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The RIAA's Halloween Tricks
deus42 writes "BoingBoing has an interesting article about a joint RIAA/MPAA move started yesterday on Capitol Hill. From the article: 'Hollywood has fielded a shockingly ambitious piece of Analog Hole legislation while everyone was out partying in costume. Under a new proposed Analog Hole bill, it will be illegal to make anything capable of digitizing video unless it either has all its outputs approved by the Hollywood studios, or is closed-source, proprietary and tamper-resistant. The idea is to make it impossible to create an MPEG from a video signal unless Hollywood approves it.'"
I can think of a hole I'd like them to approve...
...what if there were no rhetorical questions?
The simple audacity of their intentions, or the idea that they think they will actually get away with it, or that it will even be plausible.
I know nothing
this is retarded.
...people will find a way around it. They will NEVER make any media copy-proof. It has been cracked again and again and again. I am not worried.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
Oh no, the big bad RIAA is being silly again, howsoever shall we watch our tv now? *plugs into a converter, pipes it through co-ax to his computer* Wow that was hard. They need to learn the wonderful world of old technology will never allow for this to happen. Sure it may not be digital, but there will alwyas be a way to convert to a lesser standard, because the entire USA won't upgrade their TVs in an instant.
You never realize how much manually made unmanaged "linked" lists suck, till you have src.link.link.link.link...
Just as well you've got all those constitutional freedoms, eh guys? The sadder thing is that in the current climate, Australia will be the next to go.
The indiscriminate use of vulgar language is the linguistic crutch of the inarticulate motherfucker
If you outlaw mpegs, only outlaws will have mpegs.
The people who are doing this illegally still don't care, but the *aa has managed to alienate yet more people.
"Hello 911? I just tried to toast some bread, and the toaster grew an arm and stabbed me in the face!"
welcome our new Hollywood overlords.
Make lobbying illegal, punishable by hanging in front of the Capitol Building. Problem solved.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
And thus did the American cultural hegemony over the rest of the world collapse, leading to a world where India and China exported their values through their music and films while the Hollywood studios argued about whether consumers should be allowed to keep a taped episode of Will and Grace for 24 hours or only 12...
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
This whole piracy thing is so silly. It's wierder than "terrorist". Both terms depend on who they are working for. If they're working for the "competition"(so to speak), they're pirates and terrorists. If they're on "our" side, they're distributors and freedom fighters. Do you know who will be the first to go out of business when P2P really takes off? The pirates. The guys out there selling millions of bootlegs. Most pirates usually sell the top 40, RIAA stuff, so they also "controlled" who was distributed, but they are the most expendable. Hell, they're off the books, so who's gonna care? Most people understand that P2P will increase record sales and concert attendance manyfold. This isn't just about money. Control plays a bigger role here. Just like both sides use terrorists in a war, both sides use pirates to distribute their wares. It seems to be mutually parasitic. What I'm trying to say here is that piracy is a diversion, a smokescreen used by those who want to control distribution of information(text, audio, video). It's little different from those who use terrorism to create unjust laws.
(kind of offtopic)
I sure wish the ptroleum industry was as concerned about the leaks in their distribution system as the content industry is about theirs. (11230681)
Brilliant, now my in-laws won't be asking for home videos of the kids emailed anymore!
ewwww. I can't believe I typed that.
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
Kills two birds with one stone. Copyright infringement becomes slightly harder, but more importantly, independent production of content comes to a stillstand. With no consumer hardware capable of filming and making arbitrary reproductions of the material, how will anyone make a movie? Yep, gotta have the pro hardware. $$$
Now who still believes the boogy man doesn't come out at halloween?
Speaking is NOT communication
I for one welcome our new information overlords!
Sweet, sweet irony.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Wow, I wonder sometimes what kind of drugs the MPAA/RIAA,etc.. are one to come up with these rediculus plans. Are they James Bond villians ?
Seriously WTF ?
Hollywood money grubbing exec's, please do us all a favor. Either get out of the business you are in or walk in front of a bus.
Mother of God what are you thinking! ?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Did the lobbyists look anything like this? http://www.ucomics.com/foxtrot/2005/10/31/
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
I honestly wonder what historians will think of this time period, say, one hundred years from now. Think of how we view the Western European Dark Ages, where education slowed to a halt, an organization managed to secure society and manipulate it at will, while those in the East jumped leaps and bounds ahead of them. Gosh, sounds vaguely familiar....
I'm sure that'll go over well in China.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Hollywood movies suck at this point & so does the majority of music coming out of the standard houses. My suggestion -- don't buy either. It looks like the next version of DVD (HD or Blu-ray) are both going the same way, so screw em. While your at it, vote out the SOBs in Congress too. (Whew, time for some anger management here.)
"Go fuck yourself, Hollywood."
Jesus H. Christ, what is with all these goddamn fascists ruining country? It starts with the homeowners association all the way up through the powerful business cartels then over to the executive and legislative branches of government.
let's just call it The A-Hole Bill, shall we?
A trick or treat?
insert inflammatory anti-microsoft comment here
Was that ass hairy before or after the paste?
On second thought, I don't think I want to know.. (On third thought I'm pretty sure I don't want to know)
Probably.
So it's basically saying that they're trying to make it completely illegal to make and or use things such as MythTV and tuner cards and even the DVD Recorders currently on the market today? And anyone who owns one already is SOL?
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
Unless property owners can exploit their capital, there is no incentive to innovate. Companies like Apple and Microsoft and Sony just can't stay in business if all their work is stolen. If the property owner wants restrictions on their property, then the consumer must obey if they want to enjoy using the owner's property. If you rent a house, you can't do what you want with it. If the owner of a piece of music or his agent only wants you to listen on a DRMed machine like iPod or Windows, then too bad, you can always make up your own music on a kazoo and play on XMMS on your Linux box. You have a choice.
I still would like to see how they can stop me from shooting a HD camcorder at a 30" LCD to make copies.
And that would make all of the geeks rogue outlaw bad-boy types, which would make them suddenly very appealing to women, so maybe this isn't such a bad idea after all.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Does this mean that if I view a video with my eyeballs and write down a number based on what I see I'm subject to a lawsuit as an unapproved and unlicensed device?
Who forgot to give them their candy??? If there is one entity you don't want tricks from it's these guys. I think we should all promote grass roots entertainment, and show these idiots how irrelevant they've become.
You can't retroactively make something illegal.
That sounds nasty!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
It has been cracked again and again and again
The media companies will (if they haven't already) make cracking a punishable offense. As it is they drag people through court that crack their schemes just to make an example of them regardless of what the local laws may/may not give them.
Better still, the corporations get to characterize them as the least desirable citizens in the court. It's just like the medical marijuana reformers vs the "war on drugs" institutions.
Blowing it off because it can be cracked just isn't the answer.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Just wait, when all the video is on demand over ip. Think of all the laws they will try to push, or already going to, it's only a matter of time till these dinosaurs die, we just need to speed it up a little.
Perhaps they are referring to old films and stuff that people have just started archiving with the advent of affordable telecine, etc. Or it could be that they are about to offically close the hole in digital using some ingenious new system and they want to remove the analog option completely first.
Soon, you won't be able to buy a new DVD or CD player, reciever, etc. that has analog inputs and outputs, since they won't be "certified". Another reason is that they (the big studios and publishing companies) really want to move over into video on demand style stuff as an industry and cut out the retailers and wholesalers and distributers who have acted as middlemen.
The ultimate goal, of course, is to control all information, entertainment or otherwise, for monetary and political gain.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Here's a link to the EFF's Broadcast Flag work.
Here's a PDF link to [then] Circuit Judge Edwards' decision in ALA v. FCC.
blarg.
What? The statement about hole from cold, dead hands?
Or the statement that your hole is a prize?
pries my analog hole from my cold, dead hands if I read your intent correctly...
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
Are they trying to make life insanely difficult for student and amateur video makers?
What I don't get is that there is TONS of "analog signal" that is not RIAA-owned, so how can they legislate on it?
Or perhaps they won't, but apparently they'll make it very difficult to use the required equipment. Make life difficult for students, and you're cutting off your source of income 20 years down the road..
Even if they were willing to ignore the millions of video capture products already in the field, there ain't no way they can outlaw making more.
They could outlaw boxed solutions in stores, but just how do you outlaw a high speed analog to digital converter chip? If you can't do that you can't stop open source solutions. Ok, we don't have all in one tuner/encoder boards, but stick a high speed ADC on a PCI card and run a VCR's video out plug into it. IR output on a serial port to control the tuner and some software based DSP code to crunch video frames out of the datastream. By the time the existing supply of tuner cards and PVR cards dried up a lowball CPU should be more than enough to do the DSP work. Or hell, stick a generic programmable array logic chip out on the PCI board with that ADC and you can relieve the load from the CPU. Stick a tuner module off of a cable modem in there and you have a Video capture board. Think they can stop em from coming in, even as kits? After all, pick the components right and you could have a kit version. They probably can't outlaw the etched PCB. Just pick parts that don't require surface mount soldering skills and you get a nice garage business model.
Democrat delenda est
Did they forget the fact that dvd's are infact already digitized. Or how about the fact that cable these days is digital. Not only that, last i checked werent they trying to make everything digital? Personally i think it would be better for them to just make a law saying its illegal to transmit information.
To me, this law seems like their poor attempt at stopping independent film makers(analog being cheaper to make than digital film), and to kill open source software.
if this passes as described, our government will have gone from simply being "out of line" to being "batshit crazy over the line" and will deserve to be destroyed, burnt down, etc, etc.
"for the corporations, by the corporations" my shiny metal ass.
MORTAR COMBAT!
The idea is to make it impossible to create an MPEG from a video signal unless Hollywood approves it.'"
I'm sure that the Sony's of the world would have a problem with this if the bill truly intends on removing the ability for budding amateur video camera owners to port their videos to mpeg, in preperation for burning to a DVD (In a hurry... Don't have time to RTFA)
At least they should have a problem with this... That'd be a helluva lot of lost video camera (and related equipment)sales, and pissed off customers to deal with!
Everything will eventually go digital, and once no one is manufacturing analog equipment (VCRs) anymore, there won't be any more VCR's (or anything that does the same thing). Say goodbye to your capture card, too, or be prepared to PAY everytime you want to record something on your ATI All-In-Wonder.
From my standpoint, they couldn't possibly poison the well any further. The day I give them any cash so they can use it to buy my representatives is the day Satan's snowplow crews start making money.
clue stick: how do you think the tivo get's it's signal from the digital cable box? it's via analog (coax/svideo/composite)... If there was no "analog loophole" you'd only be able to use the cable company's DVR with your digital cable service.
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
The idea is to make it impossible to create an MPEG from a video signal unless Hollywood approves it.
Thank God for AVI!
If this gets passed, i think i want to find a way to revoke my citizenship.
All Jokes aside, how can we let these corporations, who are only bent on saving themselves, influence the rights of every human being in this country. Corporations have incredible influence over the civil liberties of individuals. The worst part is, i can't even come up with a solution to the problems we've gotten ourselves into.
Some might say in retort, call your senator! write your senator! have a voice!
I've done that, and all I have ever gotten in response was a stock letter that answered none of my questions. Short of running for office, or quitting my job to become a lobbist. How can I make my voice matter at all? I feel completely left out of my government. Does anyone out there feel the same way?
What..
you gonna come to my house and take my PVR-250's?
you gonna break the firewire jack on my PC and cable box?
no one uses MPEG anymore anyway..
WE USE XVID, OGG and other formats.. so shove that up your analog hole.. sideways.
Long live mythTV and opensource!
Is there a guide to Movie studios and media producers that are not members of MPAA/RIAA? I think it's time to start voting with my dollar, but I am not sure if there are any movies or music I can still buy without shooting myself in the foot.
Did anyone feel their jaw hit the floor half way through this and stay there permantly?
I like muppets.
