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FCC Commissioner Wants To Push For DRM
RareButSeriousSideEffects writes "Techdirt reports that 'Newest Commissioner Deborah Tate has apparently announced that while she knows its outside the FCC's authority, she's a huge fan of copy protection and hopes to use her new position as a "bully pulpit" on the topic.'"
Well, I guess it's her prerogative and privilege to use the bully pulpit to endorse, embrace, and encourage DRM, but it makes me nervous when the government and its actors role play about technology and how it should be meted out. Their original responsibility (at least the FCC's) is to fairly and equitably maintain the distribution of the commodity that is radio spectra.
It's troubling when someone with no apparent business background and understanding of technology to the depth necessary to grasp what DRM has done and will do gets a bully pulpit this high and this visible. I don't know one of the referenced articles is accurate in describing how Ms. Tate love for DRM really is a result of:
but, "love of country music" seems anemic justification and mostly a non sequitur in justifying something of magnitude DRM.Sometimes government just doesn't seem very representative any more, and sometimes it just doesn't seem just.
But it should be up to the companies themselves whether to use it or not. Having a government-defined standard is also a good idea and adds to the competitiveness of the DRM provider marketplace.
Shouldn't the FCC focus on bigger issues like boobs indiscriminately appearing on the Super Bowl. Or how about shock jocks saying naughty words on the radio. Geez, stay focused FCC!!
http://religiousfreaks.com/Deb can preach the myriad benefits of DRM from her 'bully pulpit' as much as she likes...the fact is that the FCC has no authority on this matter, so her preaching won't go beyond establishing her personal views on the issue. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals made the limits of the FCC on this issue quite clear when they struck down the Broadcast Flag (PDF warning).
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
How can you be a huge fan of DRM? I guess she's never bought a "CD*" only to find it wouldn't play on her CD player. * "Disc does not comply with CD specifications and may not play on some players due to DRM implementation" /actual text printed on Sony "music disc" I got as a gift. Was able to listen on the multi-format DVD player in my home entertainment system. Unfortunately I mostly listen to music at work, where I can't play this disc...
include $sig;
1;
I just sent an email to Commissioner Tate:
Dear Commissioner Tate,
I have read that you are in favor of DRM. I do not like having my freedom to tinker with technology and enjoy media I have purchased hampered by government intervention and paternalism.
Please let DRM succeed or die on its own merits -- on market forces alone.
From a concerned citizen who both authors and enjoys media.
I've just gotten a job with the Department of Motor Vehicles, and while I know it's normally outside the DMV's jurisdiction, I'm a big fan of the death penalty for grouse hunters, hockey players, and Girl Scouts, and will use all my resources my new job to bully others into furthering my agenda.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
It's an interesting exercise in encryption, for one. For another, it allows media outlets to protect their content as they see fit. If they don't want you to be watching something more than once, that's up to them. It allows the consumer to differentiate between media outlets that are consumer-friendly and consumer-hostile.
And finally, having the freedom to make bad decisions is a very fundamental freedom.
DRM doesn't prevent piracy. It just takes our rights.
Which is easier:
A) Buying a copy of a song on iTunes with a mediocre bitrate, many limits, and incompatible with most players, or
B) Downloading a copy in an extremely high bitrate, in a format that many players use?
DRM drives people to piracy, it doesn't prevent it. Songs I buy in iTunes can't be played, for example, when I plug my iPod in my Xbox 360. MP3s can. Burning it to CD and ripping is lossy, and the bitrate is so-so. If I buy the song, shouldn't I be entitled to a copy I can play on many devices?
People download MP3's because their versatile, not free.
This is a link to a story on a blog that consists of a link to a story on another blog that doesn't cite any sources. This is an interesting way to create a news story, but I can't figure out how to tag it. "metablogging" came to mind, but that doesn't really seem to sum it up very well. Can anybody think of something better?
