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.'"

Comments

Re:specifics?

[rossifer]

Richard Stallman is a loon, but he's absolutely right. The only mistake I can see is that he was optimistic on the schedule by 25 years or so.

More like 10 years too late

[SanityInAnarchy]

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.