Slashdot Mirror
New Bill Threatens to Plug "Analog Hole"
ThinSkin writes "In an effort to encourage consumers to embrace digital content, The Electronic Frontier Foundation is fighting a bill that would restrict owners of analog devices from recording analog content. For instance, if a fan wishes to tape a Baseball game on his VCR, the VCR would re-encode the content of that game and convert it into a digital form, which would then be filled with right restrictions and so forth. The process would be driven by VRAM (Veil Rights Assertion Mark), a technology that stamps analog content with DRM schemes."
Someone should enlighten the author of that article about the purpose and use of paragraphs. What a wall of text.
It read New Bill threatens to Plug "Anal Hole"
Now that would be anal.
Dupe. But I do like the information-wants-to-be-encrypted dept.
Illegal? Samir, This is America.
I guess encourage now means the same thing as force...
Sorry, only in Opera does it appear paragraphless. Looks fine in Opera and Firefox. I apologize for this interruption.
"[I]f you're someone who actually wants to infringe copyright by downloading video from the Internet, this will have zero effect on you," said Cory Doctorow, EFF's European representative, writing in his blog, BoingBoing.net, on the subject.
/.ers have nothing to worry about. :-)
So, of course, most
"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
I feel that the MPAA is a bunch of Luddites.
You CANNOT use an acronym with 'RAM' in it to describe something not relate to memory. That's a sin !!!
Gee thanks. From the article "The Analog Content Security Preservation Act of 2005 is scheduled to be debated in a U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property on Thursday."
So how about a news article discussing the first round of debates?
Here's a link to the bill.
https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&p age=UserAction&id=181
Use the link above to write to your representative in the House and read a draft of the bill
You must be new here.
"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
You said "analog".
heh ehe he he heeh eh
Does anyone really believe that the government could make it illegal to record anything in analog? Come on, think about it--when I want to record my home movies, they're going to require that I only have a DRMed, digital copy? Or if I want to make an audio tape, I'll have to use an expensive, DRM-encumbered digital recorder, instead of a cheap cassette player? Or more pertinent, when a linguistics researcher or reporter wants to record a conversation, or a filmmaker wants to make a movie--there can't be any realistic expectation to force them to go not only digital, but DRM-encumbered digital.
Even if such a bill were to be passed, it would be laughed at as the public went on its merry way using older analog and unencumbered digital devices.
SELECT quote.text AS sig FROM quote NATURAL JOIN attribute WHERE attribute.description = 'witty';
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wraps around! I mean, until our brains offer digital ports for input, all of our digital media ultimately has to present its content in analog form for human input. Given that analog recording devices have been around since... well... since Thomas Edison shouted "Mary had a little lamb" into an ear trumpet recording (in analog) on tin foil, I doubt that the content management folks will ever be able to put the analog recording genie back into the tube.
I have especially delighted in using my lovely Dolby-equipped Sony tape deck to make a few dozen copies of the latest VanZant CD.
There's no purpose to this post other than to point out the futility of the DRM folks trying to stuff toothpaste back into the tube. As the gatekeeper in the Wizard of Oz said, "Ain't no way, ain't no how!"
I'm just about ready to submit this to Leno for Headlines... :)
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
This troll post appears everytime there is a story involving the RIAA.
In Soviet Russia the insensitive clod is YOU!
What can I say, you gotta love those bills that don't yet have an author. Kindof like the textbooks in California and Texas.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
With a little changing of the act name, ACSPA -> SCAT Act.
Secure Content of Analog Technology Act of 2005.
I believe the SCAT acronym accurately describes everyone's opinion of this legislation.
I found chief technical officer of the MPAA Brad Hunt's comments funny.
"Sometimes I think that people feel that the MPAA is a bunch of Luddites," Brad Hunt, chief technical officer of the MPAA, said in an interview Wednesday afternoon. "In this case, we are trying to incent the consumer to embrace the digital conversion, the digital connection...and that's why we need to drive this technology forward."
The funny part isn't that the MPAA is saying that it wants to drive digital formats forward by pushing them backward -- the funny part is that the MPAA has a "chief technical officer."
If you're reading this, stop it.
Thank you CowboyNeal.. it's been a while since we had a good dupe.
This guy again!?
s iness+faces+ruin.+CD+sales+have+dropped+through+th e+floor%22
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22My+bu
Sell good value (non DRM) products and more people will buy them.
Decent books with CDs - sure you can download the tracks of the internet but you get a really nice package if you buy the legit copy.
They can stick all the DRM they want onto a CD - it doesn't force people who think it's poor value to buy it. I think DRMed "CDs" are poor value & refuse to buy them on principle; so all they are doing is shrinking their potential market antagonizing their customers while the MP3s roam free on P2P.
Put out something worth buying and I'll buy it. Video recorders that restrict use are poor value - I'll stick with my old one thank you very much...
What are you listening to? (http://megamanic.blogetery.com/)
What ever happened to the United States being free? It seems in the past year, more government associations are trying to shush up the people's rights and control what they see, what they record, and what they do. Is it really that much of a bane on Television Stations if a person records a football game while he's at work with an old vcr? How is this any different than it being recorded on a DVR? What if that said person doesnt have a digital cable box and watches Fox Sunday Football on his rabit ears? This is not affecting a single damn person and its horrible that there trying to pass a LAW that hinders what someone can do with analog content.
I personally cant wait for all these old government conservative officials that run these shitty conservative government organizations to die and there companies to fall into obscurity.
In the future, speakers that produce piracy-inducing analog sound waves will be outlawed. All music will be transmitted directly to your auditory nerve.
Oh wait, nerves use analog signals. All nerves must carry DRM!
Is printed matter analog or digital? Or does it depend how it is copied? If I scan it, it is digital. If I use an older copier to copy it, is it analog?
Of all the disingenuous malarky. "Incent the consumer". Since when did "incent" become synonymous with "bufu"?
They want to keep me from making copies of stuff I buy, so if it gets ruined I have to buy another one. Or so I can only play it from the media I bought it on.
Guess what, pally: most of the stuff I listen to is on sweet old vinyl. I want to preserve the music from my analog media, and the best way to do that is digitally. But don't try to tell me I can't do whatever I want with something I buy, as long as I don't try to give it to someone else.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
The parent raises an important point. If a troll is genuinly funny, should it be modded troll or funny? Should it be modded +1 or -1. Nice effort.
Who records anything anymore anyway especially in analog? The crime should be wasting tax payers money debating the right of the citizens to record using baseball as an example when there are 150+ games/year/team. Couldn't they use an event that happens once a year as an example?
