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MPAA Wants To Prevent Recording Movies On DVRs
Posted by
timothy
on Sun Jun 15, 2008 06:43 AM
from the please-don't-call-this-a-free-market dept.
from the please-don't-call-this-a-free-market dept.
I_am_Rambi writes "At the request of theatrical film makers, the Federal Communications Commission on Friday quietly launched a proceeding on whether to let video program distributors remotely block consumers from recording recently released movies on their DVRs. The technology that does this is called Selectable Output Control (SOC), but the FCC restricts its use. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) wants a waiver on that restriction in the case of high-definition movies broadcast prior to their release as DVDs."
The FCC is soliciting comments until June 25th.
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Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
(well, not grown up but they have them now)
G
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and they also want to make people into criminals for exercising Fair Use rights so they can continue to reap huge margins on plastic discs.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And a pony.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I realise that that, from now on in, it can only impede my access to artists, and their access to my cash.
Parent
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
I learned that the studios are only interested in playing underhanded so Im not giving them the money to file lawsuits.
http://thepiratebay.org/ [thepiratebay.org]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good luck with that (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Likewise not and not (Score:5, Interesting)
Ironically, in the RIAA's analysis of the situation, I must almost certainly be accounted as someone who's stopped buying CD's because of illegal downloading, when in fact it is directly due to the actions of the recording industry itself.
Parent
Re:Good luck with that (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Informative)
Hear, hear. Copy protection is the reason why I can't play The Battle for Middle-Earth II on my Vista pc, the damn game can't see the legitimate CD through the WinXP compatibility mode.
Has copy protection stopped pirate games? No.
Has DRM stopped downloading? No.
Such measures just punish the folks who actually pay for their content...
Parent
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I also didn't say it would be cost effective or that it wouldn't be time consuming. I just said that where there is a will there is a way.
I'm not the naive one here.
Re:If anyone tried to strip me of anything... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Informative??? (Score:3, Informative)
A theater is not a government, the search warrant nonsense is just that, nonsense.
He wouldn't have a leg to stand on in a court challenge, either.
In fact, if there were a clearly posted "no outside food or beverages" sign along with another about "backpacks subject to search," he would have no entitlement to a refund when he refused to comply with the terms.
If he were to take this to court, he would either be representing himself or using a lawyer so incompet
Re:Informative??? (Score:5, Informative)
The only thing a private property owner can force you to do is leave. However because of that, they can put almost any condition they like on your continued presence. The only exceptions are for things like racial discrimination.
If a store or other place of business wants to inspect all of your bags before they let you in, that is entirely within their rights. Note that if they want to inspect everything before you leave then they have essentially no way to enforce this, since you're leaving anyway. But if the movie theater says that as a condition of entering their business and seeing their movie, you will submit all bags to a search, you will wear a large floppy purple hat, and you will dance about singing Amazing Grace, then your choice is to do this or leave.
Parent
If you can watch it on a computer (Score:5, Funny)
Re:If you can watch it on a computer (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly the FCC needs to get some balls and FORCE cable companies to have all the channels available UNENCRYPTED. but it will never happen.
Digital TV is a step backwards. Quality sucks because they compress it hard. plus they remove your ability to record it or use anything advanced to watch it. you have to use that piece of crap cable box of theirs.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Digital TV is a step backwards. Quality sucks because they compress it hard. plus they remove your ability to record it or use anything advanced to watch it. you have to use that piece of crap cable box of theirs.
It is also why today I still don't have digital TV. I have the old style analog. In fact, the only reason I have cable TV is for the internet. They have sent me tons of offers, but I do not intend to change. Even to the point when analog is dead, I figure Internet TV will bloom and I can skip digital TV all together.... or in a least for cable.
I might retire sometime in the next few years to my country home, if I do, I need satellite Internet more than TV. My favorite show is on the Internet, I can
Re:If you can watch it on a computer (Score:4, Interesting)
The cable companies do not encrypt the digital stream unless the channel is on a pay tier, or the content provider mandates it. My employer had been carrying ESPN HD, Discovery HD, History HD, and a few other national channels in the clear for almost a year. Contract renegotiations have come up, and those channels now must be encrypted for us to retain the rights to carry them. As a result, the cable co looks like the bad guy when we must tell our subs that they now must lease a converter box or CableCard to decrypt the channels we previously could send in the clear.
In regards to being forced into using the company's cable box, the FCC has mandated this to be illegal. Simply go down to your local electronics store and pickup a CableCard enabled converter...which according to the FCC, should be available nationwide. Oh wait...no manufacturer has started making them in the last 3 years. Go FCC! There's always TiVo, I suppose...
Parent
draconian bulloni! (Score:4, Insightful)
Vote with your wallet!
Re:draconian bulloni! (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:draconian bulloni! (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The MPAA dosn't have a column in their spreadsheet for people like you.
They just put you in the "stopped buying due to piracy" column, to sh
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The *AA is just going to pick the reason as they see fit. And so far they only think that illegal do
How about not broadcasting it? (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems that the MPAA is trying to maximize their profit, at the expense of the public in general. We are stuck with technical hassle just because the MPAA wants to use government regulation instead of logical market forces to prevent unauthorized copying.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately under this kind of economic regime, 'consumer' means less 'one who eats' and much more 'one who must be force-fed'.
comment system not working @ FCC (Score:4, Informative)
Using the link in the post, the FCC website tells me "CSR-7947-Z" isn't open for comments. DOes anyone know how to submit comments successfully on this proceeding?
