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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 read the referenced article, I fear listening to the 16 minute audio as I'm not entirely sure I have DRM clearance to do so, and do not want to be sued or accused of piracy.
That said, I'd be interested in more specifics on this. Does this mean potentially my Squeezebox from which I listen to my music stored on the mp3 server may no longer be a legal "share". Does that potentially mean mp3's on my samba share are no longer fair game on my XP box via WinAmp?
About a year or two ago I'd have accused people making these claims (that they're trying to do this) as ludicrously insane and paranoid. Today, I'm not so sure. I guess the most heartening thing to consider is these guys eventually cross that threshold where the consumer resentment goes from smoulder to explosion, and maybe the backlash settles it once and for all.
But then again, maybe not. I know people who pay more for bottled water price-per-gallon than gasoline... and they complain about the price of gasoline.
I say that because 11 years ago, we got the DMCA, which already gives them this ability.
Essentially, all they have to do to make it illegal to share around your house is to implement DRM which prevents you from doing that. Since it's illegal to circumvent DRM, you're fucked.
And this does, in fact, prevent you from exercising your fair use rights, and, indeed, even the rights inherent in purchasing a physical disk (or a download, even).
I'd love to see it go to court, though. If anyone from the media industry is reading this, I dare you to sue me for playing my movies on Linux, or even ripping and time-shifting a rental. Come on, make my day. Who knows? Maybe it would end in new legislation banishing DRM at all, unless it allows all forms of fair use.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
If this happens, I have 2 choices -- either ignore the new laws or cut back/eliminate the consumption of media. I only have so much money available per month for entertainment, and with the cost of fuel and everything else going up (but not my salary), entertainment will be the first to go. I can live just fine without big Media -- there are still books, and that big room with the real high blue ceiling that I can reach through my front and back doors.
If big media wins, they lose. I (and many others on this planet) cannot just create more money every time someone wants more $ for the same or less service and/or product.
Beware of Sleestak
I have not met a computer illiterate person who gives a shit about copyrights. For many, they don't even think it's illegal to download. After all, plenty of ISP ads are along the line: download music and movies at blazing speeds!
(But those aren't shared devices! Oh yes they are. Well, if you're running PCI-e 2.1, or virtual machines, or have sharing enabled through the OS, or a myriad of other options.)
Oh yeah, this means that Plan 9 users will presumably need to have factorial the number of nodes in their system licenses for each CD and DVD they buy in order to play any CDs or DVDs at all, as hardware location is largely unimportant under that OS. And I dread to think of what happens to people who actually run Beowulf clusters...
How will they get away with such an obviously unfair, unreasonable and obnoxious burden on unconventional desktops? Well, it'll be very easy. Most users are ignorant of the capabilities of modern machines, most users are ignorant of the fact that modern computers ARE a home network, and so most users will assume it's someone else's problem, not theirs. Once a few precedents are set in court, the broadcasters can bill who they like what they like, with no fear of retribution and an almost total guarantee of winning in court. Ignorance - even of technology - is not a valid defence in the legal system, which is reasonable enough when not taken too far. Here, it could be exploited by gold-diggers to create a perpetual stream of income.
Would the judges go for it? If the attacks start with "obvious" targets and then move to subtler and subtler definitions of home network, provided they keep winning, they'll create case law. Judges don't necessarily understand technology too well, but they do understand case law very well. A clever enough team of lawyers could easily manufacture a legal understanding of what a network was that could include a cluster that could only ever act as a single machine, any PC with a PCI-e 2.1 bus, a box running VMWare or Xen, or anything else in which multiple "top level" devices (physical or virtual) can access a single data source.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)