to liberal), so they didn't know that they should revolt. Now we know that if there had been a revolt or something likely we wouldn't have that secound world war as we had it. We had that ugly war, and now we should try to make it better - and the current german constitution (called grundgesetz, written after the war 1949) is good at avoiding any (or at least most) agressive wars. Nowadays, the US make laws which shouldn't be. And some (US-citizens/american Slashdoters) aren't sure if they should revolt. Is a democracy still a democracy if you have two parties which dominate the politic, and aren't really different when it comes to their aims? What's really amazing about that book is the fact that it's pretty old, it was written in 1932. for more information you might wanna start here: http://www.huxley.net/ You're absolutely right, and I don't mean to critize you, by the way, I'm a European, so I might have got some points wrong. But we have a global world today, so it doesn't really matter - or does it? Greetings Barkpingu
you are all ignoring the multipronged rise in id and such...
coupled with a unique id in computers and tv and you can have everything tied to the persons physical presence...
now you either have to use the same machines or pay to have things transfered over to new ones..
and when grandpa dies all the material tied to his bio markers fades with it!!!!
with sensors and things in the future the tv may look and see whos watching and make them check in before watching to see if they are allowed...
i know that this seems impossible.. but if they stop broadcast shows and go to total digital then there is no other choice as new output will no longer have to be created for those old analog things... and those analog things will no longer work.. yeah, not in the next ten years.. but remember you really cant play cylincers any more or diamond disks and things because the players are gone (except for museum type peices people trade and things as collectors... but electronic stuff of a later era is not as robust in its life time as compared to these early methods)...
the only reason that we are yelling is that we are old enough to remember the difference.. the yutes dont miss what they never had!!!! ArtflDgr
A lot of folks have no interest in ripping TV shows and movies for distribution, but want to record them for later viewing and (the big no-no according to the TV producers) fast forward through the commercials.
As I understand it, the broadcast flag comes into play during the decoding process. What would be required in terms of circuitry, hard drive capacity and writing speed to directly record the raw digital input from cable? (Then just feed it into the TV as if it came from cable.)
I want to drive my car in any way possible, across the pedestrian walks, on the opposite side of the highway, ignoring the lights and the signs and the pedestrians.
But these bastards in police uniforms are all over the place to stop me from that....
You can't handle the truth.
I want to drive my car in any way possible, across the pedestrian walks, on the opposite side of the highway, ignoring the lights and the signs and the pedestrians.
But these bastards in police uniforms are all over the place to stop me from that....
You can't handle the truth.
Content is king: if distributors can control exclusive content that's sufficiently popular, people are likely to put up with the restrictions and costs to get it. While I'm guessing about the US situation, a long time ago in Britain a vicious crook who shall be nameless but who for the sake of argument we will call Rupe Mudoch (later of Foxy TV) introduced Skye satellite TV, offering lots of new channels for a pricey subscription: what made it compelling for the masses was exclusive rights to a lot of football games.
...."
These people get enough watching, you'll find yourselves locked out of programmes you fancy unless you bow to their DRM.
cue for song; "if Bill ruled the world,
and I'm trying to create an account, but that email account's on a go-slow. hopefully anonymous no longer..
I had that problem too. So I ripped the legally-rented DVD onto a blank one and watched it. Way to go, Macrovision! You are directly responsible for this act of piracy!
back in the day before Napster and P2P I was really into Hotline, but Hotline alot of times ¥ou have to develop relationships with the admins and probably contribute before you got what you wanted. it was alot more of a problem to get something for nothing
There's something wrong here. If people are copying a broadcast televion show, then they must either think the program has to be rescheduled so they don't miss seeing it, or else they think the show is good enough that they want to see it again. As viewer numbers continue to drop in all demographic profiles, why would network programmers want to do anything to dissuade people watching television?
Goddamned kids! Get off my lawn!