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Digital Content Security Act
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Dec 21, 2005 10:43 PM
from the laws-make-everything-better dept.
from the laws-make-everything-better dept.
bdwoolman writes "Congress is leaving a special gift under the tree for Hollywood's film industry. Just before closing for the holidays, legislators introduced a new proposal designed to curb redistribution of movies.The Digital Transition Content Security Act would embed anticopying technology into the next generation of digital video products. If it makes its way from Capitol Hill to the Oval Office and becomes law, the measure will outlaw the manufacture or sale of electronic devices that convert analog video signals into digital video signals, effective one year from its enactment. PC-based tuners and digital video recorders are listed among the devices."
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You are violating the act (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You are violating the act (Score:3, Funny)
Ack! Now Im in violation myself!
tm
Re:You are violating the act (Score:3, Informative)
"I think "verbatim quoting" is a tautology; moving on, it's one or two paragraphs, making about 20% of the entire story. I'd consider this "fair use", especially as it links back to the source. But of course lots of copyright owners don't believe there is such a thing as "fair use", as witness the topic of the story.
Backed by John Conyers (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Backed by John Conyers (Score:5, Funny)
Ewww.
I hope he at least had the common decency to hand you a tissue.
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Re:Backed by John Conyers (Score:4, Informative)
I agree with you. I greatly respect Congressman Conyers, but I totally disagree with him on this subject. However, for the record, here's JC's response from his blog [conyersblog.us]:
I have been hearing today that a lively discussion is taking place around the internet about my cosponsorship of the "Digital Transition Content Security Act," a bill that attempts to plug the "analog hole." Because the tone of some of these discussions has become so vitriolic, I decided to respond here.
First, some who disagree with my cosponsorship of this bill have imputed motives to me in a manner that I think is unfair. My cosponsorship has been labeled a "sell out," a "giveaway" or a "handout" to the movie/music industry, among other things. It has been said that I must have had "a lot of [my] time bought by the content industries" to cosponsor this bill.
The content industries would be very surprised to hear these assessments, which belie a great unfamiliarity with my legislative record and statements about these issues. Over a more than 40 year Congressional career, I have stood up clearly and consistently for the artists and others who work in the content industry. In my view, they are being squeezed from two sides. When it comes to working and contractual conditions, they are squeezed by the content industry. When it comes to piracy, they are being squeezed by illegal file sharing. Collectively, this squeeze has led to a lower standard of living for artists and lower profile workers in the content industry.
To say I am somehow beholden to the content industry ignores a number of actions I have taken. Here are a few from recent years. At a meeting of the Future of Music Coalition (an artists' rights group) in 2002, I rebuked the industry saying "[t]echnology is forcing the record labels and the artists and the writers and the composers to come together...[t]he Internet says to the industry that you folks are yesterday's news, you're following outdated models, your business strategies don't work anymore, and your profit motive is showing rather vulgarly." I also proposed a series of reforms to benefit artists that was strongly opposed by the RIAA.
When the recording industry slipped a provision to reclassify recording artists songs as "work for hire" into a satellite television bill and thereby deprived artists of reversionary rights to their songs, I fought back, saying among other things, "[i]t is about time we separate the people in the recording industry from the recording artists. I keep hearing from the recording industry telling me what the recording artists want. I know a few recording artists, and we will be checking on this. This is appropriately a sensitive subject." I have been outspoken about the industry practice of pay for play (or "payola") as well.
When the film studios have moved film production to Canada or overseas, thus costing American workers their jobs, I stood up to them.
When the publishing industry sought to deprive freelance writers of their rights (something fellow Kos poster Jonathan Tasini knows quite a bit about), I introduced a bill to protect freelance writers, illustrators, cartoonists, graphic designers, and photographers. The publishers did not like that very much.
I hear from lots of people that artists don't care about piracy. While it is true that some artists struggling to make it into the business don't mind file sharing because it exposes their songs to a wider audience, many - many - artists have come directly to me saying that piracy is threatening their ability to make a living. I have heard similar complaints from animators, writers, grips, and cameramen, who have seen job opportunities diminish in part because of piracy.
To be sure, as I have said above, piracy is not the whole problem - industry practices are part of the problem as well, but it is part of the problem. So what should we do about it?
Some say we do not need to do anything because uploading di
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Re:Backed by John Conyers (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Backed by John Conyers (Score:5, Insightful)
Second:
"I have said repeatedly that any legislation affecting the ability of consumers to use content must be carefully balanced to respect consumer expectations and rights and, of course, fair use."
