FCC Commissioner Lauds DRM, ISP Filtering 217
snydeq writes "Ars Technica's Nate Anderson and InfoWorld's Paul Venezia provide worthwhile commentary on a recent speech by FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate (PDF), in which she praised DRM as 'very effective' and raised a flag in favor of ISP filtering. Anderson: 'Having commissioners who feel that the government has a duty to partner with and back educational classroom content from the RIAA; who really believe that ISP filtering is so unproblematic we can stop considering objections; and who think that universities worry about file-swapping because tuition might be raised to pay for the needed "expansion of storage capabilities" (huh?) isn't good for the FCC and isn't good for America.' Venezia: 'Leave the ISPs out of it — it's not their job to protect a failing business model, and a movement toward a tiered and filtered Internet will do nothing to stem the tide of piracy, but will result in great restrictions on innovation, freedoms, and the general use of the Internet. There's nothing to be gained down that path other than possibly to expand the wallets of a few companies.'"
DRM is effective (Score:5, Insightful)
In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Former FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate has announced she is retiring in 2009 and is looking forward to serving on the board of the RIAA as their new "Token Ex-Government Paid Mouthpiece" Director.
Hitting the Nail Headwise (Score:5, Insightful)
"...There's nothing to be gained down that path other than possibly to expand the wallets of a few companies."
That's precisely the reason the government would back it. Governments have created corporations and have conducted wars for exactly that reason.
It's almost as if (Score:5, Insightful)
The mainstream regulation committees have taken interest in these type of subjects and as usual, the ignorance/commercial interests is/are beginning to shine through.
Re:In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)
To be fair... (Score:3, Insightful)
DRM is very good at what it does: preventing us from using our legitimately purchased items.
Simple solution. (Score:5, Insightful)
But kinda of hard to swallow.
Simply stop giving the people that back this shit your money. Put your money where your mouth is.
Before I purchase any product, I look it up on the web and see if it has DRM, if it does, I don't purchase it. When my ISP starts filtering my connection(throttling is one thing, censorship is something entirely different), I will disconnect. When I cannot look up DRM on products because I no longer use the Internet, I'll just have to assume its there.
Why pay for it when it doesn't work anymore?
Re:Her email address (Score:3, Insightful)
Any idea about the stance of her probable replacement?
Depends on if that replacement is appointed before or after January 20th ;)
Re:Maybe another K-Street restriction needed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Insightful)
Former FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate has announced she is retiring in 2009 and is looking forward to giving her full attention to giving blowjobs to RIAA executives, and apologizes for having divided her time between being a corporate shill and cashing her government paycheque.
Where's an economist when you need one? (Score:5, Insightful)
From her speech: "Overall, the U.S. economy lost $58 billion in output that would have been realized if piracy had not occurred. In addition, the U.S. lost 373,375 jobs due to piracy, and federal and state governments lose $2.6 billion annually through unrealized tax revenue."
That is total BS. Piracy != losses; most (or at least many) people who pirate would not otherwise purchase the product. She needs to go take Economics 101 and realize that if you make something free (which is what piracy does), the demand is going to skyrocket beyond what it would normally be at any reasonable price level.
Statements like this are dangerous because if people really believe piracy caused $58 billion of damage to the economy, then they will be willing to spend similar sums of money in order to combat piracy.
In fact, maybe she realizes that this is total FUD, and just wants to justify an exorbitant budget for her department in order to "combat piracy."
As I said: where's an economist when you need one?
Lobby (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess the MAFIAA lobby is very strong. Obviously politicians have no idea of the real world and are told what to say by their staff.
Re:Where's an economist when you need one? (Score:1, Insightful)
If the numbers are true, the industry should be willing to plop down $20 or $30 billion to stop piracy. They'd get their money back with interest according to my calculations.
Why I don't read comments anymore (Score:1, Insightful)
One look at the tags on this story reminds me why I almost never bother with comments anymore.
Like most Slashdot readers, it's hard for me to imagine statements this blatantly stupid and biased coming from a sitting government official.