A rational and consistent intelectual property law would one be that prevented copyrighted content from using copy prevention technology at all. After all it has the protection of law, then why should people be prevented from making fair use of the content?
I see copy prevention technology as being no different conceptually from a trade secret. If you decide to hide a technology as a trade secret rather than sharing a technology through a patent then your technology can be reverse engineered legally and you get no protection under law. The trade off is that society gets access to your new technology and you get legal monopoly for a number of years. If you don't share the technology via a descriptive patent, then you don't get a legal monopoly. So, similarly if you decide to prevent copying using technology rather than by using copyright law, then you should get no benefit under the law because you are ultimately depriving society of the content if it is never released in a copyable form.
Sorry I gotta post AC as I modded before RTFA, but look at this paragraph:
However, devices sold before the date the proposed legislation would be enacted, such as today's televisions, would be grandfathered in, according to the terms of the legislation. In addition, devices that were designed "solely of displaying programs," and ones that could not be "readily modified" for redistributing content would also be exempt.
If all the old capture cards, VCR's, DVR's and the like are going to be 'Grandfathered' in, what's the goddamn point? I mean, anyone with enough technical knowledge to do this, is already going to have the equipment, and I sure as hell am not going to throw it away because a new bill passes.
Maybe slashdot should copyright its articles. Maybe that would prevent further dupes.
First of all I trust that whatever they think about that, there will always be a "DVD Jon" somewhere that will point the poor design of the schema/algorithm. The tighter they'll hold, the more they'll loose.
We only need to avoid those chips being installed into our brains in order to enforce the brohibition to tell our friends about the football match we looked at. We paid for one private view, not for a public performance!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Wow, assuming there's any credibility to your story (and that's probably a real stretch) you assaulted a minor? Good for you. So maybe we should add your sorry ass to a list, you know, one like the sexual offenders list. How are you going to explain to your kids that daddy had to close down the store to afford a lawyer and still has to serve 3 months? Imagine their haircuts then.
Like this: A bunch of Luddites
Holy crap! There are two Bills?!?!
This story's tab reads:
Just wrong.
Can't say analog hole without saying: fucking government, always trying to fuck you right in the a..nalog hole.
This is so stupid that a government (any government) is acting as a business protection agent. Of-course it looks like that's all governments do nowadays.
You can't handle the truth.
Who is Bill and what is she doing to Ana Log?
Another attempt to squelch innovation that will just redirect homebrew efforts in the direction of circumvention. Call me when they shut down eMule/aMule/xMule, Kademlia, or BitTorrent (or BitSpirit (BT/Kad-like subsystem), for that matter).
... [peer-to-peer networking] is either going to be legal, or it isn't going to exist."
I'm bored of this stupid timeline... you know:
P2P services arise
RIAA/MPAA kills one
P2P piracy increases due to consumers being pissed off that the RIAA/MPAA has no respect for their rights (or their tastes... this summer had nothing good in the theatres aside from the Guide, you know)
RIAA/MPAA freaks and claims P2P services are to blame, inviting legislation/technology that fucks fair use while not doing any real good
P2P piracy increses, for much the same reasons as before, while homebrew programmers work around the new legislation/technology
RIAA/MPAA freaks
P2P piracy increses
A quote from a relevant link of the article:
"We have a bright young public who sees nothing wrong with downloading...it's going to destroy the copyright industry, it seems to me
- Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)
You're right, Dianne. But you haven't quite gotten the point.
Unregulated, P2P users were still buying good CDs. But every time new anti-p2p legislation is enacted, new anti-circumvention technology added, and for each p2p site shut down, it alienates the Industries from their customers. Each time, the animosity that was once limited to the tech-savvy grows ever outward into people who'd never have thought bad of their content providers.
There are easy ways to fix this; one is to stop with the lawsuits. Worst. Press. Ever. Another is to start producing quality. People won't want to steal that which is actually worth paying for. The real item is to fix copyright law. 95 years past the original author's death is rediculous. How about 15 years past initial release? If I knew I could, for example, download episodes of the original Battlestar Galactia without legal repercussions, I might reconsider downloding Sci Fi's Season 2 DV cap that's floating on Bittorrent.
This law doesn't matter to anyone with a brain. A TV card with an offending chip can be "repaired" by anyone determined enough. You'd have to integrate your crap into the DAC and MPEG-4 encoders of every device, then hope someone doesn't hack the controls out of the software, or that someone doesn't make an open source version, fully functional (and easily modified), on the premise of interoperability.
Yeah, release the drivers for linux in closed source code. Someone will build ones for their amiga system and claim interoperability. Release for amiga, and you'll have the BeOS people doing it. Do BeOS, and there's a few flavors of BSD that would be clean. BeOS covered? How about Minix? You're not going to win here without spending a few billion in development, and then you'll still lose to those who don't cower under a legal premise and have names like "Thundulator". The term is "Unenforcable", or, in colloquial terms, "Useless fuck of a law".
Meanwhile, the cycle's going to go on until either the MPAA/RIAA have run out of money to throw at the problem, due to the combination of lack of consumers willing to pay to be fucked in the ass, or until they basically cow under - and eat what crumbs consumers will give them AFTER the content creators have been paid - like the good little middle-management fucktards they are.
In conclusion, Dianne is partially right. Their either will be legal AND free P2P, or there won't be an RIAA/MPAA. Actually, I'm kinda pushing for both.
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
If the broadcaster doesnt want you to record 'their' shows you cant tivo it.
(1) Copy Prohibited Content. An Analog Video Input Device shall not record or
cause the recording of Copy Prohibited Content in digital form except for
retention for a period not to exceed 90 minutes from initial receipt of each unit
of such content, including retention and deletion on a frame-by-frame,
minute-by-minute or megabyte-by-megabyte basis, using a Bound Recording Method,
and provided that such content shall be destroyed or otherwise rendered unusable
prior to or upon expiration of such period.
This is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks :)
-- April 1, 2008 --
A new closed captioning system for home video use was announced. The device is capable of writing arbitrary bit streams into various lines of the vertical blanking interval data, to allow the addition or modification of closed caption data for personal use and home viewing.
Note that posession of this device within the United States is a felony punishible by exile to the New York or Los Angeles Maximum Security Prisons.
I'm not letting them plug MY analog hole. I don't swing that way.
Y helo thar
"I feel that the MPAA is a bunch of Luddites."*
Translation: They're not doing what I want.
*You might want to look up the definition of luddite.
The clipboard in Vista will be DRM'd.
Finally, our assignments won't get copied and pasted without permission.
