Digital Content Security Act

bdwoolman writes "Congress is leaving a special gift under the tree for Hollywood's film industry. Just before closing for the holidays, legislators introduced a new proposal designed to curb redistribution of movies.The Digital Transition Content Security Act would embed anticopying technology into the next generation of digital video products. If it makes its way from Capitol Hill to the Oval Office and becomes law, the measure will outlaw the manufacture or sale of electronic devices that convert analog video signals into digital video signals, effective one year from its enactment. PC-based tuners and digital video recorders are listed among the devices."

Comments

You are violating the act

[arrrrg]

by converting this post from analog to digital in your brain. You will be hearing from my lawyers (fp?).

Backed by John Conyers

[ReformedExCon]

I had a lot of respect for John Conyers. Unfortunately, with this bill, he's spent all his political capital in my eyes.

Re:Backed by John Conyers

[Anonymous Coward]

>he's spent all his political capital in my eyes.

Ewww.

I hope he at least had the common decency to hand you a tissue.

Re:Backed by John Conyers

[Daniel Dvorkin]

He's doing well in some areas but -- obviously -- not so well, to put it mildly in others. That's the problem with high-tech censorship; there's no identifiable voting bloc in Congress that's opposed to it. You can pretty much count on the liberals to stand up against press censorship, and the conservatives to stand up against religious censorship, and assorted ad hoc coalitions of left and right to stand up against political censorship; but when it comes to That Weird Geeky Stuff, there are no good guys. Left and right are equally in the *AA's pocket. There are a couple of individual politicians who do seem to have some spine on this issue, but there aren't enough of them to make a difference when the votes are counted.

Outside the government, it's pretty much the same story. The EFF fights the good fight, but they're small potatoes. The really big, influential civil rights groups which should be up in arms -- the ACLU and NRA both come to mind -- apparently don't have any understanding of how technological issues affect their core missions, and so the EFF is left pretty much on its own.

I'd like to believe that one of these days the *AA will just push a little too far, and Joe Sixpack will rise up in revolt ... but I'm not optimistic.

Re:Backed by John Conyers

[Penguinshit]

I agree with you. I greatly respect Congressman Conyers, but I totally disagree with him on this subject. However, for the record, here's JC's response from his blog:

I have been hearing today that a lively discussion is taking place around the internet about my cosponsorship of the "Digital Transition Content Security Act," a bill that attempts to plug the "analog hole." Because the tone of some of these discussions has become so vitriolic, I decided to respond here.

First, some who disagree with my cosponsorship of this bill have imputed motives to me in a manner that I think is unfair. My cosponsorship has been labeled a "sell out," a "giveaway" or a "handout" to the movie/music industry, among other things. It has been said that I must have had "a lot of [my] time bought by the content industries" to cosponsor this bill.

The content industries would be very surprised to hear these assessments, which belie a great unfamiliarity with my legislative record and statements about these issues. Over a more than 40 year Congressional career, I have stood up clearly and consistently for the artists and others who work in the content industry. In my view, they are being squeezed from two sides. When it comes to working and contractual conditions, they are squeezed by the content industry. When it comes to piracy, they are being squeezed by illegal file sharing. Collectively, this squeeze has led to a lower standard of living for artists and lower profile workers in the content industry.

To say I am somehow beholden to the content industry ignores a number of actions I have taken. Here are a few from recent years. At a meeting of the Future of Music Coalition (an artists' rights group) in 2002, I rebuked the industry saying "[t]echnology is forcing the record labels and the artists and the writers and the composers to come together...[t]he Internet says to the industry that you folks are yesterday's news, you're following outdated models, your business strategies don't work anymore, and your profit motive is showing rather vulgarly." I also proposed a series of reforms to benefit artists that was strongly opposed by the RIAA.

When the recording industry slipped a provision to reclassify recording artists songs as "work for hire" into a satellite television bill and thereby deprived artists of reversionary rights to their songs, I fought back, saying among other things, "[i]t is about time we separate the people in the recording industry from the recording artists. I keep hearing from the recording industry telling me what the recording artists want. I know a few recording artists, and we will be checking on this. This is appropriately a sensitive subject." I have been outspoken about the industry practice of pay for play (or "payola") as well.

When the film studios have moved film production to Canada or overseas, thus costing American workers their jobs, I stood up to them.

