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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."
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
if by convenient, you mean free, then I guess you're right.
I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who just want free stuff. I end up being a pirate because I want to watch Battlestar Galactica, but I'm not willing to pay for cable and some sort of recording device in order to watch one show. So I download episodes and then buy the DVDs when they come out. Spare me any "you could just wait until it comes out on DVD!" comments, please. I can't be bothered to get upset about the idea of adding a six month delay to the time my $40 goes into the bank account of a multinational corporation.
If I could buy the episodes as they air for a reasonable price, I would totally do that. I would be open to a number of possibilities:
- The cost of a season's worth of episodes adds up to the cost of the DVD set plus $10 for being able to watch them early. When it's released, I pay for shipping and get the DVDs.
- Same as above, but the total is e.g. 50% of the cost of the set, and I pay shipping plus the remainder and the convenience fee.
- The episodes are super-cheap, e.g. fifty cents each, and I just buy the DVD set at the store.
Option three is the easiest, but options one and two let Sci-Fi or whoever take a bigger cut from the DVD set price by selling directly to me.
Of course, this will never happen, because for it to be as convenient as it already is for me, the downloaded episodes would have to be non-DRM'd, encoded using a quality codec, and free of commercials. I'm sure this would be a huge hit, but the marketing department would never let it happen.
Why do I say a huge hit? Look at something that cannot be reasonably DRM'd, like photographic (as opposed to video) porn. There are tons of porn siterips on p2p networks, but it's still a very profitable industry. They probably realize that the money lost from bootlegs is less than what it would cost to come up with a protection system combined with the cost due to lost customers who weren't willing to put up with the hassle.
It would probably do well even with DRM. I wouldn't be a customer, but there are plenty of other people out there who are happy to deal with iTunes (which I find crippled beyond what I'm willing to exchange money for).
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman