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MPAA Wants To Prevent Recording Movies On DVRs
I_am_Rambi writes "At the request of theatrical film makers, the Federal Communications Commission on Friday quietly launched a proceeding on whether to let video program distributors remotely block consumers from recording recently released movies on their DVRs. The technology that does this is called Selectable Output Control (SOC), but the FCC restricts its use. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) wants a waiver on that restriction in the case of high-definition movies broadcast prior to their release as DVDs."
The FCC is soliciting comments until June 25th.
If I can watch it, I can record it. There will always be a way to do so. They can try to use the laws and technology to stop me, but they will lose in the end.
then you can record it. Software such as Mythtv makes it possible, until of course the TV cards somehow become so functionally disabled that they refuse to work with Linux. oh wait..
Thanks to the MPAA & RIAA I no longer spend any money on music or movies. I use an AM/FM radio for music and if I watch a movie it is something old on basic cable. You will never see me with music CDs or movies on DVD at the checkout line at the store, if i ever buy anything like that it will have to be at some yard sale or pawn shop for pennies on the dollar...
Vote with your wallet!
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
How's that copy protection working for ya?
It seems that the MPAA is trying to maximize their profit, at the expense of the public in general. We are stuck with technical hassle just because the MPAA wants to use government regulation instead of logical market forces to prevent unauthorized copying.
Using the link in the post, the FCC website tells me "CSR-7947-Z" isn't open for comments. DOes anyone know how to submit comments successfully on this proceeding?
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I have had absolutely enough of all the rantings by the RIAA, MPAA, etc and DR-freaking-M. Hollywood can take their media and shove it up their collective @rse. Is there anything sooo special coming out of Hollywood that makes me want to lose my daily freedoms? Simply no. I don't need anything that they are pumping out and neither do you. Stop buying their sh*t and let them die a long painful death. I will not shed a tear.
My guess is that they're trying to do just that now: To release movies to pay-per-view HD before bringing them into the rental stores. Ya know, those clerks there don't get a lot, but a penny earned more is a penny earned more. People will probably pay to watch a fairly recent movie at home for 5 bucks rather than paying 10 bucks (plus again about as much for junk food) in a cinema.
Huh? The movie industry raping its own distribution partners, movies and rentals? Duh, thought they'd only do it with their customers?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Remember late 70's and early 80's when all those faceless corporations went to court because Sony produced a VCR capable of recording content. Funny how things change eh, now they go back to back with their former enemies trying to restrict our right to record content.
Actually you do build that feature in unless you are building your own capture cards.
your HDMI capture card, the only way I know of to capture an encrypted HD signal from the cable or sattelite box, has thise "feature" for you.
I cant find any component capture cards that exist that will capture HD resolutions so you are stuck with hdmi/dvi.
BTW: notice how nobody has made a linux driver for those cards? only OSX and Windows... because the driver has the "screw the user" code in it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I predict Oren Hatch will be coming out soon with a statement denouncing movie downloaders as Marxist pedophiles who finance terrorism and support marriage for transexuals.
Hey! Some of us on this board are Marxist pedophile transsexual terrorists, you insensitive clod!What they all want is a way to prevent possession of any content, and you have to lease it from them per use for the rest of your life..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
In the Chicago area, Comcast blocks some content from recording. Many of the on-demand movies and some of the premium channel programming cannot be recorded by a standard DVR. This is on digital cable in standard definition, using an off-the-shelf Philips DVR (not Comcast's).
My DVR will buffer these programs, allowing rewind, pause, etc. If I try to record it to the hard drive it refuses to, giving a message of 'protected'. I'm not sure exactly how they do it - I always thought they may be broadcasting Macrovision codes with the signal.
I suppose it could be hacked by a hardware hack like removing the hard drive and collecting the movie from the buffer, but nothing that is being broadcast is worth the effort! It's bad enough that I waste time sitting in front of the tube viewing this 'high value content'. I'm sure as hell not wasting more time trying to copy it. It is nearly summer here - there are much better things to do most days.
When you're dead, you don't know you're dead. It only affects the people around you. Same thing when you're stupid.
If anyone had actually read the article, you'll find out that currently Movies are NOT released to TV (pay per view or other) before they're released to DVD. the MPAA wants to change that so that they are shown on TV (PPV or other) AS or BEFORE the DVD release. But before it changes that time schedule, it wants to know if the FCC will create a ruling that would prevent DVR to able to record the movie BEFORE its released to DVD.
So in other words
Theater -> DVD -> TV , won't have the non-record flag set
Theater -> TV -> DVD WILL have the non-record flag set until AFTER it's released on DVD.
I follow the SDK and GDN principles.. Spelling Dont Kount, Grammer Dont Neither
...is this the "We will prevent piracy by making our product even more crippled for our legitimate customers, though the online pirates will be remain unaffected" strategy? Don't forget that recording and timeshifting is what most people consider fair, not as piracy. "Oh hello uncle Jim, wasn't expecting you. I was just watching a movie, let me just put it on record." or "Oh, you can't tonight? What about tomorrow night? Ok cool, I'll put it on record and we can watch it together tomorrow". I guess TPB must love these laws: "Yeah well, I had to download it from TPB because my stupid DVR wouldn't let me record it".
In every other kind of industry, I associate "pirates" either with counterfeits or cheap look-a-likes that are vastly inferior to the real product, the kind that street salesmen will sell tourists at a few bucks a piece. Since a digital copy is a perfect copy, I guess digital piracy will be equal. But when pirated goods start looking better and better, so you pay for the privilidge of using and inferior product and the feelgood of being legal, then there's something very, very wrong.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
is enough people.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
As in all other cases where copy protection of movies or music fails, only one person in the world needs to own the equipment or software necessary for circumventing the copy protection. He can then release it to the public in an unprotected format.
