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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."
send rational letters and email to your reps; not that they will listen, but so they know folks are paying attention. -dB
"It if was easy to do, we'd find someone cheaper than you to do it."
Every time this legislation comes up it gets thrown out. Why doesn't the MPAA embrace technology rather than buying off Congressmen and sneaking this line item into every damn piece of proposed legislation?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Bill Would Outlaw Digital Receiver Recorders
Is there anything Bill wouldn't either outlaw or make compulsory? I'm getting really sick of that guy.
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?
The Fellas At The Freakin' FCC Song
Peter: They will clean up all your talking in a matter such as this
Brian: They will make you take a tinkle when you want to take a p*ss
Stewie: And they'll make you call fellatio a trouser-friendly kiss
Peter, Brian, & Stewie: It's the plain situation!
There's no negiotiation!
Peter: With the fellows at the freakin FCC!
Brian: They're as stuffy as the stuffiest of the special interest groups...
Peter: Make a joke about your bowels and they order in the troops
Stewie: Any baby with a brain could tell them everybody poops!
Peter, Brian, & Stewie: Take a tip, take a lesson!
You'll never win by messin'
Peter: With the fellas at the freakin' FCC
And if you find yourself with some you sexy thing
You're gonna have to do her with your ding-a-ling
Cause you can't say penis!
So they sent this little warning they're prepared to do the worst
Brian: And they stuck it in your mailbox hoping you could be co-erced
Stewie: I can think of quite another place they should have stuck it first!
Peter, Brian, & Stewie: They may just be neurotic
Or possible psychotic
They're the fellas at the freakin FCC!
Developers: We can use your help.
Vote in a Democratic Congress this fall.
The President will veto anything they put together and they'll refuse to pass anything the president tries to put through.
With luck, we won't have any more new laws until 2008.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
My question to you would be: why would the MPAA embrace technology, when instead they can just buy off Congressmen and sneak this line item into every damn piece of proposed legislation?
Sure, it hasn't passed so far. All they have to do is keep trying.
Holy Crap! They actualy agree that I should be able to share recorded TV shows over my home networks? That has got to be the most reasonable thing I've seen from the gov't in AGES. It's got to be a mistake on their part right?
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
Anyone who voted Republicrat or Democan, shut up and go sit on the sidelines.
You've already demonstrated that you want an intrusive, activist government, you have no room to complain now. You ASKED FOR THIS.
If you don't want this, vote straight Libertarian this election and every election thereafter.
______________________________________
A vote against a Libertarian candidate is
a vote to abolish the Constitution itself.
When some clever corporation figures out a way to turn a profit by sticking babies on pikes, a pliant US Congress stands ready to make it legal -- and to keep private citizens from doing it themselves.
All the actual baby piking will be done overseas by non-union workers, of course.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
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 : )
What would happen if Congress tried to pass some Net Neutrality Law? Since there isn't any kind of ACTUAL problem now, I'm sure the bill would undoubtedly screw stuff up through the law of unintended consequences.
Congress would insert all kinds of special provisions that would benefit some group at the expense of others, all kinds of new technology would become illegal, and lawsuits would proliferate. Who knows what would happen, the point is that when congress acts on technology (eg. the DMCA) they are likely to create a huge mess and things better be PRETTY DAMN bad before Congress can do more good than harm.
Thinking about voting Libertarian? Check out Critiques of Libertarianism before you drink the cool-aide
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Bruce Perens warned us all this would happen 6 years ago in his "Napster Hurts Free Software" essay.
I don't mean to troll, but it seems to me that if the MPAA and RIAA had their way, we wouldn't listen to music or watch tv at all. At least not in the manner to which we've become accustomed.
Why would I bother buying an expensive recorder if it couldn't record all of the content I might like to record? Why would I watch tv or listen to the radio if I couldn't later share the experience with friends and family?