Does he really know what he's talking about? How can he not realize that if you outlaw devices except those that follow instructions from content owners, you've effectively eliminated any use except those they decide to give you -- fair or not?
Has he really though through the implications for independent journalism? If you can put an analog signal in a broadcast, speech, performance, that dictates its disposition/distribution, you've effectively ended independent journalism that uses direct A/V sources. Bush messes up in a speech? Sorry, you *can't* rebroadcast it -- hell, you might not be allowed to record it. The only version that will exist and be distributed will be the official version.
"many - many - artists have come directly to me saying that piracy is threatening their ability to make a living. "
Who? How many? Can we really trust decisions in a matter of policy like this to secondhand anecdotal estimates? Make your case, but do it openly and preferably with some references to some analyses that looks harder than that. As the Representative himself stated, there are also many, many artists who don't feel like piracy is a particularly big problem. I'd be interested to know why he's choosing to listen to those who do feel threatened by piracy.
Giving content providers ultimate control is the wrong place to fight this for anyone who can think through the issue and genuinely cares about liberties. If the Representative can't see this, he'll have a hard time convincing me he's not deficient in at least one of the two areas. I'd love to be able to see his responses, thoough.
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Re:Backed by John Conyers (Score:5, Insightful)
Outside the government, it's pretty much the same story. The EFF fights the good fight, but they're small potatoes. The really big, influential civil rights groups which should be up in arms -- the ACLU and NRA both come to mind -- apparently don't have any understanding of how technological issues affect their core missions, and so the EFF is left pretty much on its own.
I'd like to believe that one of these days the *AA will just push a little too far, and Joe Sixpack will rise up in revolt
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Re:Backed by John Conyers (Score:5, Funny)
I'm all for having the Root-Mean-Square algorithm - or any algorithm (except Al Gore, of course) - for president. Hell, even a prime search algoritm would do a better job than Reagan, Bush, Clinton, W. Bush, or any of the 2008 nominatory candidates I've heard of so far.
Actually, a No. 2 pencil would do a better job.
Fucking useless human presidents.
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Remember people (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Remember people (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Remember people (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Remember people (Score:4, Informative)
We weren't forced to do anything. We (aka the majority government coalition parties on our behalf) chose to do so freely in return for greater access to the US markets. We could have walked away from the deal at anytime. We just chose not to.
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Re:Remember people (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Remember people (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Remember people (Score:4, Insightful)
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Digital Rights Massacre (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Digital Rights Massacre (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Digital Rights Massacre (Score:4, Insightful)
On September 10, 2001, almost everyone in Washington would have told you that the Patriot Act was so ridiculous that it had no chance of passing. All it takes to get a despicable law passed in Washington is timing. Wait for voters to stop paying attention to what's really important, and one can slip any crazy law by. News from Washington in January will see the Alito nomination, more Patriot act showdowns, hearings into domestic spying by the DoD and the NSA, and a lot of noise from 2008 presidential hopefulls. Karl Rove is expected to be indicted soon and rumors of the imminent resignation of Donald Rumsfield just keep coming. With all of that noise on top of the bird flu nonsense, continued post-Katrina rebuilding being bungled, and the latest noise from Iraq constantly coming in, do you really think that it would be very hard for the *AAs to grease a few palms, twist a few arms, and sucker in a few morons to get this law passed?
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Any bill can pass (Score:4, Insightful)
All it takes is for someone to attach it to an omnibus funding bill, as happened this week with the bill to open the Arctic Wildlife Reserve to the oil companies by sticking it into an arms appropriation bill at the last second. Someone basically said "the military uses imported oil, so drilling in the arctic could be considered a military neccessity!" In this case, of course the vote was overwhelmingly in favour of allowing big business to polute the arctic in search of what is estimated to be about a 16-month supply of oil.
I don't know why you guys (Americans) don't make this kind of legislative foolishness illegal. It's usually used for pork-barreling by attaching an obvious waste of money (in the form of directed bids for expensive purchases) to a bill that, oh, maybe funds school lunches or something. If the politicians don't vote in favour of the pork-barrel then they get a big "he voted against school lunches" attack in the next election. I'm sure it will happen one way or another with this "analog hole" proposal. Someone will find a way to roll it into a bigger block of regulations that nobody will have the guts to vote down....
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Re:Any bill can pass (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, it seems like all the worst legislation as far back as I can remember has been introduced via riders like this. I'd love to see the practise done away with, but it'd take a massive petition drive to pull it off and I doubt most Americans care that much about the practise, if they even know it exists. It never ceases to amaze me how little people I talk to seem to know about our political process...
