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Preparing for the Broadcast Flag?
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?"
While on the topic, does anyone know if I buy a HD tunner card now, before they become extinct in July, if it will even work after the flag is issued?
I am using an AMD 1700+ CPU with 1 GB memory, an nVidia GeForce FX 5700 128MB board. I only have 80+GB space on the system right now (enough for around 5 hrs recording time ) but I will probably upgrade it later this year.
I bought this card because it does not have the broadcast bit and since it was made before July it will not be encumbered with all those restrictions.
I do not, however, plan on abusing that flexibility by sharing my recordings and thus ripping off the content owners. It is the thieves that feel it is thier right to steal from people just because they can that have brought this onerrous situation upon us.
Move to Canada!
/ducks
link from Ars Technica
Unfortunately they're fighting it on a technicality - that Congress did not give the FCC explicit power to create the broadcast flag, and thusly they have no authority themselves to create it.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
like any other type of restrictive technology, 95% of the people won't care, the other 5% of us folks will find cheap and easy ways around it. Yeah it won't be legal, but the cops only care if you are selling them or distributing them in large quantities (on the internets).
Nothing different anti-CD copying measures, anti VHS copying measures, anti video-game copying measures, and so on.
Nothing new here, move along
I found myself asking this same question, too. So I put the question to the makers of the EyeTV 500. This is their response:
"EyeTV 500 does not support the broadcast flag. Units bought before July 2005 will never support the broadcast flag. We will not update EyeTV 500 units bought before then to support the flag.
Thus, your EyeTV 500 will never support the broadcast flag. It will ignore flags, and not use DRM for any content. That means you'll have the maximum freedom possible with its recordings."
It's a little pricey, but it does the compression on the box. I don't have digital cable yet, but I may buy this come May/June just for the fuck of it since pre-July box prices will probably go up dramatically come July 2 (on the black market, of course, since the law bans all inter-state trade of these devices).
The IRS is the one organization that you don't want to fuck with. Remember, these are the guys who took down Al Capone.
My plans involve an underground bunker, stocked with old books and DVD's that will be stored in perfectly dark conditions to preserve them for as long as possible. Upon these DVD's are recordings of the great television shows and movies.
Upon the day of the broadcast flag, I will be taking my family into the bunker along with a supply of food, air, and other needs to last 100 years.
When my great-grandchildren emerge into the world after society collapses, all the old books (which were deemed illegal during the Copyright Stealing Prevention act of 2050) are burned and all eyeballs gouged out during the Copyright Memory Prevention Act of 2075, when humanity has children born without R/M/AA approved Eyeball Extractors coming to remove their ocular sockets to be installed with DCMA III approved cybereyes (which shut down if it appears the looker is attempitng to actually remember what they see to replay it in their mind later, which of course is a copyright violation), then my great-grandchildren will be able to use these books and DVD's as barter.
Hm - I wonder how much food they'll be able to buy with a copy of "Cryptonomicon". Maybe I should get another copy....
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
I was going to write a letter, but decided to watch last night's "Must See TV" for 8 hours instead. I just hope my brain is broadcast flag enabled so I can remember all this fine programming later!
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Step 1: Understand that 99.9% of shows on TV are crap anyway.
Step 2: Cease to care whether or not you can legally record them.
Step 3: Cancel your cable/satellite service.
Step 4: Download the 2 or 3 shows you really enjoy watching.
0 1 - just my two bits
the OP is trying to stay within the law.
Your assesment is kinda wrong.
You've never experienced things like a state tax filing amnesty? librariers that have fine amnesty?
never heard of realtors trying to close deals before laws change so they can be grandfathered in and legal?
the Question is,
"HOW BEST CAN I PREPARE MYSELF FOR SOMETHING THAT IS LEGAL"
not, how can I circumvent the law.
the advice being sought is in fact, ON THE SIDE OF LAW and wholly valid, I'm glad to see the topic, I was thinking about snapping up some hardware myself.
As I understand it- and I'd LOVE to be courteously corrected, the law only applies to products moved across state lines (or into the country) so a product manufactured, marketed and sold in the same US state, is actually still a possibility.
(fabrication facilitys then needing to be built in each state of course)
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Sure, you can stock up on pre-broadcast flag HDTV cards, and you can do all sorts of other tricks, but to do what you talk of for long-term goals, you're gonna need to work from the inside of the "system". Like others have said, big companies can spend all they want on re-election campaigns, but they still get elected by those who vote.
What most people forget about American democracy is that it is designed to work well in facilitating peaceful revolutions- when people care and vote. The blame for the sorry state the American government is in lies with nobody save every last American citizen who is currently enfranchised (older than 18, etc.). And I write this as an American citizen.
I wish I could write clever and witty sigs.
Once the broadcast flag becomes standard, can't the FCC be sued for violating the Supreme Court order mandating fair use in the Sony Betamax case? It would seem to be a slam-dunk of this argument is used.
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
Problem being, too many americans are too busy watching their spoon-fed share of culture on TV to care what happens, as long as the crap keeps showing up on their bigscreen they're fat and happy.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
To excerpt from an article posted on BetaNews:
Two of the three federal appeals court judges from the District of Columbia scolded the Federal Communications Commission Tuesday over what they saw as an overstep of the agency's authority given by Congress. The reprimand came in response to the FCC's ruling on the "broadcast flag."
Inconceivable!
