Slashdot Mirror
Audio Broadcast Flag Introduced in Congress
Declan McCullagh writes "We found out in mid-2004 that the RIAA was lobbying the FCC for an audio version of the broadcast flag. But because a federal appeals court slapped down the FCC's video version last year, the RIAA needs to seek formal authorization from Congress. That process finally began today when the audio flag bill was introduced. It would hand the FCC the power to set standards and regulate digital and satellite radio receivers, and RIAA Chairman Mitch Bainwol says it strikes "a balance that's good for the music, good for the fans, and good for business." The text of the bill is available online."
Bullshit
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
If the RIAA wants something and says it's good for music fans, you can be sure it will be something to further enforce their monopoly and abuses as well as extract more money out of your pockets while further limiting our ability to listen to music when and how we want to.
Simple rule of thumb, if the RIAA is for something, I am automatically against it.
-- Will program for bandwidth
The broadcast flag is bad for consumers and business. It's bad for consumers because they are going to have to replace otherwise working radio equipment, right?
And it's bad for businesses, because when DRM goes wrong [and it almost always is wrong] then the maker gets slapped for it. Sony BMG is learning that the hard way. Music playing businesses, such as waiting offices, or ones that use music on their hold system might find themselves paying more too. The RIAA is not going to stop at screwing consumers, it will make sure businesses give them more money too.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
RIAA Chairman Mitch Bainwol says it strikes "a balance that's good for the music, good for the fans, and good for business."
Well one out of three ain't bad, right?
They will just tax you to have ears. Surgical removal for those in violation.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
"a balance that's good for the music, good for the fans, and good for business."
This is by far the most infuriating thing I've read all day. They just think it's their right to control everything related to music. The RIAA thinks that they should be able to control what is listened to by fans of music, period. As a musician, I swear I will not ever sign a contract with anyone related to these bean-countering destroyers of culture, and if that means I can never make money, so be it. I just hope the Internet makes these people obsolete and impoverished sooner than later.
Well, at least they're not gonna make old receivers illegal or inoperable. I guess that must be the part that "strikes a balance" which is "fair to consumers". If you think there'll ever be anything good on satelite radio, buy your hardware now... :)
(2) shall not make obsolete any devices already manufactured and distributed in the marketplace before the implementation of such regulations; and
(3) shall not be inconsistent with the customary use of broadcast content by consumers to the
extent such use is consistent with the purposes of this act and other applicable law.
...would hand the FCC the power to set standards and regulate digital and satellite radio receivers...
Coming soon, Howard Stern on HAM radio.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
In other news, Donald Rumsfeld declares that Abu Graïb is good for iraki prisoneers and Joseph Stalin declares that gulags are good for political opponents. More exciting news on the redefinition and ironic use of "good" at 11.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
As to how this is good for the consumer. I can clearly see how it is good for business. Good for music is iffy at best. All I can see (as I'm sure others will not) is consumers will have to buy new equipment and broadcasters will have to expend money to comply.
Its about time to put Fair Use into law I think, now if only I could find legislators I trust to do that well...
good for the fans
How is content restriction ever good for the fans?
Are they thinking it'll make content owners happier and therefore produce more stuff, then making fans happier? I don't get it.
Developers: We can use your help.
Re: they're not gonna make old receivers illegal or inoperable
And you think they won't reallocate the FM and AM bands to something else like they plan to do with analog TV?
I've actually already noticed this with media center edition. The computer I got shipped with a tuner card, media center edition and the ability to listen to FM. Obviously the FM is buffered, but for some odd reason you can't record off of it, MCE doesn't provide that capability. Now I'm sure there's other software that could do this that I could get, but I'm just saying: sign of things to come.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
RIAA Chairman Mitch Bainwol says it strikes "a balance that's good for the music, good for the fans, and good for business."
Curiously absent is "good for the artists and musicians we represent".
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
All your Bass are belong to us.
By the way, Sony is hardly learning "The Hard Way." The vast majority of users don't even know about the rootkit fiasco, and are buying Sony CDs left and right with no intention of stopping.
