New Bill Threatens to Plug "Analog Hole" 374
ThinSkin writes "In an effort to encourage consumers to embrace digital content, The Electronic Frontier Foundation is fighting a bill that would restrict owners of analog devices from recording analog content. For instance, if a fan wishes to tape a Baseball game on his VCR, the VCR would re-encode the content of that game and convert it into a digital form, which would then be filled with right restrictions and so forth. The process would be driven by VRAM (Veil Rights Assertion Mark), a technology that stamps analog content with DRM schemes."
Re:New meaning to an old word (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who are they kidding? (Score:4, Insightful)
I didn't used to think so. But upon reflection I've changed my mind. I used to think there's no way the government could put the mp3 genie back in the bottle, but for the most part that's exactly what's happened.
Look, any government that can make growing and consuming a plant in your house illegal can make analog recording illegal.
How about THIS idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Decent books with CDs - sure you can download the tracks of the internet but you get a really nice package if you buy the legit copy.
They can stick all the DRM they want onto a CD - it doesn't force people who think it's poor value to buy it. I think DRMed "CDs" are poor value & refuse to buy them on principle; so all they are doing is shrinking their potential market antagonizing their customers while the MP3s roam free on P2P.
Put out something worth buying and I'll buy it. Video recorders that restrict use are poor value - I'll stick with my old one thank you very much...
Re:This doesn't matter for us...! (Score:5, Insightful)
So this crazy DRM stuff really will have some effect on illegal downloaders: It will increase the number of people who do the same thing, increasing the quality and quantity of the files available, while making it less likely for each given individual that she'll get in trouble. If there is going to be a realistic move to reduce piracy, it will have to involve making it convenient to stay legal and play by the rules. These DRM roadblocks do just the opposite. The more of these stunts I see, the less wrong piracy starts to seem. It's like they try to punish the people that play by the rules. Yeah, what an incentive!
put in copy prevention and lose copyright (Score:5, Insightful)
I see copy prevention technology as being no different conceptually from a trade secret. If you decide to hide a technology as a trade secret rather than sharing a technology through a patent then your technology can be reverse engineered legally and you get no protection under law. The trade off is that society gets access to your new technology and you get legal monopoly for a number of years. If you don't share the technology via a descriptive patent, then you don't get a legal monopoly. So, similarly if you decide to prevent copying using technology rather than by using copyright law, then you should get no benefit under the law because you are ultimately depriving society of the content if it is never released in a copyable form.
Analogue Rights Management? (Score:4, Insightful)
We only need to avoid those chips being installed into our brains in order to enforce the brohibition to tell our friends about the football match we looked at. We paid for one private view, not for a public performance!
Re:Who are they kidding? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet many of us are being forced to adopt digital TV and Radio.
*sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm bored of this stupid timeline... you know:
P2P services arise
RIAA/MPAA kills one
P2P piracy increases due to consumers being pissed off that the RIAA/MPAA has no respect for their rights (or their tastes... this summer had nothing good in the theatres aside from the Guide, you know)
RIAA/MPAA freaks and claims P2P services are to blame, inviting legislation/technology that fucks fair use while not doing any real good
P2P piracy increses, for much the same reasons as before, while homebrew programmers work around the new legislation/technology
RIAA/MPAA freaks
P2P piracy increses
A quote from a relevant link of the article:
"We have a bright young public who sees nothing wrong with downloading...it's going to destroy the copyright industry, it seems to me
- Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)
You're right, Dianne. But you haven't quite gotten the point.
Unregulated, P2P users were still buying good CDs. But every time new anti-p2p legislation is enacted, new anti-circumvention technology added, and for each p2p site shut down, it alienates the Industries from their customers. Each time, the animosity that was once limited to the tech-savvy grows ever outward into people who'd never have thought bad of their content providers.
