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Death By DMCA
Posted by
Zonk
on Sun Jun 04, 2006 12:49 PM
from the law-to-the-head-ed-grubberman dept.
from the law-to-the-head-ed-grubberman dept.
Dino writes "There's a good article in the IEEE Spectrum, titled 'Death by DMCA', which talks about how whole classes of devices were eliminated, and how others won't even see the light of day as a result of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. One example is ReplayTV's TiVo-like devices which featured sharing capabilities, along with automatic ad skipping; the company was sued to bankruptcy, and the reincarnated device supported neither sharing nor ad skipping."
Related Stories
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Your Rights Online: CATO Institute Releases Paper Criticizing DMCA 418 comments
flanksteak writes "The CATO institute has published a paper criticizing the DMCA entitled 'The Perverse Consequences of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.' From the article: 'The DMCA is anti-competitive. It gives copyright holders--and the technology companies that distribute their content--the legal power to create closed technology platforms and exclude competitors from interoperating with them. Worst of all, DRM technologies are clumsy and ineffective; they inconvenience legitimate users but do little to stop pirates.'" A report worth taking a look at that puts into words what most of us know already.
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Your Rights Online: More Unintended Consequences of the DMCA 205 comments
BrianWCarver writes "In the seven years since Congress enacted the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), examples of the law's impact on legitimate consumers, scientists, and competitors continue to mount. A new report released today from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), 'Unintended Consequences: Seven Years Under the DMCA,' (pdf) collects reports of the misuses of the DMCA -- chilling free expression and scientific research, jeopardizing fair use, impeding competition and innovation, and interfering with other laws on the books. The report updates a previous version issued by EFF in 2003, which Slashdot also covered."
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more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:5, Insightful)
This is cool, I don't have to change my "subject" lines for posts any more... it's all about the entertainment industry's state of mental health.
From the article: "These new capabilities did not please Hollywood. Jamie Kellner, then CEO of Turner Broadcasting System Inc., called skipping commercials "theft" and, along with 28 entertainment companies including major movie studios and television networks--such as Disney, Paramount, Time Warner, Fox, Columbia, ABC, NBC, and CBS--sued ReplayTV for contributing to copyright infringement."
WTF? Skipping commercials is theft? FUCK YOU Jamie Kellner.... FUCK YOU TBS, FUCK YOU Disney, Paramount, Time Warner, Fox, Columbia, ABC, NBC and CBS! So, for those not using some sort of tivo-like device, if they should step out to relieve themselves, is THAT theft?
It galls that devices are being driven away from the marketplace because they're too good. And it equally galls that layer upon layer of obfuscation continues to be heaped on existing technology, to the point that when something works, my heart palpitates: is it the signal?, is it the unit?, or is the FUCKING DRM that I somehow forgot to set correctly?
Also from the article (referring to the ability to create "unencumbered digital tuners": "The entertainment companies do not like the flexibility of these home-built machines--or, more significant to them, the flexibility of the machines that consumer electronics manufacturers could offer under the current copyright law and its Betamax rule." WTF?, again?
They don't like the flexibility of these machines? I'm willing to bet somewhere in their ad campaigns they're bragging on some feature they're offering as flexible, etc. Gawd, I hate the industry.
So, technology continues to improve in quantum leaps, but the governor that is the RIAA/MPAA consortium does everything in their power to ensure technology is crippled to their whims, to enhance their power and profit.
Has anyone read Player Piano by Vonnegut? Great book... pretty good story about technology and designed obsolescence, and the collapse therein of a society... I won't give away the ending, it's worth reading.
</vent> Thanks, I feel better now.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:3, Informative)
Non-U.S.'ers not safe either (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, this was a damn good article, one of the most thoughtful and thorough ones I've read in a long, long time.
Second of all, non-U.S. citizens aren't safe. The RIAA and MPAA are pushing our government to force other countries to sign their digital freedoms away in trade agreements and treaties. The article specifically deals with this issue.
Remember, the guy who released deCSS was arrested for breaking no Norweigian law. The Pirate Bay guys have had their equipment seized for breaking no Swedish law. The point is that just as the U.S. flexes its military muscles in places like Iraq, it flexes its corporate muscles in countries such as the one that you call home, wherever that may be. And as weird and hard as it may be to believe, I'm 100% sure that the government in your country is just as capable of doing the same really boneheaded stupid things that the U.S. government has done given the right (*ahem*) incentives.
