Slashdot Mirror
EFF Compiles Endangered Gizmos List
Hungry Student writes "The EFF has published an "Endangered Gizmos" list of technology that is at risk of extinction from the lobbyists of the entertainment industry. Extinct species include DVD X-Copy and Napster 1.0. Among those fighting for survival are Morpheus and HDTV tuner cards. The BBC has commentary on this as well." From the article: "The EFF intends the list to be part of a wider educational and awareness project, and it will be updated regularly as more gadgets and technologies are saved or killed off."
EFF Creates Endangered Gizmos List
Dear Slashdot Editors,
If you find that a link in a story that has been submitted shows up as purple in your browser, it may be worth checking whether the reason you've already visied the site because the story was already submitted.
Your humble reader
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
This isn't about companies and artists being "stolen" from. It's about corporate entities finally having the kind of leverage to exert full control over content distribution from inception to consumption.
If a company can control the distribution of its "intellectual property" - e.g. a song - from the moment it's recorded until it hits your ears - then there's additional opportunities for a revenue stream at any point in that line. For instance, you can purchase a song from iTunes. Or you can pay XM $10 a month for the privilege of listening to that same song on their satellite service. Or you could go to the record store and purchase a disc you can put in your CD player and play.
But the act of copying said content, and giving it to a friend - that's completely outside the revenue stream, and the content companies seek to stop this type of action. Even if the creator of the content - the artist - would see benefit from this action. (An example: a friend recently made a copy of the Secret Machines album for me. I bought a copy for my brother, and then a copy for myself. How is this bad for the artist?)
Music, video, and other entertainment content is *not* intellectual property. Trade secrets, manufacturing methods, software - that's IP. But music in specific is undergoing a transformation. Content control is not natural in the broad scope - it's an artificial control mechanism put in place to generate revenue.
Since the site is dead, you can read a transcript of the site anonymously posted to Slashdot the last tine we killed the server.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Hey, I wouldn't say you have to be a linux genius... just be able to burn a bootable knopppmyth ISO =)
The latest alpha knopmyth revision has built in support for the HD-3000 IIRC.
I did find the included documentation a little thin on the HD3000, but there is a helpful hd-3000 forum and failing that you can come to my build your own PVR site with questions/pointers/etc...
Although note: I haven't gotten around to installing my HD-3000 as of yet. Too many PVR cards/software too little time.
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
[/Obscure Gremlins reference] ;)
Is BSD on the list?
I watched my dad sit at his PC trying to get his "free" song he won from a little contest a Burger King. The only thing that stopped him from loading his PC up with whatever DRM locked media player was the annoyance of having to register when trying to download the player.
My explanation of how the DRM locked tune would only work on his one PC and he could never play it anyplace else was all but pointless. He didn't understand, and didn't care. He just wanted a free song.
It's not the DRM that most users care about, they care about being annoyed by the DRM. Once the companies figure out how to put DRM onto PCs without pissing anyone off, it will be all over.
It bolsters the business models the wealthy are already using.
If real innovation were permitted, media companies would have to spend money on R&D to keep up, and even roll out new product lines instead of milking the old ones.
Do you think we'd have DVDs if people hadn't found many easy ways to copy VHS tapes? Nope. Same with CDs. They exist because they're cheaper to produce than tapes, yet can be sold for more because of the "higher quality" and because they were, at the time of their release, damn difficult to copy.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
This is really stupid. Firewire drives and CD burners are not endangered. Likewise D/A and A/D converter chips.
It's misleading and confusing to include these in the classification with technologies like Morpheus, which looks to be heading towards a loss in court with the recent admissions that it tracked individual downloads, and HDTV tuner boards which are already scheduled to be phased out this year due to the broadcast flag rules.
we are moving back towards feudalism, although the fedualist pushers don't call themselves "royal".
The new "technofeudalists" are the huge transnational corporations, who are increasingly controlling the "laws" in various nations, overtly (open lobbying, trade associations,pushing "free trade" instead of "fair trade", etc) or covertly (bribing and blackmailing their boys into power in the "legitimate" governments, copting journalists to push propoganda, etc, etc). And it's very hard to control them, because corporations act as a group of people as to profits, but the responsibilities that a normal human person might have are not conclusive or extensive enough, witness time after time corporation-x gets busted for this or that. Usually it results in a fine, said fine monies then being pushed off onto the ultimate customers to pay. The corps themselves are rarely if ever actually busted up entirely, no matter how many times their officers/managers whatever get caught in illegal acts. And to make it worse, even if that happens, they can just "go bankrupt" and most of the same people involved can just go start up another string of corporations under new corporate person names and controlling addresses.
Corporations are very similar to the old concept of "royal bloodlines" in that regard, they persist generation after generation, with the twist they can just morph away and reform, to go on and continue with unethical or illegal practices. You can't really kill them off or revolt against them,like you could with some royal feudalist gang of rank "bluebloods" in ye olden days, not in any practical sense anyway and stay inside technological civilisation.
Lobbying groups have, for good or evil, led to many items being banned or pulled off the market.
"Real" Coca-Cola with real cocaine.
Carbon Tetracloride.
R-12 auto refrigerant.
Cars without modern emissions and safety systems.
Children's jackets with drawstrings.
50-70MHz FM radios.
TVs that can receive above channel 67.
Styrofoam burger boxes at McDonalds.
Many drugs and food additives.
ScotchGuard.
The list goes on and on.
The major difference now is that unlike the above, distrubiting the blueprints (source code) to make certain computer programs can land you in court for DMCA violations if you live in the wrong country, while nobody cares if you post instructions on how to manufacture Carbon Tetrachloride on your web site.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
... the EFF web server?
Just get a Hauppauge WinTV PVR250 card. They work fine. HDTV is overrated... I don't expect it to take off. Other than high resolution Janet Jackson boobies, what's the point? Survivor in high definition? Who cares how good the picture is if the content sucks?
This is probably a bit off topic, but it's been bothering me and I would like to see what others think.
For broadcasts like satellite radio and television how can it possibly be illegal to intercept them and view their contents? I feel that if you don't want me to view your satellite feed, keep your electromagnetic radiation out of my back yard.
Welcome to the land of the free...pay toll ahead...no photography...please open your bag...
Hey, then let's just have them post this article EVERY HOUR! Someone might miss it otherwise.
If what you miss on Slashdot is important, then go back and READ THE DAYS YOU MISS.
One of the biggest problems with HDTV tuners isn't the problem you describe, where you've got great picture, but nothing WORTH watching in hi-def.
The problem is that most people with computer capture cards have to rely on computer-based output to their television. They only place you can watch your HDTV is on your computer monitor. Ok, sure, a lot of people have HDTV televisions, but most don't. Most projectors under $2500 are 800x600 at best, and even the ones that are 1024x768 use DLP chips that have to actually process video at 800 vertical or less.
Long story short, unless you've got a GREAT television, or a >$2,500 projector, you're going to be watching your HDTV content on your computer monitor, or it's going to look a hell of a lot like the rest of the content on your antenna.