See my sig.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
The reason being that eventually, most if not all digital methods of transmittal will be controlled by DRM, and thus, the industry already has control of that. After that, it will still be possible to make copies via analog methods, and they want to make sure those copies don't wind up in some other digital, albeit slightly quality-degraded form.
I for one welcome our new filming and directing overlords.
The A.Hole bill.
An organized boycott is needed. These draconian policy movements by the corporations cannot go ahead without a response. We vote w/ our dollars.
Anyone interested, email me and we'll see what happens.
-Nick
john [d0t] russell [at] gmail [d0t] com
Jeezus// Here they go again..
I hate them.
EVIL!
Its getting hard waging a one man war against thier evil music scheme..
Thank god we have the EFF.
Just the description of the bill/legislation should provide us with endless hours of /. opinnuendo!
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Honestly, I know many people here dont care about the RIAA/MPAA or any sub-faction of their org... but seriously... how many large companies that use analog video for their digital products. You think TV tuners are the only thing that do analog to digital? Every VCR, DVD, DVR, and most computers now do some form of analog to digital. You have Sony's video camera line alone that has the one button function of burn to dvd/vcd. That alone would be enough for Sony to look into this and that is just one of many companies that have this kind or other similiar technologies. I do not believe this will ever get passed.
If you could sum it up in a nutshell, maybe you should be writing O'Reily books. --- Domasi 2001
... that would put out of business Intel, AMD, Motorola, Gateway, Dell, Apple, and all other manufacturers and dealers of hardware wielding a Turing-complete instruction set.
And then Hollywood won't be able to make movies anymore.
And then the world will blow up.
I'm so sick of reading about MPAA and RIAA. I don't pirate their products and I do not want to lose my rights to make copies of the products that I have bought.
I say we pick a weekend and not buy any CDs, DVDs, or watch any movies. Maybe that would get some of their attention.
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." - Shepard Book Quoting Malcolm Reynolds
If A holes are outlawed, then only outlaws will have A holes... hmmm... guess the **AA folks made the conversion long ago seeing as they are so full of crap...
I would like to write to my Congressman and/or my Senators and tell them I oppose this, and I vote, but details are lacking. Is this a House bill of a Senate bill? What is the full name of the bill, and its number, such as HR-237 or SR-421? I don't want to come off as some yahoo responding to an urban legend when I write. I need the details that this BoinBoing article didn't offer.
How ya like dat?
I hate hollywood and their gay-assedness, why can they regulate the mpeg file format???? What if I make my own movie and I want to use it how I want to with no restrictions. I wonder if this will extend to Canada. And does Hollywood need the cash? Probally not.
As long as they don't outlaw selling them. I've got two and I could get by with just one. The ebay bidding war would be amazing :-)
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
This probably wont go down very well in europe, there will probably be *illegal* imported recorders for americans out there. America is slowly dieing, they no longer have as much power to push other countries around so there will probably be perfectly legal recording equipment here in europe. I dont plan to go to america.. ever so I dont need to worry.
How will they make it stick for a producer (of MPEG encoders) in India or China, for example. Or are they ready to allow the indian film producers into their club for "approving devices"? Or outright forbid imports of that kind of devices from any other country?
I wonder if they have a deeper plan or if they are just clueless.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
ATTENTION!!! This is the FBI!! Put that transistor down and back away from the bench!!
...this is getting very silly...
Wait, run this by me again. As I read the article, my friends and I, who have done funny amateur videos, and would like to do more, would be out of luck. We would have to have anything that converts to MPEG formats approved by Hollywood? Doesn't that drastically cut down on the creation of original works?
take my 20 year old analog video camera is when they pry it away from my cold dead hands!
WTF?! I am sooo sick of the RIAA and now the MPAA going to ridiculous lengths to try and save their cash flows. Can't they just give it a rest. The time for these organizations to die with a shred of dignity left is long gone. They can't stop me from encoding video I OWN onto MY iPod. The madness has got to stop. Please let it stop.
Next thing you know, the RIAA is going to want to preview all our home movies to ensure that we don't accidentally throw in a little borrowed theme music.
401 - Attention span not found
The online distribution of content is eminent
who cares?
With that attitude, they make you and others that share your opinion reprobates in the eyes of the law.
I wish it was more of a legislative call to action in the tech community.
The more disturbing trend is training American consumers to pay for everything, even commercial-filled entertainment while their rear-ends & TV's grow ever larger.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
...because of all of this DRM, is a further devaluation of the RIAA / MPAA product. With all these restrictions comes a huge waste of time for consumers that want to enjoy a recorded medium in their own FREE time and not sit around reading a 300 page EULA. The first record label to set up a low-cost, dedicated download service (not p2p) serving 96khz, 24 bit recordings at 150KB/s downstream with no DRM whatsoever will make a fortune. I mean, why spend 3 days downloading a dubious 1 GB file over p2p when you can get the real thing for e.g. 1$ in a couple of hours? Just the electricity bill will cost you more. In addition, copyright law needs to be changed so that once you buy a particular recording of a piece, you are entitled to that recording in any format it is , or will be available in, ever. The way I see it, the recording industry still owes us big-time for the transition from LP to Cassete to CD to MP3
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
I'll admit I'm stumped. I read TFA several times and I still have this question... What if the video does not belong to them? e.g. it is not under their "protection" e.g. what if it's _MY_ video stored on _MY_ video camera, VCR whatever?
I don't see how this legislation would work.
If the video is _mine_ why should "hollywood" have any say in what I do with it? Even "copyright" bits don't work. If I record something myself then it is copyright to _me_ and thus any digitiser should allow me to copy it anyway.
Errr... seriously. I'm confused...
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
How to tell if someone is a terrorist? Hint, it's not the "side" they are on. Ask instead thier feelings on taping explosives to retarded children and then sending them off to the most crowded places possible to die without knowledge. From that answer you can probably tell pretty quick.
A Freedom Fighter tries to blow up as few of his own as possible, and probably would not be keen on fragging children just necause it's easy and inspires panic. Hey, there's a thought - perhaps people that try to motivate other people out of "terror" instead of arising from popular support are in fact terrorists?
You wankers that claim those people in Iraq are "freedom fighters" deserve to be rended asunder by the ghosts of women and children killed under the old regime, then have your remains spat upon by women now who have more freedom than they imagined they would a decade ago.
Yesterday, Nero 6.0 "OEM" edition told me I couldn't copy a copywritten CD. I found this strang for two reasons.
First, because I own the copyright on the CD. I wrote, performed, mixed and mastered the audio tracks.
Second, because I used Nero 5.5 to create the CD that I was copying.
K3B (cdrecord) does not seem to have this problem.
BBH
My MiniDV video camer can take any NTSC/PAL analog input and convert it to MPEG and send it back out down the firewire cable... I guess I shouldn't get rid of the camer now that its an illegal piece of Terrorist kit. BAH
They already have a hearing scheduled for Thursday. ;-) x ?committee=3
http://judiciary.house.gov/oversight.aspx?ID=202
And here is the list of the members of the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, in case you're interested.
http://judiciary.house.gov/committeestructure.asp
Of course they do. Remember son, this isn't about piracy. This is about control and owning the channel over which we get our entertainment. And this bill is one step closer to their wet dream - having a legislated monopoly over all entertainment.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Wasn't the phone company outlawed from mandating the hardware that could be hooked up to the phone lines? And the phone company actually owns the lines until they come into your house, and are the direct service provider. Now we have a *content* group trying to force the same hardware constraints. They don't own the hardware, the lines or provide the service. I can't believe this has progressed as far as it already has.
Looks like I'll have to unlearn everything I did at uni then, and if you think your going to be able to build an ADC for your final year project then you've got another think coming.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
From Dictionary.com
prise
v 1: to move or force, especially in an effort to get something open; "The burglar jimmied the lock", "Raccoons managed to pry the lid off the garbage pail" [syn: pry, prize, lever, jimmy] 2: make an uninvited or presumptuous inquiry; "They pried the information out of him" [syn: pry] 3: regard highly; think much of; "I respect his judgement"; "We prize his creativity" [syn: respect, esteem, value, prize] [ant: disrespect]
That word can mean what he wanted it to mean.
is go to your 3 elected representatives (in the US, each citizen is represented to the Federal Government by 2 Senators (per state; sorry, D.C. and Territories) and a Representative (per Congressional District)) -- seriously, call up their offices and arrange a face-to-face meeting -- explaining why any legislation that in any way restricts the current "fair use" of copyrighted material is so basically wrong. Join the EFF. Explain how all "survey papers" would be made illegal if this restriction of fair use is permitted (remember, as soon as it applies to one medium, it will shortly follow that it will apply to all media).
The MPAA & RIAA are both mired in a business model that is out of date, unfair to most of the participants, and robs blind all the consumers. Ask any so-called "indie" producer. We must put a stop to this.
RHCE; are you certified? Karma: ambiguous.
I have a good, relevant question. How do I get an appointment to sit and phsyically talk with my senator about this horseshit that keeps going through DC?
SIG: HUP
You don't *have* to have streaming video in front of your face all the time. You could enjoy a quiet lunch in the park.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
The RIAA/MPAA must have an ulterior motive here. Either that, or this isn't being reported accurately. If this legislation really is the equivalent of "All recorders must be approved by us," then it just can't be serious. They can't be collectively stupid enough to think that a bill like that would pass. When something as blatantly frivolous as this happens, there's always something else going on behind the scenes, right? Like later, they come back to congress and say "Well, we couldn't get our other bill passed, so the only choice we have left is to introduce this other ridiculous thing (which maybe doesn't seem quite as bad, in comparison)."
Sweet... I love it when my sig happens to be relevant to the comment I'm posting.
This is from the MPAA, not the RIAA.
Rein in your idiots. I know most of you can't muster the effort to lift the remote control to point it at the television... but for fucks sake, I'm getting really sick of reading about this stuff.
If you really were men, you'd put some of your excess guns to use, and cull your corporate heads. Don't make us come over there and do it for you, We don't fancy a stay in gitmo.
you know... technically the whole world is an "analog video signal" so camcorders would also be illegal. don
All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing. Therefore there are three questions that must be asked:
1) Which senators and congressmen submitted this bill for consideration?
2) When are they up for reelection?
3) Where do I send a check to support their opponents?
Bitching and moaning about Hollywood trying to pull crap like this is all fine and good, but unless we PUNISH their accomplices in government, this kind of crap will just keep going and going.
So the next time these turkeys are up for election, start sending their opponents money. When you send them the money, make sure you include a little note explaining exactly WHY you're sending them money. While you're at it, send the turkey a note as well telling him that you've just sent his opponent money and why.
This isn't limited to just the people from the districts in question. I live in Arizona, but there is nothing to stop me from making a contribution to a candidate in another state. I can't take part in the official election, but I can sure as hell vote with my money. Imagine if one of the turkeys who tried to pull this crap got tens of thousands of letters from accross the country that all said the same thing: "I gave your opponent X dollars because you supported the Analog Hole bill" Meanwhile their opponents get tens of thousands of letters saying "I'm giving you X dollars because your opponent supported the Analog Hole bill, don't make the mistake he did."
Freedom is precious and fragile. It is also one of the few things in this world outside of family worth dying for. You can either fight for your freedom, or you can sit by idly and hope that things don't get any worse. Hope that someone else will pick up the tab for your liberty. Hope that the ever-present forces that seek to deny you your freedom will go away. Well guess what, they won't. If you're not fighting against them then you're actively helping them. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance and it is a price that we all must pay each and every day. If you're not fighting for your freedom then you've already forfeited it.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Now, if this is enforced and all new recording and playback units have to conform - then that will slow down or halt the adoption of HDTV as consumers realize that the "old" SD gear is actually better than the new locked-down HD gear. Consumers care much more about freedom and convenience than they do about pixel resolution or image quality.
