Digital TV Foreshadows Erosion of Net Rights

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Tom Yager offers insight on how digital TV is rapidly heading toward the kind of lockdown that entertainment and broadcast lobbies desire for the Internet. Standards such as HDMI and HDCP are acting in concert to strip your equipment of its functionality, displaying 'incompatibility' messages when plugged into older HDMI-enabled devices, shutting down analog outputs when active, and requiring balky handshake credentials that force many consumers to reboot their TVs to recover permission to watch them. Even broadcast flagging, which has been overturned by the Court of Appeals, is still on the de-facto table, as the entertainment lobby retains the power to bully technology companies into baking broadcast flagging into their wares. Sure, digital TV has far fewer points of origin than the Internet and is therefore easier to control, but, as Yager writes, 'Internet rights restrictions come through your telecommunications equipment' — and it is likely through that equipment that the entertainment and broadcast lobbies will chip away at your rights on the Web."

Comments

Closing loopholes != erosion of rights

[EmbeddedJanitor]

You never had those "rights". Old technology just did not prevent you from recording/copying shows, music etc. That did not mean that you were allowed to do it, but many turned a blind eye to infringements.

New tech is able to prevent you doing this.

Analogy alert: Before door locks were invented, you didn't have the right to enter another's house. locks just allowed home owners to secure their homes.

Scary lockdowns.

[Odder]

I don't watch their content but they are messing with me. If broadcasters have their way, they will still be the only game in town 50 years from now despite their complete technical obsolescence.

techncial obsolescence

[Odder]

Allocated spectrum is a crime. That link was supposed to be in the above, but I pushed the wrong button.