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
That's completely different from federally-mandated DRM, which gives us no choice in what we buy, and forces upon us the business whims of the content cartels. That is not a characteristic of a free market, nor of a liberal democracy. I understand the need of the business to protect itself from people whose illegal activities threaten their botton line. I seriously do completely understand that. But I do not think that enacting federal laws that impact all customers negatively in the effort to mitigate the behavior of a minority of customers is asinine.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
Publicly admitting an intention to abuse a relatively high-ranking public position to further a personal agenda should be ground for dismissal.
Imagine if the head of the Electoral Commission announced that he "was a fan" of a particular political movement, and was going to try to use his "bully pulpit" to promote it. That would be utterly intolerable.
I think that, although less serious, this is an equivalent situation - a public official announcing an intention to promote a corporate movement, possibly even hinting at using her department's sway with private companies to further her agenda. Even if it was something less controversial than DRM, it would still be completely out of order.
The FCC periodically appears to do bad things. The best solution I've found is to write Congress and protest the FCC's BUDGET. Congress won't address individual issues, or FCC decisions. However, Congress controls the FCC budget. I and others have made complaints to Congress, in that the FCC has too large a budget, as their people have time/resources to do bad things, and a LARGE budget reduction is in order. Furthermore, the monies from the reduction can be redirected elsewhere. Congress has been previously persuaded by this type or argument. Therefore, if Ms. Tate is so over-paid and under-worked that she can be on a "Bully Pulpit" for DRM, then the FCC's budget is in serious need of reduction! I know, that Congress little regards it's constituants, but, constituant supported reasons to reduce agency budgets and use the money else where appears to resonate.
The FCC actually runs itself more like a private corporation than a government entity; or rather, it has some of the worst of both worlds, it seems to be almost entirely profit-driven, but retains all the inefficiencies and bureaucratia common to a large and basically unaccountable government operation.
If you look at the proposals and rulemaking that they spend the most time on, it's perfectly clear that they spend their time on whatever is going to get them the most revenue. When it comes to auctioning off some radio spectrum to the highest bidder, I'll bet the Commissioner has a red phone on her nightstand just to clear up any 11th hour problems as they're pushing things through. But try to get something relatively simple done (like the relatively uncontroversial changes to Amateur Radio) and you'd better be teaching your kids about it, because you may not live that long.
Somewhere, something went very wrong inside that organization, their mission changed from being the electronic and radio equivalent of the Parks Service, to a division of Internal Revenue.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Right. Because the market has never had a bad idea forced on it by legislation. Did the "market" decide that it wanted the DMCA?
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Uh... huh? How has technology replaced, say, monitoring content on public broadcasts?(1) How has technology eliminated the need to regulate the radio spectrum so devices dont stomp all over each other? How has technology ensured that every manufacturer will somehow produce devices which accept interference?
There is no need to monitor content on public broadcasts -- the government is not a parent. Let the parents return to monitoring their children. That's the reason for a parent to stay home and parent rather than both working to overspend and live beyond their means. When government parents, I have to pay even though I have no kids. No thanks.
As for interference, we have coding hopping software radios that can pick the right spectrum. It is financially impossible to shred the entire spectrum with one antenna -- the costs to transmit are huge (power, antenna, labor, etc). If you sent random bursts across various specturms, software radios that freqhop can adjust and get around it -- you'll MAYBE intrude on 1% of the spectrum at a given time, and they'll just retransmit on a freq that you won't know until its too late.
If you don't regulate the spectrum, there will be nothing stopping someone using the same frequencies as air traffic controllers. Disbanding the FCC has got to be one of the most idiotic ideas I've ever read on slashdot. Restructure it, sure. Fire everyone working there, fine. Try to remove the corruption, absolutely. But to suggest we don't need any regulation of the radio spectrum is absolutely ludicrous.
The FAA already has ways around the interference that is already generated in their spectrum. If you study the systems they use, they already have enough processes in place to punch through the "problems." With software-freq-hopping, it won't be a concern. In fact, I've been on two airplanes already that allow WiFi and have Internet access and they're great -- my bandwidth was excellent. This wasn't due to FCC regulation, this was due to the free market providing what we want.