This could also be a significant boost for bittorrent, as well as legal TV download services like iTunes.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I'd like them to stick it up another A hole.
503 Sig Unavailable
The Signature could not be accessed. Please try again later or contact the administrator
They won't think anything of this time period. Once the Freedom Servers go down, they won't be able to access any records after the date when access to the Freedom Servers was required.
There's just going to be a big hole in our history that our descendants just won't be able to get any information from.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
It isn't individuals in their bedrooms sharing albums and movies that scares the studios, it is individuals in their garages making albums and movies.
If people are free to create and distribute their own content, it does two things:
Of course, they also run the risk of small, independent producers creating content that is superior to their own. To use an analogy, the big media companies are in the same position now that the Big Three auto makers were in the early 70s. They've had a cooperative oligarchy for decades. Now there are smaller, cheaper,faster (and potentially better) competitors entering their market. Rather than compete in the new world of smaller cars and expensive gas (or, for the studios, independent content and cheap distribution), they react by lobbying for import restrictions and spreading FUD about unsafe foreign cars (or lobbying for content controls and spreading FUD about destroying the incentive to create).
They probably realize this, and they've seen what the failure to successfully lobby has done to the American car industry. Rather than choosing the alternative route and rapidly adapting to the new world, the lesson they've learned from the past is that they need to lobby more effectively.
So now when I press record on a new camcorder, it will have some frames at the start of my video that say:
.com is an inside joke for those that have read my signature.
"This home video is brought to you by the RIAA/MPAA, the FBI.com, and the Constitution of the Unitied States of America"?
-/yes I know it's fbi.gov, the
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
All us /.ers have judiciously ridiculed all the DRM techniques introduced to date. Now corp america finally gets it...If you can convert it to one format, *they* can convert it to something else. The suits have finally realized they must control everything to control anything. Maybe after this fails they will realize they are no longer in control and make quality and price a differentiator instead of sitting and playing Monoply with all their friends.
Are they trying to make life insanely difficult for student and amateur video makers?
Yes.
What I don't get is that there is TONS of "analog signal" that is not RIAA-owned, so how can they legislate on it?
The idea is for the Music And Film Industry Associations to eventually own every slice of "signal" possible - creation of any non-static media will have to be okayed by the Man - for enough cash, of course.
Or perhaps they won't, but apparently they'll make it very difficult to use the required equipment. Make life difficult for students, and you're cutting off your source of income 20 years down the road..
20 years? These people can't see twenty weeks down the road...
Don't trust any concentration of power.
This must be a trick, because it's certainly not a treat.
well yes, but... i won't be sweating until the day they ban soldering irons
The *AA (there's really no point in distinguishing between the MPAA and the RIAA, or their counterparts in other countries) have done an excellent job of tying entertainment to the entertainment industry in a lot of people's minds. They can go to Congress and say, with a straight face, that if they don't get their way, then -- poof! no more music, no more movies, no more TV. Now, intelligent people can see how specious this argument is, and that music will still be recorded and movies and TV shows will still be filmed and distributed without these cartels running everything (indeed, quite possibly more and better music and movies and TV, all in all) but a lot of people really seem to buy the idea that Disney and Sony and Paramount are absolutely necessary to the very existence of mass-market entertainment.
Comparisons to the argument about how Microsoft "made PCs accessible to the everyday user" are left as an exercise to the reader.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Why, of course they are. Unless they are in an MPAA sanctioned film-school, using expensive *AA sanctioned recording technology. Because we can't possibly allow an independant film-maker to make a movie which does better than a highly expensive Hollywood flop. Witness, Saw II and Zorro from this weekend.
Do you have any idea of how much money they would lose if just anyone could release a better movie than they can?
And home movies are right out. You could be at home watching little Billy win the track meet again, instead of generating revenue for them or their advertisers. What are you, a communist?
Same way they've done this all along -- "we don't care what you're doing with it, someone could, in theory rob from us. Therefore nobody gets access to the technology". Sheesh, it would be like arming terrorists or something. They basically try to cut off any arguments about legitimate contexts in which you would so this -- it's clearly a smokescreen to actually Pirate The Day After Tomorrow.
Student film-makers are too pesky. You could get someone new Like Michael Moore who points out the wickedness of the studio system. All future film-makers will be genetically engineered to give us a steady stream of gruel which has been approved by the *AA's.
Face it, in the Draconian future the *AAs envison, any technology capable of recording/transmitting either video or audio is just too dangerous to be in the hands of consumers and needs to be outlawed and controlled. I mean, we don't sell assault weapons to children, do we?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
And who brought it before the committee? Did a Representative actually introduce/sponsor this? If so, which representative(s)? Let's see... all representatives are elected every 2 years, next one in November 2006, exactly one year from now... An opponent could fry the person responsible, if they could just communicate to the public what this scoundrel tried to get passed...
Here's to not living in the USA...
They ask for 300%, reduce their demands to 200%, they get 100%, and all politicians feel good. That is why bills from RIAA and MPAA controlled representatives are so ridiculous.
"capital hill" ...sigh
I don't have a Canon EOS 1D-Mark II N. Does that mean I can't produce top quality photographs in the digital medium with my Digital Rebel?
The technology helps the creator realize his vision, and as long as that vision is a good story that is worth watching, you won't need the latest technology to produce something worthwile.
My Sysadmin Blog
Is to bleed the RIAA and others dry by boykotting their products...
Don't forget that Americans can only make stuff illegal in the USA. The rest of the world couldn't give a flying fuck what's illegal there. Do I care about the DMCA? No, because I don't live in the USA.
If this kind of legislation continues to go through, the USA will end up back in the tehcnological stone age as emerging economies such as India and China overtake. Don't forget that these economies still make stuff for the west too. Does your Toyoya have all the dashboard icons in Japanese? Of course not.
There are a groing number of bands rejecting the copy protection that the labels are applying to their CDs. I'm sure the film industry will follow soon. How long before the next Hollywood blockbuster is produced by a non-USA company because they know the USA film industry's anti-consumer practices will actually harm the films success.
My only fear living here in Europe is that our brain-dead politicians will follow suit with the USAs practices. There's still a lot of work to do to make sure we don't.
Like tinyurl, but one letter less! http://qurl.co.uk/
If there was no "analog loophole" you'd only be able to use the cable company's DVR with your digital cable service.
Sounds like the cable company's dream come true, to me. No pesky VCRs that take cheap media and produce recordings that never expire, instead just a continuous stream of rental income from consumers whose store of videos only last as long as they're allowed to and disappear completely if they don't pay their monthly DVR bill.
A digital-only world is EXACTLY the type of future that the content providers would like to see, and it's exactly why I really wonder if 10 years from now I'm going to think wistfully back to the heady days of analog television, when I could plug my 20-year-old Brand-X television and VCR into my cable jack and for $20 a month get 80 channels of service, mine to timeshift to my heart's content.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Somebody quick!!!! File a patent for any technology that enables the prevention of digitization of video!!!!
From the article: "Under a new proposed Analog Hole bill, it will be illegal to make anything capable of digitizing video unless it either has all its outputs approved by the Hollywood studios, or is closed-source, proprietary and tamper-resistant."
... what did I miss?
I did RTFA but does this mean that we can no longer digitize our own videos? Maybe I am being mislead by the article
Take off every 'sig'!
All your 'sig' are belong to us!
Indeed, it usually means what he wants it to mean. It's not his fault that someone confused a form of "pry" with "prize".
My Photography - http://ian-x.com
The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
MPAA/RIAA road to death^H^H^H^H^Hprofit:
1. It's not allowed to make something non-tamper-resistant or digitizable.
2. To fulfill these requirements it has to be physically impossible to actually see or hear their media. (Because if you could, then you could take your camera and a microphone and record it.)
3. If nobody can hear/see it then nobody will buy it.
4. if nobody buys it, there's NO PROFIT anymore.
5. If there's no profit, there's no MPAA/RIAA.
6. PROBLEM SOLVED!
I must say i LOVE the nature's style of solving something if it's becoming a problem!
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Either we tar and feather every single official at the RIAA and MPAA, as well as any Senator or Congressmen who even whispers about supporting this horror ...
Or we stop being "consumers", NOW. Starve the fuckers.
Don't buy any more CDs. Ever.
Don't buy any more DVDs. Ever.
Don't go to any movies in the theatres, attend any concerts, patronize iTunes or Napster, play any MP3s, watch any TV, visit ANY web sites with ANY advertising. If your favorite indie bands or filmmakers get hurt too, that's their problem.
Learn to read and have conversations. Play your own instruments. Have a lot of sex.
Strike. Now.
So when that future Israeli prime minister blew up the hotel full of British officers and families, that was .... a freedom fighter? terrorist? patriot? rebel? guerrila? I am unclear on the categories. Please illuminate.
....?
.... guerrillas? freedom fighters? terrorists? I am unclear how to revise the textbooks on the 1775 American insurgency. Also how to report their treatment of government officials who tried to maintain law and order, and civilians who supported the duly constituted government.
Also, when the Israelis or the US drops a bomb, which happens to kill someone related to a terrorist organiaztion, but innocent children or, say, a wedding party, also die, that is
And the guerrillas who wear civilian clothes while killing uniformed soldiers, they would be
Then there are those historical episodes where outside interference replaced popular governments with unpopular dictatorships, viz the Shah in Iran in 1954 (?) and Allende in Chile, and the many many central American interventions by the warmongering USA, or the opium wars of China, where the dope peddling British, with international support, forced the Chinese to buy their evil wares at the point of a gun.
I am unclear on all these things. I await your enlightenment.
Infuriate left and right
RIAA thinks it can stop the piracy by its high handed methods. It's sorely mistaken. Its members will loose all the following they possess. There is only one way RIAA and its members can win. That is by RIAA financially supporting the development of a method to surf the web that is discussed at http://www.newerawisp.blogspot.com/ When this method of suefing the web is dceveloped the piracy will be stoped overnight.
I know it seems very desirable to appear edgy with all the "outlawed entertainment" references, when instead it should be the other way around.
-I'm not a criminal just for keeping and sharing (no selling of course) content.
What fails over and over again with the people who disagree with the entertainment corporations ideas regarding monetizing content fail to meaningfully set limits that benefit the individual.
Then when you really CAN be prosecuted for having content that won't belong to you, most of you will stop the "outlaw" posing because of the substantial downside of having a criminal record. (unless you are Martha Stewart)
It's going to happen. In exchange, they might make the price of cable cheaper or something, but most of you will just go along because they gave you something to make the deal easier to take, like HDTV for example.
All the outrage and indignation will just disappear in front of a GIANT television. Sad.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
And Congress like this because it is a loophole around the right to free speech. Just make everything you say or print copywrite and you can arbitrarily stifle anyone you please.
...take all the money that we're NOT giving to the RIAA/MPAA and buy our own congressmen/senators. Sure they can buy more, but at least it would level the playing field a bit.
(And yes, I realize that citizens shouldn't have to lobby, since IDEALLY our representatives are representing OUR opinois on the subject.)
Both sides don't use terrorists.
Terrorists intentionally attack civilians for the purpose of creating fear.
Freedom fighters intentionally attack soldiers (including police officers) and members of the opposing political organization.
For example, I would say that Palestians who kill Isreali soldiers and politicians are freedom fighters while those who kill Isreali 13 year olds are terrorists.
---
Personally, I feel in any slow, ongoing conflict we should give both sides weapons and have them fight openly til one side concedes the point, whatever it is.
---
As far as video...
Pirates in other countries won't be affected by this crap so they will continue to do as they please. As a result, P2P won't be affected either. Most "rich" people in the U.S. won't be affected either (since for 3x the bucks you can buy a dvd player that ignore regions and has macrovision easily disabled).
---
Official pirates who sell the material seem to not be an issue in the US. Here it is free when pirated. In china it is 2.45 pirated.