So no, this is not a problem unique to the United States. Yes, the U.S. may be the worst of the lot, and yes, a lot of this foolishness has arisen primarily because of corrupt greedy U.S. organizations who don't give a flip about consumers there or anywhere else, but if you believe nothing else, believe this: This idiocy will reach you in your supposedly safe and comfortable home country unless you are vigilant and active about stopping it.
Re:Non-U.S.'ers not safe either (Score:5, Insightful)
The Pirate Bay guys have had their equipment seized for breaking no Swedish law.
The difference is that, in Sweden, this is a huge scandal, and great publicity for the fledgeling political party that's forming out of this debacle. It should be interesting to see what happens in sweden in the next election.
Re:Non-U.S.'ers not safe either (Score:5, Interesting)
Way to go, police.
Re:Non-U.S.'ers not safe either (Score:5, Insightful)
We got centralized Napster to introduce P2P to the masses, then things like Kazaa, Gnutella, eDonkey and Overnet, with them shifting focus more and more to decentralized implementations. Now we have BitTorrent which has a centralized tracker, but intelligently set up to not host or transmit anything copyrighted, which can both put it in a legal grey zone, and also make it quite easy to set up. And that's not even the cutting edge P2P tools -- these would be the existing and upcoming anonymous clients.
With a future, at least in Sweden where I live, of 10 and 100 Mbps connections fairly common, there's tons of redundant bandwidth all over in case you can accept e.g a 0.5-1 Mbps down/up speed which is more than enough for reasonably efficient piracy. And that extra bandwidth could probably be enough for "anonymizing" clients.
And once you get a fresh new P2P client to get very popular and using encryption with onion routing, I think that's the final nail in the coffin against **AA's "shut down" or even lawsuit strategy. They won't even know whom to sue, unless they venture into the painful realm of tracing through proxies. For effiicent shutdowns or suits, they simply have to move into banning encryption and proxies, and then I suspect pirates will finally find peace, because that won't happen. Tracing people through a maze of proxies in a popular anonymous P2P net is also something I seriously doubt even the police have the resources for on a massive scale.
It would be very interesting to hear **AA commentary on what they think of anonymous nets, something they've had the pleasure of not having overly popular yet due to less performance. But performance will increase proportionally to how popular the network is and how many can share their bandwidth.
Re:Non-U.S.'ers not safe either (Score:5, Informative)
Umm a couple points, one he was in fact arrested after Norwegian law, just never convicted. Secondly, the woman leading the investigation against him, Inger Marie Sunde, need no help from the USA to be a 1984-happy control freak. She's tried to ban anonymous email (yes, she wanted to outlaw using free webmails like Hotmail or Yahoo from Norway), she's managed to outlaw anonymous cell phones and registration without showing ID, she's been airing thoughts about requiring ID to use a webcafe, every time there's been something like the RIP act in UK or the data retention act in EU she's all for it and in the broadest scope possible. Her latest suggestion is to allow copyright holders like RIAA and MPAA direct access to subscriber information without police or court oversight, and I mean absolutely none at all.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:4, Insightful)
Mr. President, the correct term is "empire." 1/2 :)
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:3, Insightful)
However, I'd like to ask a simple question. If the networks can no longer count on people watching at least some ads, how are they to pay for content? The day most people have "auto-commercial-skip" is t
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd say that there's plenty of room for other means of revenue. Product placement in show, micropayments, paying to download the show ala iTunes, not giving their actors a million a show, dvd sales of the series, etc. There are lots of revenue streams that the station currently makes money on; they just need to enhance a couple and stop spending so extravagantly and they'll be just fine.
We need to stop worrying about them, and they need to start worrying about other content usurping their marketplace. In the future, their actors will likely be paid less and they will likely make less money. But that's a direct result of us having more to occupy our free time. That's business, and they need to plan for it, not try to legislate it out of existence. But so far, they're winning with the legislation so they're going to keep pushing it.
Actually, the legislation is a very bold move to prevent other content from usurping their marketshare, and what we're reading on slashdot is the natural backlash to their effots. They've made their decision, and are going to try to execute their gameplan regardless of criticism because billions are at stake here. We need to vote with our votes, because nothing else will work. They have way too much money and influence currently to vote with our wallet or our voices. They're going after the legislators, and so far they're winning them over.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:5, Insightful)
Today, all the politicians are people who lived through Vietnam and Watergate. It doesn't seem to have made them any less inclined to invade other countries on the slimmest pretext, nor does it seem to have made them any less inclined to commit crimes in office and then lie about them.