There are easy ways to fix this; one is to stop with the lawsuits. Worst. Press. Ever. Another is to start producing quality. People won't want to steal that which is actually worth paying for. The real item is to fix copyright law. 95 years past the original author's death is rediculous. How about 15 years past initial release? If I knew I could, for example, download episodes of the original Battlestar Galactia without legal repercussions, I might reconsider downloding Sci Fi's Season 2 DV cap that's floating on Bittorrent.
This law doesn't matter to anyone with a brain. A TV card with an offending chip can be "repaired" by anyone determined enough. You'd have to integrate your crap into the DAC and MPEG-4 encoders of every device, then hope someone doesn't hack the controls out of the software, or that someone doesn't make an open source version, fully functional (and easily modified), on the premise of interoperability.
Yeah, release the drivers for linux in closed source code. Someone will build ones for their amiga system and claim interoperability. Release for amiga, and you'll have the BeOS people doing it. Do BeOS, and there's a few flavors of BSD that would be clean. BeOS covered? How about Minix? You're not going to win here without spending a few billion in development, and then you'll still lose to those who don't cower under a legal premise and have names like "Thundulator". The term is "Unenforcable", or, in colloquial terms, "Useless fuck of a law".
Meanwhile, the cycle's going to go on until either the MPAA/RIAA have run out of money to throw at the problem, due to the combination of lack of consumers willing to pay to be fucked in the ass, or until they basically cow under - and eat what crumbs consumers will give them AFTER the content creators have been paid - like the good little middle-management fucktards they are.
In conclusion, Dianne is partially right. Their either will be legal AND free P2P, or there won't be an RIAA/MPAA. Actually, I'm kinda pushing for both.
Re:This doesn't matter for us...! (Score:4, Insightful)
my experience has been that downloading has two major upsides: EVERYTHING is available, and everything is free.
piracy will increase if nothing changes simply because a generation is growing up accustomed to free product. It won't make sense to pay. It will only get worse as more people become web-centric.
I can't speak as to the effects of DRM, but understanding the fundamental psychology of the consumer/downloader is important.
Take your average convenience store... tell the clerk to disappear and monitor the cameras for a half an hour. Only a small number of people will leave the cash for their purchase on the counter. Most will loot and bail.
The music industry has fucked up by letting too many people get shit for free for too long. It's a culture dynamic. Hollywood is a little better - they got these download deals jumping off on college campuses where you get billed on tuition statements for the shit you download.
Let me get used to free shit; don't get mad if I don't want to pay later.
As for this DRM shit, it's desperation, but what are the record companies gonna do?
Makes your Tivo unable to record (Score:3, Insightful)
(1) Copy Prohibited Content. An Analog Video Input Device shall not record or
cause the recording of Copy Prohibited Content in digital form except for
retention for a period not to exceed 90 minutes from initial receipt of each unit
of such content, including retention and deletion on a frame-by-frame,
minute-by-minute or megabyte-by-megabyte basis, using a Bound Recording Method,
and provided that such content shall be destroyed or otherwise rendered unusable
prior to or upon expiration of such period.
Re:New meaning to an old word (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole point of copyright is that it's the idea that matters*; and yet, once we can finally decouple the idea from the carrier medium by making it into a stream of bits that can be sent across the world within fractions of a second, we see that trying to reapply the previous metaphor of the physical object requires that we impose such drastic controls, since the most natural thing to do is to spread information, unlike when the idea depended on the replication of the media as well---you can't click and drag a second copy of a book from the first one.
I think that the selling of ideas by copy cannot be done anymore, unless you impose this unnatural and invasive system onto the flow of information, and that it's going to be a painful process to widely come to this realization. Everyone struggles to find a replacement system to compensate for the loss of by-copy sale (a ransom system? a patronage system?), but surely the search for more money does not trump the free exchange of ideas.
* Yeah, that's probably not exactly right, but IANAL, and I need sleep, so it's the best I can do.