---
Last point- it is about the money. RIAA wants to continue to make 1st world profits in the 1st world while being able to sell the same exact product in the 2nd and 3rd worlds for reduced prices. A false monopoly- completely against the capitalist model. In real capitalism, the price of movies and songs would be roughly the same everywhere. So if RIAA sells something for 3.95, they would find it impossible to sell it for 19.95 elsewhere because folks would buy the cheaper copy and resell it at 4.95 undercutting the 19.95 price.
Their model is broken.
1) Increasing glut of songs/movies.
2) Increasing glut of cheap labor.
3) Decreasing wages in the 1st world as we average out with the 2nd/3rd worlds.
On that last point- at some time indian workers and american workers (and albanian workers, chinese workers, etc.) are all going to make basically the same wages. Probably within the next 20 years. It's going to be bloody painful getting to that point.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Everytime Hollywood fails with legislative attacks on digital media or protocols they retreat, lick their wounds and return with a different strategy. EFF is watching the front lines of these battles, but after hearing the battle cry so often it becomes prosaic.
You've got to wonder if this continuous attack on fair use is going to pay off someday. In fact I'm surprised that digital rights management (such as the digital rectal thermometer act) hasn't been made compulsory via legislation secretly piggybacked onto some innocent sounding "protect the children" bill.
Scum.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
No, no... it's the "analog" hole, not the "anal log" hole.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Tech firms didn't pay much attention to the DMCA when it was fielded.
.they thought it was obscenely extreme at the time, but assumed the congress people would "do the right thing".
CEA and other tech reps from that time speak about it now with great regret..
You, sir, are living in a dream world if you think this bill will fail if not strongly opposed.
The last one gave these "A holes" almost complete regulatory control over software and consumer electronic developers.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I don't know about Saw II, but Zorro was an immensely entertaining piece of froth.
Very funny. Good acting from all involved.
Of course I've only seen about 3 movies this year. Most of the crap they put out isn't even appealing enough to get me into the theaters.
I can't see them locking down any video- but I can see them locking down anything better than DVD quality.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Here's what the proposed law says, in a nutshell:
Every consumer analog video input device manufactured in the United States will be, within a year, forced to obey not one,
but two new copy restriction technologies: a watermarking system called VEIL, and a rights system called CGMS-A (we've covered CGMS-A before; we'll talk a bit more about VEIL soon).
Well this means we are quite safe...
Nothing is manufactured in the United States.
In the new Amerika only the Stainless Steel Rats run free.
... Standards and Practices !
PenGun
Do What Now ???
Do they want to cripple camcorders as well ?
I mean, they have video out (firewire digital out many of them). Do they want to control what I transfer from my video camera to my computer / DVD player ?
I often look at things like a seesaw. If the balance is over to the "benefit" side then it's worthwhile, if it's over to the "pain in the ass" side then I'll just abandon the seesaw and do something else.
Music CD's are on the "pain in the ass" side and have been for a few years now. I buy all my music online, as single songs.
Video is fast becoming a "pain in the ass" too. The broacast flag will mean we can only watch TV when they want us to watch TV and with the video-out idiots we'll only be able to use our own damn signals in a way they want us to.
I may just give up on the whole thing and go back to reading books, I mean, TV is shit anyway, especially here in the US.
The only way the RIAA can stop piracy is if they ban the internet, but since that can't happen, I think that they should try shutting down Hollywood and the music/gaming industry.
Save the country from what? The problem with this country is the people that live here. Are you suggesting a violent revolution, or that we run around killing people with different political beliefs?
Where is Libertarianland anyway? Sounds like a place I'd like to live.
Interesting that you're an anonymous coward.
[quote]Learn to read and have conversations. Play your own instruments. Have a lot of sex.[/quote]
It sounded like a horrible idea until you put in that last one!
EFF has the text of the proposed bill but nowhere in there does it mention who it is that's sponsoring it. Because it's dated for 11/03/05 it isn't in the LoC listing of bills. I want to know who the #$*@ is sponsoring this POS.
This would effectively kill off practically every Linux-based DVD player (I'm talking embedded set-top boxes) and would also kill amateur video authoring. The MPAA and RIAA already get too much leeway. Unlike in Canada, here they have their cake and their eating it, too. They not only collect a levy on blank media, but they have succeeded in keeping distribution of copies illegal, whereas in other countries they have been forced to choose whether they get levies or free distribution remains illegal.
How can they claim they're losing money while at the same time posting record profits (the movie industry in particular)? How can they try to eliminate Fair Use when it is clearly legal by both legislated law and "case law?"
Is/Are the MPAA/RIAA so blinded by greed that they can't see that pushing this kind of anti-customer policy through will only encourage everyone to not only boycott them at the stores, but create ambition to bypass the protection and actively distribute "pirated" content out of spite?
There was a DVD which shipped without CSS and Macrovision "protection" - and yet it was still a great seller. It was the first Harry Potter movie to go to DVD, if I recall correctly - and despite being totally unprotected it still sold very well.
Create content people want, they will buy it - providing you let them actually USE it.
What I think the real goal is:IMHO, their real goal is to destroy independent film makers and recording artists. So-called "Indie" labels are all too often shell companies run by Capitol/EMI, Sony, Atlantic, and so forth and are not the slightest bit independent. However there are legitimately-independent record companies out there (they exist. Really!) and this kind of "protection" would work well toward killing off the real indies out there. Sure, they could use old equipment manufactured prior to the date that this piece of crap legislation gets rubber stamped into law by Dubya, but very likely if the RIAA/MPAA are going this far, they have likely pushed for resale of older equipment to be outlawed by the bill as well. Is the text of this proposed idiotic and fascist bill available on the web?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Link to the PDF on this page
...and digitize that, we will.
And if it is the only option, people WILL watch it.
Why should it matter if I can produce my own movie in something that is better than DVD quality?
My Sysadmin Blog
In the recent past, there have been a lot of good movies. The percentage is not there yet, but we are moving towards the right direction.
I don't live in the U.S. so it doesn't concern me THAT much (go ahead and remove your own liberties, Americans!) but my concerns come from a different angle.
/. crowd who are the minority that can and will create a way to circumvent this nonsense. It will certainly be irritating for casual consumers that won't be able to do things they used to be able to, with their legally obtained content that they want to use on their purchased hardware. But it will be a SERIOUS problem for anyone other than big corporations that want to film, edit, and distribute any of their content. And people that actually WANT to freely contribute their content be damned.
I didn't RTFA so I may be off a bit on this, but from the short writeup, I'm wondering if this will deny me to shoot my own videos and distribute them for free (or close to free) on non-region coded DVD and the internet. I do a lot of short (roughly 30 minute) documentary films for not for profit organizations. DV and non-linear editing, DVDs and the internet have made production and distribution of these videos possible, but capping all outputs on consumer equipment will make it impossible. I can't afford the pro equipment. I don't put any form of DRM on these videos, because the intention is that people SHOULD copy them and distribute them.
This bill probably isn't troubling for the serious pirate, DRM hasn't been a problem for them so far, and I doubt it will for a long time. It's probably not a problem for the
Think Malaysia gives a half a fucking shit what the Big Bully US Government is crying about because it has been bought and paid for?
Po-lease!
Even if so, it is a business opportunity for Mail Laundering. Ship it to the Canadian/Mexican border where it's repackaged and shipped out as a residential package, homemade tortillas from grandma. Voila, you just got your hardware with a little more work and now it is made very valuable by an ignorant law. Anybody else remember Prohibition?
Let it pass and commence the uprising.
Control is one of the major motivators for media cartels. In their ideal world, nobody would produce content without their permission. They'd choose if it was distributed, how, and for what cost. In their ideal world one won't buy a video camera, you'll license it instead. You'll have to agree to hand all your content over to them, and not to attempt to circumvent their distribution methods.
That these people think piracy is where they should spend their money. I would start by making a product worth buying.
...in federal politics--especially in North America.
I've always found US politics especially amusing in the blatant abuse of "omnibus" legislation. IIRC y'all decided you wanted more daylight savings time and so some sneaky lawyer-type snuck the statute into this gigantic omnibus energy bill--in amongst thousands of pages about everything from pollution regulation to northern oil exploration. By the time the public knew about it the decision was pretty much a done deal. Yes, some pinhead did a study saying that we'd be saving more daylight and thus use less energy in lighting the nation's offices. If you ask me, lumping together a whole bunch of crap with only the slightest bit of related points is completely asinine.
I figure that a lot of this MPAA/RIAA garbage wouldn't stand a chance on its own, however I envision some sort of "omnibus telecommunications bill" that will encompass anything that remotely has to do with communications. In amongst thousands of pages on everything from regulations on VoIP and encryption software to tougher punishments for electronic distribution of child pornography will be a law outlawing the record button on your VCR. That way, congressmen won't have to bother with the tedious work of voting ten thousand times, and those with a pocketfull of RIAAbucks can accuse their opponents of being "soft on child porn" or supporting "terrorists who want to hide behind encryption" if they vote against the omnibus bill because of the insideous Hollywood-lobbyist provisions.
Does this concern anyone in the video/DVD business? I don't think that the problem of protecting content should be made enough of an issue to where we have to deal with it, but I do a lot of digitizing of content, and I don't want to have to report my statistics of how many copies of Grandma's B-Day I duped to the MPAA. They don't have any rights to how my business is run, or how I make my clients happy.
Stuff like this trickles up and down our business. You see people working on massive productions editing on lower budget systems all the time. It's an effective budgeting model. This goes way beyond dealing with JUST hollywood. TV stations that do local news, mom and pops who do wedding videos, production houses...
I personally don't like it. It's my content that I paid/produced for. No law is going to convince me what I can and cannot do with it. If I have the right to resell it in it's original condition, then it truly is mine and it's something I own. If I'm willing enter an agreement that dictates otherwise, then we can talk, but there's no implied contracts that I'm going to hold to that go outside of what stays in my own home or business. I bought the DVD, it's going to get ripped to my HDD for backup, and Hollywood will have to deal with it.
Take this to the oft raised DVD angle. If I bought the DVD, and I have no intention of reselling "copies" of the DVD, what's the harm in my copying it?
-Does this detract from the sale they made to me?
-Does this unrestricted video limit it's replayability on my DVD player or a neighbors?
-Does it prevent me from repurchasing the same movie with new bonus content later on?
Stuff like this law and the DMCA are implying on these same grounds that if I were driving a car, I could potentially drive drunk. Therefore, I should be restricted on how much gas I can buy, or where I can drive. Doesn't matter if I even drink.
Rather than make the action illegal, why not go after the people breaking the law and punish them? Last time I checked selling counterfeit merchandise was still quite illegal, and prosecutable. No need to infringe my personal use rights for that. I've got a pretty good judge of right and wrong and my ability TO copy DVD's doesn't imply that I will, or that I will to screw HWood out of a sale.
We don't HAVE to buy drugs, nor do we HAVE to buy any of the crap from Hollywood. We are literally paying for the rope that will hang us.
Have a law passed that makes it illegal to get corporate "donations" for political parties to campaign. Take it out of the budget instead. Every party gets the same amount of money, possibly with an extra amount of money based on membership so you don't have the "Grasshoppers must die" party getting the same as a party who actually want to do something right. If the corporates can't bribe politicians, they might actually think for a change, who knows?
Incidentally, has anyone realised that such a law would make it illegal to convert your VHS home videos to DVD without putting DRM on them?
This is a move to try and stop the "home brew tv" industry. Personal cams were fine when they shot crappy quality, but now that truly creative people can have a setup that can pull off anything the big boys can do for under 10 grand...they are shitting their pants...now that vic-xasts on places like itunes ate taking off with out them as the middle man, they are shitting their pants...in general this is a final move, proving cowardis, and shame of their content, knowing that now they can be upstaged by kids in a garage with a powermac and a HDV Cam so they are looking for revinew by threatening the companies that make the stuff.
well, you're welcome to try to counter with the MPAA's side of things, or just be worthless and bitch about the article being partial. Up to you.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
How many freaking "funny" mods can the same joke get? Hey, if you abbreviate the bill, it's "A Hole"!!! Doesn't anyone know what "Redundant" means?