When the publishing industry sought to deprive freelance writers of their rights (something fellow Kos poster Jonathan Tasini knows quite a bit about), I introduced a bill to protect freelance writers, illustrators, cartoonists, graphic designers, and photographers. The publishers did not like that very much.

I hear from lots of people that artists don't care about piracy. While it is true that some artists struggling to make it into the business don't mind file sharing because it exposes their songs to a wider audience, many - many - artists have come directly to me saying that piracy is threatening their ability to make a living. I have heard similar complaints from animators, writers, grips, and cameramen, who have seen job opportunities diminish in part because of piracy.

To be sure, as I have said above, piracy is not the whole problem - industry practices are part of the problem as well, but it is part of the problem. So what should we do about it?

Some say we do not need to do anything because uploading di

Re:Backed by John Conyers

[Greyfox]

And I suppose that 10 grand capaign donation from the music industry is a complete coincidence?

Re:Backed by John Conyers

[Carmody]

"You can pretty much count on the liberals to stand up against press censorship, and the conservatives to stand up against religious censorship"

Really? When have the conservatives stood up against religious censorship, when the religion in question was anything but Christian?

Re:Backed by John Conyers

[weston]

First off, where did you find this entry? I don't see a title containing the words Digital or Content anywhere here...

Second:

"I have said repeatedly that any legislation affecting the ability of consumers to use content must be carefully balanced to respect consumer expectations and rights and, of course, fair use."

Does he really know what he's talking about? How can he not realize that if you outlaw devices except those that follow instructions from content owners, you've effectively eliminated any use except those they decide to give you -- fair or not?

Has he really though through the implications for independent journalism? If you can put an analog signal in a broadcast, speech, performance, that dictates its disposition/distribution, you've effectively ended independent journalism that uses direct A/V sources. Bush messes up in a speech? Sorry, you *can't* rebroadcast it -- hell, you might not be allowed to record it. The only version that will exist and be distributed will be the official version.

"many - many - artists have come directly to me saying that piracy is threatening their ability to make a living. "

Who? How many? Can we really trust decisions in a matter of policy like this to secondhand anecdotal estimates? Make your case, but do it openly and preferably with some references to some analyses that looks harder than that. As the Representative himself stated, there are also many, many artists who don't feel like piracy is a particularly big problem. I'd be interested to know why he's choosing to listen to those who do feel threatened by piracy.

Giving content providers ultimate control is the wrong place to fight this for anyone who can think through the issue and genuinely cares about liberties. If the Representative can't see this, he'll have a hard time convincing me he's not deficient in at least one of the two areas. I'd love to be able to see his responses, thoough.

Re:Backed by John Conyers

[Fordiman]

"RMS"?

I'm all for having the Root-Mean-Square algorithm - or any algorithm (except Al Gore, of course) - for president. Hell, even a prime search algoritm would do a better job than Reagan, Bush, Clinton, W. Bush, or any of the 2008 nominatory candidates I've heard of so far.

Actually, a No. 2 pencil would do a better job.

Fucking useless human presidents.

Remember people

[Saven Marek]

USA only gets control over USA, and you always have a choice where to live.

Re:Remember people

[zwilliams07]

You don't know the USA. Give em a few years, soon you won't have a choice where to live.

Re:Remember people

[jasonditz]

and move to Australia, to get placed under house arrest for sedition... or move to the UK, where the government has decided they have to track every car on the road at all times. This is a worldwide problem of encroaching tyrannies, it's not as simple as packing a bag and going to a less insane place.

Re:Remember people

[jasonditz]

Odds were good that if you lived in Stalinist Russia you wouldn't wind up in a gulag either... that doesn't mean either was a good idea.

Re:Remember people

[chriswaclawik]

Actually, many people have absolutely no control over where they live (due to either social, economic, or political reasons).

Re:Remember people

[ZoTo]

The US pushes many of its laws into other countries. Australia for instance is being forced to adopt US copyright laws (amongst other things) in return for being able to export goods to the US.

Re:Remember people

[skribe]

Australia for instance is being forced to adopt US copyright laws (amongst other things) in return for being able to export goods to the US.

We weren't forced to do anything. We (aka the majority government coalition parties on our behalf) chose to do so freely in return for greater access to the US markets. We could have walked away from the deal at anytime. We just chose not to.

Digital Rights Massacre

[Eli Gottlieb]

Wow, and won't all this conversion to DRM'd digital machines obsolete the old ones? Of course, which is probably the real goal here. They aren't merely plugging a hole in their Digital Rights Massacreing, they're forcing everyone to go out and buy new stuff! WOOT, keep the economy fueled and the profits where they belong: in the hands of those who don't need them.