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Getting it passed probably isn't their intent (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering it seems so unlikely on the surface, it makes me concerned that getting the bill passed isn't the actual point.
After all, it wouldn't be the first time that members of an industry have proposed something "ludicrously ridiculous" so that law-makers might be convinced that it's entirely rational and reasonable to meet half way... at either "ludicrous" or "ridiculous".
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Ready to move to Canada yet? (Score:4, Insightful)
Land of the free? heh
Re:Ready to move to Canada yet? (Score:5, Insightful)
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The senate can leave this present under the tree.. (Score:5, Funny)
But I like my microphone! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But I like my microphone! (Score:4, Funny)
So now I can't record my guitar to my computer? No more computer karaoke?
Your arguements are not helping.
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Re:But I like my microphone! (Score:3, Insightful)
Webcams, camcorders (DV and other digital kind), TV cards, digital still cams with video capabitity, digital still cam + VHS player with pause feature (ok, that would be a bit tedious) can all be used to convert analog video by filming the screen. And obviously they convert the analog world into digital, if that's covered. Or what about analog camcorder -> capture card -> computer editing. How could anyone wish to ban that?
If this law does what the summary says it does, this is insane.
MPAA Amnesty Program (Score:3, Funny)
All analog-to-digital video conversion? (Score:5, Insightful)
Geez.. all digital still and video cameras, my old Hauppage WinTV-PCI card... Let's see, all HDTV and LCD monitors...
Somehow I don't see this one going through without a fight from hardware manufacturers. And since they have more money than Hollywood, they'll probably win. I hope.
Re:All analog-to-digital video conversion? (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.neurostechnology.com/press/freedom.asp [neurostechnology.com]
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Re:All analog-to-digital video conversion? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:All analog-to-digital video conversion? (Score:4, Informative)
As an example, in scenario 2 we see what all devices must do if only the VEIL signal is found.
(Step 1) CGMS-A State Detected -- Not present
(Step 2) RCI State Detected -- Not present
(redistribution control bit to be detected with CGMS-A)
(Step 3) VEIL Detected -- YES
Rights Assertion Description -- INCONSISTENT STATE: Rights are being asserted so the CGMS-A was probably tampered and/or the RCI was probably stripped
Technical Content Protection Response -- VIEW ONLY - Protect as Copy Protected Content
The last encoding technique, VEIL (Video Encoded Invisible Light) is particularly interesting as it was originally developed as a way to transmit information to a series of Batman toys [veilinteractive.com]. Now it is supposed to be a DRM watermark technology. Hmmm.... The EFF has weighed in on this too [eff.org].
It is already illegal to do the things that this technology supposedly is designed to prevent. Does the MPAA really need to be protected by the government, at our expense, like this?
MPAA - the unfreedom fighters.
yo.
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Not this rubbish again! (Score:3, Interesting)
What about PVRs? (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems the "analog hole" is about to get ripped a new one.
Write your congress person (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.house.gov/writerep/ [house.gov]
There is a great imbalance in the corporate interested regarding fair use rights, and citizens need to make up the difference if we're going to keep this kind of legislation at bay, see below for our take on why digital rights have been steadily eroding recently.
http://www.neurosaudio.com/press/freedom.asp [neurosaudio.com]
Something Missing (Score:3, Interesting)
Someone has to be misreading this act.
The Act (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Act (Score:3, Insightful)
I urge all of you to join in boycotting the RIAA and MPAA.
RIAA Radar is here - http://www.magnetbox.com/riaa/ [magnetbox.com] This site will tell you if a band is a member.
I'm unable to find a site that lists the MPAA members, however, there i
Before you buy an XBOX this Christmas ... (Score:3, Insightful)
While I like video games as much as the next guy, I think it is very imporant for people to understand that online freedoms are more important than entertainment. And hard time is for people like mudders and thiefs who steal real property, not for those who make coppies of pretend properties such as "copyrights".
IMHO, people should really question the copyright system. If they take it to it's logical conclusion
essay: Straight Talk About Copyrights http://technocrat.net/article.pl?sid=05/11/25/132
Tin hats for purchase here (Score:3, Insightful)
That is all.
This outlaws ADC hardware as well (Score:3, Interesting)
-russ
Re:This outlaws ADC hardware as well (Score:3, Interesting)
Damn the MPAA is scary. (Score:5, Insightful)
This issue seems more and more like it should fall into the "if you can't beat them, join them" category. You've known for YEARS that people were copying movie content via VCR's and music via tape decks. There wasn't a mad cram for legislation to codemn "analog to analog devices" that would make duplication of content any easier. This just reeks of technophobia - they aren't sure how they're going to make money with shows floating on the web. (remember Spaceballs? "Merchandising, merchandising, merchandising. Spacballs the flamethrower!")