But SERIOUSLY, notwithstanding some really bright, reasonable, articulate people, it feels like this place is up to the gills in 8th graders. "Whore" and "bitch" are the kind of words I remember seeing on bathroom walls. I get emotional about some of these things too, but how can anyone take this site seriously with those kinds of responses?
Re:Where's an economist when you need one? (Score:4, Insightful)
She needs to go take Economics 101 and realize that if you make something free (which is what piracy does), the demand is going to skyrocket beyond what it would normally be at any reasonable price level.
You might consider a visit there yourself. It's ignorant to say that piracy != losses. Of course it equals losses. You'd have to be fucking daft to think that -noone- who pirates would not have bought the material, had piracy not been available. Some of the users would have bought the material, some wouldn't have. In econ 101, you'd learn about a demand curve, whereby more people want a good at a lower price than a higher price, but the curves are generally found to be smooth, with a slope between 0 and 1.
What econ 101 teaches you is that a realistic estimate of the losses does not equal the retail price times the number of pirated copies.
Re:Simple solution. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's pretty much it. When you remove the means of sustenance (money), it will eventually die.
From the speech (Score:2, Insightful)
Its crucial that we not only allow operators to manage their networks, but to not tie their hands with prescriptive regulations. And make no mistake, net neutrality as network management is sometimes referenced in Washington and among political discussants, if implemented in its strictest form, will tie the hands of network operators. Digital fingerprinting and watermarking would not be possible if net neutrality is enforced in its harshest form.
I'm pretty sure New_Movie.avi would still contain their precious watermarks, regardless of how they throttled your connection. Unless, of course, they are hoping the ISPs reroute "unauthorized" destinations and protocols to their own servers.
Let them filter! (Score:2, Insightful)
Go ahead and try, all that will happen is that services will use rotating ports and encryption to get around filters. Good luck, let the arms race begin.
Re:Her email address (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WTF parts... (Score:5, Insightful)
As usual the government won't do shit and she'll worm her way into a different high position. I hope this bitch dies in a fire.
Nice way to invalidate any conceivable merit the rest of your argument had.
Re:Simple solution. NOT. (Score:3, Insightful)
stop giving the people that back this shit your money. Put your money where your mouth is.
The problem with this is that it's *not* a solution.
What happens when you do this is that they say "hey our sales are down, we need more DRM and government restrictions - send some more lobbyists to Washington to buy some more laws."
And drop in sales is attributed to "piracy", whether it's really the cause or not.
Graffiti on the Men's Room Wall (Score:2, Insightful)
There are some things it is a pleasure to leave behind in high school.
Trash talk from a nerd is one of them.
Talk of blowjobs isn't "insightful." It is adolescent.
Beavis and Butt-Head. You have given no reason why any one over the age of consent should take you seriously.
Re:To be fair... (Score:3, Insightful)
That is almost correct;
For those who have had problems with their purchases, the correct phrase is;
DRM is very good at what it does: preventing us from purchasing items.
I stick to open formats. Sell in a closed locked propritory format = no sale.
Re:Graffiti on the Men's Room Wall (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, I normally agree to this kinda of sentiment hardily, but after reading what this woman has say on the subject, I feel the need to paraphrase Freud... Sometimes a cocksucker is just a cocksucker. I mean, the little voice in my head that read in it older-WASPy-woman voice actually mumbled a bit, having to talk around the big publishing-industry cock in her mouth.
Yes, it's crude and coarse, but pretend civility that passes as public discourse has gotten us to the point where people like this are taken seriously. Personally, I think being a bit lewd and even rude are far preferable to letting shit like this be taken seriously.
Consider the context. (Score:3, Insightful)
A bathroom wall is pretty much exactly where this woman belongs.
Consider that "whore" is not necessarily idle name-calling. Because of the statements she's made, we can either assume that she actually is that stupid, or that she's been swayed by lobbyists -- maybe that she's actually paid by the RIAA, or has some stake in them.
Which would make her a whore, regardless of her gender. The fact that she's a public servant makes her that much more deserving of every profanity we can throw at her.
Of course, the full extent of our disgust doesn't fit into the tags, so it's been condensed to "bitch" and "whore"... which is why you have to actually read the comments.
the FCC and hollywood (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow. I can't believe what an echo chamber it is in here.