Re:put in copy prevention and lose copyright (Score:5, Insightful)
Christ I hope they pass this and worse (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, pass this sucker. Make copyrights last forever. Make story plots patentable. Go ahead. See how much control you have over popular culture, you morons. Watch popular culture pass right on by, out of your control, beyond your puny stilted imagination. Paint yourselves into corners of your own making, spend all your energy fighting each other and hoarding and enhancing your little corner of the past, while the future bypasses you utterly and forever. While you think of a zillion ways to regurgitate your patented storyline, which is all you can do because your competitors have their own patented storylines which they are busy regurgitating, people will develop their own tools which they will share freely, and other people will swap these and improve these and make their own unpatented stories and their own uncopyrighted and locked down culture.
You morons will be left holding ancient patented and copyrighted dreck which has been projectile vomited to a fare-thee-well because you have a 300 year patent on it, or a 500 year copyright on it, and heaven knows Disney has to protect Micky from all those hordes who have only one goal in mind: how to appropriate Mickey for their own perverted uses. Yes, that's right, the truth is out now, I have seen the transcripts of the meetings. Sony wants nothing more than to lock up Mickey for themselves, they have wet drems at board meetings when they salivate at the prospect of hijacking Mickey if you don't keep thsoe patents and copyrights in force. They have entire teams of lawyers searching for loopholes to grab Mickey form your slippery paws because you slipped up and saved a few megabucks by not hiring that one brilliant lawyer before Sony did.
Morons, I say, morons.
There are 2 problems... (Score:3, Insightful)
disgusting... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Okay, we'll have to cripple those too."
Completely disgusting. And our Congress? They'll roll right over and do it too.
Re:Who are they kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. By definition in-fact.
Oh yeah, you'd be laughing for a few years... Then your digital recorder will break down, and you'll stop laughing.
Better to start now.
The unpaid geek workforce just got more important (Score:4, Insightful)
When it comes to DRM / copy protection circumvention, I see my role as unpaid geek in just the same way. It's my job to make sure that proper the DRM-defeating disc ripping tools are available and easy to use, no-CD game cracks are swapped in, and I tell people about the little disclaimers to watch out for when buying CDs.
I see the concept of 'plugging the analog hole' as nothing more than exploitation of non-technical consumers. A year ago, timeshifting on VHS was a non-issue. If the cartels choose to make it one, I'll damned well react by spreading my techspertise across the widest possible consumer base I can. The more people who fall outside the 'casual copier discouraged by simple protection' category, the weaker their case for persisting with this rubbish.
summary sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
Despite what the poorly written summary says, the EFF isn't doing the encouranging. This more accurately describes the situation:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is fighting a bill that would encourage consumers to embrace digital content by restricting owners of analog devices from recording analog content...
Furthermore, a later sentence should read:
they are scared (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:*sigh* (Score:3, Insightful)
These people are after total control of speech and content: they want to make the cost of entry into publishing and media so high that only corporations can afford it, the way it used to be in the 20th century. It's comfortable for the media companies and it's comfortable for politicians. And the people that managed to bring you the Sonny Bono copyright extension act, software patents, and now storyline patents, will manage to do just that.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:New meaning to an old word (Score:3, Insightful)
Whose lining the politician's pockets to make them see the issue in such a way? No-one that's who. Because your important politicians follow their constituents that give them cash, instead of their constituents, your freedoms will continue to be done away with.
Stop watching (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I think that the price of having to watch nine minutes of commercials for every twenty one minutes of programming is too high, especially considdering the volume of really crappy shows on T.V. (there are good ones, they are just a rarity.) That I cannot tape it and watch it when I have free time is too much. I'm not organizing my life to fit their schedule.
Don't devote energy fighting them. Let them waste all the money they want buying politicians and lobbyists. They can rule their twisted little corner of the airwaves with an iorn fist. (Insert obligatory princess Leia line from SW here.) I just quit watching TV. It's amazing how much other stuff there is to do in life when you stop watching TV, and how much free time you have to do it.
