Broadcast Flag Sneaking in the Back Door

ZeissIcon writes "Public Knowledge.org is reporting that the oft-defeated broadcast flag DRM scheme is being sneaked into Senator Steven's Telecommunications bill. Aside from the fact that it has no business being in that bill, and making no exceptions for fair use, this particular version calls for an Audio Broadcast Flag that would affect digital and satellite radio as well. The bill goes to committee on Thursday, so there is still time for public comment."

Comments

Sneaking?

[stratjakt]

If it was being snuck in how'd you all find out about it?

" I would like to add an amendment to the bill, 100 million dollars for the perverted arts. ..."

I say so what, let them pass it into law. Not letting people watch TV or listen to Radio can only server to raise the average national IQ. They should tack it into the next education bill, "No Child Left To Sit On His Behind"

I don't give a fuck anymore if I can or can't Tivo "CSI: Des Moines" in 1080p resolution.

But that's just one little bear's opinion.

Mod parent up!

[khasim]

As for legislation being introduced, the ruling party has no interest in introducing measures to curb it's own power, so I can't see how you'd get such a thing to pass.

So, Party A passes a law to curb this ... and abides by that law.

Eventually, Party B becomes the majority ... and they pass a law allowing it again.

So ... because Party A was "good", they don't get all the benefits (attaching riders to unrelated bills to make campaign contributors happy) but they do get all the responsiblity.

A two party system sucks. This will, eventually, always happen.

Re:Mod parent up!

[dgatwood]

Well, you need a supermajority, but not necessarily at the federal level. If you can get two thirds of the state legislatures to call for a constitutional convention, you can bring in an amendment in that way. This probably just requires a simple majority in at least 34 state houses. It would probably be a lot easier to conveince the state government to rein in the feds than to convince the feds to do it themselves....

Just because it hasn't ever been done doesn't mean it can't or won't be done if the federal government takes things too far....

Re:Worst Congress Ever

[tomhudson]

Reform the process:

1. Politicians salaries capped at the AVERAGE income of their consitituents. This way, its in their best interests to make sure that people have decent jobs, with decent incomes. Also, when a recession hits, they'll also feel some of the pain, instead of being insulated from it.
2. Spending of $0.50/voter maximum for any election.
3. No contributions from business.
4. Maximum contribution of $1k/year from any voter, to be split among ALL contributions they make to all politicians.
5. No more voter registration along party lines. Either you're elligible to vote, or not. Who you vote for, what party you want to be aligned with, etc., are all your own bloody business.
6. Designate certain bills as "government confidence" votes. If the bill (budgets are good for this) isn't passed, the government falls, and a new election is held.

Re:doesn't feel like it

[Karl J. Smith]

You may be kidding. I'm not. I've got lots of (legally purchased) games, movies, cds, etc. I looked at all the money I could be spending on a new HDTV, PS3, Blue-Ray, HD-DVD player, etc. They're all more hassle (due to DRM, crippled HDMI outputs, not-working-on-Linux, etc.) than fun for me at this point. After the Sony CD rootkit fiasco, I stopped buying Sony products. Even people I know with new Macs (that they like) are starting to complain that they're on machine #4 of 5 for their iTunes limit, and it seems like they didn't really buy any songs after all.

My solution: I bought a skin-on-aluminum frame folding kayak instead. Geek factor - high. DRM factor -low. No monthly upgrades to keep track of. I can do anything I want to modify it without any silly broadcast flags. All fun.

Congratulations media companies - you declared war on your paying customers and I surrendered. I won't buy your products any more, I'll do something else instead.

Already There?

[nurbles]

I regularly use XP/MCE to record StarGate and DrWho on SciFi channel with no problem. A few weeks ago, Media Center stopped recording the first half of the DrWho season finale about 30 minutes into the episode. XP/MCE logged a reason of:

Doctor Who was not recorded.
Recording of this content is prohibited by the content provider.

So far, that was the only episode this has happened with, but XP/MCE flatly refused to record the episode on any of its repeat airings, citing the same reason. Since then, XP/MCE has recorded the second half episode and some repeats without a problem. I'm wondering if this might've been a test of the infamous broadcast flag or if there's something worse afoot in the part of Microsoft that is beholden to the Hollywood Nazis.

Re:Obviously...

[trickonion]

Okay, here is something like this in action. I live in WA state, and I love to read constitutions (yes yes my state is the one that make online poker illegal, regardless).
Refer to our constitution here, specifically section 19
http://www.courts.wa.gov/education/constitution/in dex.cfm?fa=education_constitution.display&displayi d=Article-02

SECTION 19 BILL TO CONTAIN ONE SUBJECT. No bill shall embrace more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.

that's the good shit maynard, some congressman with some balls needs to make that Amendment 28 (after pinning some stupid shit to the proposed amendment, cause Washington appretiates irony)

Re:Bought and paid for

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

A line item veto doesn't give the President any more direct control over the contents of bills than a total veto does. Congress retains the power to legislate that line item in another bill. When invoked, the line item veto simply forces a majority in congress to explicitly validate what some legislator wanted to have quietly enacted on the merits of another issue.

By the same note, the way riders are currently used in practice essentially gives congress an end run around the Presidential veto, by holding important or popular legislation hostage to distasteful items that are completely unrelated to the main issue a bill addresses.

A fair compromise would be to limit the line item veto's power with a test of how integral the item is to the purpose of the bill. A President shouldn't use such power to redesign the main provisions of a bill, but given today's congress, I would take that defect over the current situation.