Maybe it's time to start focusing some of that lobby money and MPAA kickbacks into either finding a way to preserve your own digital rights, or maybe finding a better way to pay for your content distribution on the internet so you can reap some rewards for owning that bit of cinema / software / music. It sounds like a better plan to me.
How come nobody gets it? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why movies are released first to film and then to DVD. It's not because it takes time to produce the DVD. Though it does take a little effort to slap together some menus and cut scenes but that's not why. In fact the piracy scene has been able to get several "DVD screeners" while the movie is in theaters. These big budget movies are hoping for an Oscar so they send letter-box DVD versions to the academy for consideration and in the process some pirates get their hands on them. So it's obviously possible to release on DVD and film concurrently. It'll just never happen because they want people to see it in theaters and buy the DVD. Not one or the other.
This is just one example...it's not why they want to protect digital media though..for that you've got to delve into the mind of the typical MPAA though process..
"Oh your DVD got scratched? Well you better buy a new copy. What? You want to make back ups?! PIRATE!!!"
Do you honestly think embedding protection into digital media is going to stop pirates? No, it's going to stop John Q. Public from protecting his investment. Pirates could care less because if they can't copy it freely they'll bypass the protection, if they can't get a digital copy, they'll film it with a camera. All this analog hole and DRM non-sense is just corporate double speak for "we want more money!".
The MPAA needs to stop using piracy as an excuse to screw over the paying customers. Of course that will never happen because then everyone might actually figure out what's what.
This law will be a failure for so many reasons (Score:3, Interesting)
This is move made by an organization that is desperate to avoid losing control. They are evil people, who think only of themselves and what they want at the expense of hundreds of millions of others. In many ways, they are like terrorists. While defenders of freedom must stop them at every turn, they only have to succeed once with a crime like this to hurt everyone. Like terrorists, they can only survive as long as most people support them or don't care. Before the Internet, this was easy as they controlled every means of getting information out. With the Internet, people who see them for what they are will speak out uncontrollably and they will be destroyed once and for all.
The end is coming for them. They know it. And because they both powerful and evil, they will hurt many many people before they are brought to economic justice. I will celebrate the day the MPAA and RIAA are dissolved when their last member goes bankrupt for the rest of my life.
What did Tacitus say about dumb laws. . ? (Score:4, Interesting)
As the New Fascism steadily materializes into reality, even when Shirow-style Orcs with machine guns stalk the streets, television and movie content aren't going to vanish. Heck no! Look around you. Look at the intensity of the posts just in this article; The unanimous outcry, (on Slashdot??) is evidence of something. . .
--You can start up fake wars which starve, burn and shred thousands of little kids, you can steal entire elections, and you can poison everybody with bad medicine and bad food, and the populace will take it all without much more than a whimper. But if you try to take away their picture shows. . ? Man, watch out!
The opiate of the masses is only truly beyond necessity when societal control has been utterly locked into place; when all the gates have fallen and most everyone has been safely processed into tasty meat products.
So don't worry about your little television picture shows. They'll be around for a while yet. Heck, if you try to turn them off, the most surprising people will expend great effort in trying to sign you up again for free. No joke! Just try canceling your cable and watch what happens. It's truly amazing.
So this legislation is just a small twist on a much longer road. A dumb distraction. One way or another, you will be force-fed media unless you very actively close your ears and eyes.
-FL
Re:Real Simple (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong. Here's an alternative: if your job is to perform a service, expect to get paid like someone who performs a service.
You don't see mechanics fixing a car and then trying to collect money every time the owner starts it up. You don't see barbers cutting hair and suing their customers when they show their new haircut to
Re:Can anyone post a link? (Score:5, Informative)
John Conyers indicated he will discuss this further on his blog later as well, as the issue was brought up by some angry people under one of his posts (I think as a result of a Daily Kos article on the matter). Comment #80 [conyersblog.us] on this page appears to be the start of the comments on the matter, and it might be worth hovering around the blog in days to come to see if he gives the opportunity for people to (calmly and rationally) express their thoughts on the matter.
BTW: his comment in the thread above (Comment #96) gives more details about why he signed on. I don't think it even begins to consider the spirit of Fair Use or the rights of the average consumer, but then I don't get the impression that Congress thinks we're worth a damn beyond our votes and purchasing power.
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