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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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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