I can see it now:
Sean Connery: "I'll take Anal Log Hole for $200, Alex"
Alex Trebek: "That's Analog Hole"
Sean Connery: "Your mother's face was a hole, ya hog-wallerin' mamma's boy--HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!!!"
I would have thought that the drop in CD sales was more to do with people buying online and downloading from sites such as iTunes, then the effects of piracy.
Or possibly it's due to the fact that "Family music" and "Christian rock" isn't that popular with the CD buying demographic.
That other article discussed the same thing, but it was weak on details and heavy on ranting. This one is much more meaningful.
This brings to mind the latest iTunes compatible communication device from Motorola which doesn't have a headphone socket. Instead it is rumored to require a bluetooth device with which to experience the stereo audio feed.
If it ends up never having a stereo socket, and subsequent devices don't have an audio output either, we could be seeing the beginnings of a closed system which stops "pirates" in their tracks by sending audio directly to a device which lives inside your ears.
Although there are bluetooth products out there which have audio out, they may soon start becoming scarce if this is indeed how the industry intends to keep music in a closed loop.
Apparently "Luddite" is the next "Nazi".
Whomever you disagree with, LUDDITE!
Copyright and patent and trademark, ie Intellectual Property (sorry, RMS) is so screwed up now that I hope that take it to the extreme and paralyze the bloodsuckers by making them sue each other for infringement. Think of it ... from whom will they profit more, mere consumers who are only good for $5K per shakedown, with all the overhead that entails, or each other, good for several hundred million and the chance to run them into the ground? They are, after all, your competition.
Yes, pass this sucker. Make copyrights last forever. Make story plots patentable. Go ahead. See how much control you have over popular culture, you morons. Watch popular culture pass right on by, out of your control, beyond your puny stilted imagination. Paint yourselves into corners of your own making, spend all your energy fighting each other and hoarding and enhancing your little corner of the past, while the future bypasses you utterly and forever. While you think of a zillion ways to regurgitate your patented storyline, which is all you can do because your competitors have their own patented storylines which they are busy regurgitating, people will develop their own tools which they will share freely, and other people will swap these and improve these and make their own unpatented stories and their own uncopyrighted and locked down culture.
You morons will be left holding ancient patented and copyrighted dreck which has been projectile vomited to a fare-thee-well because you have a 300 year patent on it, or a 500 year copyright on it, and heaven knows Disney has to protect Micky from all those hordes who have only one goal in mind: how to appropriate Mickey for their own perverted uses. Yes, that's right, the truth is out now, I have seen the transcripts of the meetings. Sony wants nothing more than to lock up Mickey for themselves, they have wet drems at board meetings when they salivate at the prospect of hijacking Mickey if you don't keep thsoe patents and copyrights in force. They have entire teams of lawyers searching for loopholes to grab Mickey form your slippery paws because you slipped up and saved a few megabucks by not hiring that one brilliant lawyer before Sony did.
Morons, I say, morons.
Infuriate left and right
The first is that you can *gasp* fast-forward through commercials. This has been an issue since the first generation DVRs. And after-all commercials>money>lobbyists>bills-like-this. The second is that all those recorded shows are then (obviously) uploaded to the internet, where all the single mothers and grandfathers download them while cackling like the wicked witch of the west (duh!)
"Sir, we've made the new digital systems so restrictive that people would rather stick with older systems they actually had some control over..."
"Okay, we'll have to cripple those too."
Completely disgusting. And our Congress? They'll roll right over and do it too.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
My horseless carriage business faces ruin. We should outlaw these new-fangled "automobiles".
Riiight. That's just too bad, isn't it. If your business model is suddenly irrelevant, that's just way too damn bad for you.
Anyway, the real purpose of this bill is to prevent people from recording their own movies. Every camcorder made now will have to have DRM protection -- which will allow the movie industry to prevent you from recording independent films. With no independent films, the MPAA will be the only game in town for movies. Profit profit profit.
I wish Congress would tell the MPAA and RIAA that if they keep lobbying for this shit they'll repeal copyright completely. That would be so hilarious that I think I'd cry.
My other car is first.
So, as you focus on christian families and you've seen a drop in customers, does that mean that they are the biggest pirates?
please consider joining me. (They even give you a T-shirt or hat!)
hahaha, you got trolled
you must be new here
Like many people here, I maintain a fleet of boxes owned by my family and friends... keeping things patched, virus definitions up to date, logs checked and spyware purged. I do this voluntarily because these are people I care about. If I could fix cars, I'd be changing oil for people too (luckily I have a brother in law who can manage that).
When it comes to DRM / copy protection circumvention, I see my role as unpaid geek in just the same way. It's my job to make sure that proper the DRM-defeating disc ripping tools are available and easy to use, no-CD game cracks are swapped in, and I tell people about the little disclaimers to watch out for when buying CDs.
I see the concept of 'plugging the analog hole' as nothing more than exploitation of non-technical consumers. A year ago, timeshifting on VHS was a non-issue. If the cartels choose to make it one, I'll damned well react by spreading my techspertise across the widest possible consumer base I can. The more people who fall outside the 'casual copier discouraged by simple protection' category, the weaker their case for persisting with this rubbish.
"If you create user accounts, by default, they will have an account type of Administrator with no password." KB Q293834
...but they'll never close my anal log hole, dammit!!!
In an effort to encourage consumers to embrace digital content, The Electronic Frontier Foundation is fighting a bill that would restrict owners of analog devices from recording analog content. For instance, if a fan wishes to tape a Baseball game on his VCR, the VCR would re-encode the content of that game and convert it into a digital form, which would then be filled with right restrictions and so forth. The process would be driven by VRAM (Veil Rights Assertion Mark), a technology that stamps analog content with DRM schemes."
...filled with rights restrictions and...
Despite what the poorly written summary says, the EFF isn't doing the encouranging. This more accurately describes the situation:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is fighting a bill that would encourage consumers to embrace digital content by restricting owners of analog devices from recording analog content...
Furthermore, a later sentence should read:
1. Buy lots of VCRs/analogue TV tuners now.
2. Wait for bill to be enforced, so no DRM-free analogue devices are available anymore.
3. Sell old-style VCRs/TV cards on the black market.
4. Profit!
They have fought the War on Drugs with skill, so why not the War on Piracy?
So... War on Drugs, eh? Have we won that yet?
Anyway, that's a nice little sob story what with including the 1984 references. Too bad it sounds like some bunch of bullshit.
With the breakneck speed at which broadcasters are switching to 'all digital' I'll be lucky to be able to record my shows from an analog source for another thirty years.
