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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.
"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.
...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
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
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!
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".
Its about time to put Fair Use into law I think, now if only I could find legislators I trust to do that well...
You totally misspelled "buy" there, Axe. You wrote it so that it looks alot like "find".