I agree with the idea to extend unused broadcast television frequencies for use in Part 15 devices. Assuming devices would not bleed into cable television services that also use those frequencies (more likely now with the advent of broadband via cable modem), the only remaining issue I can see is to ensure that such devices do not interfere with persons trying to receive the sparse number of HDTV broadcasts out of their primary market. I would not agree that such devices must use GPS or databases to determine appropriate frequencies, as these restrictions would likely prevent such devices from competing in price with existing solutions. Passive sniffing and/or user-selected bands should be sufficient, along with a user-friendly database hosted by the FCC with frequency suggestions by ZIP code. In addition, these devices should not be required to work within the same band brackets as their corresponding television channels, as 6-8MHz at these frequencies does not provide adaquate bandwidth for many useful applications.
Just for the record, I AM NOT of the the "dot com millionaires" that Mr. Lelyveld of Disney despises so. I am just a normal guy who makes a living on intellectual property (software development).
The broadcast flag would, first and foremost, have a chilling effect on free speech by making fair uses of copyrighted works (for research, commentary, parody, etc.) illegal under the DCMA (the flag being a protection device under that law).
In addition, whereas the home user's right to time-shift and archive programming has been upheld for nearly two decades (Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, 1984), such a broadcast flag would render PVR (ReplayTV/TiVo) technology illegal. These large corporations use OUR AIRWAVES, track wires through OUR BACKYARDS and right-of-ways, and take up limited beaming locations in OUR SKY. They are, in effect, localized and publicly-permitted monopolies.
I can't trample through your yard, hoist a lemonade stand on it, charge you for a drink, and then force you to drink it all right then, right there as I blast advertisements in your ear. Yet, these comanies have licenses granted by your agency to use our resources, and still force us to enjoy their product exactly when and how they feel like it.
In the end, comsumers should decide what they buy, when they enjoy it, and how they use it. Existing copyright laws are sufficient to protect these companies from true piracy, new "features" like this broadcast flag would make non-infringing uses illegal and will only hurt the average consumer who desires privacy and flexibility in enjoying the entertainment they pay good money for. The flag itself (as proposed) could be easily bypassed by pirates, as can *ANY* encryption technology given pirates with enough financial incentive to do so.
In closing, I urge you to require the content industry to demonstrate that its proposed technologies will allow for all legal uses and will actually achieve the stated goal of preventing piracy. If they cannot, I urge you not to mandate the broadcast flag.
Patterns, algorithms, methods, and logic cannot be protected by copyright, only specific and unique implementations thereof. Patents could protect such ideas but rarely do and certainly your guy would know if his employer filed a patent based on his previous work. The old standby of "proprietary business knowledge" must be a closely-held (formally secured) asset to be protected, and must be novel (i.e., not simply based on common knowledge--pretty difficult to do in our field).
Lifting code written at a previous employer, however, would probably cross the line. Even there, though, there is a large grey line of "inevitable discovery" (to borrow a prosecutorial term)--a sufficiently elegant algorithm (written for efficiency and refactored through the course of testing) will always result in nearly identical code (variable names notwithstanding, of course). This wouldn't be the case with more artistic endeavors (e.g., screenplays about the same concept can vary widely in implementation), but it is true in computer and information sciences.
Ergo, DMV is 555.
Too close for comfort, methinks;).
Seriously, this is *VERY BAD*. I for one am against the idea of the federal government collecting massive databases on us (especially biometric information of any kind) without cause (privacy in our papers and that sort of thing). I'm no conspiracy-theorist, I just know that the government is no monolithic being, it is just people (as error-prone and greedy as the rest of mankind) given more power than usual to collectively try to make things decent around here.
Consider another angle: some states have fingerprints either encoded on the cards or on file, but *all* have photos. Matching the normalized conditions of a driver's license photo (lighting, lenses, distance, angle, etc.) with a face-recognition database would be alarmingly easy.
I believe the majority of this patent will be thrown out on the basis of prior art. Here's some quick examples:
Claim 8: circular buffers have been used in broadcast TV and radio for years for "bleepers" (audio/video censoring devices).
Claim 12 and 13: Come on, a patent on FF and RW of digital video? Media Player, anyone? Video Toaster has already been mentioned as well.
Claim 14: Looks like they've claimed on-screen displays of timecodes and other metadata, used in VCRs and TVs for years. The technology used for superimposing video, chromakey, has been around even longer.
Claim 15: Decoding the VBI to determine program start--used in commercial-skipping VCRs for years.
Claim 16: Decoding closed-captioning for recording triggers was used years ago in a program that came with my PC TV card from Happauge.
Claim 24-25: Now if we hook our VCRs up to our PVRs to transfer to tape we are violating their patent.
Claim 26: Scheduled recording?!?
Claim 28: They've patented speeding up the video (time compression) to fit backup media (e.g., VHS). This has been done for years in audio--I've used it at my church to compress a longer sermon onto a CD to avoid a two-CD collection for that week.
The remainder of the claims involve the PVR idea itself (I thought Replay was first?--not sure) and the ways each software component works with the others for smooth playback and response (many of which may be already patented or at least prior art in video editing suites such as Adobe Premiere). Of course, patents involve not just the individual components, but the invention as a whole, but I still don't think this will pass muster in any fair-minded court.
Slashdot Mirror
Just in case anyone is interested...
