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Bill Would Outlaw Digital Receiver Recorders
mjdroner writes "ZD-Net has the latest on a sweeping telecom bill in the Senate. The bill provides no support for net neutrality. The bill does, however, include a provision to authorize the FCC to outlaw digital receivers that record broadcasts. The article states that those receivers would be replaced with devices that treat anything with an audio broadcast flag as copy-protected."
So the FCC is going to replace my mythtv box with a new system? Are they planning to do this just after they confiscate all the firearms from the public?
"These measures will help assure that the information superhighway does not turn into a red light district," Exon said at the time. "It will help protect children from being exposed to obscene, lewd, or indecent messages."
Yeah, that worked out so well.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
You know, I'm starting to think that broadcast television, motion pictures and recorded music might not be worth all this trouble.
Perhaps it's time to start enjoying live plays and musical performances again. Seriously, my digital entertainment is video games and documentaries. I am starting to think the unthinkable: maybe I can live without TV and Movies.
People will continue to create entertainment and education for download right? Oh, right...Unless network neutrality is abolished and my provider decides that I can't access this freely created content.
I wonder, is it time that I start figuring out how to set up a HAM-based Internet connection?
Would that be like, "a computer"?
Newsflash: There's no hardware unique to a TiVo.
They'd have to outlaw PC's for this bill to work.
Let them try. It will be a death sentence for every commercially manufactured, dedicated PVR. And the birth of some truly wonderful opensource software.
Sounds good to me.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Does anyone have suggestions of a device that will do this before the law is passed?
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Bite Me Fanboy!!
good question. Seems the MPAA is a bunch of money-hungry scum-sucking lawyers and I doubt any one of them in the corporate office was ever a professional musician. Otherwise they might consider doing something like actually representing the interests of musicians and, oh, maybe paying them for their work instead of paying a heard lawyers to sue people.
Last I checked, corporate lawyers are bottom-feeders known for filing lawsuits especially against those who beat their respective organization to the latest and greatest innovation (esp. anyone who has RIM envy). Lawyers are great at bend....er....presenting facts for the sake of truth*, not innovating new ideas to capture the minds and hearts of consumers. And I'm wondering what the ratio of legal staff to represented artists is in the MPAA in the 80's vs today.
(*truth as it relates to their client's best interests)
final word about innovation as it relates to the MPAA: For the love of pete, every artist they promote sounds the freaking same. They can't even be innovative and promote original-sounding music. What makes you think they can positively embrace new forms of distribution and advertising? (jesus, what happened to MTV?!)
If anyone out there is a corporate lawyer and is offended by the above statements, then good. And I'm also kind of surprised you read comments on slashdot. And assuming you are still a corporate lawyer by the end of this sentence, suck my left nut and get a profession that will benefit humanity for crying out loud.
Bruce Perens warned us all this would happen 6 years ago in his "Napster Hurts Free Software" essay.
You know...I don't think that will work either. Best solution, is to wipe the slate clean with both houses and executive branch...no one in office can be re-elected....start from scratch.
Not only would it get rid of the status quo of corruption and non-representation of the people, but, alternate competing parties would stand a chance.
Of course as long as we are making 'wishes'....I'd like to have a pony.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
As someone who doesn't illegally steal material, I'm starting to find all this DRM stuff annoying.
For example: I bought the latest Nine Inch Nails album With Teeth, only to discover that you can only play it on a PC through a proprietary software player (assuming your OS can run it, of course). That player sucks, and does annoying things like messing up my computer's volume levels. I haven't tried personally, but I'm reliably informed that it won't work in some car CD players as well.
The point here is that what I bought was marketed as a CD. It was right there on the shelf in the CD section, next to other CDs, with nothing obviously saying that it wasn't. To be fair, there might have been a note about whether or not you could play it on PCs visible in the small print– I can't remember and don't have it with me to check. But who reads all the small print when buying a CD?
Now, the word "Compact disc" is a trademark of Philips (as indicated by the funny symbol), as is the "CD" logo you see on all the cases. Philips officially denies permission to use that mark to companies using technology that prevents playing the disc properly on standard equipment. Therefore, anyone marketing the material in the manner that I saw it (be it a record shop, the music publishers, or wherever) is infringing on Philips' rights, and deserves to be sued to high heaven for it.
It's a shame Philips doesn't go after this more aggressively, because preventing this kind of bastardization of a mark is exactly what trademark law was made for. I'd imagine that if all record shops were suddenly required to separate out normal and copy-protected CDs in an obvious way, sales of the latter would probably drop ASAFP, and the problem would disappear just as fast. I can only assume that since everyone's doing it, they want a clear test case in their favor first to make it quick, easy, and most of all cheap to follow up with others. Maybe they're looking for such a test case and just waiting to make their move. Maybe they just don't care, but as one of the world's biggest manufacturers of CD/DVD burners, that seems unlikely.