(For example, you can go post frothing neo-luddite rants about 'killing your tv' on your favorite internet discussion board...)
Re:This doesn't matter for us...! (Score:4, Insightful)
While that's true for SOME of the downloaders, according to a survey Australia (after the UK) has the largest number of illegal downloaders of television shows. In Australia, it is extremely difficult to get a lot of American shows, with their being quite a big delay for all but the most popular ones. Unfortunately I couldn't find a link, but that says something. It says that there is a correlation between stuff being inaccessible in a timely manner and easy format, and illegal downloads.
Re:This doesn't matter for us...! (Score:5, Insightful)
Eh, iTunes shows that a lot of people are willing to pay fair and square just for convenience. You're never going to reel in the people who want free no matter what, but you can easily reel in the people who want convenience, ala GP post.
Re:New meaning to an old word (Score:3, Insightful)
Depends on how you define the search for wealth: the search to accumulate more wealth or the search to produce more wealth. The search to produce more wealth requires the free exchange of ideas. This is the original idea of patents, copyrights etc.
Available wealth is largely determined by technology, eg: a society with the technology of fishing nets has more wealth available than the technology of fishing lines. The rate at which technology (and therefore wealth) increases is determined by the speed with which we share information. As I understand it, when patents first came to be, they lasted 20 years, copyrights 14 (I could have this wrong, I think it makes little difference to my point). These were relatively short times compared to the speed of technological advance and speed of information distribution at the time, and so were very successful methods of getting ideas into the public domain (where they could be used to produce wealth).
Now that technological change is so rapid, distribution is much faster and economical, and copyrights have been extended so much, the traditional application of patents and copyrights is working exactly contrary to the production of wealth.
Current restrictions on the exchange of ideas help a few people to accumulate wealth, but hinders the production of wealth.
For an example: If I recorded a album and sold 100,000 copies at $1 profit to me for each copy, the entire $100,000 I accumulate already existed. The only wealth produced is the 100,000 songs. If I release the album for download, lets say 500,000 people download it. More wealth has been produced, although I don't necesarily accumulate any money. Obviously, there must be sufficient incentive somehow for me to produce the album, but the real wealth is produced when the content is distributed, not when I personally get paid.
Disclaimer: I am not a recording artist, I am a capitalist.
Re:Dupity Dupe (Score:5, Insightful)
Much like the Sony rootkit article, this getting duped as much as possible is actually a very good thing.
Re:they are scared (Score:5, Insightful)
I run my own production house. It's a small business but it's very successful. My first impression (after RTFA) is that wow - if this passes I'm going to have to take out my first business loan ever when it's time to replace my existing gear. My second impression - I wonder if I'll be granted a license to continue working.
They are scared. The industry is realizing that it's not how much money you throw at something (though that isn't always a liability) that determines [potential] quality, it's how much talent and desire/passion is put into all aspects of it. The technology to make a feature film is available for $700 at Best Buy (take my word for it - it is). Everyone has access to it. Not everyone can do it though - make the feature film - that's where the talent and desire/passion part comes in. But the technical hurdles have been eliminated. Everything I use professionally in my business comes from Best Buy or a similar store (mass availability) or I build it myself. It's not because I'm cheap (oh I loove spending the paycheck), but because I'm smart in what I buy. I know my gear inside and out: I know the flaws and compensate for, I know the strengths and take advantage of, I instantaneously adjust and react to circumstances, I'm dedicated/talented/passionate. If it wasn't for my abilities, yeah, I'd have to go out and spend the big $$$ to buy more expensive gear to compensate (or more likely, I probably wouldn't have had the desire to run my own show).