Besides, won't there be devices which will translate digital TV signals into a normal analog signal that travels over 75 ohm coax for backwards compatibility? What's to stop me from recording whatever I want simply by bypassing the digital domain completely?
This isn't about retaping stuff or switching to digital. They are scared, not of copyright infringement, but of people being able to create content that's going to replace their on equipment that costs a few hundred bucks. The media, publishing, and entertainment industries are in trouble because all the stuff that is cheap to produce has become so cheap to produce that anybody can do it, leaving only the expensive and high risk ventures. It's the same thing that killed the dinosaurs of the computer industry.
I'd like to put my foot in the "Analog Hole" of anyone that votes for this.
Learn to love Alaska
Come on, think about it--when I want to record my home movies, they're going to require that I only have a DRMed, digital copy?
They don't care about home movies. Their vision of the future is that there shall be no devices that permit this. Now, if you hack your device to permit this for home recording, nobody is going to go after you.
But should someone actually publish content that doesn't use the expensive, heavily patented, and ever-changing DRM systems, then they'll go after them. And that's easy to enforce because non-DRM'ed content that becomes popular, well, is widely visible by its very nature.
All this copyright infringement and P2P stuff is a smokescreen--they are afraid of free and open content because it's going to kill their business, and they know it.
With this technology your are not allowed to have any *memory* of any broadcasted event. Please stay home tonight, someone will stop by to erase *your* memory too..
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
I just love how they want to charge $500,000 and 5 years for the first offense. I think everyone just might as well rape people before they try stealing anything analog.
It seems to me that they (The networks) seem to place a higher value on their content than I do. I think years of having a captive audience have spoiled them to the idea that they are entitled to be able to use a public resource to beam their content to anyone who will still watch it, and still control how it is viewed.
Personally, I think that the price of having to watch nine minutes of commercials for every twenty one minutes of programming is too high, especially considdering the volume of really crappy shows on T.V. (there are good ones, they are just a rarity.) That I cannot tape it and watch it when I have free time is too much. I'm not organizing my life to fit their schedule.
Don't devote energy fighting them. Let them waste all the money they want buying politicians and lobbyists. They can rule their twisted little corner of the airwaves with an iorn fist. (Insert obligatory princess Leia line from SW here.) I just quit watching TV. It's amazing how much other stuff there is to do in life when you stop watching TV, and how much free time you have to do it.
(For example, you can go post frothing neo-luddite rants about 'killing your tv' on your favorite internet discussion board...)
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
In South Korea... only old people have analog holes.
--
This Slashdot meme was brought to you by a bunch of Luddites
"Sometimes I think that people feel that the MPAA is a bunch of Luddites," Brad Hunt, chief technical officer of the MPAA, said in an interview Wednesday afternoon. "In this case, we are trying to incent the consumer to embrace the digital conversion, the digital connection...and that's why we need to drive this technology forward."
Actually I think hes a retard and that whole paragraph is the biggest pile of PR bullshit i've read today.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
The difference between automobiles and horseless carriages being what, exactly?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Mmmm... I like your signature. Clever.
Go ahead, mod me offtopic! I like it!!
They're always trying to plug my A-hole. As if I'm not already bending over and giving it to them whenever I buy music. My god, they're relentless!
Plugging the analog hole?? I thought sodomy was still illegal in some states.
Why do I get the feeling that one day in the not too distant future there will be a massive police operation to confiscate all non-compliant equipment, analog VCRs etc and that by that time everyone will have been so brainwashed into the DRM 'empowers' you mantra that people will actually think this is good.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Then I won't buy it. You people can legislate all you want to rule every aspect of how we watch your material, and I will reject you. I will shun you. Because I don't want a world where I am policed by my own home theater equipment, which thanks to you, will never be up front and truthful from me because you have filled their ROMs with the ultimate evil paranoia. I buy a DVD or CD to watch it the way I want to and I'll make a backup copy whether you like it or not! It's not like your mindless crap is worth anything anyway!
FUCK HOLLYWOOD!
There are two basic kinds of A-D converter. TYPE ONE, the slow type, works by "guessing" and consists of a D-A converter feeding into one input of a comparator, which indicates whether the voltage from the D-A is greater or less than the voltage at the other input. A suitable external circuit is used to generate "guesses", and we can determine the two points between which the comparator changes state. This type of converter is slow since it takes at least as many guesses as bits in the output, but uses fewer components.
TYPE TWO, the fast type {sometimes called a "flash converter"} uses as many comparators as there are states in the digital output -- i.e. 2 ** [the number of bits]. The input signal is compared simultaneously to voltages corresponding to each step. A logic array is used to determine where in the chain the comparator outputs change state. There is no requirement for successive "guesses", the only time constraint being due to the propagation delay in the decision logic. However, for large numbers of bits, flash converters become unwieldy.
There is also a "half-flash" converter. This uses two flash A-to-Ds, a D-to-A and an op-amp. The first A-D digitises the signal to half the desired resolution, giving the higher-order bits of the result. The D-A converts this back to analogue; but there will be a difference, since the conversion is not exact. The op-amp amplifies this "error" signal and the second A-D digitises it, giving the lower-order bits of the result. Think of it as a number with a fraction: the first converter deals with the digits before the point and the second converter deals with the digits after the point. Half-flash converters depend more than most on circuit quality.
Any kind of analogue-to-digital converter requires a well-regulated power supply, tight tolerance resistances and above all, low noise components. All connections must be sound - dry solder joints and loose or dirty mechanical contacts introduce noise. However, it is just about feasible to construct an 8-bit, half-flash converter on copper strip breadboard. For video, you will require three such converters; one each for the red, green and blue signals {which you can often get from a SCART socket; but note that domestic VCRs often don't generate RGB outputs, so you may need some kind of PAL to RGB converter}. You will also need to extract the timing signals -- the LM1881 does all this in a single 8-pin package.
Audio has a narrow enough bandwidth to be digitised using a "guessing" type converter. The CD standard is to sample to 16 bits {originally 14 bits but left-alighned in a 16-bit word with the lowest order 2 bits set to zero}, 44100 times a second.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
As an example, Miller described a scenario where a consumer might hook a playback device into the input ports of a recorder. "Those inputs and outputs serve a purpose, but they might not know that they're creating an illegal act," Miller said.
They are? In what way? If I record something on Hi-8 and later want it on VHS, I can do that, and I have paid for it. I have paid for it with the fees I paid for blank media.