The root kit was a blip on Sony's screen, and as far as they;re concerned it's over. Sony doesn't care what a bunch of geeks like us think, just the masses who buy Pop Music CDs.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
and the bill says that all devices that come out after the bill is made into law cannot ignore the flag, and that the FCC will have the power to regulate, meaning anybody making software to ignore the flag will be breaking the law.
Yeah, good for the fans because it makes it so they can't do something that they've been able to do since the advent of personal recording equipment - record songs off the radio.
Yep, it's good for everyone all around isn't it?
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
Big deal. The bill has a total of one sponsor and hasn't even been referred to committee yet. Folks, any legislator can introduce a bill on anything. Most of them die in committee and never see the light of day. Get back to me if it makes it out of committee.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Necessary? I don't think it's necessary. It'll help, but at what cost to the consumer? And not the Slashdot freeloaders, the honest people who don't pirate anything. Actually, that would include most of Slashdot, none of us ever pirate, we just try before we buy. That's right, isn't it? I'm new here, I don't know the official way we dress up our excuses yet.
"With exciting new digital audio devices on the market today and more on the horizon, Congress needs to streamline the deployment of digital services and protect the intellectual property rights of creators," said Ferguson, who is a member of the House of Representatives' Internet subcommittee. Rep. Mary Bono, a California Republican, is one of the four other co-sponsors.
Well, she's absolutely right here on one count. Congress does need to protect the intellectual property rights of creators, because they are currently under massive assault in a legal system that is a decade behind the technology that it regulates. However, as a Republican, Ms. Bono ought to understand that regulating business is rarely the answer to these problems. Or, in this case, regulating consumers. Even worse. What happened to small government staying out of our lives, Ms. Bono? I'm among those that put the Republicans in power during the Clinton administration and you and your ilk have gradually betrayed our trust. Further, it is also the job of Congress to ensure that our rights as consumers are protected, and for all his enthusiasm, I don't think Darth Nader is up to the job. For one, he's not in the legislature. You are, Ms. Bono.
That's because a federal appeals court last year unceremoniously rejected a similar set of regulations from the FCC, saying the agency did not have authority to mandate a broadcast flag for digital video.
Further proof that over a long enough trajectory the legal system almost always gets it right.
At a breakfast roundtable with reporters on Thursday, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said some sort of legislation is necessary to prevent Americans from saving high-quality music from digital broadcasts, assembling a "personal music library" of their own, and redistributing "recorded songs over the Internet or on removable media."
We already have legislation that forbids this. They don't want legislation, they want mandated hardware controls to enforce it. I have no objections to streamlining the law to get it caught up with technology and limit the impact of piracy on the RIAA's bottom line. I do have a serious problem with legal mandates that enforce technological limits on legal behavior.
Devices like the Sirius S50, the RIAA worries, can record satellite radio broadcasts but aren't required to include digital rights management limitations.
Nor should they be. Sirius bought broadcast rights from ASCAP or whoever broadcast rights group does digital radio, just like everybody else does. The industry has its money from Sirius et al. The only barrier to mass copyright infringement is unreadable devices. As Roger Ebert pointed out long ago, anybody who is a hair above marginally technically competant can create high-quality reproductions of almost any playable media using cheap technology, and store the output in any formot. Onto p2p it goes. The broadcast flag is a big expensive pain in the ass that will not address the problem to their satisfaction, and they'll be back demanding MORE legislation in 5 years when their E/P ratio is too high. The broadcast flag is the first step on a long road of incremenetal freedom reduction that winds gradually out of sight into uncharted territory. Actually, it's not so uncharted. We know wha
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
What I want to see introduced is a 'Commercial' flag. This was my PVR could
more effectively autoskip commericials!
the best democracy that money can buy...
Remember, the alternative was not between a bill being introduced, or not introduced- it was between whether or not there would be a democratic debate on this at all. There is no use getting mad at the recording industry for wanting this. It is in its nature. You might as well get angry at the sun for setting at the end of each day. Congress is another matter entirely. But this is the way it is supposed to work. The RIAA represents American citizens that have a right to have their voices heard, the same as the rest of us do. The point is to not waste time ranting about the RIAA, which isn't productive (although boycotting their goods is productive), but rather to (politely) rant to your representatives in Congress how mad you will be at them if a law like this is passed. They care a lot more than the RIAA does if you, and people like you, are angry at them. The fact of the matter is that the RIAA is only entitled to as much of a "balance" as it has the congressional votes to support.