Re:Digital Rights Massacre

[pete6677]

This will ensure that the bill fails. We should be glad that it is so ridiculous that it has no chance of passing, rather than only being semi-crazy like the DMCA. Hollywood may like the idea of making their movies so secure that most people can't even play them, but device makers won't appreciate having to redesign their entire product line. Competing corporate interests will keep this bill from ever seeing the light of day.

Re:Digital Rights Massacre

[supabeast!]

"We should be glad that it is so ridiculous that it has no chance of passing, rather than only being semi-crazy like the DMCA."

On September 10, 2001, almost everyone in Washington would have told you that the Patriot Act was so ridiculous that it had no chance of passing. All it takes to get a despicable law passed in Washington is timing. Wait for voters to stop paying attention to what's really important, and one can slip any crazy law by. News from Washington in January will see the Alito nomination, more Patriot act showdowns, hearings into domestic spying by the DoD and the NSA, and a lot of noise from 2008 presidential hopefulls. Karl Rove is expected to be indicted soon and rumors of the imminent resignation of Donald Rumsfield just keep coming. With all of that noise on top of the bird flu nonsense, continued post-Katrina rebuilding being bungled, and the latest noise from Iraq constantly coming in, do you really think that it would be very hard for the *AAs to grease a few palms, twist a few arms, and sucker in a few morons to get this law passed?

Ready to move to Canada yet?

[CokeBear]

Its days like this I'm so happy I live in Canada. Anyone want to move up here? I have a spare bedroom.

Land of the free? heh

Re:Ready to move to Canada yet?

[TigerNut]

Like crypto, excessive legislation and draconian enforcement in the digital rights management scene will just drive software and hardware development (as well as independent filmmmaking) out of the US... you guys down there need to wake up your senators and other government reps and explain to them that they're killing the tech industry just so that the bigwig media machine can make its crappy "entertainment".

The senate can leave this present under the tree..

[theheff]

...but I'll still be leaving the flaming bag of poo at the front door.

But I like my microphone!

[masgrada]

So now I can't record my guitar to my computer? No more computer karaoke? How broad of a "analogue" device definition are we talking?

Re:But I like my microphone!

[icecow]

quote:
So now I can't record my guitar to my computer? No more computer karaoke? /endquote

Your arguements are not helping.

MPAA Amnesty Program

[themadplasterer]

If this legislation is passed the MPAA Amnesty program will be offering one free movie for every PC tuner card, ADVC converter & mini DV surrendered. Unfortunately the movie will be: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0299930/

All analog-to-digital video conversion?

[Verteiron]

That's a lot of stuff. For a start, my father-in-law loves his digital camcorder. As a journalist I'm sure he'll be thrilled with this new "freedom of choice".

Geez.. all digital still and video cameras, my old Hauppage WinTV-PCI card... Let's see, all HDTV and LCD monitors...

Somehow I don't see this one going through without a fight from hardware manufacturers. And since they have more money than Hollywood, they'll probably win. I hope.

Re:All analog-to-digital video conversion?

[JoeBorn]

Well the article was a little misleading, it won't really outlaw all analog to digital conversion, it will just make it so that the hardware manufacturers have to recognize a signal in the analog stream that dictates what can and can't be done with the stream. In effect this will likely make those devices useless since no media will allow recording, just like virtually no DVDs allow copying today. Yes, you can expect the INDEPENDENT hardware manufacturers to fight this, but there aren't very many of them around anymore. Sony has studios, Apple is the 7th largest music retailer in the US with ITMS, and TiVo is already largely beholden to the content providers. Microsoft is aggressively courting Hollywood to adopt its DRM and codec standards, so it's not clear they'll fight it. It really is scary:

http://www.neurostechnology.com/press/freedom.asp

Re:All analog-to-digital video conversion?

[AaronW]

This has the potential to wreck havoc with consumers. Say I'm trying to tape my kid's birthday party and a DVD is playing in the background. Or I'm trying to tape something and someone blares music at the same time with the signal. What will happen? Will my video camera refuse to record because an analog signal is embedded in the DVD soundtrack? I think this is a very bad idea that will anger a lot of consumers. It will do little, if anything, to curb copyright infringement. For people that record movies in theaters it will just mean that they'll use older equipment or find some other way around it. Also, a lot of those movies come out of foreign countries which have no such restrictions.