Happy goldfish bowl to you.
Ever notice that when it comes to subjects like this the posted comments are all just preaching to the choir? (The high scoring ones at least) RIAA should take this to heart, if a large group of intelligent people who love to argue with each other unanimously decry the RIAA's strategy as being, on a whole, dumb, then shouldn't they rethink it?
As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. - Commissioner Pravin Lal
I was going to say:
"Im so sick of their bullshit; (that goes for the MPAA And the RIAA).
Rather than using their brains and attempting to understand and possibly even benefit from something they are not going to be able to control they act like crazed luddites with fascistrabies (i'm convinced this disease exists and is running rampant in the US. -
Everytime we hear something from these tools it's more outlandish and restrictive than the last lame ass legislation they've tried to induce via whatever backdoor lophole extralegal method they haven't yet exhausted. "
- but instead I think I will just laugh at the futility and desparateness of every move they make. The only thing that stops my laughter from continuing is when I think about the general caliber of person in Government in the US. Then I realize that it is possible that they might get one of these things passed and life would suck for the short amount of time it took for the market and the public to respond to the digital handcuffs on their devices.
Instead of going with their original plan, they came up with an absurd proposition that is bound to get thrown out. The next bill they suggest will appear resonable in comparison to the banning of all equipmentment capable of exploting the a-hole. "Well if you don't let us have this one, I GUESS we'll settle for this second one."
Typical persuasion tactics.
But I need the boxed set or Lord of the rings.
I like the Slashdot FAQ talkinf about this.
http://slashdot.org/faq/slashmeta.shtml#sm1100
Or people will ignore you even though you make perfect sense.
Why can't people get songs from indie bands that don't support the RIAA?
Why don't you guys have friends or journals?
It should not matter. I think we should be able to create anything we can afford the hardware for.
But I think if Riaa can get something passed, it will be there. They will argue something along the lines of, "Ordinary people don't need to be able to create video's with enough detail to display on a 40x60 foot screen. Only pirates need to do that. Here is $100,000 for your next campaign!"
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Complaining to the ether of the Internet is all well and good, it lets us vent, but what can we DO about this?
Is there anything we can actually do to let our congresscritters know that this issue will have a direct impact on their chances of getting reelected?
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
While technically true, it does not work that way in practice. Both the drug pushers and the "enterntainment industry" managed to create a situation where vast hordes of people who do not know any better are addicted to their respective brain-damaging merchandise. The only, small, difference in favour of RIAA is that their "products" do not directly manipulate brain chemistry of the victims. The resulting effect though is nearly identical as the "enterntainment industry" managed to make itself an indispensable part of the "american lifestyle". Remove the TV and most supposedly wealthy "mainstream" Americans would find out the sad truth: their lives are miserable, meaningles and empty and the TV is the mesmerising "drug" to relieve that condition.
prise
v 1: to move or force, especially in an effort to get something open; "The burglar jimmied the lock", "Raccoons managed to pry the lid off the garbage pail" [syn: pry, prize, lever, jimmy]
Yes. Wait, not the Prize synonym, dumbasses.
2: make an uninvited or presumptuous inquiry; "They pried the information out of him" [syn: pry]
Yes.
3: regard highly; think much of; "I respect his judgement"; "We prize his creativity" [syn: respect, esteem, value, prize] [ant: disrespect]
NO! WRONG! TOTALLY WRONG! WHERE'D YOU LEARN THIS? STOP DOING IT!
(Apologies to Bob the Angry Flower)
"Pri S e" and "Pri Z e" are TOTALLY DIFFERENT WORDS, with completely seperate meanings. Fucking dictionary.com are on fucking crack, the cocksucking motherfuckers ! It's fuckheads like these that will spearhead the demise of the english language. Can't they recognise a simple fucking homophone when they fucking see it!? Fucking Idiots.
There. I feel better now. Continue.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
for digitizing my parents 8mm home movies without Hollywood's consent?
Sorry, but I find Life south of the border is getting loonier by the minute. Please remind me who won the cold war? I think Stalin is laughing in his grave.
My rights don't need management.
We don't HAVE to buy drugs
Untrue. Many people rely on medications of one sort or another to keep them alive and narcotic addicts generally have a physical dependancy on the products.
Bottom line is it's all about FREEDOM. Most things you and I do every day we don't HAVE to do, does that make them any less important to our quality of life? Thing is about this article, it goes beyond the idea of piracy. If Hollywood controls what people can see is, that not a violation of our basic rights. Shouldn't the average citizen have just as much right to create and distribute content as Hollywood does? The whole purpose behind this proposition is to control the content by controlling the hardware. I don't want to give our government or any particular special interest group that kind of control over our society.
Find coupons in Greeley
This proposed bill makes no sense at all. What gives Hollywood any authority to legally force their copy-protection schemes onto manufacturers? I think they're just getting tired of going the way of Microsoft etc who simply use their vast monopoly to force manufacturers economically to either get on board or die. That Hollywood would even suggest that they should have control over all forms of video content, whether produced by them or not, is preposterous and downright annoying. Suck my balls, MPIAA.
Did you see the pool? They flipped the bitch!
I'm gonna cover up my obvious spelling error by suggesting that by MPIAA I really meant a hybrid cross between the RIAA and the MPAA. You all buy that, right?
Did you see the pool? They flipped the bitch!
Please take pictures.
- oZ
// i am here.
Let your representative (especially those who are on the committee know you'll be watching) Thursday at 2pm.
The live webcast is linked at: http://judiciary.house.gov/oversight.aspx?ID=202
Darn them riaa's!!! Slashdot their friggin web site!! Now!!
riaa.com
Oh, and who are they to declare themselves owner of all video recording...? Ooh, lets flood their inbox, (e-mail webmaster@riaa.org!!)
<overrated>Insert Sig Here</overrated>
It's not lobbying that it the problem. It's like 99% of the other things wrong in America and can be directly tracked back to that group of people that serves no purpose in a free society, and only function is to take from and destroy, namely the lawyers.
Mouser and Digikey are not necessarily able to supply ANY part - many parts are unavailable from them. The large-scale integration of components, coupled with software/firmware, coupled with the IP laws preventing disclosure will make it virtually impossible. Only reverse engineering could work, but have made it illegal vis DMCA to disclose, and noone has forgotten DVD Jon's antics and will make sure it doesn't happen like that, if at all possible.
For a while now, I've seen things like this being done by the MPAA/RIAA and just shrugged it away. However, lately, especially with the increasingly asinine things they are trying to pull (such as today's example), I'm starting to worry that maybe, just maybe, the talking heads in Washington will shove their heads a little farther up their ass and pass stuff like this.
So what can Joe Average like me do? I know that it's much more effective to write a letter than it is to call or to write an e-mail, and I would like to do so. What other options are available? Should I write a brief e-mail after I send the letter, outlining the letter and saying that it's on its way? Maybe just rewrite my points into a more compact form and send it without mentioning the letter?
I move every three months, between Chicago to Michigan, but my government address is in Iowa. I pay (or will pay) taxes in all three. Do I contact just those who are appointed in or for Iowa, or the other states that I live in?
And who do I send it to (assuming just the current topic)? My senators? My representative? Both? Neither? Fred the Janitor?
How should I write it? Obviously, calling names and trying to make people mad won't do anything good, and could in fact hurt my cause. So I need to approach them with why things like this are bad for John Q Public and why we need to stop Evil Hollywood. What do I explain in detail, and what do I mention in brief? Should I assume that they know what I mean when I say "analog signal"? Should I explain the difference between the analog and digital signals? Does that even matter?
Keep in mind that, while I am learning, I am not very technically inclined. I'd like to write as an informed person, but I don't want to get over my head with jargon.
I figure that since I have some down time now, I should try to spread intelligance, or at least dissuade stupidity. Any help in this would be appreciated.
Still, is this level of hyperbole necessary? Like this choice quote from the article:
No, not allowing you to watch a tv show on your own terms is nothing like being assaulted.
Stolen? Okay, so the rhetoric normally says that intellectual property can not be stolen from its creators. The reasoning? It isn't tangible. Fine. So rewinding a recorded TV show is something that can be stolen? Wow... just wow.
Now, I reiterate - I think this proposed legislation is way over the line. My question becomes, how does sinking to this level help the cause?
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
America Spells Bullshit, B.U.L.L. S.H.I.T.
come on
ANY deivce that turns analog video into a digital signal. That includes the Pinacle and Hauppage video input deives, as in the ones poeple use to take THEIR home movies and make them into files on their computer. Just because Hollywood movies can be done the same, doesn't mean every device should be illegal. Christ Sakes. Just because a car is mechanically capable of going past the speed limit, does it mean we make its manufacture illegal? MPAA, leave video capture devices alone. It's not the creation of pirated materials thats the problem its the distrobution. Just because you make it hard to copy, means fewer people are going to figure it out, that doesn't effect the real problem, because now those few people are using networks to spread the "contraband." So now, its still to everyone it just propigated a different way!
**This is something the MPAA needs to leave well enough alone, home video capture devices. OMG!**
$%^Does anyone have a Online Petition started yet? Post the link!^%$
Amen and Amen! People think that defending freedom is a task that's outsourced to the military and cops and maybe the intelligence services. In fact, it's the duty of every human being who wants to be able to say what they want, go where they want, believe what they want, and become what they want.
But let's bring it down to the level of the every day. Good candidates for office are out there. They're constantly hurting for money, but even more than that, expert help. If you can give either, it is your duty to do so. Many Slashdotters will think nothing of spending $5/day on coffee. Multiply that by a five day work week and you're spending $1,250/yr. on coffee. For that price, you can give a real shot in the arm to the fine aspiring public servant of your choice. A city council race in NYC, for example, typically has a budget of $20K. Forego your daily cup of joe and you can single-handedly account for 5% of a great candidate's warchest. And suddenly you'll have someone representing you who will keep your streets patched, your neighborhood regularly patrolled and cleaned, and larger, abstract things like affordable housing defended. And if you can take the Board of Elections data, crunch it into a list of likely voters, and help your candidate allocate his/her resources efficiently, then you've saved them the $25K it costs to procure the leading commercial software solution.
In short, the power to create change/improvement in the political scene is eminently in your hands. And like all things, the better the candidates you help elect to local office, the finer the pool of choices you have when fighting for higher state and federal offices. After all, there are always outliers who go from zero to Congress in one try, but mostly it works like a farm team system.
Think about it, consider, and act. If you don't, the schmuck who lives down the street who's out to screw you and everyone else certainly will, and you will be very, very unhappy with the result.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Exactly!
That's what's always made me chuckle about this RIAA stuff. The threat goes: "if people keep stealing, there'll be no more music! Better watch out!"
But the fact is, all ethical issues aside, that no matter WHAT happens, there will always be music.
Oh well, I guess I can see that it's in their interest to convince everyone otherwise, but I've always found that argument so laughable.
Sigh.
which was adapted into a movie starring the now govenor of california...
it's pretty good.
Among the other 'worlds gone to shit' elements are 'freevee' which is tv, which by law, must be on 24 hours a day in every household..
(I think there was even allusion to requirements that the volume be above 0 a certain number of hours per day, but I can't remember for sure)
I read the article at boing, and couldn't help but think freevee was next....
it'll never happen, you'll have to excuse me now, I gotta go to the store and get some more mokie-cokes....
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
So, what are you doing about it? Are you a thinking, educated, informed, and motivated human being? If you are, you can make an enormous difference.
