Slashdot Mirror
Regulators Lose Piracy Battle
asok_g33k writes "The US broadcast regulators were told today by a court of appeal that it 'crossed the line' in trying to dictate how devices functioned. This was after the regulators tried to ban a device which allowed TV shows to be pirated.
This comes after studies revealing that massive amounts of TV shows are beign illegaly downloaded from the internet and the regulators want a way to stop these shows being pirated and copied."
what is this a competition ?
yesterday
...richie - It is a good day to code.
I just think i had a flashback.. Or its just such a good story that every editor wants to post it..
5 46244&tid=129&tid=17 1 33250&tid=123&tid=129
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/23/1
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/22/2
Tried to mail the editors, but apparently they dont check their email
Yes the FCC is tasked with providing technical direction to the broadcast community.
The FCC is not (and should not) be tasked with providing technical direction to the consumer manufacturing community.
from the FCC web page;
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent United States government agency, directly responsible to Congress. The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. The FCC's jurisdiction covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. possessions.
I believe the broadcast flag can certainly fit withint the definition of 'communications', as does any technical makeup of the signal being transmitted or received.
Besides, if radio spectrum was all they were about, we (the US) would see a lot more tits in half time shows!
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
There's no reason they shouldn't specify the format of the broadcast flag. Or even that stations should use it. This is part fo the broadcast, and part of the standard. But once it has been received and demodulated, the FCC should have no power to require that recording equipment honours the flag.
A digital video recorder typically consists of two parts - A digital tuner and a digital recorder. The FCC is there only to regulate the tuner aspects of it (and even this may be a stretch). The recorder aspect does not do anything with a broadcast signal, so is out of their jurisdiction.
Sure, we had Broadcast Flag in Trouble and Court Says FCC Out-of-Bounds With Digital TV ...but you also missed Preparing for the Broadcast Flag?, where these this court ruling was already mentioned
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
The real story is that there WAS NO RULING YET, damn it! The question that the judges can't even decide on is whether the suing parties are in position to sue, so it's still very, very likely that nothing will come out of this. Check your facts before posting, will you?
This question was settled over twenty years ago! Recording TV is not bloody piracy. The broadcasters are trotting out the same stupid arguments they made before the bench then, but this time the semantic war redefining basic terminology is making the fight unwinnable by the sane.
Copying TV is not piracy. Passing copies around is not piracy. I know, I know, HBO is pay per view. But guess what? We've been recording the shows on VCR's for years. Passing them out to friends without cable. AND NO ONE CARED. Because it's not piracy, ie SELLING the tapes, and two, it didn't hurt HBO, it only made it more popular and made more people want to subscribe. As for satellite TV and similar, they've already bought laws making recordings almost impossible anyway.
But broadcast TV is being shot through my body right now. The idea is to have as many people watch as possible. At least for the last 65 years or so. We've been recording for almost thirty years, we've beaten back the loons who tried to make it a felony, and now they're back and winning, for God's sake.
The court system is stacked with extremely business friendly judges now, thanks to twenty five years of pro-free market Presidents, and there's no way of stopping them, especially since the regulators Bush appointed were lobbyists for the very industries they now regulate. It's a looting party for corporations. The legal precedents and semantic nastiness will be with us for the rest of our lives. Technology is being roped and tied by greedy gamers of the system, so it may not save us in the end. There won't be a place in the world you can manufacture tech not approved of by the powers in the U.S. God, they're raiding in Russia! The advance of corporate government is relentless, and largely ignored by the very people it locks into its worldview.
TV? Recording? PIRACY? Why not just call it rape or murder? The penalties would be less severe.
I get the slashdotters do not understand the distinction, but the reporters should be more clear about it.