Anyway, the gist of this comment is that I really haven't bought a new CD since that album. I was always selective, but I did buy a few every few months or so until that point. They've really have lost a genuine, paying customer. I don't find the loss has ruined my life; I listen to the radio if I want to hear some new music, and occasionally use a legal download service if I really like a track I've heard. Now I'm a living own-goal for the media industry's DRM technology. Anyone else?
that money can buy in the United States. Seriously, look no further than the DMCA, a piece of legislation introduced by the long brain dead Orrin Hatch that is so vaguely written that anything is illegal if a corporation doesn't like it.
How does this happen? Why with money of course!
It's proof positive that EVERY law written in this country needs to have a sunset date of one or two years when it's reconsidered for renewal.
What I would suggest is for you to find ways to use these laws for your benefit. It's not just for corporations.
Here's an example, it's illegal for travel agents to get together and collude, it's against the Sherman Anti-Trust act. They should be able to band together and do whatever the hell they want. I started a travel agents mailing list that after a year had been infiltrated by members of the airline industry. The solution? Start a new one, this time started with a core group of trusted people and any new agents would have to be recommended by a current member and seconded by another. Next, protect the list under provisions of the DMCA, so if a travel vendor happened to get their hands on a transmission, they would be in violation because of the DMCA.
Here's the payoff: Delta gives 10% off their fares to a particular mega agency in Chicago and American gives 10% off their fares to another large regional agency in Atlanta (one of several ticketing deals that agencies have around the country). This wonderful set up allows the agency in Chicago and Atlanta to talk and they ticket each other's discounts helping each other to not only give cheaper deals but to meet their requirements for a nice big fat override check from the airline every year.
Is this fair? No, but then again paying travel agents no comission isn't either. You CAN make a difference folks, stop bitching and be creative. These laws are written for you, bit e back.
Great solution, but with all due thanks to Bush we're going to have a completely Democratic President and Congress pretty soon. And the march of inane laws will continue...
Not only do they stop "piracy" but they keep the means for making digital media from becoming too cheap. The reason is this, in practical terms the corporation will cease to manufacture digital recorders (or operating systems?) for "consumers" and will enable these features on on multi-thousand dollar "professional" level equipment. After all we can't let the rabble have an independent media and report things the corporations don't want us to know right? Fortunately I can always keep Tiger on my OS X G5 box, or put Linux on a generic box, but watch "consumer" level (cheap) digital recorders and OSs (end to end encryption ring a bell) fade out not, for technical reasons but so the corporations can gain ever more control on what content is made and how it's distributed.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
I don't think you understand proportional representation. PR has nothing to do with equalizing demographic segments; rather, proportional representation ensures that within a certain state, if 40% of people vote for one party, 40% of the members from that party will be elected... it means that gerrymandering within a first past the post electoral system would effectively be over.
n tation
I think you should read up a little bit more. This is a good primer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_represe
Of course, with only two political parties and a political system that forces voters to register as members of either, it is less effective. How to fix that? Bring back civics classes and engage the public. How to do that in the US? Don't ask me. I think you guys are fscked.
Urban Detail
The problem is that there are more than two issues. So in voting for any candidate, you are forced to prioritize the issues,
Simplufied explained:
Your parents tell you to choose.
1) A cat or a dog.
2) Linux or Windows
What you would like is a Linux and a dog. However, you must choose A) cat and Linux or B) dog and Windows.
Imagine that you think having Linux is more important, you suddenly are stuck with a cat.
Not only that, it will be explained that you do not like dogs, because othersie you would have choosen the dog.
So a dual-party system is very two-dimentional. Acctually more of a line. Adding more parties makes the choice more intersting. With 4 parties you could actualy get what you want. A dog and Linux or a cat and windows.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Much of the good recorded music (most pop pre 1980) was recorded by people who were playing live 6 nights a week. Since midi and protools pop music has been made by programmers - we literally have machines that do that now. I like modern sound sculpture music, but the lack of live music means the dying off of a skill set. Without hours on the bandstand, there is no Louis Armstrong, Bird, Motown, Beatles.
"Unplug the jukebox, do us all a favor
That music's lost its taste
Try another flavor
Live music"
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
Maybe I'll move to sweden, i heard they have sane copyright laws there (from thepiratebay.org, though. Don't know if I can trust those guys.)