I kept bitching on sites like Slashdot for years and ultimately found it uniquely unsatisfying. Nothing changed. So 18 months ago I started a grassroots political organization in New York. 8 months ago there was a reform package put before the state legislature that had the audacity to require legislators to actually be present to vote, and many, many other good things. One of our state assemblypeople in NYC came out four-square against the reforms. So I gathered four people from our organization, went out on a Saturday and handed out 300 flyers in 2.5 hours in front of 2 supermarkets in the woman's district. Our 300 flyers generated roughly 80 phone calls to the lawmaker in question. Her chief of staff left a message on our machine the next day calling us all kinds of unholy names. But in the end she did a 180 and voted for the reforms.
Point? I did it, and you can too. Easily. So do. Go out and do.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Representative Boucher (D-Virginia) is on this commitee. He is a strong opponent of the restrictions sought by the RIAA/MPAA. There will be at least one voice on the committee that will tell them where they can put their draft.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I would suggest (from my perspective from outside the US) to do something so the TV stations broadcast that everyone should shoot a bullet through their own head. That could work to get rid of all the people blindly believing what is told on TV.
Linux is not Windows
There will always be a music industry, because despite some artists distributing music for free, it will never be the norm, because in our society, while information might be easy to distribute, material goods like equipment, housing, clothes, food, sadly are not, therefore anyone with talent will use that talent to make money. Anyone with a talent for business will use that talented artist to make them money. In short, there will never be this amazing revolutionary new business model that allows people to get free music and all the artists, musicians, producers and studio technicians to make a nice living.
I'll quickly get to my point. The industry has already made a legal alternative to downloading music. Okay, they were forced to, and that is a good thing. Downloading music is very convenient, and fast. However, the justification for piracy is gone, and any reasonable person will see all that remains is the desire to "get something for nothing". The courts recognise this, the law recognises this, and the government recognises this. As a result, the industry will succeed in using the law against pirates. A good thing I say. However, it has a major downside, which I predicted many years ago.
Because the basic contention of the industry is correct, i.e. "hey, that's our work, you're not supposed to be getting it without paying for it" is a correct one, they will succeed in any legal cases they bring. The only time they might lose is (as in any other legal matter) if they did something illegal to get there (i.e. monitoring somebody's computer files without permission).
In the end, this will only result in the law focusing more and more on software and networks like edonkey and bittorrent, and it will not be good for us. They will create stupider and stupider laws that harm aspects of the internet that have nothing to do with the piracy issue, because they don't understand it, and won't.
The best thing we as geeks could do is discourage piracy, the decent and intelligent among us know its wrong, and those of us from the napster era are smart enough to know that it couldn't last forever. We all know there are always new technological ways to pirate stuff, but those can be made null and void by just a couple of stupid catch-all laws. If we want the RIAA\MPAA to stop trying to influence our wonderful technology we need to stop scumbags abusing our wonderful technology for nefarious purposes...even if we once did it ourselves. The end result is obvious.
This act would impede your ability to produce, preserve and store your own creative works and documentary material. That's an important challenge, because the copyrights and other rights of an individual are on at least an equal standing with those of a corporation.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
...the age-old childhood strategy of asking for something you're certain of never obtaining in order to make the follow-up request seem more reasonable than it truly is. (i.e. Calvin asking his Mom if he can ride his bike on the roof of the house, getting denied, then following up with the hardly objectionable request for cookies before supper.)
So what cookies are they eyeing?
I am the inventor of the hilarious refrigerator alarm.
Actually, it was just mexicans.n ds"
They'd already labeled blacks as "Negro Cocaine Fiends"
http://www.google.com/search?q="negro+cocaine+fie
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
good luck!
Cats will finally have their chance at taking over the world.
Damn those bastards at the **AA for allowing us humans to be subjugated by the beasts
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
i will never buy any new music or videos from retail stores, for now on i will shop at yard sales & flea markets & pawn shops for music & video, then i will make lots of copies for friends & family...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Oh, its quite plausible and practical.
If its enacted, you can be sure that *consumer* products will conform. Which is sold to 99% of their markets, this 'plugging the hole'.
The other 1% will get around anything, but we arent their market in the first place.
Its not hard to get manufacturers to conform. Just forbid them from selling the product if it does not comply. Much as is done today ( with other product issues ).
Sure it will take a generation for the 'grandfathered products' to cycle out of general use, but it can be done. Try finding a turntable these days. Its not easy.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
That's from WordNet, actually. It's just an alternate definition dictionary.com gives on its result page. Apparently, 'prise' is also a spelling variant of 'prize', so the relation is valid. But it is always important to find the right source before blasting them to bits. ;)
Sure, cant stop it all.
However if they have shattered what remains of 'fair use rights' and stopped the average joe from getting a copy with out buying, they have won the 'battle'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I wonder what they'd say to having the bill's sponsors listed prominently somewhere as "A. HOLE SPONSORS [SR 12345] - Sen. Dewey, Fleecem & Howe" :) Preferably some sign or whatever on Capitol Hill...
It should be assumed that corperations can and will do anything they can get away with, and politicians will also do the same. the only way to effectively combt the riaa is by organising and destroying them. This is america we vote with our dollars and our votes. what do you think would happen if every senator and congressman who took one penny from the riaa suddenly found a grass roots campaign to eliminate them, do you think that they or any other polititian would have anything to do with the riaa. also why arent there picket lines in front of virgin records or blockbuster, informing people of the terrible things that the MPAA and the RIAA are trying to do. if people would stop being outraged and posting evill riaa posts on /. and they started taking action
Form grass roots campaigns, start educating joe idiot and protest the television stations. if you make a big enough noise people are going to notice. but the sad fact is
AMERICANS GIVE THEIR LIBERTY AWAY LIKE BRAINLESS MORONS, YOU READING THIS YEA YOU, ITS YOUR FAULT THAT THIS IS HAPPENING. YOU ARE DIRECTLY RESPONCIBLE, IF YOU DONT FORM A LOCAL GROUP TO PUBLICALLY FIGHT THE RIAA BY PROTESTING AND INFORMING PEOPLE, BY MAKING SURE YOUR SENATOR AND CONGRESSMAN DOES NOT GET REELECTED, UNTILL ANY POLITICIAN REALISES THAT EVEN TALKING TO SOMEONE FROM THE RIAA WILL COST THEM THEIR JOB. UNTILL THE NEWS REPORTS MASSIVE DEMONSTRATIONS AGAINST THE RIAA AND THE MPAA. AND THE COMMON IDIOT REALISES, HEY THAT RIAA IS TRYING TO TAKE MY FREEDOM AWAY. UNTILL THIS HAPPENS YOU ARE DIRECTLY RESPONCIBLE FOR ANY THING THAT THE RIAA AND THE MPAA DO, BECAUSE YOU ARE FUCKING USELESS INCOMPETENT SHEEP AND YOU DESERVE TO HAVE EVERY LIBERTY YOU HAVE STIPPED AWAY FROM YOU, UNTILL YOU ARE A PRISONNER/SLAVE RUITINELY FUCKED BY THE MEGACORPERATION THAT YOU HAVE CREATED.
Ironically, one of the reasons Hollywood is located where it is, was to get away from the patent enforcement thugs of the Motion Picture Patents Company - MPPC, more acronyms. The early film industry was located in New York, New Jersey and Jacksonville, FL (sunshine). The MPPC consisted mainly of the Edison Film Company and a couple of others who held patents on all the filmmaking and exhibiting equipment. They wanted money from anyone making a movie and used hired thugs to enforce this. Subsequently, "independents" such as Carl Laemmle who started Universal Pictures (MPAA) and William Fox of 20th Century Fox (MPAA) moved as far away as they could, California, to make movies.
Seems like a teenage relationship: I can't have you, SO NO ONE CAN! What about my home videos, or what about a single frame of black? Why do they think they are in control when it comes to media?
Why do you think you have a two-party system? Why do you think the debates are locked to those two parties and only those two parties?
Several reasons, actually. So that you'll have a common enemy to stop you from thinking about what's really happening (i.e. "it's Bush's fault things are the way they are, things would be different if we had a Democrat in power!"). So no new ideas can surface because people are convinced that voting for a third party is throwing their vote away.
I posit that democracy in America is the bread and circus now. And I believe that if things don't change, the people will revolt within ten years.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
These RIAA/MPAA guys are no different from any illegal drug cartel that bribes government officials to bend the rules to their wishes.
Something really has to be done. Fight back by law. And be sure to spend your money elsewhere, anywhere but on them.
Doesn't it occur to them that the only people this will stop are the people who already don't pirate music and movies because it's illegal?
www.linuxpenguin.net
You are correct. It makes far more sense to outlaw the use of digital devices by Hollywood et al. than to turn millions of law-abiding people everywhere into criminals to satisfy the whims of the MPAA & RIAA set.
They will threaten to stop producing anything? Promises , promises...
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
I agree with your thoughts on having the freedom to engage in our own creative endeavors without having to worry about being crushed by the the iron fist of *AA. However, we continue to fund their efforts, and they continue to seek increasingly invasive controls over what we can and cannot do. Having said that, I will respond to the first portion of your post:
Bottom line is it's all about FREEDOM.
If that's freedom, it will enslave us. Real freedom exists only when it is tempered with restraint- something imposed by the mere fact that we are human.
Sorry, but before you blast dictionary.com with such vitriol, you may want to check your own post.
Seperate?
Indeed.
One obvious hole in your logic is the whole "tangible object" thing... The real value of a Harley is in the creation process, meaning in order to create 2 Harleys you have to pay for creation of 2 Harleys. If I write a program, you can make a complete copy for nearly no cost. The information is whats being sold, not the object.
ANY deivce that turns analog video into a digital signal. That includes the Pinacle and Hauppage video input deives, as in the ones poeple use to take THEIR home movies and make them into files on their computer.
Yes, that's exactly why they want laws like this passed. People are making movies themselves. Current prosumer cameras, sound equipment and editing software means people can make their own movies, shows, music, etc without the *AA taking most of the profits. This frightens them a hell of a lot more than casual copying.
http://www.balorn.net/
?
It's fuckheads like these that will spearhead the demise of the english language. Can't they recognise a simple fucking homophone when they fucking see it!?
What the phuck is a homophone?
You know, I'm sick and tired of these guys trying to squeeze money out of everybody.
I have an idea: Let them do whatever they want, put any law they want and prosecute whoever they want. I'm sure they'll start opening their holes (yes, even _that_ one) for us once they see the huge decrease in earnings when the other 99.9999% people in the WORLD rejects these clowns and their practices.
I for one, like to buy/use quality products/formats for what they offer, not because I'm TOLD to/not to do it. And if I ever want any, there's always a workaround. We've been buying chinese stuff for years, any ways.
So, no movies at home except on cinema, no music recording except for bootlegs, and having to resort on garage-tech to "get what you need".
Welcome back, 70s !!
Don't try to figure out which is more guilty. They're both just as horrible. Remember, there is very little real difference between Democrats and Republicans today. Indeed, they both share the same interests, and those are not the interests of the majority of American citizens. Thus you get crap like this, which serves the interests of a very, very small handful of people, at the expense of basically everyone else.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
The Tree of Liberty is fertilized by the blood of true Patriots who cherish liberty and freedom.
Forget not what Benjamin Franklin stated as well.
"The more you tighten your grip, the more [control] slips through your fingers." -- Princess Leia
Quite seriously, that's what I think will end up happening. The law must get so tough and so bloated, that someone will challenge the Constitutionality of it, and all of the laws will be struck down. If it gets really bad and people are pissed off enough, Constitutional Amendments can be made, but that'd be really really really pissed off to the nth degree, as n approaches infinity. Based on what these greedy bastards are capable of, that may just happen. Content is content. An idea becomes public when it leaves one's mind. The only "intellectual property" I claim to own is the functioning brain inside of my head. I have the right to do with it what I want, and no one can coerce me or compel me to do with it what I need. Sadly, this property is being stolen, while public property is being plundered. Artists are screwed by big cartels; the real intellectual property is raped while pseudo-property is given rights, so that an elite can benefit and profit. Sounds like an oligarchy to me. As a result, talent isn't valued, consumerism is rampant, and "American culture" is a contradiction.