Re:All analog-to-digital video conversion?

[yo303]

You are absolutely right. In reality there will be many embedded signals, and if you go to the very end of the act, Table W lists what the hardware is supposed to do if it sees or does not see the signals. The devices must even detect "tampered" signals, that are inconsistent.

As an example, in scenario 2 we see what all devices must do if only the VEIL signal is found.

(Step 1) CGMS-A State Detected -- Not present
(Step 2) RCI State Detected -- Not present
(redistribution control bit to be detected with CGMS-A)
(Step 3) VEIL Detected -- YES
Rights Assertion Description -- INCONSISTENT STATE: Rights are being asserted so the CGMS-A was probably tampered and/or the RCI was probably stripped
Technical Content Protection Response -- VIEW ONLY - Protect as Copy Protected Content

The last encoding technique, VEIL (Video Encoded Invisible Light) is particularly interesting as it was originally developed as a way to transmit information to a series of Batman toys. Now it is supposed to be a DRM watermark technology. Hmmm.... The EFF has weighed in on this too.

It is already illegal to do the things that this technology supposedly is designed to prevent. Does the MPAA really need to be protected by the government, at our expense, like this?

MPAA - the unfreedom fighters.

yo.

Not this rubbish again!

[Toaste]

Legislating away the "analog hole" has always been a wet dream for content owners. Until the consortium for the DRMed video interface previously mentioned on slashdot manages to screw us permanently, the signal will always be available, and this is just another attempt to jump the gun. Problem is, how are we supposed to edit video without a capture card?

Write your congress person

[JoeBorn]

There is no bigger threat to technical innovation than this bill presents
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

There is a great imbalance in the corporate interested regarding fair use rights, and citizens need to make up the difference if we're going to keep this kind of legislation at bay, see below for our take on why digital rights have been steadily eroding recently.
http://www.neurosaudio.com/press/freedom.asp

The Act

[ElNonoMasa]

http://static.publicknowledge.org/pdf/HR-4569-DTCS A-Analog-Hole.pdf

Damn the MPAA is scary.

[radiotyler]

I'm serious. Who else can lobby to get an ENTIRE FAMILY of computer hardware made illegal? It's not a matter of "how people are going to get around the law" but more "why were they able to make that law"? If you're a content owner, you have an absolute right to defend your own proprety. YOU do. The government has no responsibility to come along behind you and clean up and protect it for you, that's insane. It's alreay illegal to duplicate copyrighted works without permission from the owner, so honestly, how is this benefical? If anyone was still in need of a wakeup call, this is the one you were waiting for.

This issue seems more and more like it should fall into the "if you can't beat them, join them" category. You've known for YEARS that people were copying movie content via VCR's and music via tape decks. There wasn't a mad cram for legislation to codemn "analog to analog devices" that would make duplication of content any easier. This just reeks of technophobia - they aren't sure how they're going to make money with shows floating on the web. (remember Spaceballs? "Merchandising, merchandising, merchandising. Spacballs the flamethrower!")

Maybe it's time to start focusing some of that lobby money and MPAA kickbacks into either finding a way to preserve your own digital rights, or maybe finding a better way to pay for your content distribution on the internet so you can reap some rewards for owning that bit of cinema / software / music. It sounds like a better plan to me.

Re:Can anyone post a link?

[Sheetrock]

It is HR4569. THOMAS appears a little slow at the moment, but it is available elsewhere on Google I think.

John Conyers indicated he will discuss this further on his blog later as well, as the issue was brought up by some angry people under one of his posts (I think as a result of a Daily Kos article on the matter). Comment #80 on this page appears to be the start of the comments on the matter, and it might be worth hovering around the blog in days to come to see if he gives the opportunity for people to (calmly and rationally) express their thoughts on the matter.

BTW: his comment in the thread above (Comment #96) gives more details about why he signed on. I don't think it even begins to consider the spirit of Fair Use or the rights of the average consumer, but then I don't get the impression that Congress thinks we're worth a damn beyond our votes and purchasing power.

How come nobody gets it?

[Afecks]

This has little to do with piracy and everything to do with making consumers pay multiple times for the same product.

That's why movies are released first to film and then to DVD. It's not because it takes time to produce the DVD. Though it does take a little effort to slap together some menus and cut scenes but that's not why. In fact the piracy scene has been able to get several "DVD screeners" while the movie is in theaters. These big budget movies are hoping for an Oscar so they send letter-box DVD versions to the academy for consideration and in the process some pirates get their hands on them. So it's obviously possible to release on DVD and film concurrently. It'll just never happen because they want people to see it in theaters and buy the DVD. Not one or the other.