You have an attention span of more than 5 sec. You clearly are not the target fanbase he is talking about . If on the other hand, were you to have a attention span of less than 5 sec, then you would have realized that this indeed is beneficial to the fans, because.. Oh look there's a shinny penny.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
If it gives the FCC the power to regulate Satallite radio, would this also allow them to impose decency standards to satallite radio? Can we say goodbye Howard Stern.. and to half the buisness model of Sirius...
>Why is a broadcast flag bad? You don't OWN the material that's being beamed into your house, any more than you own a movie that you happened to go see in a theater.
Airwaves are a public resource. The public resource has been licensed by the FCC in different manners and monies gained in different amounts for different activities. Spectrum that is for a single private individual's use only is VERY expensive and is generally not receivable without special equipment. Spectrum that is for everyone and anyone is VERY cheap and is generally receivable with any equipment. [yes, this varies also by power and bandwidth]. But now people who have licensed spectrum for the use of anyone at all want to use their cheaply purchased public resource for their own special private commercial usage.
Think of it this way: In your local downtown there's probably a free water fountain. Now imagine if the local water bottling station managed to pass a law that said they could hook into that water fountain and use it to bottle their water. You, the public, get to pay for the water that they plan to sell back to you! And... now you don't even have the old water fountain to show for it! You've been ripped off.
You don't get it both ways. If you want to sell TV service then you get a special private spectrum (a section between 2 - 3 Ghz) and you pay a lot of money for that privilege (some local MMDS companies already do this). If you want to broadcast on the frequency commonly known as "channel 6" (ie: 82 - 88 Mhz), however, then you get a low price from the FCC, but you absolutely MUST allow anyone to do as they please with what they pick up (barring basic copyright laws that prevent you from copying your timeshift recordings for friends or rebroadcasting for public use).
Adding a broadcast flag would be no different from a HAM radio operator broadcasting encrypted TV and charging for it. Absolutely illegal right now, and even if it weren't, incredibly unethical.
But you don't have the right to tape them.
Who's a dolt? Fair use doctrine does indeed allow time shifting (recording for later playback). It was validated by SCOTUS in the early 80's Betamax case, and hasn't been overturned by any subsequent decisions. If you don't believe me, here's the EFF's take on it.
So I guess that makes you a dolt too, spouting off about that which you know so little. It's people like you who are willing to just take whatever bread crumbs they toss us that are allowing them to get away with crap like this in the first place. Get educated about your rights, or shut up.
Hey, how'd you know I was lookin' at you if you weren't lookin' at me?
Um you better go reread copyright law again. You have a legal right to copy all music you want from the radio or TV.
As long as it's for yourself and you don't distribute that material.
the broadcast flag prevents such things. hell they want to make tivo illegal unless it's sanctioned.
I will listen to music or watch TV the way I want to not how I am told to by others.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
You my dear poster are definitley a TROLL. RIAA employee?
The problem with the brodcast flag and other DRM (Digital Restictions Management) is that they WILL eventually be used to manipulate the media to ensure that the message is only what the powers that be want it to be whether it is in the music or the image.
You should try listening to XM before you bash it. The sound quality is definitely noticably better than on Sirius. It's rare that I have any complaints about the sound quality on XM, but Sirius really makes me cringe sometimes. The talk stations aren't great on either, but Sirius's talk stations are especially bad.
XM's web streaming, otoh, ugh, that's barely listenable at best. Haven't heard Sirius's yet so I can't compare that.
"CD Quality Sound" means nearly nothing these days, and it is totally relative. To me, "CD Quality Sound" means lossless stereo 44kHz, but "CD Quality Sound" to Microsoft is 64 kbit WMA.
Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. -Anonymous
The RIAA can't introduce bills, only our elected representatives can do that. The RIAA can give the congressmen money, and write legislation for them. But, it's the representative that must own up to this.
So, don't waste time moaning about the RIAA. This is their business, you should expect nothing less from them. They want to extract the most money possible from as many people as possible.
