Slashdot Mirror
Mandatory DRM for Podcasts Proposed
Knytefall writes "Joe Biden, Dianne Feinstein, and two GOP senators are sponsoring a bill called the PERFORM Act that would require podcasts with music and satellite radio to be locked-up with music industry-approved DRM software. From the article: 'All audio services — Webcasters included — would be obligated to implement "reasonably available and economically reasonable" copy-protection technology aimed at preventing "music theft" and restricting automatic recording.'"
I have not read the act itself but the TFA (and summary) is worded in such a way that implies that it applies across the board regardless; whether the content is free or not. What about all those podcasts with 100% legal content? Music from the podsafe music network or other Creative Commons licensed work for instance?
Implement a DRM system but do not force us to use it. I would much prefer the RIAA simply not license content to DRM free broadcasts and sue those who don't have a license.
Requiring DRM by law for all statutory licensed work is massive overkill.
Let's just stick to streaming audio, or even downloadable mp3s. You don't have to "podcast" to be heard. There are other alternatives.
Don't they have something better to do? How about funding our troops? Working out a resolution with Iran? etc etc.
Damn. Feinstein needs to be doing stuff for me, a Californian. I want her to get us off of using Oil, not worrying about Podcasts.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
The availability of entertainment and the distraction it is to persons who might otherwise be motivated to do something more productive than consuming entertainment is what keeps the majority of Americans disinterested in the political process.
It makes me wonder if these senators know they are poking a sleeping beast with a stick. If I were a senator who preferred constituents who didn't care, I would be wont to introduce such legislation that may them from their distractions.
People who voted for democrats thinking liberty would be restored should take notice. Only Libertarians truly stand for constitutionally protected freedoms!
My blog
If it's not your music, why do you care?
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
The bill is meant to secure music libraries and broadcasts, but there's nothing there about exclusions for educational (non-music) streams and podcasts like JapanesePod101.com. They also go on to say this:
Ok then, what the hell is DRM if it's not inhibiting the consumers' recording habits??
DRM doesn't work. I would ask, "when will they get it?", but it's pretty clear that they do "get it". Look at the recent crack of HD-DVD protection. That's the best they have, and it's already cracked. They know full well any DRM they put out there is not a deterrent against piracy, which means their goal with DRM is clearly to control legal activity.
When it comes down to it, DRM is not intended to control piracy. It's intended to maintain **AA stranglehold over the market, to be used as a cudgel against hardware manufacturers, and to be used as a way to extract money, justified or otherwise, from the content-buying public.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
wow, what a bold, scary strategy considering that about 99% of streaming internet radio for example is captured in almost full quality internally on the sound card by changing the recording device to stereo mixer (or WAV on older ones I think) and pressing record. DRM won't change that because it would still be getting it from the sound card's final output. Who the heck tries to steal the audio data out of the place its cached or something like that that DRM could actually protect. That's why intel motherboard manufactureres agreed to disable the stereo mixer to work as a recording device on most recent motherboard after they found out a ton of people were stealing music that way. Of course, they have to then cross their fingers and hope people don't hook the digital out to the digital in port, which loses almost no quality and record it that way
And all this useless protection is on top of the fact that most podcasts and other streaming audio is really low quality, and thus undesireable for most ppl that download it to steal it. Well at least they're wasting their time and money doing stupid stuff like this and not something really restrictive and effective.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
you idiot. there are two wars in the middle east, and your voting decision is based on your right to copy songs off the radio.
grow up.
they dont want webcasters, citizen journalists to broadcast the shit politicans and their big-money backers pull around. so that it can be good old 1950s again
Read radical news here
I used the form interface on Senator Feinstein's website to post the following letter to her concerning PERFORM:
Senator Feinstein,
I continue to oppose your misguided attempts to impose draconian digital rights management on consumer electronics.