The question we should be asking is the legality of asserting copyrights on content that cannot be copied and can never fall into the public domain; technological restrictions on copying and copyright ought to be mutually exclusive.
I speed read the headline and expected a juicy article on Bill Gates. Alas.
the place, a city in the US.
You sit at a cluttered bench in a darkened back room, a single reading lamp illuminating a riot of ciruits and gleaming mechanical assemblies. Old stuff. Valuable. Practically priceless, since they cut off the Malaysian pipeline. A wisp of smoke caresses your face, carrying the scent of vaporized resin, molten tin, and lead. A bead of sweat rises on your forehead. This work is delicate: this piece is old, and if the traces lift that would be just too bad.
The sharp clang of a brass bell and the slam of the door break your concentration. "Damn," you mutter, "who the hell can that be."
You slip through the curtain, careful not to reveal any of the very incriminating goods back there, and let out a low whistle. It's a dame, and what a dame.
"Can you help me?" she asks.
"If you're looking for baseball cards," you reply, indicating the dusty glass cases. "Can I interest you in a Roger Clemens, he's real meat."
"Meat?"
"Yeah, you, know, pre-virtual." You watch her closely. She's hard to read, but one thing is certain, no broad ever strolled through this neighborhood at a eleven at night shopping for a goddam baseball card.
"A friend sent me," she says, a bit nervously.
"Oh, yeah, what's his name." Your eyes narrow suspiciously.
"Maybe you'll recognize him," she say, reaching into her purse.
You suck your breath involuntarily through your teeth. "Ipod," you whisper, "old by the looks of it."
"Original firmware" she purrs.
Original firmware. Easier to penetrate than a bus station ho. But this whole situation stinks bad. You're practically the only one left; better guys than you didn't last because they coudn't smell a setup. This lady may not know about the syndicate takover of baseball in '10, but she's very au courant about stuff she has no business being.
"Lady, you must have me confused with somebody else. Monkeying with one of those things is very illegal. I don't know where you found it, but I suggest you turn it into the Department of Free Expression right away."
"Oh, I don't think I have the right man," she purrs, a glint of steely amusement in her eyes, which flick down toyour right hand.
Suddenly you become aware of the smell of hot lead. Idiot! You never put down the damned soldering iron. If she had be DFE you'd be iced by now. You'd be lucky to be iced, instead of declared "illegal information operative" and put on a plane to one of their offshore IIO interrogation facilities.
"OK, lady, we can talk, but it's gonna cost ya." After all, that stunt you just pulled on the soldering iron took ten years off your life. Retirement is looking really attractive.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
It hasn't been introduced in the House by anyone based on LoC's THOMAS and there's no trace of a bill on the House Judiciary Committee website (judiciary.house.gov). One witness refers to the act but I don't see it anywhere. Is it just me or is this some sort of crap that a legal team threw together and hasn't been introduced to the House yet?
I feel a great disturbance in the Web, as if millions of dupes suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. ...Or I would, if Slashdot would stop posting dupes...
"MY APOCALYPTIC TENOR HAS NOT BEEN DISPELLED!" - T-Rex, qwantz.com
This is pretty much an irrefutable fact of life, and the RIAA and MPAA after 30+ years of trying to stop unrestricted private recording and utterly failing should just let the market take its course. Neither the music or the movies industries has floundered.
My parents bought one of the very first model VCRs ever made, and at over 20+ years old, it *still* records and plays. Unrestricted analog will NEVER go away. Even if, one day many decades from now, the last unrestricted analog device finally breaks and can't be repaired, people will smuggle them in from other countries.
They may as well try to license and restrict water, air, sunlight, addition, subtraction, and english grammer along with D/A conversion.
There will always be a market for freedom. Always.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Keep your old VCR in good shape. Also you can use hackable
PVR cards. I've got a PVR-250 and use Linux with it. I primarily bought it to encode my old family videos that are on VHS and Hi-8 video tape. I'm using Linux to create the mpeg2 streams and the DVDs.
To plug the analog hole, they're going to have to cover TV screens with lead plates, and speaker cones will have to be filled with cement. Why is our legislature so clueless?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Imagine some one films some terrorist training activity using one of these super desirable DRM crippled video cameras with the do-not-broadcast switch on. The camera breaks... The content could becomes useless... Lots of people die....
But it was worth it... the MIAA made an extra million dollars profit that year and the executives could afford to refit out their private jets.
The MIAA/RIAA want to label the general public as pirates and 'supporters of terrorism'... but perhaps the technology their trying to force on us will end up supporting terrorism instead!
Someday I will be sitting at home trying to make a home movie DVD of my child and as I hit the burn button on my computer, it will say-
*Please wait while an authorized MPAA representative watches a sample of your work for confirmation of any copyright infringement, we regret any inconvenience this may cause you*
You think I'm joking. I'm not. They're not.
I'd say the only "analog hole" the RIAA wants to plug would require us emptying our wallets then bending over...
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
A horseless carriage doesn't move by itself.
I think that's the "auto" part of "automobile".
Stumbling in the dark
I hear slavering of jaws
Eaten by a grue.
And who is actually going to foot the bill for adding this stuff to new hardware? The content providers? Fat chance. Hardware manufacturers? Yeah, I can just see them falling over themselves to pay for sinking their own business. Consumers? Maybe. But it won't be long before the non-techies start wondering why they're paying more for hardware that does less.
Reminds of a time back in the days of yore when I happened to overhear a Circuit-City aisle monkey trying to persuade an elderly couple to buy a DivX DVD player instead of a cheaper, regular unit. Somehow they just couldn't grasp the concept of paying more for the privelege of being able to watch time-restricted media. Needless to say, they left without buying *anything*.
How long before we need to pay for the oxygen we breath?
The wars of the 21st century will be truly devastating: the poor masses against the few rich. What we see in Paris right now is going to explode within this century in every major city. We can only be saved by the presence of an alien race like the Vulcans: wise, calm and in science.
Pretty soon you will buy a CD and not be able to listen to the content, or buy a movie without being able to watch it. Because, after all, if you can see/hear the content - then you just might be able to record it.
xxAA should just sell blanks if they don't want anyone re-recording the content.
It does not matter what you do, it's wrong.
This is really a waste of money, to be sitting back and continue beating that dead horse. Considering the fact that a near complete digital overhaul is going to be going on within the airwaves in the not so distant future. This has already been decided, why keep fighting? Fair use covers the recording of media for private/non-profit viewing. We arent talking about John Doe here goes on limewire and downloads 5gigs of copyrighted material. No, we are talking about the people who for some reason cant be home, so they set the vcr to record for them.