The people that need to be held responsible are:
Main Sponsor: Mike Ferguson (R) New Jersey
Co-Sponsor: Mary Bono (R) California
Those are the only two listed in the article, the other co-sponsors are not listed. But, in previous actions, it has been endorsed by:
Eliot Engel (D-NY)
Greg Walden (R-OR)
Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)
The TV version of the broadcast flag was quickly withdrawn after it was clear that American citizens were overwhelmingly against it. It's a bit surprising that these rep's are sticking their necks out on this issue.
We need to let them know this is a bad idea, and let their constituents know that their representatives are pushing this stuff despite their disapproval.
Looking at the FEC(Federal Election Commission) records the sponsor of this Bill, Mike Ferguson you will find the following additions to his Campaign Fund.
TIME WARNER POLITICAL ACTION CMTE 2/26/2004 $1000
TIME WARNER POLITICAL ACTION CMTE 6/24/2004 $2000
TIME WARNER POLITICAL ACTION CMTE 9/23/2004 $1000
Though a little peculiar Mike Ferguson gave $1000 back to Time Warner on 03/16/2005.
Top 40 hits.. somebody thinks it's good music.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I hope you'll not only share a link to where your music can be found but you'll keep your sensibilities about music and the RIAA when talking to radio stations. I work at a community radio station (WEFT 90.1 FM) which plays a great deal of music licensed by the RIAA. Hardly what I'd call alternative, but mine isn't the only opinion in the place.
Recently we had a light discussion about what it would take to do webstreaming. For those of you who don't know, the RIAA licenses tracks of their clients and the terms of the license are rather vague and somewhat hard to shift to if one is used to being able to broadcast almost anything.
WORT recently announced a new and improved webcast. Their announcement is interesting because it starts by lying claiming that they'll webcast "all of its programming!" (see page 13 of the PDF newsletter). When you read further you see that WORT plans to comply with RIAA licensing restrictions by not webcasting some of its programming (presumably either shows or tracks that can't be webcast at that moment). Like I said, it's not easy to webcast if you insist on doing what you can to avoid losing a copyright infringement lawsuit while playing RIAA-licensed stuff. If you've grown used to the over-the-air rules, which don't restrict you in the way RIAA's webcasting restrictions do, you've got a tough row to hoe. The RIAA's online restrictions say things such as you can't play the same featured artist more than 4 times in a 3-hour period, nor can you play more than 3 tracks from the same CD/tape/record in a 3-hour period.
I was curious how much adjustment WEFT would have to make to take on webcasting RIAA tracks. So I looked at some of WEFT's playlists and compared them to RIAA webcasting restrictions. Suffice to say, WEFTies don't yet realize how many shows they'll have to change. I forsee much unpleasant discussion about this topic as we wrestle with exchanging increased listenership for playlist freedom and the hassles that go along with assembling an RIAA-compliant playlist.
/.ers will read this and think that this is a natural application for a database. And if you're thinking this way, you're right but there's more to it than that. WEFT has roughly 40,000 CDs in its library and lots of CDs coming in every week. Finding the financing for the hardware to host the database on alone is a daunting task, finding the volunteer commitment needed to make the database workable for everyone (not just the techies) is another tall order. I'm up for it, but I know a lot more about writing software than I do about writing grant requests, and I estimate we'll need many thousands of dollars to do this in a way that won't fall over when the power dies or a couple of hard drives go bad.
Still other /.ers might think differently and conclude that we should just stop playing RIAA tracks, or WEFT should severly cut down on the RIAA tracks we play. Again, I'm up for that—I host a public-affairs program called "Digital Citizen" every other Wednesday from 8-10PM where I play only stuff my listeners can share. I focus on copyright law, patent law, and Free Software (as in the Free Software movement) issues. The only RIAA licensed tracks I play are fair-use snippets, so these webcasting rules don't apply to me. Other public-affairs shows (like News from Neptune) don't play RIAA tracks at all. The majority of shows on WEFT are music shows and it remains to be seen how receptive they will be to giving up 90% or more of what's in WEFT's library.
So now you're slightly more familiar with the restrictions from the radio end of things, even on community radio which is ostensibly more accessible to the public and less likely to play the mainstream RIAA-licensed stuff you can hear everywhere else.
Digital Citizen