First, you need to know what the 19.3 megabit DTV "Transport Stream" looks like. The "Broadcast Flag" is a small collection of bits embedded in "Transport Stream." DTV equipment will be required to watch (or listen) for those bits and take the appropriate action.
But suppose you know where those bits are, and what they mean, too. Why couldn't you simply flip the ones you don't like and then record or whatever? All you would need is a serial to parallel converter to turn the serial stream into a 16 bit parallel bus (for example) and them suck those bits into a DSP, where you do a little bit bashing. Then run them into a parallel to serial conervter to reconstruct the transport stream as seen by your digital disk recorder? If you have a commercially made unit, it will be looking for the flag bits, so it will know what it can or cannot do, but your freshly set bits tell it that this program is OK to record and play as long as you like.
I think such a device is likely to appear as a small plastic box with 2 firewire ports and a wall-wart, selling for $20 in a year or two.
Remember Macrovision on VHS? Do you know how easy that was to defeat? All you had to do was to make your VCR run with fixed video gain instead of AGC all the time. A little hardware hacking was all that was needed. This shouldn't be much worse. But don't try bit bashing after the compressed video is expanded. The data rate there is likely to be upwards of a gigabit, and most folks don't know how to make PCBs to handle stuff going that fast. This is precisely why the DRM folks want the interconnects to be 1 gigabit or faster. But remember, the "broadcast flag" must be readable in the 19.3 megabit transport stream.
An analog gray hair frantically clinging to the trailing edge of technology.
Better to buy from Korea, they also use 8VSB for DTV transmission over the air.
Avoid any COFDM devices as that is the European standard and would not work here in the states unless it also did 8VSB.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
You say the people are free to do what they want? The poster's issue is that in the U.S. that doesn't seem to hold true any longer. The poster did not vote to fuck himself over, regardless of what others voted for.
With that said, I agree with the rest of your point. The problem here is that majority rule does not work when the majority doesn't care. People need to wake up.
...all of the Broadcast Flag plans were in motion up long before Bush became president, during Clinton's presidency. Clinton appointed Michael Powell to the FCC [when he became Chairman, he didn't get any more votes], Clinton signed the DMCA into law, and Fritz Hollings (D) (along with four other Democratic senators) is the sponsor of the CBDTPA (née SSSCA or "DMCA 2").
I'm not saying the parent is speaking to this specifically, but this is just a point of information for others who will no doubt ignorantly vomit out the opposite in this thread.
you mean like Silvio Berlusconi winning in Italy had nothing to do with him owning most TV stations?
"when is the last time the public actually stood up for their rights?"
How would we know? The corporate media would never tell us even if it actually happened.
They will never stop until somebody makes the
pcHDTV 3000 from here
Air2PC from here or here
2. When you're ready, build a computer for MythTV. Use this guide, look here for HDTV tips, and ask questions on this mailing list. You can also search for answers on the mailing list archive.
3. You say that Myth isn't all you want. I think you're wrong. Here's what it can do:
It can record analog content from cable, satellite, and over-the-air broadcasts.
It can record digital content from over-the-air broadcasts, including HDTV.
It can record unencrypted digital content over firewire from some digital cable boxes.
Using free tools that come with MythTV, you can cut commercials and export any recording from MythTV to a number of different formats, including Divx, Xvid, VCD, SVCD, and DVD.
4. Here's what it can't do:
Myth can't record encrypted digital content from digital cable or digital satellite. Keep in mind that no PC-based solution can do this. The only possible ways to do record content from these sources in digital format are to use a black-box solution (usually) provided by the cable or satellite company or to put on your black hacker hat and crack the encryption. If you choose the former, odds are slim and none that you will be able to export the recordings.
I am concerned about any program, any piece of hardware, any treaty, any law that treats me as a consumer, not a citizen
The problem is that scumbags keep retroactively increasing the length of protection, and that is cheating
Why is it cheating? Because the people that BUY your IP do so at a set price with the assumption that after they wait x # of years the stuff they bought today will be theres to do with what they want. That is one of the decisions they made when they bought it.
Example: Lets say that in 1968 I purchased one of the original film reals of star trek, for say $5,000. I get to watch it myself, but I can't charge cash to others to see it... YET. For just myself, it would only be worth $4,500. But I know that in 20 years, it will be a rare commodity and I will be free to charge people to see the film. My $5,000 is an INVESTMENT.
now 10 years later, some scumbag lier has convinced congress to change it from 20 years to 50 years. I just lost my investment.
The real problem is HOW MUCH DO WE WANT TO PAY INVENTORS/CREATORS for their work.
And while they are certainly entilted to a fair price, we - as the PURCHASERS of that work are entitled to negotiate a fair price - and that price includes a limit on how long you hold the rights to it. May be it should be shorter, maybe it should be longer, but once our society sets a reasonable time limit and you "accept that condition" and create the IP, there is NO POSSIBLE, FAIR REASON to change it. That is just thievery by cheating, greedy scumbags. It is no better than if Ford suddenly decides to extend the 5 year rental agreement with an option to buy after 5 years to a 10 years rental agreement, after you already signed the papers.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
What right do you have to claim it as "your" culture? Did you create it?
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Yeah, it's really awful that people can continue to benifit from thier creations for so long.
Wow, Walt Disney is still alive? What great news!
hell, if logic isn't enough for you the damn thing is enumerated in the constitution itself:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
Those events were used to be called riots. Now they are called terrorism.