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Preparing for the Broadcast Flag?

Posted by Cliff on from the fight-for-your-right-to-timeshift dept.

Couch Potato asks: "I'm worried that, come next July, the FCC mandated broadcast flag will soon take away all sorts of fair use rights I have long enjoyed. Given that there are only a few months left to make purchasing decisions, how best can one prepare for the advent of the broadcast flag?" "I'm somewhat aware of projects like Myth TV, but it's not all that I want. Specifically, I want to make sure that I can record DVDs or similar files of any program I want off of cable, sattelite or broadcast TV, flag or not and without any other encumbering restrictions (such as the Macrovision DRM for DVDs) and without worry that someday they'll change something so that my old drivers and hardware are suddenly obsolete and useless when faced with updates to the formats. Note that this makes closed-source-only drivers an issue, because assuming the hardware can still be adapted to whatever they change on us, open-sources drivers can be modified and closed-source ones probably won't be, whether for legal or practical considerations. So then, what can someone with a modest budget do to make sure that their constitutional fair use rights don't succumb to planned obsolecense, like the VCR has?"

4 of 735 comments (clear)

  1. What "fair use" rights do you want!? by 91degrees · · Score: 0, Troll

    The broadcast flag is simply a flag that indicates that people are not entitled to do what people don't do anyway - Make multi-generational copies of broadcast media.

    Why do you need to do that? It's certainly nothing to do with delayed viewing. The only possible reason I can think of for wanting to do it is for distribution and archiving. Neither of these are rights you have under copyright. Fair use can only be stretched so far. This is well outside of it.

  2. Re:Meh.... by 50000BTU_barbecue · · Score: 0, Troll
    Never, ever say you don't watch or like TV around here. If you don't have at least two TiVos running 24/7 and don't watch the latest dreck at least 50 times a month for hours on end, it's -1, troll for you!

    Like this...

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    Mostly random stuff.
  3. That link doesn't have all the information by arete · · Score: 0, Troll

    Bush got more money than Kerry, but Kerry should've won the election. The Bush win is clearly based on fixed results. (This does not denote a conspiracy; a lone actor could have pulled it off)

    www.blackboxvoting.org

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    Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
  4. Re:Write Some Letters by tomhudson · · Score: 0, Troll
    Last I heard, certain groups (bible-thumpers, like Bush) believed their bible, which states [tt]:
    "Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell." King Solomon, The Bible, Proverbs 23:14
    - so there's a "freedom of religion" argument to be made there. Same as Jehovah's Witnesses refusing blood transfusions for their children - which have to be over-ridden by a judge on a case-by-case basis.

    I don't agree, but then again, I think any book that can take more than 750,000 words to tell you how to dress, how to talk, how to deal with your neighbours, your kids, your wife/husband/parents/children, what not to look at, etc.,, claiming to be THE moral authority for people's lives, but can't find the space for 4 words - "slavery is WRONG, asshole", is seriously fucked up to begin with.