I agree with the idea to extend unused broadcast television frequencies for use in Part 15 devices. Assuming devices would not bleed into cable television services that also use those frequencies (more likely now with the advent of broadband via cable modem), the only remaining issue I can see is to ensure that such devices do not interfere with persons trying to receive the sparse number of HDTV broadcasts out of their primary market. I would not agree that such devices must use GPS or databases to determine appropriate frequencies, as these restrictions would likely prevent such devices from competing in price with existing solutions. Passive sniffing and/or user-selected bands should be sufficient, along with a user-friendly database hosted by the FCC with frequency suggestions by ZIP code. In addition, these devices should not be required to work within the same band brackets as their corresponding television channels, as 6-8MHz at these frequencies does not provide adaquate bandwidth for many useful applications.
Just for the record, I AM NOT of the the "dot com millionaires" that Mr. Lelyveld of Disney despises so. I am just a normal guy who makes a living on intellectual property (software development).
The broadcast flag would, first and foremost, have a chilling effect on free speech by making fair uses of copyrighted works (for research, commentary, parody, etc.) illegal under the DCMA (the flag being a protection device under that law).
In addition, whereas the home user's right to time-shift and archive programming has been upheld for nearly two decades (Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, 1984), such a broadcast flag would render PVR (ReplayTV/TiVo) technology illegal. These large corporations use OUR AIRWAVES, track wires through OUR BACKYARDS and right-of-ways, and take up limited beaming locations in OUR SKY. They are, in effect, localized and publicly-permitted monopolies.
I can't trample through your yard, hoist a lemonade stand on it, charge you for a drink, and then force you to drink it all right then, right there as I blast advertisements in your ear. Yet, these comanies have licenses granted by your agency to use our resources, and still force us to enjoy their product exactly when and how they feel like it.
In the end, comsumers should decide what they buy, when they enjoy it, and how they use it. Existing copyright laws are sufficient to protect these companies from true piracy, new "features" like this broadcast flag would make non-infringing uses illegal and will only hurt the average consumer who desires privacy and flexibility in enjoying the entertainment they pay good money for. The flag itself (as proposed) could be easily bypassed by pirates, as can *ANY* encryption technology given pirates with enough financial incentive to do so.
In closing, I urge you to require the content industry to demonstrate that its proposed technologies will allow for all legal uses and will actually achieve the stated goal of preventing piracy. If they cannot, I urge you not to mandate the broadcast flag.
IANAL/TINLA.
Patterns, algorithms, methods, and logic cannot be protected by copyright, only specific and unique implementations thereof. Patents could protect such ideas but rarely do and certainly your guy would know if his employer filed a patent based on his previous work. The old standby of "proprietary business knowledge" must be a closely-held (formally secured) asset to be protected, and must be novel (i.e., not simply based on common knowledge--pretty difficult to do in our field).
Lifting code written at a previous employer, however, would probably cross the line. Even there, though, there is a large grey line of "inevitable discovery" (to borrow a prosecutorial term)--a sufficiently elegant algorithm (written for efficiency and refactored through the course of testing) will always result in nearly identical code (variable names notwithstanding, of course). This wouldn't be the case with more artistic endeavors (e.g., screenplays about the same concept can vary widely in implementation), but it is true in computer and information sciences.
ASC(D) = 68 = 6 + 8 = 14 = 5
;).
ASC(M) = 77 = 7 + 7 = 14 = 5
ASC(V) = 86 = 8 + 6 = 14 = 5
Ergo, DMV is 555.
Too close for comfort, methinks
Seriously, this is *VERY BAD*. I for one am against the idea of the federal government collecting massive databases on us (especially biometric information of any kind) without cause (privacy in our papers and that sort of thing). I'm no conspiracy-theorist, I just know that the government is no monolithic being, it is just people (as error-prone and greedy as the rest of mankind) given more power than usual to collectively try to make things decent around here.
Consider another angle: some states have fingerprints either encoded on the cards or on file, but *all* have photos. Matching the normalized conditions of a driver's license photo (lighting, lenses, distance, angle, etc.) with a face-recognition database would be alarmingly easy.
Claim 4: Looks like content-based micropayments were part of the patent as well.
Claim 5/6/7: Web servers and browsers are also included, and could be forced into RAND licensing situations if this holds up.
Shouldn't this patent be long expired by now anyway?
I believe the majority of this patent will be thrown out on the basis of prior art. Here's some quick examples:
Claim 8: circular buffers have been used in broadcast TV and radio for years for "bleepers" (audio/video censoring devices).
Claim 12 and 13: Come on, a patent on FF and RW of digital video? Media Player, anyone? Video Toaster has already been mentioned as well.
Claim 14: Looks like they've claimed on-screen displays of timecodes and other metadata, used in VCRs and TVs for years. The technology used for superimposing video, chromakey, has been around even longer.
Claim 15: Decoding the VBI to determine program start--used in commercial-skipping VCRs for years.
Claim 16: Decoding closed-captioning for recording triggers was used years ago in a program that came with my PC TV card from Happauge.
Claim 24-25: Now if we hook our VCRs up to our PVRs to transfer to tape we are violating their patent.
Claim 26: Scheduled recording?!?
Claim 28: They've patented speeding up the video (time compression) to fit backup media (e.g., VHS). This has been done for years in audio--I've used it at my church to compress a longer sermon onto a CD to avoid a two-CD collection for that week.
The remainder of the claims involve the PVR idea itself (I thought Replay was first?--not sure) and the ways each software component works with the others for smooth playback and response (many of which may be already patented or at least prior art in video editing suites such as Adobe Premiere). Of course, patents involve not just the individual components, but the invention as a whole, but I still don't think this will pass muster in any fair-minded court.