My sausage tree didn't grow, does that make me a bad mommy?
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
We really need to stop paying these people. We really need to stop going to movies, buying CDs, ringtones and whatnot. We really need to boycott them.
The cat is out of the bag and they hate it. DRMs are crackable, anything digital is pretty much breakable into a free format that can be easily distributed and I don't understand why they waste their time trying to battle hackers many of which are smarter, more resourceful and have more time and dedication towards their goal. Someone cracked region encoding with one line of Perl code, which begs the question, why have region encoding to begin with? Why present the already righteous feeling hackers with a sense of purpose or need? I say every CD should come with a copy of the CD in high-quality MP3 format on the disc. I don't understand why corporations want us to keep using an outdated technology (CDs for audio) when an already far superior technique exists. Do what ITunes did and charge stupid...
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
If the troll is original, Funny. If it's the same damn Christian Record Store troll that gets pasted into every single thread mentioning the RIAA, Troll.
In this case, definitely Troll. With lashings of Redundant.
The general case is quite interesting, though. From what I see with my own posts, the difference between +5 Insightful and -1 Flamebait is all in the opinion of the first moderator.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
WHAT IS COPYRIGHT?
Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to the authors of "original works of authorship," including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works....
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Every damn time someone has to make a terrible car analogy.
It would fit more if the carriage industry went down because people took the introduction of the automobile as license to take carriages, but that didn't happen.
It's in my sig, but I'll copy it here for posterity - The Slashdot credo: Entertainment wants to be free.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
That would kill them. Let 'em commit sepuku.
You do realize that the **AAs ara made up of humorless lawyers who are bemused (and raking it in) that the are suing and arresting they clients' very own customers.
When somebody comes up with a business model that works for production and distribution over the internet (can you say the iTMS?) with the asynchrony (non broadcast, content only,) that is inherent in the internet (distribution of content and 'aggregation' of meta content.)
I,ll have more musings on my upcoming podcasts.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I listened to most of the testimony in yesterday's hearing in front of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, and I have to say the surprising thing to me was that most of the committee members appeared to be very well informed on many of the issues involved here. Someone has been helping these folks with background - I'm assuming lobbyists from both sides are providing backgrounders on the issues. They asked intelligent, on-point questions of the presenting lobbyists. They were not (for the most part) baffled by the concepts involved.
I do think that the "freedom to tinker, freedom to design and develop" issues were not really brought to the fore. The committee was focused on shutting down piracy, and committee members found that a worthwhile goal. One congressman pointed out that the restriction on fair use that the bill would bring about would prevent his own staff from grabbing opponent political ads and emailing them to him while he was on the road - so it's clear these folks see some of the ways in which they'll be affected.
There was discussion of preventing the Broadcast Flag from being applied to news and public affairs content - and while I think this is a good start, it fails to take into account that fair use covers ALL content.
One frighening thing: Dan Glickman (MPAA) has the ability to look and sound like he's a rational human being with reasonable points to make. That is clearly not the case, but the smooth exterior makes him a dangerous weapon. Couldn't quite say the same for the RIAA guy (forget his name, but he couldn't maintain an air of reasonableness).
Sad to say most of the committee members seemed quite well disposed to the idea of both broadcast flag legislation AND A-hole plugging. If you haven't written your congressmen, your senators, it's time to do so.
The first order of business. right my reps and senators AGAIN. I'm not sure how effective that is as I just get canned form letters back in responce. If this passes? well I know alot of good hackers. I'm tired of stressing unduly over this stuff.I know alot of intelligent free-thinkers that are tired of all of these new levels of oppresion. Go ahead. act like thugs,people like myself will be the ones stranding behind you, working stealthily in the shadows to help end your reign of terror on the american consumer. word to the lame corporations. If it can be created? it can be destroyed and it can and will most definantly be HACKED! Let's start a revolution. whos with me??
...and the problem will solve itself. Nobody will vote for a mandatory Anal Plug, and it will finally convey the intent of the **AA screwing the audience.
"For instance, if a fan wishes to tape a Baseball game on his VCR, the VCR would re-encode the content of that game and convert it into a digital form, which would then be filled with right restrictions and so forth. "
Maybe I'm missing something, but in order for this to work, wouldn't all of our existing VCRs have to be replaced? And retailers don't really even sell standard VCRs anymore because of DVDs... so the retailers are effectively killing the market now for any new DRM-enabled VCR that might come on the market later.
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
Boycott seems like a goood idea. However, I'd be willing to bet that if there was a mass boycott and these guys started to see a decline in sales/profits, they would promptly point their collective finger at the consumer and claim that it's due to piracy.
_signature creation failed.
I'll plug your analog hole, all right.
It is interesting reading that the author of the bill is Francis James Sensenbrenner, Jr. Thanks to him, the states are saddled with the expensive Real ID Act of 2005 that goes into full effect 5/11/2008. He needs to be voted out of office. He also is behind the Patriot Act. Republican or Democrat, someone with totalitaritan ideas need to be out of office.
I am sure as a part of the DRM on the devices, you will not be allowed to skip commercial advertisements.
Look folk, there will [for the foreseeable future] always be a clean break point for recording sound, video, whatever -- the human body. As an earlier posted Orwelled, until the listening device is implanted into your ear, you can always stick a microphone-as-ear-proxy in front of whatever audio device the companies create. Voila.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
Or apply it to computer games. The Infocom games came with all kinds of neat whatsits like the Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses and the Microscopic Space Fleet in the Hitchhiker's Guide game. For that matter, Bethesda sent out an authentically burnt map with Redguard and a very nice looking map of the continent for Morrowind. *sigh* With so many games shipping in those tiny WalMart boxes, I fear for the future of said goodies, but it was always nice to get them. Heck, just give us a comprehensive and well-written manual!
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
A horseless carriage is an automobile.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Recording off the air was settled a long time ago, when VCRs started coming out. So now they want to change the rules?
OK. So let's change the rules.
Add an ammendment to the bill, requiring that the "broadcast flag" may only be applied to content that is aired without commercials - i.e. where the content provider foots the entire bill for broadcasting it, in the hope of charging people later for copies. Otherwise, free TV is free TV - if you don't want your content recorded, don't broadcast it through my airspace.
OK folks, here's what we do when this thing passes.
1) Someone buy a recorder with DRM, then record something pricelessly funny. Maybe some sort of amateur movie or stand-up or something.
2) Attempt to distribute it for free.
3)When DRM stops you, sue someone for interfering with your business model.
4)????
5)Profit!!!
