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In Japan, a Battle Brewing Over the Right To Record 4k and 8k Broadcasts (itmedia.co.jp)
AmiMoJo writes: Japanese broadcasters have indicated that 4k and 8k broadcasts may have recording disabled via a 'do not copy' flag [via Google Translate], which receivers would be expected to obey. Now the Internet Users Association (MIAU) and Shufuren (Housewives Federation) have submitted documentation opposing the ban. The document points out that the ban will only inconvenience the majority of the general audience, while inevitably failing to prevent unauthorized copying by anyone determined to circumvent the protection.
That 'do not copy' flag is like the 'do not track' one?
And, once again broadcasters and copyright assholes want veto power over technology, and the evil bit of "thou shall not record" has reared its head.
Every new piece of technology immediately gets co-opted as corporations tell us what we're allowed to do because they apparently feel the world exists to serve their fucking business model.
Oh, and of course if ratified the TPP will make this entrenched in law -- so you could spend life in prison for recording a show to watch later.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Seriously, other than sofa based sports fans, broadcast media is either propaganda or crap made to sell advert slots.
Unlike past efforts, our NEW copy protection scheme will totally work.
By the way, by any chance, would you happen to be in the market for a bridge?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Japanese broadcasters have indicated that 4k and 8k broadcasts may have recording disabled via a 'do not copy' flag [via Google Translate], which receivers would be expected to obey.
Wait, they're demanding that their content receive special legal protections solely on basis of its resolution? Wow, I thought I couldn't be any more disgusted with IP lobbyists, but as usual, Japan is always finding new ways to surprise me.
Seems like the broadcasters are shooting themselves in the foot! If you can't record, you can't store up a bunch of shows to watch later.
This means that people won't watch broadcast at all, but rather will default to streaming services for convenience of watching when they want.
Seems like they've got the wrong solution. Instead of "do not record", it should be "do not copy the recording you make to other media"--which, guess what, is what most people do anyway with their DVRs.
Best,
--PeterM
The premise is right that restrictions inconvenience users who aren't interested in piracy and probably drive many of them to piracy. There are many other issues, too. And this isn't limited to Japan. I don't know the specifics of Japan, but we have similar issues in the US. It's possible to record over the air programming, but cable is heavily locked down. Aside from local channels, which are still encrypted and require a cablecard to record, the copy control information (CCI) flag is typically set to copy once on most other channels. That's the case with Time Warner Cable, which is the second largest cable company in the US. While it's possible to record an analog HD copy, that sucks for many reasons. Anything digital requires a cablecard and only Windows Media Center is certified to obey the CCI flag. Thus the only systems that can view and record such content are those with WMC. With Microsoft discontinuing WMC, it's not clear that any current software (Windows 7/8.1 aren't really current now) can view this content. If you've recorded something with the CCI set to copy once and you have to reinstall the OS for some reason, the keys are lost and the content can no longer be played. It's a terrible solution. How about we get rid of this kind of DRM everywhere because it only punishes law abiding users and instead go after those who distributed pirated content by suing them for reasonable (not horribly inflated) damages?
I hate all anonymous shitbags. Log in, you filthy bastards.
Wait, do they think they'll somehow be able to stop Blu-ray burner discs from being ripped or external hard drives/flash drives attached to smart TVs from being mounted to a PC? Does Japan have some widespread PVR system that takes up all the USB slots, or are they expecting TV software developers to lock those slots out?
Holy kek...I can't help but get a mental image of a Japanese Sheila Broflovski rallying the housewives in the streets.
Most copy protection devices only achieve the task of annoying the living crap out of legitimate users, while doing nothing to prevent grand scale piracy.
In Japan, most TVs and DVD/BR players contain the ability to record. It is fairly entrenched to record shows for later viewing, especially things like daytime dramas, hence the housewives outcry. This will affect millions of daily viewers.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
"The document points out that the ban will only inconvenience the majority of the general audience, while inevitably failing to prevent unauthorized copying by anyone determined to circumvent the protection."
> Oh, and of course if ratified the TPP will make this entrenched in law [...]
That bears repeating, slowly and loudly: Japanese, look at all the goodness TPP is pouring over you.
Fight it tooth and nail.
Of course, Aussies, NZers, and -- yes, USians too. Let your representatives know that you *don't want that crap ratified*. Don't listen to what lobbies and corrupt politicans say about it. It's always a bad idea to let lobby groups write laws.
