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Broadcasters Want Cash For Media Shared At Home
marcellizot writes "What would you say if I told you that there are people out there that want to make sharing your media between devices over a home network illegal? According to Jim Burger, a Washington, D.C attorney who deals with piracy in the broadcasting industry, certain broadcasters want to do just that. Speaking in a recent podcast, Burger remarked that the broadcasting industry is keen to put controls on sharing media between devices even if those devices are on a home network and even if the sharing is strictly for personal use. When pressed as to why broadcasters would want to do this, Burger replied simply 'because they want you to pay for that right.'"
I've always known the end-goal for all media companies is pay-per-play, every single time.
Ibid.
I paid for that right when I made the initial purchase.
If they could get away with it, they would make you pay for content you don't even watch, but have the ability to.
Crooks, fighting to uphold a dying business model, and squeeze every penny out of it the entire way.
If they don't want us to have the rights to content, why are they selling us the content on a disk? Does no one see how dumb this is? The summary makes it sound like they want me to pay 5 more dollars or something to take a DVD upstairs and play it vs. downstairs... there is just no chance people will pay it. Movie tickets are an example of a license to view that doesn't include a physical copy of the content, so I refuse to believe they don't know they're selling you your own copy of the content.
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Burger replied simply 'because they want you to pay for that right'.
I already did, with my taxes. I have fair-use rights that trump the media industries desire to make money.
Discussion over.
I'm meeting more and more people who are shunning traditional TV and audio content--the very content that is being proposed to be locked down in TFA. The rush away from such content will become a stampede if such controls are enacted. Imagine not being allowed to record your favorite show in your living room while you're at work and then play it in your exercise room when you get home. The sheer lunacy of it will turn consumers off extremely quickly and therefore these companies will lose even more money. But they are far too short-sighted to realize this, so we will all suffer. Well, except for book publishers, who will see sales soar as we revert to earlier (and fully portable) media forms.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
first you would have to dismantle the fair use doctrine in the copyright act...unfortunately for them, sharing copyrighted material between devices at home currently is considered fair use... you paid for the material once already -- its going to be hard for them to prove that paying over and over and over for an audio music file is reasonable... I'm sure if you had to pay for repeat broadcasts of television shows, people would probably stop watching television...
What I would like to see is certain terms very, very clearly defined.
For example, you should not be allowed to hijack domains and call yourself an ISP. You can still hijack domains and sell some sort of service, but you shouldn't be able to call it Internet service.
You should not be allowed to sell a CD with any kind of copy protection (let alone rootkits) and call it a CD. You can still sell them, but they should include a fairly large disclaimer to the effect of "This is not a CD." Ditto for DVDs with any copy protection beyond CSS, especially deliberately breaking the spec to where it won't even play on your own players (I'm looking at you again, Sony) -- you could call it a movie, but not a DVD, and it should be very clear that it is not intended to be able to play in DVD players.
And you should not be able to sell media that has its fair use restricted and call it "selling" -- indeed, you must make it very clear that the customer is renting the media.
At least if we had a clear definition of terms, I could buy a movie and know it will play on anything.
As it is, they don't even need additional legislation to make this work. All they need is what they already have -- DRM + DMCA. They can use DRM to prevent you from copying the media around your house, and the DMCA will make it illegal to crack that DRM, even if you have the right to copy the media around your house.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
First, many of us already are kind of doing this with the premium iTunes music. I pay $1.29 so I can listen to a song on my laptop, my iMac at home, my home office PC and my computer at work -- without worrying whether I've gone over the five computer limit because I keep changing my home office PC and have to reauthorize.
Second, if I buy a song online to listen to in my home office, are they going to charge me to upload it to my media center PC in the living room? Now, what if I install a second set of speakers from my home office into my living room? Does that count? What's the difference?
What if I have it on a removable drive that I then bring from room to room and listen to the music on it on different computers? Charge me for that? What if I just walk from room to room with an iPod? Music in the office, music in the kitchen? What's the difference? Obviously, I can argue the fine points here, but that is just it. The various gray scenarios are absurd...
I should be able to buy music and listen to it (me and anyone within earshot) in any fashion, on any machine, no matter where I am.
Run wires to speakers in another room and there is no charge.
Do this with a wireless replacement and there's a fee?
Shoot these bastards. Leave their bodies in the river.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
why does everything have to be illegal? are the artists who create the content having difficulty feeding their families on their meager earnings? What horrible situation are we trying to correct or prevent with all these restrictions?
I say if you broadcast a message over public airwaves using the community's radio spectrum, you probably shouldn't get the same rights that you do if you are publishing a book or releasing a new CD. If you don't like that idea, then maybe you can not use public airwaves, which belong to the community.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
"When pressed as to why broadcasters would want to do this, Burger replied simply 'because they want you to pay for that right'."
A 'right' is something that you can do without asking anyone else's permission. Once you have to ask someone's permission, then it no longer becomes a 'right' but a 'priviledge'. He just admitted that they want to charge people for exercising their right to use their own property. At best, he's just not that bright; at worst, this is yet another unwarranted advance on our freedoms.
The flip side of this is that the government decided that it was in the public interest to have a broadcast communication network and that it was unfeasible for them to build it themselves as it would be infrequently used. The result is that they awarded some privileges to the people who did build the network and whom in exchange for the right to restrict the fair-use of their broadcast allow the government use of their network in times of emergency. Now i do believe that anything that the public should benefit in a non-trivial way from any private enterprise that traverses a public good be it railways, entertainment broadcasts, etc... and that any signal that you can receive should be yours to do with as you please as long as you don't interfere with the production of such signal.
"Burger replied simply 'because they want you to pay for that right'."
You don't pay for rights. Rights are inherent (or God-given, if you prefer). You pay for privileges.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
In which case those "artists" could use their art as a hobby/pastime activity, and seek out paying work like the rest of us.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
"The surprising thing though is the openness at which the real issue here is control"
It was ALWAYS about control. Intellectual property is and always was about control. It was NEVER about "stimulating invention for the benefit of the species." That has never been established anywhere in history or in theory.
And if you accept the basic premise of IP, it leads inexorably to exactly this situation - total control over your behavior.
And it's not just the state that wants total control of your behavior - it's everybody else, too.
Basic primate psychology: "If you're right, I'm wrong. And if I'm wrong, I'm dead - and that can't be allowed. So I'm right and you're wrong. And that means I have to control everything you think and do - assuming I let you live at all."
And since we have the state, the easiest way to do that is to bribe it to pass laws so I can draw on the state's "monopoly on violence" to my own benefit. Because I'm afraid I don't have the power to compel you the way I want to without the state's support. Which is also why I bow to the state - because they might kill me otherwise.
This is the way the human species works - non-stop, pervasive fear. The only solution is: transcend human nature so it is no longer ruled by primate emotions.
Fortunately that is likely to happen in this century as nanotechnology and biotechnology allow us to alter the human body and brain into new configurations.
In the meantime, things will get worse before they get better.
Operative: It's worse than you know.
Mal: It usually is.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
It isn't impossible for something to go from luxury to necessity. I need food and shelter for myself and my family. In order to get those things I need money. In order to make money I need a job. It is very hard to find a job within walking or riding distance of my house. In our current society (at least in a city that has suffered from sprawl) it is very hard to call my car a luxury. Now that I choose to drive a small luxury car that only gets 30mpg instead of a true economy car pushing 50mpg is a choice, and that extra gas is a luxury. But the purchase of gas itself is a need if not very close.
I guess I could move to another city.. Oh wait, that would use gas too.