Optimism (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess that's the broadcasters problem, not mine. They should adapt their business model around this. Maybe air shorter, more interesting and targeted commercials, that people want to watch. I am willing to fill a questionnaire to help them select the best commercials for me. I don't know and I don't care how they would pay for content.
However, what they should not be allowed to do, is telling me what I can do with my TV and my video recorder, in my house.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:5, Insightful)
How about "that's their fucking problem not mine"?
Pro-capitalism, pro-"free trade", pro-whatever-you-think-that-is americans (I'm not american btw) usually point out that the market sorts itself out, how about letting it sort itself out for once?
They could switch to 100% pay-per-view, or a single "free" channel and some for-pay channels, or they could die altogether for all i'd care, but the fact that their current business model would be fucked is not a good enough reason for me nor for anyone else to accept that kind of crap.
How are they to pay for content? I don't give a fuck, seriously. It's their job to figure it out but it's not their job to make it impossible for me to get devices I'm interrested in.
Progress always win in the end, while they can delay the widespread use of TiVo-like devices they can't slaughter it altogether, they're merely getting some more time.
Of course not, I don't need to come up with "reasonable alternative business models", nor does the GP, I'm not a content provider or anything, it's not my job. If they can't come up with alternative business models by themselves then they're better off dead, and the sooner the better, other more intelligent guys will think of something and take their place in no time.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:5, Insightful)
How about "that's their fucking problem not mine"?
Sure is, and they're trying to solve it. Look at it this way - for the people working in those companies, it is their job to get you to watch TV and more specifically watch those ads. They will pursue all means that they think are ethical/legal and probably some that they don't. But it's their job, and you can hardly blame them for doing it any more than they can blame you for flipping burgers at the local Mickey Ds (or whatever your country has - but I live in Switzerland at the moment, and even these guys have the golden arches). Obviously they haven't yet come up with better ideas. When they do, they'll get implemented, and given the quality of technical skill some Slashdotters have, there's even a chance that the solution could come from here.
We're getting back to copyright issue, I think - it's their content, according to current copyright law, and they think they grant you a very specific use - to watch it on your TV. You, on the other hand, think that once they broadcast the content to you, it's yours to do with as you please. In this case, the law would appear to disagree with you. Until and unless a majority of people within the US share your view, which will not happen until you can share it without cussing and sounding like a fool, then US law will continue to protect the interests of those TV networks. Unbridled anger rarely serves effective change.
Sure is nice to see one of my posts stir up so many comments, though.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:5, Insightful)
I beg to differ. You can blame them, and in fact you should blame them. That is how a market economy works: if I don't like that a certain shoe manufacturer profits from child labour, then I blame them for it, and stop buying their shoes.
When we accept questionable and dishonest behaviour from corporations, simply because it is somehow expected of them, then that is how they will behave. The truth is, it is expected from them only because we accept it. If we didn't, it would no longer be profitable and they wouldn't do it. Companies have no intrinsic moral; their only moral stems solely from the criticism we as consumers place on them. Humans are the only source of moral in the system, and we must use it.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you never once wondered why almost no one objects to Google's ubiquitous ads?
Perhaps you think it's because they bribe us with all those cool toys. I thought about that. I don't believe it.
I think it's because they offer the ads. They're easy to ignore.
You can skip right over them without even noticing.
But, say the networks, if they can't shove ads in your face for twenty minutes an hour, and sue you for ignoring them, they'll go broke? They're running ads for companies that can't sell their product without bludgeoning people into insensibility. "Revolutionary new garden tool!!!! Makes a great gift!!!!". Christ, buddy, they're trying to sue us for not watching spam.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:5, Insightful)
Technological advances have cut costs across the whole industry, yet the monopoly protected businesses costs go on rising all the time. Have you considered the possibility that, in fact, the content is expensive because it's protected, not the other way around?
Opensource has shown us software can be produced at a fraction of the cost. Music has been freely produced for centuries. We're seeing more and more freely produced approaching quality pictures.
Maybe the networks dont have to charge consumers, maybe the producers need to damn well cut their coke habits down a notch.
"Are you interested in paying even more for cable TV then?"
Are you? Every serious analysis of the pricing shows that more protection equals _higher_ pricing. The day you're locked into a clockwork orange type setup in front of the TV, you can be damn sure the commercial break isnt ending. Ever.
Almost every other economic sector has to play by free market rules; it's time for the IP sectors to do the same.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:4, Insightful)
They aren't; they should go out of business if they can't figure out a new business model under changing market conditions. In fact, advertising supported network television is obsolete.
but you need to put down emotion and maybe start coming up with reasonable alternative business models
Why do I have to figure out a new business model for them? Or why should Congress artificially limit technology just so that outdated business models continue to work?