That is what is scary to those who've invested $$$ into the existing system. It's no longer guaranteed that having a $50-100k Varicam or Cinealta setup will produce 'quality' or draw a crowd. Conversely, it's no longer guaranteed that a $3k MiniDV setup will be schlock and unwatchable. Hell, the darling posterchild of indy/Holly cinema everywhere: film (and its outrageous cost) VS. digital doesn't even really matter anymore - think of all the crap movies out there that *should* be good simply because they were shot on film or had huge insane budgets. The most important component in any production is the talent 1) behind the camera and 2) infront of the camera. The hardware simply doesn't matter like it used to. The money, while more helpful and important than the gear, is less important. Where there's a will, there's a way.
This is just one more attempt by some greedy narrow-viewed 'only in the present' entity to yet again subject America (the land of potential, the land of chance and opportunity and fortune, etc) to the great averaging and Lowest-Common-Denominator compressing. They want to forcibly make the price of entry significantly higher - legalize away the chance of undiscovered greatness. Further seperate the haves from the havenots. More control where they otherwise wouldn't have it.
It's the poor carpenter who blames his tools. What happens when the carpenter can't have any tools?
Uh... I don't think they understand (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:put in copy prevention and lose copyright (Score:3, Insightful)
It should be taxed. Not just income tax, but property tax. A maitenance/registration fee should be imposed to maintain the copyright as well.
Non-commercial copyrights would be immune to such fees and taxes. Thus free software, a poem you wrote, etc. would still be free as long as you didn't try to sell it.
Commercial copyrights however are treated just like any other asset. It doesn't matter if the book/software/movie makes money or not, the entity that owns the copyright must still pay property taxes and whatever fees go with it. If the copyrighted material is being sold, then it is no longer non-commercial.
This would force companies to dump their copyrighted materials into the public domain once the property was costing more to maintain than it was bringing in. Either that, or the companies would be forced to innovate in order to keep the copyright profitable.
This would be a win-win situation in the end. But we all know the true colors of the megacorps, and something like this would be killed even before reaching committee.
~X~
Re:Who are they kidding? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Well honey, back then you could look at the TV directly and it wasn't just a display of digital static. You could see the images and video right there on the screen as plain as day in an unencrypted format. Then the MPAA realized that people were still able to take a camcorder and record that display and got Congress to pass the Video Content Protection Act of 2008 to require the DRM-enabled goggles."
Actually, hell, that's not sad, I'm looking forward to it. After the Internet gained popularity I started to watch less and less TV and I haven't been to a movie theater in 18 months. More of our content and entertainment will simply come via the Internet in the future instead of the passive television interface that couch potatoes are used to. We just need to ensure that we never allow the powers that be to take away our right to publish our own content with no restrictions (i.e. personal websites, blogs, home videos and photos... anything not created by a major media company).
"Luddites" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:New meaning to an old word (Score:4, Insightful)
Can't boycott for fear of being sued by the RIAA! (Score:2, Insightful)
Didn't we settle this a long time ago? (Score:3, Insightful)
OK. So let's change the rules.
Add an ammendment to the bill, requiring that the "broadcast flag" may only be applied to content that is aired without commercials - i.e. where the content provider foots the entire bill for broadcasting it, in the hope of charging people later for copies. Otherwise, free TV is free TV - if you don't want your content recorded, don't broadcast it through my airspace.
Re:This doesn't matter for us...! (Score:3, Insightful)
lol. You've seen that in New York? I live in New York. It's why I posed the question. The reason I posed the question is because of the particulars: unsupervised goods and perceived freedom from reprisal.
On a densely trafficked new york street before a hot dog vendor, there is little perceived freedom from reprisal. There are little avenues of escape and cost/return just doesn't wash.
Also, the person downloading is most likely to be the same person who would otherwise be commiting crimes, namely young males - teens and young adults. So using honey and dolls as an example just doesn't cut it. There is little vested interest in those items from the group most likely to steal in general. As relates to the music industry, young males represent a critical mass of the music purchasing audience. Young women are still buying music; just look at soundscan and see that the acts geared towards young women and children continue to do well. It's all the other stuff that guys used to buy that are suffering.