This is a strategy to eliminate DVR recording as fair use. First they get the right to block the recording of recently released HD movies, then they blur the definition of HD, and pretty soon they are claiming that they should be able to block pretty much any DVR recording...
Just say no. Personal use is fair use.
Statesman
IF this technology is used to restrict recording for a LIMITED period of time, until the initial theatrical release has run its course and they have milked the initial profits off the DVD release, THEN I would not have a serious problem with it. After all, unless you are one of those folks that MUST see a new movie as soon as it comes out, you can wait a little while. And even with the restriction, you could still WATCH the flick and even pause/rewind/etc. the thing -- you just wouldn't be able to dump it to a permanent source (disk, hard drive) right away. And hell, most movies will show up on non-PPV TV eventually anyway. By restricting the recording disability to the initial "surge" of the movie's release, the "can't wait" crowd are going to rush to the theater or buy the DVD the first day it's on sale and send the cartel its dough anyway, and the rest of us can just wait until it trickles down to a non-premium source from which we can record and save it if we want.
That's all very speculative, though. Knowing the methods of the MPAA as we do, it's more likely that this is just a way to get a foot in the door to eventually restrict or prevent ALL recording of its releases. That's an old tactic -- you know you can't get EVERYTHING you want right now, so you ask for just a limited option that most people would agree on, then slowly expand the parameters over time. Like the ban on "partial birth abortion." Or just like all the Bush era "anti-terrorist" legislation -- most people accepted it as necessary within the limited scope of "fighting terrorism," but we have already seen these laws starting to be used for things that have little, if anything, to do with terrorism. (Unless you then expand the definition of "terrorism," which is also happening.) The MPAA probably is playing the same game. (As we have often seen, the worlds of business and government are pretty much interchangeable in their more underhanded tactics...)
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
I was just thinking how the term 'recent' probably allows them to abuse any rules/laws made. If copyright being 100+ years is ok then recent can probably mean upto 20 years or more.
Ironically, in the RIAA's analysis of the situation, I must almost certainly be accounted as someone who's stopped buying CD's because of illegal downloading, when in fact it is directly due to the actions of the recording industry itself.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Read the actual proposal here:
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-08-1081A1.txt
Go here to file your comment:
http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/websql/prod/ecfs/upload_v2.hts?ws_mode=proc_name&proc_id=08-82
Be sure to fill in all the fields marked "(required)" and set your submission as a "comment".
For maximum compatibility and greater chance of serious review, use the "send brief comment" box at the bottom instead of uploading a lengthy DOC file. Keep in mind that they don't care what so much what you personally don't like. Make your comment clear and concise about how this action violates your rights or attempts to defeat the protections the FCC is supposed to defend.
Be sure to click Finish Transaction after submitting.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
the whole IP thing needs to get back to basics: my recording of a movie does not, by itself, hurt the creator of it. if I go and sell the copy, sure. but the argument that my recording deprives the creator of potential revenue is absurd. me being cheap also deprives them of revenue, or my taste in movies.
copyrights are not about maximizing the media companies' revenue - just about preventing _commercial_ rip-offs.
No, he's not informative. He's just plain wrong.
A theater is not a government, the search warrant nonsense is just that, nonsense.
He wouldn't have a leg to stand on in a court challenge, either.
In fact, if there were a clearly posted "no outside food or beverages" sign along with another about "backpacks subject to search," he would have no entitlement to a refund when he refused to comply with the terms.
If he were to take this to court, he would either be representing himself or using a lawyer so incompetent that imminent disbarment would be a serious concern. If it actually came in front of a judge, he would likely be sanctioned for the frivolity of his claims--judges aren't appreciative over their time being taken over nut-job cases over $10 . . .
But what do I know; I'm just a lawyer.
hawk, not giving legal advice, just commenting upon the ignorance being spewed as authoritative
Your list is in order of decreasing price and decreasing quality. This is not a coincidence.
It's all about market segmentation. When selling a product, it's always desirable to get the customers who are willing to pay more to actually pay more money. This is hard, though, because you generally advertise the same price to everyone. So companies come up with various tactics to avoid this, such as multiple editions of a product with different prices, or charging a premium early and then lowering the price later on.
With movies, people who are really willing to pay a lot of money to see that movie will see it in the theater, where they're forking over $10 for the ticket and probably a bunch of money for food. Then the next tier down is people who are only moderately willing to pay money, they'll pay the $5 to rent the DVD some months later. And lastly you have people who don't care very much, and they'll watch it on the TV for free with advertisements.
Note that I'm not saying that any of the above is evil. Quite the opposite, it's simply good business sense. Most businesses, from hotels to airlines to even the individual movie theaters themselves (think matinee pricing) do this kind of thing. The trouble, of course, is that in an age where digital media can be copied effortlessly, market segmentation based around restricting who gets to see some bits no longer works very well.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
Why should there be a difference? Analog Betamax was top of the line technology back then (better quality than VHS), and being able to record television was a revolutionary step in the TV experience.
Now that our televisions and our cable/satellite service and our movie rentals have all evolved to high-definition, you say that we're expected to move backwards and accept the hands of the media companies to control what we can timeshift and when?
There's nothing revolutionary about HD-PVRs. It's just a basic step up from non-HD PVRs from the customer's point of view. Getting the new flavor of something we've always had. I understand that it messes up the companies strategies of getting customers to pay for VOD, buying DVD/Blu-Ray movies, etc., but I think it's their ethical responsibility to find new revenue streams that don't hurt paying customers, rather than create/buy legislation that imposes artificial restrictions against rights customers have always enjoyed.