The so-called PERFORM act will put the government in the business of mandating technology, and instituting what amounts to price controls on media distribution, and will prevent important technological and social innovation that increases the agency of the mass public, and will instead further entrench dangerous media consolidation in our republic.
The so-called rights of big media are a creation of 20th century technology, and did not exist before centralized mass production instrumentalities utilizing expensive technologies out of the reach of the people were invented by technologists such as Thomas Edison and Philo Farnsworth. Newer technologies now are changing the means of production and distribution, and make these "rights" as appropriate as the "rights" of 18th century Russian noblemen to own their landed serfs. Importantly, the new technologies of the PC and the Web are cheap, fast, and decentralized, and allow the people to re-assert democracy rather than passively consume the "Spectacle" offered by Fox and other media conglomerates.
The copyright and patent clause in the Constitution has been warped out of recognition by Congress passing such laws as the Sonny Bono act of 1998 in response to the corrupting influence of campaign financing on the part of members of the RIAA and MPAA. Current law bears no resemblance to the intent and practice of the founders. Your quotes of the Constitution in response to my previous two letters to you on this subject are dissembling, at best.
Although I am a "liberal", I will vote for an opponent of yours who opposes DRM in the next election.
Please change your position, so that I may support you in the future.
Robert Tow
Because you expect it from the Republicans.
Yo dawg, I heard you like the Ackermann function, so OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD
Joe Biden? The senator from MBNA? The lowlife scumbag who pushed through the "bankruptcy reform act" and fought to prevent caps on the interest card companies could charge? The guy who's never met a bank or payday lender he didn't want to help to screw the consumer? You were going to vote for that turd?
Sent from the iPad I found in your car.
At least, nobody I know. I voted Democratic to have Congress run in opposition to the President.
The machine works best at a standstill, IMHO.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Why must the entire nation implement DRM, anyway? If the RIAA members don't want their stuff broadcast for fear of piracy, why don't they simply withdraw it and not allow it to be broadcast? Anything you publish is out there for pirates. This makes absolutely no sense. If piracy is a problem, the members of the RIAA should simply not put it on the airwaves. It's their content. Why should every free broadcaster have to deal with a layer of useless DRM? How could it be enforced, anyway? If some university doesn't DRM their creative commons lectures, the government is going to do what to them?
It's a well-known tactic to demand more than you actually want before "compromising" on less - here one side of the argument (given that the article's preaching to the choir) seems to be doing the other side's negotiating for them!
I live (and vote) in California. What were we supposed to do in November? These were our choices:
- Richard Mountjoy, a far right Christian with all the usual values.
- Diane Feinstein, a bleeding-heart liberal who is a bought and paid member of the mafiaa *.
A lose-lose situation. I voted for technofascism over theocracy.
* To avoid a slander lawsuit, I note that the misspelling of "mafia" with an additional "a" is intentional and is a known term on this discussion forum. It does not mean the Cosa Nostra.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
Only Libertarians truly stand for constitutionally protected freedom
Libertarians (at least, your traditional anarchocapitalist) also have their problems, often including a rather large blind spot towards the abuse of private power and some seriously inconsistent views regarding the trustworthiness thereof and the strength of the profit incentive.
Not that I don't think it might do us some good to turn the entire Democratic and Republican parties out of office for a term or two, and I agree with the libertarians that civic power presents the problem of misuse. But a vacuum leaves only private power to protect from other private power, and once collusion sets in, the problem becomes nearly intractable, and freedom is again lost. The alternative -- having a democratic republic where civic power is accountable to the citizenry -- also has flaws, mainly that it's only as good as the citizenry attempts to keep it, but it's more easily subject to change when the citizenry chooses.
Tweet, tweet.
This is about killing the advantage of unsigned bands selling their own MP3s.