The idea that someone would spend trillions a year to block transmissions is a straw-man style argument. We only THINK we need the FCC, but look at Somalia, a country without a government, and they have a ton of communications infrastructure -- cell phone companies running in anarchy, satellite comm, satellite broadcasts, digital radio. They have ZERO regulation in their broadcasts and it works very well. They don't even have publicly regulated power distribution, so the telcom companies put generators on every tower, and they're working just fine. Somailia has a ton of other problems, but they're growing in leaps and bounds without a problem, considering they've been in a government-induced civil war for decades.
I think she should be kept in office precisely for her ill-advised comment. Anyone who makes such an assertion is better than their replacement-- who will likely have the same opinion but not be foolish as to state it. Heck, she just gave opponents of DRM ammunition to lobby against any bullying she does, and she's forewarned them of her agenda.
When in doubt, keep the noisy idiot over the cunning schemer.
A.
analog TV, radio, HAM, CB, and other ancient/antiquated technologies
You have no idea how much the airwaves actually are used by mission critical systems, do you? Wireless is the future, not the past. Analog TV is still in full force in many areas where cable still isn't available (including my childhood home). HAM and CB are far from antiquated and are still used in full force. I'm sorry if you don't use them. HAM's pay for licenses which goes to the FCC and CB's are low power transmitters operating on a very small frequency range.
The point is there needs to be designated ranges, otherwise you will have Joe Ham who will stick his 1KW transmitter too close to the operating range of something important - say the transponder of a cell tower (900 MHz) and disrupt cell service. For example. There needs to be regulated bandwidths.
You have it all wrong anyways - they are actually generating money for the government. About 1 penny of your taxes goes to fund them, but then they turn around and generate multi-billion dollars of revenue. reference. Their budget for 2006 is $304M, all but $4.8M comes from regulatory fees. And they generate $26.8B for uncle Sam through auctioning off freed up frequencies.
I agree with some of what you say, the FCC has certainly exceeded its purpose and mission, and I think a radical cutting-back (along with a complete decapitation and replacement of its leadership) is necessary. However I think you're mistaken to think that we have enough technology to completely replace any form of spectrum management.
I mean, it's going to suck pretty bad for you, if I go and decide it would be cool to set up a 25KW spark-gap transmitter in my garage; that's a transmitter that emits on all EM frequencies simultaneously, limited only by the characteristics of the antenna I use. Using a good high-gain antenna pointed at your house, I don't care what kind of spread spectrum, frequency-hopping systems your cellphone tries to use, it's not going to work when there's enough EMF flying around to make your toaster run without being plugged in. That's pretty much the situation you'd have without some form of coordination; it's the communications equivalent of getting rid of traffic laws because you don't like waiting at lights.
And you could forget about radio telescopes--right now we have mandated "holes" in the spectrum for research use, so that the full gain of a receiver can be used to focus on far-away sources; without interference regulation, you'd raise the noise floor by so much that (given that your receiver can only discriminate between so much signal and noise) you're going to lose a great deal of signal.
The original purpose of the FCC--to coordinate spectrum allocation to maximize public utility--is still a valid one. In fact, I think it's more valid today, with more uses for the spectrum, than ever. Though they're worse than useless in their current state, on their knees with the collective cock of industry in their mouths, that doesn't mean they have to be.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The protection of DRM by the goverment (From FCC regulation or DMCA type laws) is at odds with Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution.
This clause lets the government assign exclusive rights of a work for a limited amount of time (to encourage science and art).
Currently, No DRM has an expiration or time limits of any kind, so by protecting or mandating DRM, the government is in effect allowing exclusive rights of a work and unlimited amount of time ( with no regard to the effect of this on art and science ).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
And nothing else is done. Get that righteous indignation off your chest and go about your business.
Meanwhile, in the corridors of power, the party line remains intact. "Corporations know what is best for the consumer. It's in their best interest." And the other party line, "Anyone against DRM only wants to steal copyrighted material."
And what exactly are *you* doing to change that opinion? Nothing.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html