Do you want Congress to pass laws against combustion engines so that the business model of hay producers and blacksmiths continues to work?
Well, twenty years ago.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I later heard that the charge to Comcast went to a dollar per month per subscribing home.
Is it enough money to fund an entire network without 'commercial break' advertising? Probably not, unless all those people take cuts in pay (or their operation gets outsourced).
Which to me, is an entirely viable solution. The pay scales in the TV and movie industries tend to be pretty high....
As far as OTA distribution goes, I think that is a dinosaur marketing scheme that deserves to become extinct. If technology hastens this extinction - great. I certainly object to Congress passing laws to guarantee these bozos their rents.
The business model of television is based on blind advertising - interrupting as many people as possible, with the hope that *some* are not annoyed, but instead buy. Please let me illustrate by analogy.
Imagine a freeway, where every ten minutes, you go through a toll booth, where they stop you, tell you you smell bad or have ring-around-the-collar, and ask: "would you like to buy some deodorant? Soap? Your teeth are yellow too. We have whiteners."
For some strange reason, this is drives people away from the freeway, and toward private airplanes.
At the heart of the RIAA and MPAA lobbying is the demand by the toll-booth industry that private airplanes be forced to land every ten minutes and go through the toll-booth. Those toll booths made good money, and the tool-booth industry has a right to it.
From their point of view, people should have no right to bypass the toll booth, to bypass the insults to their cleanliness or beauty, to bypass the 'opportunity' to shell out some cash.
It seems to me there are three business models working here: OTA (charging advertisers 100%), Cable / Satellite TV (charging customers 25%, charging advertisers 75%), and subscription services (Pay-per-view, iTunes, XM Radio) (charging customers 100%).
For streaming media, only subscription services make long term financial sense to me.
"Broadcast" means not knowing your audience. Anything that shifts the cost to advertisers to subsidize consumers to choose broadcasts has made the fundamental mistake of disconnecting the money paid (to advertise) from the results.
It may work today, but (barring Congressional action) in twenty years it will appear as ignorant as junk faxes.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, the thing about trade is that it only works when both parties are getting a good deal. Trade works because commodities have different values to different people. If my time is worth less to me and more to them, and the entertainment they can provide is worth more to me than it is to them, then this is a good trade and everyone is happy. The problem is that it isn't.
Is 40 minutes of entertainment really worth 20 minutes of your time? Possibly if you're on minimum wage, and even then it would be a close-run thing. A decade ago, (in the UK) it was much closer to 10 minutes or my time for 50 minutes of entertainment, which was a significantly better deal. Even then, I much preferred watching the BBC channels that didn't have adverts.
A couple of weeks ago, my TV broke. Since then, I have not bothered getting it fixed. The only thing I watch these days is Doctor Who (and I have enough friends that also watch it that I can watch it with them if I don't have a TV).
I have, effectively, withdrawn from this trade. If the media producers wish to tempt me back, they need to make a better offer. Fortunately, they have. I can rent DVDs of most shows I would watch very cheaply. If I could do this over the Internet for the same (or a lower) price, then that would be even better.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:5, Insightful)
Bills have already been introduced making it illegal.
Toilet-going, water-drinking, talking, etc., will be outlawed in a few years unless its for buying a product shown as advert.
No, am NOT joking. With the lawyer-shit in control of entertainment companies, it will be only a few years from now in US that these would be illegal. These STUPID laws would then be exported to other countries either through "trade" negotiations or "peace missions".
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:4, Insightful)
Sad part is, had I not read an article detailing the DMCA's younger (but 10x scarier) brother, I wouldn't believe you. It seems unthinkable that they would make it ILLEGAL to change channels.
Yet that is exactly what the bill calls for. Forcing TV's to refuse to allow you to change channels during commercials, and impose huge penalties for 'interfering' with the technology that prohibits channel changing.
It's sickening.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:5, Insightful)
In Communist China, if I purchase a legal VCD of The Incredibles at HMV and rip it to my iPod video, I have not committed a crime.
Guess which country got my money when I wanted The Incredibles on video.
When the masses awaken, corporations will listen (Score:4, Interesting)
For the moment, DRM and all of its related ridiculousness is the concern of geeks. We're the ones who are informed about the problems with DRM and the slippery slope that it's sent us down.
If things continue to get worse (and there's no reason to believe they won't), it will get to the point where the general public will no longer line XYZ Company's pockets. And when you hit the bottom line, you suddenly start speaking that company's language.