When the market is too regulated, a black market often emerges. Why is that? Because economics trumps legal bullshit.
What will happen? Somebody will buy $1000 worth of circuits, or they'll obtain them from countries with a higher level of freedom. Then they'll proceed to unofficially sell them domestically to individuals. There will be Al Capones of analog technology.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
You know, I'm agitated much too easily nowadays. This bit is really getting my blood pressure up, so, you know what? I'm going to be brief, before I suffer that long awaited anneurism I've been anticipating and die.
This law, in a nutshell, applies to any device that can convert analog video into digital video. This is the video version of the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA), with some added goodies. Any analog to digital conversion device - or vice versa, apparently - produced after the law goes into effect will have to be approved under Hollywood's standards by the USPTO. Among these standards are mandated DRM, as well as a nifty little requirement stating that the device must be proprietary and completely closed, thereby making it substantially more difficult to modify. Content converted from an analog format to a digital format will be encased in DRM, and any unprotected output, digital or otherwise, will be constricted heavily. (In other words, ugly as sin.) It mandates highly invasive and restrictive DRM, plain and simple, and everything therein that applies will become law.
This is about more than piracy, people. This is about killing technology, just like how the AHRA killed DAT. If you're a content producer or marketer, and you control this kind of technology, you control who can compete with you. They're on a technological tirade, and any device which could possibly be used to erode away at their market share will be eliminated. Only approved commercial institutions will have access to unrestricted 'professional' devices. (A device, under this law, becomes 'professional' once it's widely available.) Just as the AHRA stopped DAT dead in its tracks, this is a new control mechanism for DV. While it seems to only apply to devices that could theoretically pirate analog content in a digital format or vice versa, will this affect those who wish to record and publish their own videos? Almost certainly. They wouldn't field a bill like this unless there wasn't an anticompetitive kicker in there for them.
If these rapaciously greedy, bottom feeding, subhumanly mentally deficient piles of animated scum manage to get this law passed, it'll mean big trouble, not only for consumers, but producers as well. There is absolutely no sense in it whatsoever. None. Zero, zip, zilch, nada. As an aspiring innovator, this is the kind of garbage that causes my hair to stand on end. This is the kind of law that, upon reading it, causes me to enter a state of mind wherein my number one priority is to beat the living shit out of the nearest handy inanimate object of similar size and composition to a human body, so I don't track down these sneering assholes and wail on them instead. Cheesy as it is, The Rock said it best: "Know your role, and shut your mouth." The AA's need to take that statement to heart, sit down, and shut the fuck up.
What's next? Outlawing any 'improfessional' application of P2P protocols while forcing anyone who owns a streaming radio or video site on the internet to file comprehensive broadcasting reports with the FCC to ensure they're not playing copyrighted content? Or maybe a law that makes it illegal to distribute multimedia via a wireless connection, along with mandated DRM baked into every WiFi card! The possibilities are just endless with these people. Given their track record, I'd highly advise putting anything past them.
Of the modded comments, I am surprised that I saw no mention of this!
Does nobody see that this bill is not INTENDED to pass? It is intended to be too extreme to pass, so they'll tone it down to what they really want, which is just the basic broadcast flag, and it won't seem as extreme as it really is.
I hope you feel better you fucktard
9 55&dict=CALD
a spx?refid=210031633
Would you rather see Merriam-Webster?
http://merriamwebster.com/dictionary/prise
Main Entry: prise
Pronunciation: 'prIz
chiefly British variant of PRIZE
Cambridge?
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=62
Definition
prise Show phonetics
verb [T]
UK FOR prize (LIFT)
And here I found a definition of COLA MAN from MS Encarta:
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefEdList.
So... under this bill my video camera will be illeagal bacause it's analog input (aka the LENS) allows duplication of the image on a tv screen? Is the image recieved and decoded by my retina and converted into information later to be decoded by my brain now a violation of law? Or will an exception be made for this? Screw tv I'm going back to sodering live electrodes to my genitals for entertainment. --Quatl
It's time to get started making fabbers a real hobby, like the PC revolution started. Once average-joe can easily download and fab open source electronic designs, this sort of thing will die the death it deserves.
"That's why it's up to individuals to keep creating culture and letting it out as copyleft, public domain, GPL, whatever.. just anything other than the frameworks they have constructed to lock our culture up."
Our culture? What a bunch of arrogent !@#$^&!!#'s you all are. The culture belongs to those who get off their !@&*$%~ butts and produce it. You all aren't called "consume-rs" for nothing. YOU want culture bub? You create it yourself, and hands off our work. Arrogent SOB!
---
The "are you a script" word for today is atheism...big shock there.
If some asshole in Hwood thinks that just because they made some movies they are entitled to censure science and technology... think again.
Scientist should seek special licencing on technologies they have developed or will develop in future which should allow to exclude Hwood - or any other industry, trying to act as censor - for any piece of technology they created.
Hwood go back to camera obscura.
http://www.transdiffusion.org/emc/geohistory/hijac k.php
Do that, and you're gold.
And then the president must sign it.
President Clinton could not have stopped the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act or the Digital Millennium Copyright Act from becoming law. Both laws were passed in both houses of the Congress by voice vote. Under the U.S. Constitution, it takes 80 percent assent for a voice vote to stand, but it takes only 67 percent in a subsequent roll-call vote to override a presidential veto.
I'm gonna cover up my obvious spelling error by suggesting that by MPIAA I really meant a hybrid cross between the RIAA and the MPAA. You all buy that, right?
Not if the accepted abbreviation for "Music And Film Industry Associations of America" is MAFIAA.
Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm not passing a value judgement on the new Zorro movie. I'm sure it's a perfectly fine little romp.
But, Saw II, filmed for way less money than Zorro made double the box office receipts of Zorro in the same opening weekend.
When the Blair Witch Project came out, it was (and possibly still is) the most successful independant film of all time. The ratio of what it made in box-office numbers to what it cost to make was utterly astronomical.
If the *AA's have their way, the technology that goes into making films will be so expensive and locked down, that it will kill the student/indie film market. It wil, in effect, become a closed shop under their jurisdiction.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
<devilsadvocate>
I disagree. I hope this bill gets passed and that the resulting law is immediately and strictly enforced. The result will be that public awareness of stupid tech regulations will be raised, the law will be repealed, and the Bush administration might even be ousted. After that, Hollywood will stop lobbying for this crap, because no politician would dare propose something like this again.
</devilsadvocate>
Disclaimer: I live in Canada. If, for some strange reason, this bill passes (You laugh? People laughed about the DMCA.) I'll probably be able to avoid the direct consequences of it.
hmmm...
It appears that I was mistaken.
"pry my analog hole from my cold, dead hands" as there are only two forms of the word.
pry, or pried - I had assumed that the pries was an actual proper verb form, alas, it appears to be a slang form for "to pry" as in "try to pry" or "attempts to pry"
oh well
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
I took several digital electronic classes at a junior college back in the early 1990's. We learned how to use boolian algebra to design the simplest possible circuit that will do what we wanted. We designed and built our own simple digital circuts. We would select a few inexpensive jellybean parts from the back room and then snap them into a breadboard (with no solder) and then watch which LED's would light up to see if we were getting the correct output. In another class we used some old DOS based CAD software for designing our own circuit boards for digital electronics. We were not electronic engineers, we were just ordinary college freshmen at a small junior college. At one time our instructor had taught electronics to black kids at an inner city high school. I bet they could do much of this same stuff. I was really surprised at how easy it was to design and build simple digital circuits with so little training.
I never went on to get a degree in that field and am not an expert. But even so, I have some minimal basic electonic skills from those classes and what I had to learn about radio circuits to get my general class ham radio licence. With a little bit of effort and study, if I was so inclined, I suspect I could probably modify or create something that could get around their analog hole restrictions. Not that I am advocating that, I am just speculating about what many people whould be able to do. Of course many of us already own various devices which are not crippled. Will the use of those devices be grandfathered in and still be legal?
Perhaps the RIAA/MPAA should make boolian algebra texbooks illegal. Perhaps they shold also make breadboards illegal. I doubt that they would ever make all the various electronic parts illegal but if they did people would probably start collecting and saving parts from old electronic devices that are being thrown away. When I was in grade school back in the 1960s their was the one geek in the 6th grade who collected resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors, chokes and other parts from scrap equipment. While eating lunch at school he would proudly show us the latest parts that he had found. Perhaps someday there will be a generation of hardware hackers who collect forbidden parts from old electronic devices and secretly share their secret plans and their banned boolean algebra textbooks. I believe there will always be significant numbers of poeple still using the analog hole no matter what laws the RIAA/MPAA pushes politicians to pass. Hollywood is totally underestimating what the next generation of kids will be able to do. Nearly every generation of young people has found its way of being cool by rebeling against the establishment. Less techie type people will likely be able to quietly buy limited production non-DRM-comlient homemade black market electronic items from friends. The analog hole will never be closed.
Radioshack has decided to discontinue their sales of said electronic components in a number of locations around my town due to a lack of sales. I would not be suprised if they stoped selling them all together. I used to work at radioshack, and in my store we literally had pots that had been in the store since the early to mid 80's, this was just a couple of years ago.
I'm sick & tired of jumping thru hoops just to have DVD playback. Is there anybody out there selling their used (Euro) version of Mandriva/Ubuntu that will play Region 1 DVDs out of the box? (No dont tell me what pieces to download; they will never ever compile/rpm-install for me without installing this-n-that, and no yums/urpmi/slapt-get online install over fat-pipe broadband for me yet.)
You can contact all the members of the House Subcommittee on the Judiciary at this site. All members of congress on the committee are listed with links to their sites with phone numbers etc. PHONE THEM by the droves. Post this site where ever you think the most eyes will see it. http://judiciary.house.gov/committeestructure.aspx ?committee=3
I have started contacting them already. Be your usual wonderful selves when contacting them. Being an Anal. hole plug will NOT further your ideas.
Please don't.
What do you think the DMCA is ??? Technically you have fair use and first sale rights, DRM can make those rights unusable. The DMCA makes removing or bypassing the DRM illegal unless a court agrees with you that the bypassing was "Fair use", In the real world taking the case to court costs money (even if the US created a loser pays requirement for such cases you would still have to risk the financial consequenses of losing) and the **AA usually have a lot more $$$ to burn than the average consumer (barring something like the EFF supporting your case)
+5
For about one year, in Osaka only (it's "Sofmap" BTW). Then the Osaka high court overturned the lower court's ruling. Meanwhile, in Tokyo, the lower court ruled against the publishers, and the high court upheld that ruling. Finally, in 2002, the Supreme Court upheld both high court rulings (Japanese link), reasoning that the doctrine of first sale overrules any distribution rights. So those "no resale" stickers are utterly meaningless now, and nobody pays any attention to them.
Just another sad case of Tacitus' (roman historian and philopher) observation: The more corrupt the Republic, the more numerous the laws.
Maybe US legislation should be officially outsourced to ebay, so every citizen get's a fair chance to buy his favourite law, at least once the industry and the rich are satisfied and anyone else has some bucks left.
We can now say that this is one hell of a piece of buggered up legislation.
When most average people are comfortable with and use existing video recording technology and then they discover one day they cannot buy any new fancy camcorders, there's going to be a BIG backlash against this potential law! I see TONS of people with camcorders at school plays, family outings, etc. and I can't fathom a law that would restrict this type of content production.
Maybe this law is being created because the **IA can't produce anything anyone wants to watch anymore, so they will make anything worth watching illegal.
It is my understanding that voice votes are basically the judgement of the speaker or majority leader as to which side was louder (see the the house rules). If any member questions the accuracy of the voice vote, or just wants to force everyone to go on the record for whatever reason, he or she may request a recorded vote.