Seriously, though, if you do that, then they are sticking DRM on your stuff when you don't want it. They have to at least figure out a way to remove it if you demand it.
First they came for my TV. But I didn't care much cause I had TiVo, and a lot of the programming was crap anyway.
Then they came for my games... outrageous in-game commercial placements, interrupting game play to see the latest offers in entertainment. But I didn't care too much because after the first 15 versions of Civ, the gameplay tends to blend together anyway.
Then I tried to go to the movies, but they took that away too. In-movie commercials, and quarter-time commercial breaks while they "change the digital reels upstairs". But I didn't care cause I've seen enough cars blow up to last me a lifetime. Even the Simpsons parody of that got old already.
Next was my cell phone. Every two minutes, my phone calls were interrupted by a 15-second product slogan. My cell phone Pacman turned into the Pepsi sign overnight. But I didn't care cause I hate phones anyway.
When all the indoor entertainment was taken away and I hate to face the daylight, they came for that too. Huge billboards sprung up everywhere, they started painting the roads with Ford logos, the traffic lights were hung from McDonald's arches, and no building was left untouched without a product placement (Informed Consumer Act of 2015). I had nowhere to go to escape.
Finally, when they came to tattoo corporate logos on my family, I could do nothing. I couldn't even call for help, for I had already tossed my cell phone.
"If you could only see what I've seen with your eyes..." - Roy Batty
I was listening over the web to KPCC, an NPR that serves the Los Angeles area, and heard an "underwriting message" (commercial) from Macromedia indicating that they were your {one-stop}-shopping location for DRM.
As previous posts indicated, they can take my access to the VBM when they pry it out of my cold, numbed-by-entertainment, hands.
I had quite a lot of fun spewing that out :-)
Infuriate left and right
Am I the only dyslectic here to perceive Plug "Analog Hole" in a perverted way?
A dirty mind is a joy forever. A perverted mind is eternal bliss!
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
go go richard stallman! go go richard stallman! go go richard stallman!! YOU MIGHTY MORPHIN' RICHARD STALLMAN!
May the coffee god Smile upon you!
The problem is that the proposed remedy is not precise. When the next generation of crippled hardware comes out, how much of it will not work in linux because it would be a violation of DMCA to openly publish software that interprets the signals from DRM hardware. Even unencumbered media might be unviewable except by the annointed devices from the anointed vendors.
Then we're going to need DVD John to quit his legit reverse engineering job and crack the new stuff.
neener, screener screener. Plug that analog hole buttmonkeys.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
"Sometimes I think that people feel that the MPAA is a bunch of Luddites," Brad Hunt, chief technical officer of the MPAA, said in an interview Wednesday afternoon. "In this case, we are trying to incent the consumer to embrace the digital conversion, the digital connection...and that's why we need to drive this technology forward."
Actually I think hes a retard and that whole paragraph is the biggest pile of PR bullshit i've read today.
I certainly would agree with you on this. I don't mind going digital, but I do object to the MPAA/RIAA buying laws to "protect" me for my own good. This is why I won't buy any new TV sets. Currently I use a 21" computer monitor and computer for my entertainment needs. I can rip mp3's, oggs and rip my DVD's onto the hard drive for convince (until the RIAA/MPAA force hard drive manufactures to make RIAA/MPAA approved versions). It's quite ironic that older analog TVR's, TV's, computer equipment and monitors offer more flexibility than the new DRM encumbered digital versions.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
Analog Rights Managment... never thouhgt I would see that one.
If the analog hole is plugged, this means that any device capable of recording open content will be taxed - for example by having to develop and license a protection IP or product into the recording and playback devices. Open content will be available, yes, but still taxed that supports the same evil forces. They win, they always do.
The information on my vinyl record collection doesn't want to be encrypted. I just hope they don't find a way to do this to new vinyl releases (and yes, you can get vinyl versions of most new popular music titles). Cheers
Who is this delectable creature with an insatiable love of the dead?
What's all this about plugging anal[og] holes?
Copyrights started as a contract between the people (through the government) and the creators of content. For a limited time they got to make money from their work and then it became owned by the public (public domain). This limited term was 17 years from date of creation. This is identical to the limited term of a patent.
As each new technology beyond books was added to this scheme, the (specialized) lawyers made this term longer in exchange for protecting the newer technologies. Currently, it is way too long by most outside observers.
Many copies of older movies are in poor to nearly useless shape. The copmpanies want to charge and charge again for the same "copy", but refuse to keep the pristine copy from which they are based, in its pristine state. To have something to be given back to the public, the copyright holders must keep the copies in a pristine state else they are breaking their side of the agreement.
We need to return to the basic limited term of 20 years, the same as the current patent. It should start at the begining of filming, recording or other well defined point. If you change it, the original must still be released after the original term expires. The altered version is given its own copyright seperate from the older version. Any changes in the law only affects new creations, the older ones still have their old expiration dates, unless the new terms would result in a earlier date.
A copy is defined for the right to have the version in any form. If a newer release has a higher resolution, the owners of the older release can get the newer release, free of charge. So if you own the VHS tape of the movie, and the same version is released in HDTV format, you have the right to get the HDTV format free of charge. If they make it a new version, they must make the older version in the newer format for download available. If you bought "Stairway to Heaven" on a LP and still have it, you can download the DVD audio version to keep.
You must maintain possesion of the original work to keep these rights. To allow for such things as fires, disasters, theft, etc., a licensing scheme should be made. The license of any one to a work must be tracked by some entity created by the government and supported by copyright fees paid by the copyright holders. Its only fair. Those that make money from this work, should pay to maintain those rights. If they can't pay, the work becomes in the public domain immediately.
The copyright holders would also be required to keep 3 (or more) pristine copies in the highest resolution format available at the time at geographically seperate archival facilities. These facilities would be certified by the entity. The library of Congress would be one of those facilities. Once the works term expires, these facilities would release the work for downloading on the internet. That would likely be one of the qualifications for certification by the entity, having a high speed pipe into the internet for uploading released works. This prevents the work kept on film from cumbling into uselessness. Also, the creator or copyright holder can not destroy a work. The mere attempt will cause the work to be released into the public domain. That is because the work is basically owned by the public from the time of creation. The copyright holder just has the right to make money by selling copy licenses for the limited term provided.
If a copyright holder sells the right to a broadcaster to broadcast the work by whatever means, all the recipients have the right to record for timeshift purposes. The recipients even have the right to strip away portions of the broadcast they don't want to watch, hear or otherwise. They don't have to watch or listen to commercials, public messages and the like. Such recipients do not have the right to license themselves as owners of a copy of the work. They still retain fair use rights however to the broadcast version, however.
