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EFF: 48 Hours to Stop the Broadcast Flag
The Importance of writes "Think the Broadcast Flag is dead? EFF is warning that Hollywood is trying to sneak the broadcast flag into law as an amendment to a massive appropriations bill. 'If what we hear is true, the provision will be introduced before a subcommittee tomorrow and before the full appropriations committee on Thursday. That gives us 48 hours to stop it.' Action Alert here. List of Senator's phone numbers here."
This shit has got to stop.
First the Real ID Act..
Now this...
When? When will it end?
Try not to let life get in the way of living.
When did slashdot become a political action group? Posting senators numbers? I thought this was a purely a tech/geek-news site. They are doing this more and more, and are starting to instead become another lame lobbying group.
HEY! You need a reality check! The GOP have been THE party of dirty politics and dirty playing. They are in full support of big corporate interests and they are anti-consumers.
Don't write your congresscritters because A FUCKING WEBSITE told you to!
I doubt anyone would actually make the effort to write to their congressman unless they already knew about and cared about the issue.
It won't affect me one iota.
I guess you're never going to buy an HDTV and other TV equipment then.
(1) The Broadcast Flag effectively mandates increased hardware costs.
(2) The Broadcast Flag mandates decreasted functionality of products.
(3) The Broadcast Flag effectively mandates increased development costs.
(4) The Broadcast Flag thoroughly STRANGLES efforts to introduce any new products and technologies. Innovation will be illegal/nonfunctional unless it first gets regulatory approval. The prior documented approval process explicitly went through the movies studios and other industry bodies that would resist or reject any change or disruption to the status quo.
If this really isn't going to affect you, fine. But I didn't know the Amish spent much time posting on the internet.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
That's of course the most obvious (to us) answer, but I might as well throw another one because with the language you're using you probably have heard of the large numbers of stupid people here.
I'd have to say the real problem is no matter what someone is caught at, if he/she has a high profile government job, there will be no punishment. Bill Clinton got away with Grand Purgery, he even admitted that he lied before a court afterwards, and he's still touring the country selling books, making $40k/night on speeches, etc.
Yeah, there's a lot of corrupt politicians... who more to inspire them than "The Leader of the Free World" though? Maybe it was better when Nixon got impeached and pressured out of office for doing nothing.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
they fixed that in the US.
they changed it to "campaign donations".
see? all better.
and i wouldn't be so quick to be proud of australia.
your PM is a US lapdog and went against the clear wishes of the people in order to invade a helpless nation. with no WMD and no connect to 9-11 or al qaeda. funny how the people reelected him...
so don't delude yourself into thinking you live in anything other than a dictatorship. they learned from the soviets and the chinese... don't make it so damn obvious otherwise the people'll catch on.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
If all you anti-**AA and anti-broadcast flag folks are correct in the notion that the relatively unhindered movement of media actually benefits artists, actors, recording companies and movie studios, then these Draconian measures should have a detrimental effect on both the producers and gatekeepers.
I, on the other hand, couldn't care any less about some silly Broadcast flag. As for the EFF assertion that it... "Limits Fair Use: As the May 11, 2005 Congressional Research Service report noted, the flag will prevent important fair uses, like the ability of teachers to engage in distance learning..." Yawn. The day that teachers can't play video because of some stupid broadcast flag is the day that students start to learn something worthwhile, because the teacher can't opt out of teaching by turning on some stupid "educational" show.
And as far as art goes, I will continue to vote with my wallet. I will vote not to see the latest Tom Cruise blockbuster, because it does not add to my well being or increase my enjoyment out of life and I don't approve of the prominence that he brings a stupid UFO cult. That's right, I'm prejudiced, sue me.
Furthermore, I vote not to buy most CDs because I'd rather download from some of the vast empire of highly innovative independent music coming from artists who don't have corporations manipulating overused harmony hooks on their behalf... Though I must admit, from time to time I watch with mild amusement (and arousal?) at the latest pair of tits that Viacom parades across MTV.
As for the rest of you, enjoy decrypting a digital clip of the latest piece of hollywood fart humor to be targetted at you by the corporations. At least you'll have something to talk about with your friends.
You're thinking of one of those axis of evil countries where people can vote and they hold government accountable, like England or something.
Interesting that you subtlety assault George Bush's "axis of evil" rhetoric with more rhetoric. You know perfectly well that the comment was never meant to be applied to democratic countries like England. Your apathy with America shows through your vacuous sarcasm; apathy that clearly tints your judgment.
The fact of the matter is that the people are as easily swayed by money (marketing, my friend) as Congress is. Do you think everyone is as enlightened on this issue as the Slashdot community is? Isn't it interesting how the opinion of the people has swayed away from file sharing, with many looking down on it as an innately wrong act? For evidence of this, consider your day to day interactions as well as statistics such as Apple's music store usage surpassing that of popular file sharing networks. Dollars going to marketing and "education" campaigns can be just as productive in "axis of evil countries" as dollars going to lining the Senator's pockets. Perhaps you are the naive one.
...I was going to try to debate you here, but the likelihood of actual debate on Slashdot is so ridiculously low that it isn't worth the time. All I need to say is this: the "proper conclusion" is that fuckfaces who condone people like "Turban" Durbin ought to be lined up and shot. Haven't heard any of the shaggy-dog Democratic whores condemn him for equating American soldiers with Nazis or the keepers of Russian gulags.