Reading about this and things like TPP just piss me off.
Even if (hypothetically) the industry got a lockdown on all TVs and recording devices so the only devices that could display or record video had to obey the industries rules, you would STILL have the "analog hole."
It's technically possible (but not cheap) to make a sensor as big as a TV that has enough resolution to record every TV pixel faster than the pixel is changing.
Add a little computing power to take care of "bleed over" from neighboring pixels and a well-endowed copy-shop could make a full-resolution copy of anything that can be displayed on their TV or monitor.
Once a copy of a high-demand film is made and distributed to more than a few customers, it will leak to the free-as-in-beer (read: no more revenue for the pirates who funded the initial copying) places on the intertubes.
The best way for the industry to deter that level of well-funded piracy is to make everything available for home viewing worldwide at the same time, and in all formats that consumers want at the same time, and at a price that consumers can reasonably afford. Some publishers are already doing this. Doing this will dry up the piracy market for those who can't get titles in the formats they want when they want it.
Yes, there will still be piracy by those too cheap to pay reasonable prices for content, and there will be piracy by those who have copies of stuff just for the sake of having copies of stuff but probably won't ever watch it, but those groups aren't the ones that would be buying the videos on the open market in the first place, so the industry won't be losing much revenue.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If you thought copyright was bad here in the US... you haven't seen anything yet. Copyright law in Japan is draconian.
Just a reminder, we've been there, seen that ("Home taping is killing record industry profits!"):
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/i...
It's asking you to respect your own honor and integrity by not taking something the owner is willing to share but not give to you. The logic that says because determined dishonorable people will do it that it should be honorable for me to do it beggars belief.
Furthermore even if you have no honor when the door is closed and your are anonymous at your computer then it still is highly effective. For example, I'd truly like to watch Black Sails. But it requires a Starz membership I don't think is worth the price. I could easily go over to some place like couchtuner to pirate it but then i'd get shit quality and some russian drive-by trojaning attempts. No thanks. On the otherhand if this were super easy to pirate there'd be a gazillion ways to see it in high def all without the russian trojans. Thus the fact that it's not worth the effort to subvert the process actually is a barrier to entry more than just relying on an honor system. it works for people inclined to honorable but never the less tempted by the lure of sticking it to the man and his outrageously high priced restrictions.
Steve jobs proved the point when songs became $1. Lots of people are happy to pay a reasonable price for convenience and feeling they didn't cheat.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
the cable co box can DVR stuff but you cable card system (maybe not tivo) can't. They need to fix so both are on the system level.
But then the state will cover your doctor bill + the high cost of drugs due to the TPPA locking out generic drugs.
They're already almost doing this even for current digital HD programming. You can record the protected OTA signal to a Japanese DVR which writes an encrypted format to Blu-ray discs (not regular Blu-ray format), so only that DVR can play back the discs, you can't share them. If your DVR box dies then all of your recorded shows are unwatchable. It's really only useful for time shifting, and now they want to take that away too. As far as I know, nobody has managed to crack this format yet.
My wife and I moved to the US from Japan, and like to keep up on Japanese TV. The commercial offerings are slim, you can get a few of the major shows via cable channels like "TV Japan" but most TV channels and programs which we'd gladly pay for are simply unavailable at any price. We're reduced to watching "cams" (smartphone recordings of a TV) which are plentiful online. Hooray for the analog loophole.
Anybody remember how macrovision spawned an entire market for synch pulse regenerators?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
This is the age of the DVR. Who the hell actually watches a broadcast TV show when it's actually scheduled? Everyone records it on a DVR and watches it later. Wait, not allowed to record it? Gee I guess that show doesn't get watched then. I'm sure content providers will just love that, their shows all die in the ratings because people aren't willing to have their lives rotate around a TV show schedule. This is about as stupid as stupid can get; you'd think some politician thought of it, it's about as pants-on-head retarded as wanting backdoors in encryption. Also it won't work, there'll be hacks around it, and it'll just promote the idea of filesharing those shows even more than they would be otherwise. Stupid idea, needs to die, LET PEOPLE RECORD WHAT THEY WANT.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
"the ban will only inconvenience the majority of the general audience"
If the majority can't get copies than it is doing what it is intended to do.