And I'm less likely to watch tv in the first place if I can't share a funny clip with friends later. Take the Simpsons, for example. Often times I'll want to replay a clip of Homer doing something stupid for a friend. But if the MPAA has their way, I wouldn't be able to do this.
Or take talk radio. My wife and I were riding along listening to talk radio when a traffic situation caused her to focus on the road. So naturally, she's lost a little bit of context and remarked that she'd like to rewind the radio to catch what she missed. Of course, you can't do this now with a car stereo, nor will you ever if the RIAA has their way.
I've noticed that my media consumption habits have changed. It used to be that I would buy several CD's a year; I don't think I've bought one in the last two years. Yes, I suppose I could easily bypass the copy protection, but why bother. If the record label is such a jerk that they attempt to keep control of what I now rightfully own, then they can keep their shiny plastic and I'll keep my money. No sense in encouraging scumbags anyway.
And why would I bother paying Hollywood for movies that I won't be able to enjoy in the future? My uncle has a few thousand decaying VHS tapes which he won't be able to play 10 years from now. And of course, with the DRM on DVDs and thanks to the DMCA, when DVDs are obsolete, you will lose your investment. At least my uncle could copy VHS to DVD. But how long would that last when the next generation players enforce DRM?
So I've kind of given up on Hollywood and Big Music. It seems that they've become to wrapped up in their own hubris to realize that crippling content doesn't add to the value of the product. And yet, their stockholders continue to buy the old mantra, "Piracy is killing our business..." It's not piracy - it's lack of value. Why would a consumer buy something they legally can't own? The **AAs haven't figured out the American vision of entertainment is much different from their own. Americans:
By contrast, the RIAA and MPAA envision this model of consumer enjoyment:
So, even those of us who would be otherwise honest must face a decision:
So, is tv relevant anymore? Not when I can't enjoy it. Same for music and video - I'm enjoying public domain works now and independent stuff that I glean from the Net. Yes, I can afford to pay for my content, but why would I pay if I can't own it anyway?
The RIAA/MPAA can't seem to understand that individual ownership and the rights that come with it are a fundamental part of selling content. If you don't want to give up control, don't sell the content.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
so, even though people have been recording things on audio cassettes for decades, now that people are doing it digitally in smaller numbers (it takes some technical knowhow), all of a sudden they want to outlaw the recorders?
I think that copy protection schemes are overwhelmingly proving the idea of self-fulfilling prophecies by pushing more people into illegality. It seems like a great premise of the whole freedom thing is trusting people to do what's right in a situation, and not forcing them to do what is right by removing access to legitimate resources. Just my two cents.
Vote in a Democratic Congress this fall.
You mean the same ones who tried to blokc a bill recently because it did not grant the FCC enough power to regulate telecom net neutrality issues? The same FCC that wants the broadcast flag (as evidenced by this bill).
The FCC should not have any more power, period. Vote for Senators who do not want to give the FCC power, REGARDLESS of what party they hail from.
Vote based on the individual, not the party.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think you missed the benefits of 'preferential voting'. Essentially it means:
'I'll vote for this guy, but if he doesn't get in then
I'll vote for her, but if she doesn't get in then
I'll vote for them.. etc'
To use an example from the previous US election, one could vote for (say) Ralph Nader, but preference John Kerry. (Yeah, yeah, so I'm left-of-centre). With preferential voting, you're not wasting your vote, even though Nader will probably not get in. Rather, you're sending Kerry a message that you don't really approve of his policies, but just prefer him to the Other Guy. The crux is, that your vote still goes to Kerry.
Another benefit, is that minor parties can allocate their own preferences. So one could just vote for (say) Nader, and he could negotiate his preferences with the major parties. This would give him leverage in the policy development of the major parties in the lead-up to the election. It also makes people more inclined to vote for minor parties, because they know it's not a 'wasted vote'.
That's the system we have in Australia, and I think it works really well. I think it's absolutely essential if we're to encourage multiple parties (even if they're minor parties).