However, you have a good point about the bills probably being unvetoable. I find it unlikely that a voice vote would pass with less than 67%. There are ways for a bill killed in committee to be forced for a full vote too, but I was just intending to simply illustrate that the normal process makes it very difficult to pass an unpopular bill. The DMCA may not be popular on slashdot, but it certainly was popular in congress. Hopefully this one won't be.
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I get the feeling that in fifty years time the RIAA will have had enough successful court cases and laws behind them to reveal their true intent, the restriction of copyrighted materials within our minds. Imagine how many times you would see a movie, hear a song if it was the first time every time. Sony's already at work with their root-kit :).
/. bug #926803 - Why I can post.
You're missing the main issue. Normal people don't care about fringe issues like the DMCA. They care very much about abortion, taxes, and the war in Iraq. Thus they vote for the politicians who represent their views on these hot topics. Whether the politicians vote for or against the DMCA makes no difference to the voters, therefore on such issues the politicians react to money rather than votes.
So, it's true that slashdotters are silly to blame the president for digital policy. But it's not true that the opposition between left and right is some smokescreen designed to confuse you while they pass the DMCA. Left and right really are fighting, over issues that Americans consider way more important than our pet digital issues.
come on everybody. let's just give up. ... .. what's next.
let them bag-o-shit riaa and mmm just have
there way. it's a freaking sisiphus battle.
i mean if all the politicians are sooo stupid
it is really impossible to ever make sense!
it's just a shame, c'ause if they win,
nobodies going to win, 'cuae nobodys going to
buy anything anymore, or way less
DMCA, Analaog hole
sorry to phrase it this way: american polictics
is really starting to stink!
(any analog cameras on spirit or opportunity?)
Whatever they put in place, it will get hacked. EVERYTHING gets hacked. The stuff they're trying to prevent, like copying movies, is illegal anyway, so what's the difference?
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Ok, the real hole is very simple. It is proven that people bought the VHS vcr instead of the BetaMax because it could record more with less quality on similar tapelengths. So, people could record a whole week of episodes on one tape, or 1 movie on 1 tape. How would you record an episode without using a broadcasting medium?
My argument is, the whole market of VHS recorders and tapes existed because it was possible to record broadcasted TV progammes. That is what people have done for decades. Those people didn't give a sh*t about quality as long as they could follow the story.
Now the time has come that quality is improved, media is more durable than tapes and it is possible to store content for maybe at least one generation.
And now these f*ckers are coming with this 'law'? Remember you are paying twice for every entertainment content they produce. It is a produce-one-time-sell-as-many-as-possible strategy with wich they lure consumers into paying more than once for the same thing. Seen a flick in the cinema? Buying the DVD afterwards? Paying twice for the same thing. Listened to a song on the radio? Buying the CD afterwards? Paying double for the same thing.
I don't mean you have the right to copy it, but it should not be mistaken that authors,artists etc. are getting cash multiple times for just one production. It is the most low-cost hi-effective production in the world and who is yelling the hardest?
- Unomi -
This land is my land: jibjab.
I will probably be attacked as ignorant and naive, but after reading all these /. stories, these points always come to mind:
(1) The pace of technology always insures that someone will always come up with a means of thwarting any such scheme within weeks. I used to work in inventory and loss-control, and I always laughed at the frustration of companies that would spend zillions of bucks on every new anti-shoplifting device that would come on the market, only to see their shrinkage remain more or less constant. It's a losing battle.
(2) Nothing unilaterally done by the U.S. government will have any effect on the rest of the world where the majority of hard-core piracy takes place.
(3) Anyone could stockpile current unmodified analog equipment and play with it to their heart's content for years to come. Used equipment will always line the shelves of pawn shops, thrift stores and garage sales.
(4) Most TV content will be available in analog form for many years to come -- the Broadcast Flag applies to BROADCAST signals and over-the-air TV signals are a tiny percentage of what is available. And cable companies will make analog versions of those signals available anyway as long as there are still millions of paying customers with older TVs.
(5) The vast majority of Americans care not a whit about high-definition digital video -- geeks and videophiles and people with money to burn are the primary cheerleaders for it. A plain old-fashioned 525-line NTSC analog picture is satisfactory to most folks. When I watch a football game, I only need to be able to see the uniform numbers, follow the ball, and keep track of the score -- I don't need to see every bead of sweat on a player's nose.
(6) Concurrently, there will always be lo-tech or piecemeal means of producing video that most people will accept as viewable. How about a modern-day twist on the kinescope -- point a quality camcorder at a sharp flat-screen display and record the image along with open-mike audio? It would still produce an acceptable image to the average layperson. Or, what would keep someone from taking a still screen shot of every frame, animate it, then synch the soundtrack to it? A lot of work, but a determined fanatic could still do it.
(7) No legislation that prevents Aunt Sallie from putting her old 8mm movies on DVD or a newleywed couple from freely sharing their wedding videos with friends stands a snowball's chance in hell of passing and/or surviving. If DRM gets so intrusive as to keep the average American (not just the savvy Slashdot geek) from doing average, everyday things with their video, then there will be an outcry. Right now, most Americans don't care about all of this because it doesn't yet affect them.
(8) When all else fails, give up and just read a book instead. You'll probably be better off for it.
I thought they made laws in some place called "Congress", somewhere near "Washington". I also thought "Hollywood" was were films were made...
Can anyone clear this up for me?
Before too long, We will be charged royalties everytime we see Jay Lo, or look at the naighbours flower bed... a chip will tally up all the stares and we will have to pay royalties for every glance... and every breath in someone else's territory. Why can't the RIAA protect us consumers from thess maniacs trying to change our culture and sell us everything under the sun, why are they always protecting the greedy scumbuckets. Are we not entitled to damages that these media giants inflict on our children? Why should my son have to pay $180 to advertise some teams logo? Where is my protection?
Meanwhile, I *do* care about my freedom to use my own electronics for purposes of my choosing, but a boycot would, for me, more or less mean doing what I'd do anyway.
No, violent terrorists intentionally attack civilians for the purpose of creating fear.
It's the "purpose of creating fear" part which makes a terrorist - think about the word. Violent terrorism happens to be in vogue at the moment, & is certainly the politically correct definition of the term, but that doesn't make it right. It's like communism - it's so often used incorrectly that many don't know what it really is. Although not so repugnant (or visible), economic or political terrorism are valid forms.
Everything else you said, I agree with completely, with the slight exception of money vs. control - I think it's both, myself.
Yar.
Have you ever noticed that political cycles tend to lead economic cycles by about two years. Political cycles tend to lead public realization (as in a bill is passed, and people realize how it affects their lives) by about 12 to 36 months. Most of the problems that people so willingly blame on Bush were caused by Clinton. Most of the DotCom bubble was instituted by some of the legislation from the Bush (sr) administration. A great many things which a {Republican/Democratic} Congress pushes through as law HAS TO BE SIGNED BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Did we all forget that all of a sudden?
A lot of things (including some of the above) have absolutely nothing to do with politics at all. The politicians come sliding in behind and try and stick their fingers in a great many pies.
Unfortunately this usually works to their own benefit, and not so much our own.
Speaking of politicians and their own benefits, where's my $20k/yr cost of living increase? Uh-huh.
2^3 * 31 * 647
If you don't want these things to happen, joing the EFF now.
These guys achieve things that really matter.
A simple analogue to digital converter for RGB signals can be made with a dozen 2901 quad comparators and some 74HC chips. This gives you 12 bits {4096 colours}. Sure, it's not much; but add a digital-to-analogue converter, an op-amp and the same circuit again, and you have a 24-bit {2**24 colours} circuit. You can build all this on breadboard. Stick in a 1881 sync separator, and you have a device that will capture the signal straight out of a SCART socket directly. You just need an I/O port wide enough to take it all. If you can still find a mobo with the old-style 16-bit expansion slots, and they can be overclocked to 11MHz instead of the usual 8, so much the easier for you. 32-bit expansion slots are by all standards a 'mare to interface to -- you'd almost think they didn't want us building our own homebrew appliances to plug into our own computers?!
If you are not constrained by the limitations of breadboard, then you can go for something much less messy. But I think it's important to get the point across that it's possible to build A-to-D and D-to-A from some really low-tech stuff -- well, not exactly bronze age, but certainly within the grasp of anyone who knows the way to their nearest Maplin store.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I couldn't find a reference to your 80% rule anywhere, and certainly not in the constitution. Can you provide a specific reference?
"the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal." (U.S. Const. I.5.3). Translation: One-fifth (20 percent) of either house can force a roll-call vote in that house, in turn forcing the bill's supporters to go on record as such.
... that the people who write these articles about the mis-doings in Congress would include the bill number (S1234, HB4321, etc.), so that 1) I could easily find the bill and see for myself if it is as evil as they say and 2) when I write my congressman to raise hell about it, I can cite the bill by its number. My beef is not just with this author but with many, many others who shout "the sky is falling" without sharing the information needed to do something about it. I haven't yet mastered the search tools on the Congress' web sites, and I suspect most other citizens are in the same boat.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
All right now, being popular (making bucks) isn't the same thing as being good. It just means it is liked by the age group that dominates movie going. SawII probably had a slight edge due to it being Halloween too.
I don't think they can shut down dvd quality work. I think they might be able to shut down broadcast quality work unless they are opposed. Even that is unlikely since it is only about 5k to get fairly decent cameras.
But I bet they have reasonable odds of locking out the low end of the market.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
tv, which by law, must be on 24 hours a day in every household..
:) used this concept, it was a very obvious "homage".
(I think there was even allusion to requirements that the volume be above 0 a certain number of hours per day
It's been a few years since I've read Running Man, but I can tell you this is from 1984. If King (Bachman
Although in 1984, the volume could NEVER be turned entirely off, unless you were a Party member of high privledge.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
the government tells us what we can and can't make or use, hollywood should NEVER tell us what we can or can't develop and or use.
Argh, you blind fool. Head over to google and type in "dmca vote record". Then look at the first link, which shows everyone who voted for the DMCA. For those too lazy to even do that bit of research, I'll summarize:
Yea's - 99
Nay's - 0
Abstains - 1
That's 45 Democrats voting to pass the DMCA, 54 Republicans voting for, and one Republican not voting (presuming I counted correctly - I may have been off by one). It required a 50% majority to pass. With the unanimously Yea vote by the Democrats, it would have taken only *5* Republicans to pass the bill. Given the Democrats' unanimous support of the DMCA, it would have passed a Democrat-controlled Senate as well.
What about the Telecommunications act of 1996? Oh, look, there were a whopping 4 Democrats and one Republican voting Nay - with most of the Democrats voting Yea. Again.
So keep the crap about it being the Republicans fault (or the Democrats) to yourself - that garbage set of bills is the fault of the collective scumbags present in Washington regardless of party. Just like nearly every other right-reducing act passed in the last 50 years. Maybe if people would actually pay attention to who they're voting for and realize that they're *all* working against "us" (not just the evil "other" party), we could get some of this stupidity fixed. There's another election November 8 - that's next Tuesday. Hooray for another 10% or lower turnout, mostly of uninformed voters.
I know I'm begging to be labeled as Flame-Bait, but they can eat me. I'll let them start dictating when and how I can make my own videos when they start shelling benjamins out to me. It's my hardware, my time, my efforts, and my money. MINE. If they're really all that concerned about protecting their revenue, maybe they should produce something that doesn't suck like stupid movie with that guy wearing a shirt that says, "Vote for Pedro". Is it sad that the shirt has a bigger name in public than the movie itself? I honestly can't remember that movie's name. We'd better keep an eye on this movement because I bet if they win, they'll charge us royalties on amateur movies at film festivals...
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
IMHO the lameness filter should be supplemented by an excessive swearing filter.
Please! Stalin was a socialist dictator. Which meant that he was against profit in any form. The RIAA's repression is meant to preserve profit, and thus counts as fascism. So it's Mussolini who's laughing at us!