Amendment To Kill Broadcast and Audio Flags

Bruce Perens writes "Senator John Sununu is proposing an amendment, H.R.5252, to strike both the broadcast flag and the radio flag from this year's U.S. telecommunications bill.

If the amendment does not pass, we will be faced with mandatory DRM in video and audio devices, and with a prohibition on the use of Open Source software for such devices (because it can be modified to remove DRM). Time is short, the committee markup of the telecommunication bill is proceeding now in Washington and it's important to show your Congressperson that there is constituent support to remove the broadcast and audio flags. Please see the alert and please use the information there to call your Congressperson today."

Comments

In a capitalistic soceity

[agent dero]

I really hope there's somebody with a lot of money that can buy this bill through.

The broadcast flag has zero use to the average american, and is nothing but a means of control as to what can be done with broadcast signals in favour of the media corporations. We've acheived a Marxian nightmare, a truly capitalistic soceity ;) Our politicians aren't even hiding this anymore, they're in the pockets of corporations, and that's that, get bent, if you don't consume you're obviously a terrorist, or a left-wing nutjob.

To quote Lewis Black, "politicians and corporations have been in bed together our whole lives, they've just stopped hiding it."

Bah, I think I woke up on the wrong side of this democracy. >={

What can us non-americans do?

[earthforce_1]

I have already spoken with two members of Parliament and raised this issue with people I work with. But I feel helpless to stop the numbnuts running the show south of the border, and once it passes there, the rest of the world will be pressured to "harmonize" or we will be stuck with US-legal crippled consumer electronics in our stores.

Beat this

[2.7182]

SATOR
AREPO
SATOR
AREPO
TENET
OPERA
ROTAS

Under palindromes the Encyclopedia Brittanica has the following to say about the above:

This Latin palindromic square found on a Roman wall in Cirencester Eng., and in Pompeii may be translated: "Arepo the sower holds the wheels with care." As late as the 19th century it was graven on amulets and charms and laid upon pregnant women to ensure safe delivery. Like the sign of the fish (an acrostic: Greek ichthys,"fish," happens to have the first letters of the Greek words for Jesus Christ, God's son, Saviour), the square may have been used to identify fellow Christians in the days of persecution.

who votes for this guy?

[thatshortkid]

seriously, are there any alaskans in the house? is ted steven's blatant chasing of pork the only thing that keeps him in the senate? how the fuck do you guys keep voting for him? the dude has been in office since '68!

i hope when he's up again in 2010, alaska has the good sense to send the drama queen packing. (hulk ties so you know he means business? come on....).

Why not use their own weapon?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just let the broadcast flag be mandatory, and then say in the court that even binary code is not a sufficiently tamper-resistant way to implement DRM (see the "Copy protection" section on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_Audio for the past history) and thus should not be allowed. This will surely kill the entire DRM industry, because they will be left with no tools to implement their wishes legally.

A question from a non-US citizen

[Cicero382]

Does anyone know how this might affect people in the rest of the world?

Just point me (us) in the direction of an information source.

I have to say that I have worked in the US*; I *like* the USA and its people, and it saddens me to see even your basic freedoms being eroded. In the theatre of human affairs, this is trivial, I suppose. But still.

*In the 1980's when you were still free - and more free than anyone in Europe. (No, I'm not trolling, I really feel that)