Smuggling opportunities (Score:3, Insightful)
It was never about piracy (Score:5, Informative)
This is about controlling what you watch and how you watch it. It's about protecting their advertising revenue. It' about making you buy a new copy of your favorite content every time they change formats.
here's the proof that they're evil (Score:5, Informative)
In 2003, 321 Studios, of St. Charles, Mo., launched a software product called DVD X Copy for these more typical DVD owners. The company built in aggressive measures to prevent piracy, including an antipiracy splash screen that appeared when viewing any copy and watermarks that would enable copies to be traced back to those who made them. The management at 321 Studios hoped that these cooperative measures would stave off Hollywood's wrath.
The company was wrong. Before the DMCA, 321 Studios would have been on relatively safe legal ground. From the time of the Betamax case, U.S. courts had made it clear that copying devices were legal so long as they had any substantial lawful use. But the DMCA changed the rules. When the movie studios sued 321 Studios, the Hollywood contingent did not argue that any of their movies had been unlawfully copied. Instead, it said that the product circumvented a "technical protection measure," which in this case was the Content Scramble System (CSS) on DVDs.
The CSS is the scheme Hollywood uses to encrypt movies on DVDs. Decryption requires a key, which manufacturers of DVD players obtain by signing a license with the DVD Copy Control Association, a consortium of movie studios, including Fox and Warner, and technology providers, such as Intel and Toshiba. This license, in turn, forbids licensed devices from making digital copies of DVD content or from offering playback modes that the studios disapprove of. (DVD recorders can copy only unencrypted digital material, such as home movies.) The licensing rules and DMCA put companies like 321 Studios in a quandary. If they signed the license in order to obtain the CSS decryption keys, the document prohibited them from using those keys in software capable of copying a DVD. If they didn't sign the license and forged ahead anyway, deriving the CSS keys on their own, they risked prosecution or a civil suit under the DMCA for circumventing the CSS. After consideration, 321 Studios opted to go forward without a license. The DMCA quickly washed away DVD X Copy. After the movie studios prevailed in court in 2004, manufacturers pulled DVD X Copy and similar ripping tools off the U.S. market.
Re:here's the proof that they're evil (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is to remove fair use loopholes. With CSS, any unencrypted copy of a DVD is prima facie evidence of the crime of circumventing a protection mechanism (created by the DMCA).
CSS is there to make MPAA thuggery legally easier as much as to prevent any copying.
This is why DRM will work (Score:5, Interesting)
Given the choice, the customer would buy the "better" product. The "better" product, for the customer, would of course be the one that offers him more liberty.
Now, devices that do that will vanish from the market because their companies are sued into oblivion. Result: Only crap can survive.
The customer is left out of the loop, as the deciding mechanism which items should survive on the market, which is actually his responsibility and role in a free market.
Free trade is dead. Welcome to the world of
Re:It's called (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, they might stop companies... (Score:3, Insightful)
All the *AA will ever manage to do is drive the sharing and fair use into a dark underground where they can never be able to find it without spending all of the money they do make. At that point, they will have to blame the loss of sales on their own crappy content, and their insane business practice of financially murdering any company that stood even half a chance of helping them find the 21st century.
Yep, so by all means, lets all work together to help the *AA find the real world, and do all our sharing underground, off the net, so they have only themselves to blame. Who knows, it might work..... NOT
Can't we just shoot them now?
Seriously, this is just one more reason to have them outlawed for monopolistic and draconian business practices. I personally don't see anything wrong with making *AA groups illegal... If enough of us vote, well, you never know...
Proof we are not a democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Proof we are not capitalist (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Proof we are not a democracy (Score:4, Funny)
GeekPAC (Score:5, Interesting)
oops (Score:5, Informative)
These are the choices we make (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's what needs to happen: put your money where your mouth is. Set up a PAC (Political Action Committee); fund it liberally so it has a lot of clout; and let it loose after the politicians who sponsor legislations which hurt consumers. In the end, it's all a matter of money. If you people are willing to put your money where your (loud) mouths are, then you can expect change for the better. Otherwise, just bend over and take it quietly from the *AA.
EFF has its place; but it's not a PAC. You need a Consumer's PAC, with at least $10M+/year of budget, to have a serious impact.
All this surprises you? (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider this - though the (analog) VCR was invented by Ampex, a USA corporation (now defunct I believe), not a SINGLE VCR was ever built in this country! I don't believe that there is a single motherboard or other computer part that can claim to be 100% USA made either.