The license to a copy of a given work holder has responsibilities as w
>Anyway, the real purpose of this bill is to prevent people from
>recording their own movies. Every camcorder made now will have to have
>DRM protection -- which will allow the movie industry to prevent you
>from recording independent films. With no independent films, the MPAA >will be the only game in town for movies. Profit profit profit.
Absolutely correct. Oh, you'll be able to record little Johnny's baseball games (unless Little League slaps some restrictions on *that* - their logo's are (c), after all). But your consumer camcorder will be DRM-tied to a limited number of playback devices. Only the machines registered to you or your family will be able to play back the videos. And there will be a strict limit on the number of devices you can register.
Want to produce indie films? You'll have to fork over big $$$ for "Professional" equiptment, *AND* get a content-production license. That will give you the ability to produce media that can be played back on consumer-grade devices.
If the media-licensing organization approves you, that is...
All this is possible *today*, and it's a media studio's dream. Given the right marketing, most consumers will snap it up.
It could even be spun as a feature - no more embarassing celebrity "home videos" leaking onto the Net...
Yeah, blacklist.. genius.. Ever clue in to the fact most cds get released on the internet BEFORE your sorry store sees them? nice try though.
How many people on your list now? Do that many people honestly walk in and announce "I AM GOING TO POST THIS MUSIC ONLINE EVERYONE!". Can't say I ever have. To each their own.
Oh, and as an aside.. seriously.. if you wanna make money.. you SURE that christian rock is the place? aside from the fact theyre less likely to pirate music, if your local laws prohibit such sharing, its not too popular. As a music lover, I hate the crap that is called popular music, but as a business owner one should realise that popular == sales. Just a thought.
GL tho on that store.
:x
I recently found (and purchased - I got so damn lucky) in an electronics junkyard here an Altair 8800. It needs a lot of work (very dirty and dusty, powersupply caps need reforming, everything needs careful disassembly and cleaning) before I can even think about switching it on (30 years will do that). I am already emailing others and discussing how I can get this thing to boot. I have a drive controller card (an old Northstar jobber), but finding drives (and the floppies - hard-sectored single-density floppies aren't easy to find, ya know) is going to be a pain. I would be happy if I can just get it perfectly cleaned up and working, even if I can't boot an OS. Just to see it come to life and blinkin' lights (ahem - LEDs) would be nice. I think if I try hard enough I will be able to find a way to get this machine running, in one form or another.
I have no doubt that if I can do this with a machine that old (not to mention rare), then anyone in the future will be able to do the same with old video-capture cards. The only way I can see that it wouldn't be possible would be if the jack-boots kick down people's doors (ala COPS) and take at gunpoint any and all "non-approved" electronic devices and repair/construction equipment (they better have a big truck just for my stash alone).
I hope we never have to see that day, but it seems like we are inching closer to it each month...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I read these things, and then get a little hot under the collar about it, then realize that its all a bunch of BS. Computer games have had years to perfect copy protection and console games even control the console hardware. Guess what? Both fail to produce copy protected content that can't be broken.
Why is that? It is because anything that can be encoded in software can be decoded with software. Software can be revised. The design of digital computers is such that everything must get translated into a form that is readable at some stage in the process. So no DRM will ever be effective at stopping duplication for fair use and there will always be a grop of free-minded individuals who will take up the task of cracking it for those of us who don't have the intellect for it.
So yes, you're going to find a bunch of DVR's and HDDVD formats that are protected in the hardware, but your also going to find protection free drives or drive-mods that allow you to read and decypher the content.
So I wish they'd just give up on DRM and copy protection. Its a losing battle that they aren't going to win.
Your (often) over quoted reply isn't quite complete in it's relevance, as the media companies aren't jack booted facists bent on genocide. Yes, it is important to stand up for things before they go too far, but we are talking about media companies, not totalitarian governments. The big difference is that an amoral media entity will react to financial losses by falling back into line, where a facist government will send out some more secret police to torture and kill the dissenters.
By no longer consuming their product, you are standing up to them. Money is oxygen to a coporation. Step on their throat if you don't like what they do.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Drags 8mm film movie camera out of closet, films concert/ballgame. Replays on home projector.
Sometimes, low-tech is the best tech.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
This is what happens when you let Americans govern themselves. ;)
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
Remember, no one has ever said that all the retirement funds you need are covered by Social Security. It's there as a hedge against failing investment houses, market crashes, bankrupt employers scuttling their portion of the promise to save the execs and stockholders and other rogues that leave workers high and dry.
Why leave anything to heirs? That class has few shining examples. Grandpa Bush makes a fortune selling oil to Hitler and now George has no concept of earning a living. Make 'em work for what they get.
No incumbents, not no where, not no how.
Vote them out every term.
Whenever this comes up, I'm surprised more attention isn't drawn to the Sony Betamax case of the early 80's. It is largely the same issue. I would think that this case would be precedent, but I guess it doesn't matter if they managed to get the law changed.
So, what, you have to use a buggy whip?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Seriously though, let them. As long as my own IP is not required to be encumbered so, let them encrypt themselves into irrelevance. They're chasing revenue that does not exist. Stopping copying will not some how magically create sales. You can't squeeze blood from a turnip. Those on this website that make that argument time and again should agree. If there is no such thing as lost sales due to piracy, then there is no problem here. And don't start with fair use. The Supreme Court time shifting business was more about legality of hardware than the God give right to record. We all know it won't work in the end, but let them do it. When your enemy is in the process of hanging himself, you don't run over and set the stool upright again do ya? I'd be more concerned about OTHER provisions that might exist in the bill which have nothing to do with analog holes. Sorta like how that DMCA thing panned out.
If you have the money, now might be a good time to buy a TV and a VCR or two, before they get all DRMed up.
A law which restricts printing presses or the equivalents, crippling them such that they can only be used by a select few seems like a clear violation of the constitution. By taking away my ability to make and distribute recordings, writtings, etc. you've taken away my right to free speech. I would like to see someone fight DRM requirements on first admendment grounds.
Imagine a country where all printing presses where required to have locks on them, locks which could only be opened after a censor approved (after a fee far beyond ordinary means) the material to be printed. This is what mandatory DRM is. Its a huge chilling effect on free expression, since a musician will be unable to record his own music, a writer unable to publish his own works on an equal footing with those who have the money and influence to publish DRM encoded works.
$action = empty(PHP) ? backToC() : unset(PHP) ; "when the concrete cases are understood, the abstractions are readily