This is just one example...it's not why they want to protect digital media though..for that you've got to delve into the mind of the typical MPAA though process..

"Oh your DVD got scratched? Well you better buy a new copy. What? You want to make back ups?! PIRATE!!!"

Do you honestly think embedding protection into digital media is going to stop pirates? No, it's going to stop John Q. Public from protecting his investment. Pirates could care less because if they can't copy it freely they'll bypass the protection, if they can't get a digital copy, they'll film it with a camera. All this analog hole and DRM non-sense is just corporate double speak for "we want more money!".

The MPAA needs to stop using piracy as an excuse to screw over the paying customers. Of course that will never happen because then everyone might actually figure out what's what.

Any bill can pass

[Jetson]

We should be glad that it is so ridiculous that it has no chance of passing

All it takes is for someone to attach it to an omnibus funding bill, as happened this week with the bill to open the Arctic Wildlife Reserve to the oil companies by sticking it into an arms appropriation bill at the last second. Someone basically said "the military uses imported oil, so drilling in the arctic could be considered a military neccessity!" In this case, of course the vote was overwhelmingly in favour of allowing big business to polute the arctic in search of what is estimated to be about a 16-month supply of oil.

I don't know why you guys (Americans) don't make this kind of legislative foolishness illegal. It's usually used for pork-barreling by attaching an obvious waste of money (in the form of directed bids for expensive purchases) to a bill that, oh, maybe funds school lunches or something. If the politicians don't vote in favour of the pork-barrel then they get a big "he voted against school lunches" attack in the next election. I'm sure it will happen one way or another with this "analog hole" proposal. Someone will find a way to roll it into a bigger block of regulations that nobody will have the guts to vote down....

Re:Any bill can pass

[Greyfox]

But they did vote that spending bill down. That really surprised me. Seems like it's raining reason in Washington this week. I really hope that there's some political backlash against Ted Stevens for introducing the language in the first place. For those of you who missed it, he's the guy who threw a temper tantrum when they tried to unfund his pork-barrel bridge to nowhere in Alaska in order to fund Katrina relief. He's also the guy who refused to swear in the oil executives when they were testifying before his committee.

Yeah, it seems like all the worst legislation as far back as I can remember has been introduced via riders like this. I'd love to see the practise done away with, but it'd take a massive petition drive to pull it off and I doubt most Americans care that much about the practise, if they even know it exists. It never ceases to amaze me how little people I talk to seem to know about our political process...

What did Tacitus say about dumb laws. . ?

[Fantastic Lad]

Just a bunch of excuses to put you in jail and thus threaten you into obedience. This is why the proposal exists. Though, I suspect it'll remain a proposal.

As the New Fascism steadily materializes into reality, even when Shirow-style Orcs with machine guns stalk the streets, television and movie content aren't going to vanish. Heck no! Look around you. Look at the intensity of the posts just in this article; The unanimous outcry, (on Slashdot??) is evidence of something. . .

--You can start up fake wars which starve, burn and shred thousands of little kids, you can steal entire elections, and you can poison everybody with bad medicine and bad food, and the populace will take it all without much more than a whimper. But if you try to take away their picture shows. . ? Man, watch out!

The opiate of the masses is only truly beyond necessity when societal control has been utterly locked into place; when all the gates have fallen and most everyone has been safely processed into tasty meat products.

So don't worry about your little television picture shows. They'll be around for a while yet. Heck, if you try to turn them off, the most surprising people will expend great effort in trying to sign you up again for free. No joke! Just try canceling your cable and watch what happens. It's truly amazing.

So this legislation is just a small twist on a much longer road. A dumb distraction. One way or another, you will be force-fed media unless you very actively close your ears and eyes.

-FL

Getting it passed probably isn't their intent

[jesterzog]

This will ensure that the bill fails. We should be glad that it is so ridiculous that it has no chance of passing, rather than only being semi-crazy like the DMCA.

Considering it seems so unlikely on the surface, it makes me concerned that getting the bill passed isn't the actual point.

After all, it wouldn't be the first time that members of an industry have proposed something "ludicrously ridiculous" so that law-makers might be convinced that it's entirely rational and reasonable to meet half way... at either "ludicrous" or "ridiculous".