Seth
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Please, when posting something like this, it would be helpful to have all the correct information in the summary to begin with (thanks).
*aa wants to prevent content consumption (Score:5, Insightful)
Comcast already does this... (Score:5, Interesting)
My DVR will buffer these programs, allowing rewind, pause, etc. If I try to record it to the hard drive it refuses to, giving a message of 'protected'. I'm not sure exactly how they do it - I always thought they may be broadcasting Macrovision codes with the signal.
I suppose it could be hacked by a hardware hack like removing the hard drive and collecting the movie from the buffer, but nothing that is being broadcast is worth the effort! It's bad enough that I waste time sitting in front of the tube viewing this 'high value content'. I'm sure as hell not wasting more time trying to copy it. It is nearly summer here - there are much better things to do most days.
Reading the Article ftw (Score:5, Informative)
So in other words
Theater -> DVD -> TV , won't have the non-record flag set
Theater -> TV -> DVD WILL have the non-record flag set until AFTER it's released on DVD.
Re:Reading the Article ftw (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
it wants to know if the FCC will create a ruling that would prevent DVR to able to record the movie BEFORE its released to DVD
Is the FCC a higher court than the Supreme Court? Maybe the FCC can also overrule the Supreme Court Beta Max case which ruled consumers have a right to record and time shift content with their VCRs.
This is a fishing expedition for retroactive immunity from the massive civil liability damages the cable companies will be accumulating, if not disabling sold DVRECORDERS isn't considered criminal fraud. If it does end up being considered criminal fraud, remember to confiscate the personal assets of the executiv
Wait, wait, I've heard this strategy before... (Score:5, Insightful)
In every other kind of industry, I associate "pirates" either with counterfeits or cheap look-a-likes that are vastly inferior to the real product, the kind that street salesmen will sell tourists at a few bucks a piece. Since a digital copy is a perfect copy, I guess digital piracy will be equal. But when pirated goods start looking better and better, so you pay for the privilidge of using and inferior product and the feelgood of being legal, then there's something very, very wrong.
Lotta "if's" (Score:5, Insightful)
IF this technology is used to restrict recording for a LIMITED period of time, until the initial theatrical release has run its course and they have milked the initial profits off the DVD release, THEN I would not have a serious problem with it. After all, unless you are one of those folks that MUST see a new movie as soon as it comes out, you can wait a little while. And even with the restriction, you could still WATCH the flick and even pause/rewind/etc. the thing -- you just wouldn't be able to dump it to a permanent source (disk, hard drive) right away. And hell, most movies will show up on non-PPV TV eventually anyway. By restricting the recording disability to the initial "surge" of the movie's release, the "can't wait" crowd are going to rush to the theater or buy the DVD the first day it's on sale and send the cartel its dough anyway, and the rest of us can just wait until it trickles down to a non-premium source from which we can record and save it if we want.
That's all very speculative, though. Knowing the methods of the MPAA as we do, it's more likely that this is just a way to get a foot in the door to eventually restrict or prevent ALL recording of its releases. That's an old tactic -- you know you can't get EVERYTHING you want right now, so you ask for just a limited option that most people would agree on, then slowly expand the parameters over time. Like the ban on "partial birth abortion." Or just like all the Bush era "anti-terrorist" legislation -- most people accepted it as necessary within the limited scope of "fighting terrorism," but we have already seen these laws starting to be used for things that have little, if anything, to do with terrorism. (Unless you then expand the definition of "terrorism," which is also happening.) The MPAA probably is playing the same game. (As we have often seen, the worlds of business and government are pretty much interchangeable in their more underhanded tactics...)
direct links for easy submittal (Score:3, Informative)
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-08-1081A1.txt [fcc.gov]
Go here to file your comment:
http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/websql/prod/ecfs/upload_v2.hts?ws_mode=proc_name&proc_id=08-82 [fcc.gov]
Be sure to fill in all the fields marked "(required)" and set your submission as a "comment".
For maximum compatibility and greater chance of serious review, use the "send brief comment" box at the bottom instead of uploading a lengthy DOC file. Keep in mind that they don't care what so much what you personally don't like. Make your comment clear and concise about how this action violates your rights or attempts to defeat the protections the FCC is supposed to defend.
Be sure to click Finish Transaction after submitting.
Re:Pointless? (Score:4, Interesting)
Huh? The movie industry raping its own distribution partners, movies and rentals? Duh, thought they'd only do it with their customers?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's all about market segmentation. When selling a product, it's always desirable to get the customers who are willing to pay more to actually pay more money. This is hard, though, because you generally advertise the same price to everyone. So companies come up with various tactics to avoid this, such as multiple editions of a product with different prices, or charging a premium early and then lowering the price late
Re:This will never work. (Score:5, Informative)
your HDMI capture card, the only way I know of to capture an encrypted HD signal from the cable or sattelite box, has thise "feature" for you.
I cant find any component capture cards that exist that will capture HD resolutions so you are stuck with hdmi/dvi.
BTW: notice how nobody has made a linux driver for those cards? only OSX and Windows... because the driver has the "screw the user" code in it.
Parent
Re:DMCA (Score:4, Insightful)
As in all other cases where copy protection of movies or music fails, only one person in the world needs to own the equipment or software necessary for circumventing the copy protection. He can then release it to the public in an unprotected format.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I predict Oren Hatch will be coming out soon with a statement denouncing movie downloaders as Marxist pedophiles who finance terrorism and support marriage for transexuals.
Muzak (Score:3, Interesting)