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."
As long as the stream can be recorded on at least a decent quality analog medium, broadcast tv or even dvds will be "reproducable"
It's not the first time and it won't be the last time that retailers had to follow pirates into a distribution model.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
How about a little truth: "Regulators tried to ban a device that would allow for personal copying, and went against a previous Supreme Court ruling (Sony vs Betamax)."
There once was a time when I respected Slashdot for it's common-sense + Left'ish wing viewpoints. Now it looks like nothing more then an elementary school whine-fest. Poor spelling, grammer and an uncanny nack for re-posting stuff other peoples' work.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
The economics of distribution have changed, and they're trying to maintain their income stream while looking for alternate means. What google has taught us is that advertising can support freely copy-able content if done right.
When the MSs, the RIAAS, the MPAAs, the Disneys etc finally admit that there is no agressive tactic that will work. The world has moved on now. People have access to broadband to download tons of data, people have means of backing up loads of data (soon TBs we hear). P2P and similar stuff is rampant. People want to copy stuff from their TV. People don't want to be forced into shitty exploitative DRMed and constrictive nonsense. They want to transfer their music to CD, to play it in a range of devices, they want to make backups of their DVDs.
They are all fighting a loosing battle. Start listening to what people want instead of what they don't want.
As far as is my understanding (I'm not from the US, so correct me if I'm wrong) the FCC is supposed to be regulating the electromagnetic spectrum.
DRM is not a matter which the FCC should be concerned with, since it is not related to the EM spectrum which they are supposed to be regulating.
Why should the FCC be allowed to regulate what parts of the signal recieved are acted upon, after it has left the tuner?
Yesterday's article was spun towards the EFF side so this article spins more toward the "regulators" side. While they are regulators of broadcasts, the issue here is whether they are legitimate regulators of non-broadcast functions of devices. To call them regulators here gives them what I consider an undeserved legitimacy.
As far as TV piracy being a growing problem. It probably will continue to be a problem until someone important catches on that all they need to do is come up with a downloadable program package that contains some forms of advertising that people will view.
One possible downloadable tv program package would feature small corner ads or something. They need to make the ads useable but not so intrusive that people feel the need to try and hack them out of there.
Coding Blog
This time the news is from the bbc. That is not america this time. So in this article all non americans can discuss the consequences for europe. Because sometimes the laws in europe try to follow the laws in the other parts of the world. Just look at the DCMA and recent discussions of patent law.
By the way, why don't the editors read their own site?
Then people would moan that its "old news".
:)
They would bitch if you decided to use advertising to support the server you use, they would complain in droves about your CSS and page layout techniques. They would find a way to break your system, or foil your filters, and the trolls will still laugh.
Apparantly on slash, you can't win.
Accept the dupes, accept the trolls, accept the bitching and the in fighting.
the noise to signal ratio is high, but the majority of us have enough going on upstairs to cut through it
I actually like it as it is though, the good parts easily outweigh the crap that comes along with it.
(having said all that, it might be a good idea to think about a Submission pre-moderation area that all moderators can access to potentially weed out dupes. Like the meta-mod area, but give 10-15minutes before stories even hit the mysterious future. Hell, just get the mods checking mails about stories in the mysterious future itself would solve it...)
liqbase
Sorry, but I can't agree. What you are saying is the same as 'even though the GPL source is copyrighted, once it is on my computer I should be able to repackage and redistribute it as I see fit, including selling it' And that simply will not fly. The flag exists for a purpose, and defeat of that purpose by any means is wrong.
I know I am in disagreement with a lot of you, but i firmly believe the originator of a program, just like the originator of source code, has every right to say how his material can be used.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
There once was a time when I respected Slashdot for it's common-sense + Left'ish wing viewpoints. Now it looks like nothing more then an elementary school whine-fest.
The editorial board of slashdot is degenerating Fast. Not that its ever been particularly good at checking articles and correcting grammar, but in recent weeks there has been a significant increase in pro-microsoft, and now pro-cartel postings. This may only be a symptom of a misguided notion that a free software/open source forum and newssite should somehow be "unbiased" and give the enemies of their movement equal time and equal legitimacy (much like the misguided notion that Jewish leaders should debate whether or not the holocaust happened with right-wing revisionists, something the US media has actually tried to engineer, despite the inherent destructive effect of legitimizing very fring and demonstrably nonsensical notions in order to create an appearance of "balance").
Whether this is a symptom of misguided "appearance of balance at any cost," a gradual sellout of slashdot to its advertisers (Microsoft does advertise here, and who knows how much of its bottom line is being threatened if it doesn't post stories along certain political/philosophical grounds), or a shift in slashdot's targetting (moving away from us free software/opensource geeks to a more staid, corporate, proprietary audience) is hard to know. But there has definitely been a change in the tone of the site, and as someone who has been reading slashdot for many years, I can say that it is not a good change.
Spinning the banning of technology that makes recording a TV program a la a VCR as a "piracy device" takes the cake, that's for sure.
What's next, spinning the banning of general purpose computers as an attempt at banning a "piracy device" since computers can (and have been) used to violate the copyright of proprietary software (most commonly MS Windows, alas), music, or even *gasp* TV programs that were broadcast for free on television anyway?
Whoever did that writeup and/or vetted it for slashdot (if slashdot's laxidasical editing can be described as "vetting", a real stretch I grant you) should be fired.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I just made a quick glance over the Sony v. Betamax decision (http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/sony_v_universal_d ecision.html)
and it appears that one of the major factors that lead to the decision was that it could not be proved that commerical viability/value was lost by taping shows to watch them later. If shows are being downloaded without their commercials in place of taping them with commercials, then the industry could make a fairly strong case that they have lost value due to the decreased viewership of the commercials which they make their money from.
IANAL, but I do have a gut feeling that someone does not have to be prosecuted in order for something to be illegal.
I've dealt with the FCC for a while. My understanding of their responsbility is that... 1. They regulate the Electromagnetic spectrum within the United States. 2. As a result they require electronic devices to not interfere with that spectrum. 3. They regulate how that spectrum is used. i.e. Mode of transmissision and format and in some cases content. A consumer electronics company's job is to build devices that receive those communications, then decode them for the consumer's use. I don't believe the FCC should be regulating what happens to the data once it is received. That is between the consumer and their data. I also believe the FCC overstepped their bounds when they only allow licensed amateur radio operators to own receivers that can receive the cell phone spectrum. The airwaves are free and what we do with the data trvelling through the electomagnetic spectrum in our personal space is our business. My $.02
I don't mean to be insensitive in this, but here goes.
Since we can't seem to get rid of the piracy and theft memes with respect to copyright, I propose we consider adding the rape meme.
As in those price fixing, for example, the selling price of CDs, are raping the public. They are copyright rapists. That company is a convicted rapist. Along those lines.
As in those taking undue advantage of artists are rapists as well?
See if they like such pejorative terms when applied to them. They seem to like such terms when applied to those they consider to be their opponents.
all the best,
drew
btw - three tabs open in firefox right now. slashdot, freshmeat and dictionary.com and I just got a popunder add for wall street advisor.
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
I don't know about others here, but I pay my cable bill every month, which in my view authorizes me to watch those TV shows. Frankly, the idea that downloading a show rather than taping it is immoral and illegal is insulting.
It's been a long time.