The document will reassure these people.
FWIW: I'm tired of all the bellyaching about how people can't get free GoT episodes. Is that what life is all about? Ripping off the people who make sub-mediocre content?
However, the fact is that for Starz to be affected by piracy, piracy has to be removing subscribers who would pay to watch their series.
Or it's a condition imposed on Starz by the studios that license movies and TV shows to Starz. If Starz doesn't "do something about piracy", it would cause licensors to decline renew the licenses to exhibit movies and TV shows on Starz, and that would cause to drop their subscriptions.
Did you get a chance to see how PBS compares to the BBC?
Big deal. Stop watching the content.
The problem is that policies set by the big studios hurt the availability to the public of machines to manipulate video, even video that doesn't belong to said studios. Say I want to make a movie and distribute it on Blu-ray. I can't without paying for an AACS license because players refuse to play unencrypted BDMV discs. HD DVD didn't have this problem, but it isn't around anymore. Video game consoles have the same problem: DRM is mandatory.
[Policy misstep of U.S. Presidential candidate]
[Policy misstep of U.S. Presidential candidate in opposite party]
I suggest abstaining from voting.
Wouldn't a write-in be more apt?
How so? Write-ins are unlikely to be counted, especially for U.S. President and Vice President, because a write-in candidate has no slate of electors representing him or her.
it's a bigger issue if certain content is only broadcast at that resolution so it's never possible to copy it at any resolution. It's not clear to me if that's the case
It is. The film Ishtar skipped DVD and went straight to Blu-ray. I imagine more are to follow.
News for Nips. Stuff that leary leary mattah.
> I'm getting old, I'm way in my forties and looking back I can see the futility of it all.
C'mon. I'm sixty. Last fall I was in the biggest rally of my life (against TTIP, around 500K people). It was fun. Our politicans were scared like headless chicken.
"We" didn't lose. "We" never win, "we" never lose. But democracy & right is a constant fight, against the greedy, against the evil and against one's own laziness.
Pick your fight wisely (it shouldn't kill you) but for heaven's sake, pick one!
Maybe Japan is different, but I really suspect that 4K and 8K broadcasts are simply not going to be a big thing. People who with the latest technology are a lot more into streaming than broadcast TV.
The broadcasters giving streaming services another leg up seems idiotic, and business as usual.
Yes, everyone would have to be on board with the new model, I don't want to give the impression that I think Starz could just decide to offer things for free. But it benefits the studio as much as the cable channel, in the end. If you have more eyes on the screen, there's more demand for product to be produced.
Either way, the whole system should rethink how it does business. Piracy can be a problem, but it isn't automatically a drain on income. That's because with something like movies or music, you can make unlimited copies of it. You don't have to keep an inventory around and pay to store it. Your job is to get as many eyes or ears on your product as possible, and then extract the payment from those people.
Currently, they rely on trying to keep the product exclusive to people who purchase through controlled channels, and then charge those people as much as possible because they're making their product exclusive and unable to be seen by everyone.
If they, instead, get more customers, they can charge less on volume and they will get more *paying* customers because at some point, people will look at the price and go "Why would I pirate something that costs $0.99?
I think the entertainment business wants it both ways. They want the ability to cheaply distribute quality media for low prices to everyone, but they want everyone to pay those absurd prices that were more justifiable when you actually had to produce and distribute expensive physical media. In effect, they want to make as big a profit as possible with no downside. That's just greed and I lack sympathy for that scenario. The new media they want to take advantage of works because it makes things *less exclusive*, so their means of control become more and more complex, corrupt, and retrograde as time goes on.
The best way for the industry to deter that level of well-funded piracy is to make everything available for home viewing worldwide at the same time, and in all formats that consumers want at the same time
Except not every studio is big enough to hire voice actors for dubbing into all languages at the same time and to seek classification for potentially objectionable content in all countries at the same time. And it'd have to be industry-wide and phased in over a long time, as upstream licensors (such as music publishers and record labels for music used in a movie) still price-discriminate based on region, and there exist decades-long exclusive territorial distribution agreements for existing works.
Why would I pirate something that costs $0.99?
Depends on whether it includes offline use, whether that's $0.99 period or $0.99 plus the cost of broadband where you want to watch. And if that's as a passenger in a vehicle, prepare to pay a cell carrier $10 to $15 per GB.