First of all, why would the FCC care one whit about the anti-DRM movement? As far as their concerned this is the same stuff that cable companies have been putting on their lines for years for movies and pay channels. Why is this any different for them?
So what's the big deal. They think "ah, just move the cable industry model to the internet and you now have streaming TV and movies, great!" And again, i don't actually see a problem with this... until they try to stop you from being able to record on your VCR or something and destroy the cable legacy user model we have today. That's where the problem is and that's what you should be arguing against.
Now again, this whole bittorrent thing eats into their business. First off, they're basically there to support industry. They don't care about us as consumers, they just want to control the content that we can see and view. I mean really, in this day and age, what else do they do? Manage airwave frequencies? Um... yeah... that would take about 10 people for the whole US if that's all they did.
So they're basically the morals gatekeeper to keep us from seeing Janet Jackson's boob. The whole bittorrent thing really eats into that control. I can DL anything from Bambi to 2 girls 1 cup with out any form of content control... and so can any unsupervised 5 yr old. O M G!~
From their point of view, internet filtering is great and DRM is totally old news. So unless you're a religious organization that can whip your people into having orgies of indignation at the drop of a hat, they don't care about your rights as an individual or your rights as a consumer. They only care about your rights to pony up money for the latest Hollywood flick... and maybe about how messed up if little Timmy hears a swear word or sees a (gasp) boob.
Look for other people to protect your rights, the FCC is about limiting, not protecting. Don't expect any different. I hate to say it, but congress and the courts are the path to protecting your rights, not the FCC.
d
Re:Her email address (Score:5, Insightful)
hey c'mon, that's not fair...
everyone knows Deborah Tate gets at least some of her talking points [fcc.gov] from Clear Channel [publicintegrity.org].
Tate (Clear Channel) on the XM/Sirius merger:
Tate (Clear Channel) on expanding their network of more than 1200 terrestrial radio stations:
Translation:
satellite radio monopoly = bad!
terrestrial radio monopoly = good!
Re:Where's an economist when you need one? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Graffiti on the Men's Room Wall (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is, it is the geek who isn't taken seriously. The mod-up to +5 simply makes him "one of the boys."
Re:The FCC is corrupt to its core! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Graffiti on the Men's Room Wall (Score:3, Insightful)
I wasn't trying to impress anyone. If you think crudeness is wrong in trying to satirize elements of our society, then I recommend you don't read Swift.
Re:Where's an economist when you need one? (Score:3, Insightful)
YOU might consider a visit to Econ 101, as you fuck up the most basic economic principles.
Demand generally only has a constant slope in the SHORT term. In said short term, price does NOT have an effect on demand, but on quantity demanded. If Britteny releases a new album, I don't not want it at ANY price. When the PS3 was released, lots of people wanted it-there was high demand. It sat on shelves though because of the high price point. How times did we hear "I really want it at some point, but I'll wait until it is cheaper." Perfect example of a high demand, but a low quantity demanded.
Price changes over the LONG term CAN have effects on demands, but then the assumption that the demand curve has a constant slope breaks, and you're still wrong.
Please review your economics basics before you try to take someone to task again, k?
Additionally, you might want to stop in a reading comprehension class while you're at it. The statement "piracy != losses" isn't talking about the copyright holders bottom lines, but obviously reflecting on the following excerpt from the quote: "Overall, the U.S. economy lost $58 billion in output that would have been realized if piracy had not occurred."
The US economy did not "lose" $58 billion in output. Consumers just decided that those $58 billion dollars would be better spent in other sectors, on other goods and services which provide a higher utility, instead of sending them to the coffers of large IP holders.
We didn't lose out on ANY tax money! The government still dipped its greedy fingers in whatever alternate transactions the consumer made with with $58 billion instead of having spent it on IP. And what about jobs supported and created in other industries with this $59 billion that supposedly was deserved by IP holders? By her logic, one could lambast consumers of Pepsi products for causing job losses at Coca-Cola! Deborah Taylor Tate's statement is complete and utter HOGWASH, and clearly illustrates that she is either an idiot, or is in bed with the large copyright holders--both reasons enough why she is unfit to serve in her position...