Libertarians, to do anything effective on the national level, need to acquire power within one or both of the established parties. So far they've tried mostly within the Republican Party - and look where that's gotten us. Although there are inconsistencies among Democrats on IP rights, there would seem at present to be a much stronger basic defense of the Constitution and citizen's freedoms. Arch-blogger Kos has even declared himself a "libertarian Democrat." So might it be more possible to reform the Democratic Party to accord with Libertarian ideals than it's been to make some bargain with the Republicans? Consider, it's the Democrats who generally believe in science and education and reason and the value of the common citizen, while the Republicans believe in creationism and only that education that doesn't incubate "elitist" attitudes and only that reason which follows the leader and only the importance of those citizens who are lucky and rich. Yeah, many Democratic politicians are deeply flawed. But the Libertarians have largely been in bed with those with faith in Creation Science. What kind of backasswards strategy is that?
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I don't see the benefit of this act, to anybody. Surely, if you're webcasting/podcasting music at the moment, you're either:
Number 1 is the one affected by this, but then the purpose of all of this, stated in TFA, is to prevent music theft. If the music cannot legally be stolen (because it is being given away), can the act still apply?
Number 2 is not affected, because they're already using DRM. (I'm not sure if this one actually exists yet, but I stuck it in for completeness.)
Number 3 is the bad guy that the RIAA could go after with some amount of moral justification, but if he's already breaking copyright laws then he's not going to be particularly bothered about breaking the PEARFRHIM (sorry, PERFORM) act either. And if there's already a law to prosecute him with, why introduce another one?
Of course, the bad guy in the RIAA's eyes might be Number 1, if the RIAA have acknowledged that independent artists are competition that must be crushed...
Feinstein clearly does not understand that the point of the copyright allowed in the constitution was to promote progress, not to protect rich corporations. She is clearly more of a Republican in this area.
Yeah, because all those Hollywood movie studios and record labels are just chock-full of Republicans. Can't swing a cat without hitting one. Just watch the Oscars in a couple of weeks, that's always a three-hour GOP love-fest.
(eye-roll)
I'm an independent filmmaker who releases all my movies under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License that allows anyone to freely copy, distribute, display, and perform my work.
This pro **AA act could be the nail in the coffin for not only the Creative Commons, but MY freedom as an artist.
Couldn't you circumvent the act by hosting your content overseas?
I agree it will be a bad law, but sometimes we end up needing workarounds for bad laws because the people in power aren't willing to change them (for whatever reason). I am sure there are plenty of hosting options that will allow you to avoid DRM. Host your work in the EU and link to it with a large notice: "DRM-free video - plays on anything".
In fact, if DRM is going to be required on all downloadable content in the US, it is a good time to establish DRM-free content hosting services in other countries. Let US-based hosts drown in waves of unnecessary regulation if that's what the government wants.
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
I did not know that voters are obligated in any way to vote for the candidate with the most money. The real problem is that nobody pays attention.
"Because you expect it from the Republicans." ... Only if you are an uneducated, ignorant, biased, close-minded, partisan idiot.
9 873
A bill to raise minimum wage has been introduced by Democrats. But an exception to this bill is the US territory of American Samoa.
Why one might ask?
Because StarKist the tuna company has a factory on that island. But why does that make them special? Because their HQ is in the district of Nanci Pelosi who introduced that part of the bill.
Anyone who says that Democrats are "for the people" or "dont sell out to corporate interests" are full of horseshit. Both parties do it, both parties are guilty as hell, and BOTH parties should be barred from holding a majority of seats in the Congress.
This is the sort of shit that makes my blood boil! Anyone who voted for EITHER the Dems or the Reps is part of the problem and helps continue this corporate sell-out of the US. Remember, the government that governs the least, governs the best.
Don't believe me? Look here:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&n...&ncl=111256
Libertas in infinitum
Actually its because they are in power now.
Expect more of it. Slowy the press will shift their attention and when that happens there will be claims of a bias towards the right in the press.
Still I truly expected McCain to have been one of the Republicans, he isn't any friend to our rights, especially after trying to hamstring the public's ability to get into politics.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.