So lets more accurately represent the analogy:
Take your average store that sells say video games and consoles, or DVDs, or athletic attire and materials - items typically designed to appeal to young males. Remove any visible artifacts of surveillance. That store would be cleaned out in short order.
Are there going to be people who always follow the rules: yes. Clearly this is so, or ITUNES would be taking a loss. There are people who wait for the walk sign even with no cars in either direction.
My point is that the length of time that has elapsed without a viable widescale business model has allowed the culture of downloading to become the norm. I say this because downloading is the norm for me; buying the product is the exception. And I work in media. I know very few people who actually BUY digital content. The instances where content is bought are particular, i.e. console games... games that require online certs that haven't been cracked, etc. In other words, if the inconvenience is too great, then a purchase is made.
If you've grown up downloading stuff, then it's no inconvenience to have your virus scanner automatically checking your incoming folder or torrents folder. It's not an inconvenience to mess around with bin and cue files, or joining small peer networking groups that trade amongst themselves. You take the odds of the RIAA coming after you, after all, you do way more risky things every day. Some people grew up with the inconvenience of actually having to send letters in the mail and think email is newfangled and complicated.
My point is that downloading is now de facto for a lot of people. Culture. Just the way things are done. And that's the industry's fault. The more they delay, the more it will become a part of everyone's lives and the more difficult it becomes to break the habit.
We need a better copyright law. (Score:1, Insightful)
As each new technology beyond books was added to this scheme, the (specialized) lawyers made this term longer in exchange for protecting the newer technologies. Currently, it is way too long by most outside observers.
Many copies of older movies are in poor to nearly useless shape. The copmpanies want to charge and charge again for the same "copy", but refuse to keep the pristine copy from which they are based, in its pristine state. To have something to be given back to the public, the copyright holders must keep the copies in a pristine state else they are breaking their side of the agreement.
We need to return to the basic limited term of 20 years, the same as the current patent. It should start at the begining of filming, recording or other well defined point. If you change it, the original must still be released after the original term expires. The altered version is given its own copyright seperate from the older version. Any changes in the law only affects new creations, the older ones still have their old expiration dates, unless the new terms would result in a earlier date.
A copy is defined for the right to have the version in any form. If a newer release has a higher resolution, the owners of the older release can get the newer release, free of charge. So if you own the VHS tape of the movie, and the same version is released in HDTV format, you have the right to get the HDTV format free of charge. If they make it a new version, they must make the older version in the newer format for download available. If you bought "Stairway to Heaven" on a LP and still have it, you can download the DVD audio version to keep.
You must maintain possesion of the original work to keep these rights. To allow for such things as fires, disasters, theft, etc., a licensing scheme should be made. The license of any one to a work must be tracked by some entity created by the government and supported by copyright fees paid by the copyright holders. Its only fair. Those that make money from this work, should pay to maintain those rights. If they can't pay, the work becomes in the public domain immediately.
The copyright holders would also be required to keep 3 (or more) pristine copies in the highest resolution format available at the time at geographically seperate archival facilities. These facilities would be certified by the entity. The library of Congress would be one of those facilities. Once the works term expires, these facilities would release the work for downloading on the internet. That would likely be one of the qualifications for certification by the entity, having a high speed pipe into the internet for uploading released works. This prevents the work kept on film from cumbling into uselessness. Also, the creator or copyright holder can not destroy a work. The mere attempt will cause the work to be released into the public domain. That is because the work is basically owned by the public from the time of creation. The copyright holder just has the right to make money by selling copy licenses for the limited term provided.
If a copyright holder sells the right to a broadcaster to broadcast the work by whatever means, all the recipients have the right to record for timeshift purposes. The recipients even have the right to strip away portions of the broadcast they don't want to watch, hear or otherwise. They don't have to watch or listen to commercials, public messages and the like. Such recipients do not have the right to license themselves as owners of a copy of the work. They still retain fair use rights however to the broadcast version, however.
The license to a copy of a given work holder has responsibilities as w