We are a country of takers and users and Congress leads the pack in taking! WHEN (not if) our style of living falls flat on its face, we'll have no one but ourselves to blame!The late great Mancur Olson (Score:5, Interesting)
We are looking at a classic example of this. Consider those who profit from the DMCA. Olson's insight was that it is in their interests to impose costs on society as a whole which are many times, maybe 100s of times, greater than what they themselves receive, as long as what they receive is more than they otherwise would.
Let interest groups carry on behaving like this for year after year, and gradually the costs imposed on society become so great that economic growth slows or stops totally.
Then, only a dramatic structural change, abolition of the accretions, will help. The good news is, it helps dramatically.
In an ideal world, the various Federal Agencies would counterbalance such interests, because they, being nominated by people elected on a broader basis, will have it in their interests to represent the country as a whole. However, special interests are ingenious and find ways through, and this only works by fits and starts.
It can be done. Thatcher did it in the UK. Democracies can do it, when they see the need. This is the good news, the bad news is, it has to get pretty bad first!
Hurting customers in more ways than one (Score:4, Insightful)
First, it hurts the end user or consumer by imposing government restrictions on how we use things that we "own". Or more to the point, we no longer own things that we buy.
It also hurts us that we don't see competition. This means higher prices, collusion, price gouging, and all the other nasties that come along with pseudo-monopolies.
We are further harmed by the lack of new jobs and opportunities. Real growth for our country is not in the 1000+ employee multinational corporations, but in the small companies employing 25 or less employees. The DMCA seriously harms innovation and prohibits companies that are more truly American companies from growing, making money, paying taxes, and employing more workers.
And we get the short end of the stick when these companies no longer need to innovate from the unnatural monopoly caused by the DMCA protects them from newer, more competent competitors. Not only do we not see the innovative, improved, products from fresher companies, we also see outdated technology from the companies that have lost the need to improve in a free market system.
I don't support the DCMA, however... (Score:4, Insightful)
My question is, if this is such a big deal, what are you doing about it? If every person who was pissed off about this gave $100 to a lobby to fight it, we'd have it overturned by next week. Imagine the political power that could be brought against the MPAA/RIAA if we took our DVD/CD money and spent it on lobbyists...
(voting and writing to representatives is for wimps)
I miss the times Microsoft was the top bad guy (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft still is evil, and I know that they happily jumped into the DRM wagon too. But when I compare today's news with the past I get a chill. Our rights are being ripped in a astonishing fast pace, and hollywood is suceeding in making things that even Microsoft never dreamed off.
The sad part is that they are likely to succeed; The average people don't understand the ramifications of those laws, and when they question their representatives, they are easily convinced by some crappy explanation in the line that this kind of laws helps to prevent terrorism, or save americans jobs or something like that.
But the truth is that RIAA are a threat to capitalism and free market. They are blocking inovation, subverting the law, and turning law-abiding citizens into criminals without they even knowing that.
We have to stop them. Know! Maybe it's time for another Boston Tea's party.
Thank you DMCA, thank you MPAA/RIAA (Score:5, Funny)
Now I can sleep well in the evening knowing that after a day full of downloading copyrighted music and movies, not paying a cent for them and still making copies of what turns out not to be junk to give to my friends ... I'm doing my role to make this world a better place to live.
Suffocate them (Score:4, Interesting)
Forget it. It doesn't work. One thing works: stop buying and suffocate them. They are nothing without money. Money gave them power, no money, no power.
There's a mountain of evidence anyone could easily understand about how MPAA and RIAA make our life worse and are detrimental to our society.
We need people with marketing experience to help us pick out the major pain points MPAA/RIAA have created in the last years and bring them to the society in an easy to understand manner.
We need to spread the information to the casual folks so they know, and stop funding MPAA/RIAA, by not buying their products. We have to clearly point out the companies behind MPAA/RIAA, they should not be left anonymous.
I'm willing to participate if someone can organise a campaign with web dev/graphics & print design. Yup, I'm actually willing to do something. Anyone else?
Qoute by Robert Heinlein (Score:5, Insightful)
The article is incorrect regarding ReplayTV. (Score:5, Informative)
One example is ReplayTV's TiVo-like devices which featured sharing capabilities, along with automatic ad skipping; the company was sued to bankruptcy, and the reincarnated device supported neither sharing nor ad skipping.
I don't think SonicBlue actually went into bankruptcy, and its ReplayTV product was purchased by Digital Networks North America Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of D&M Holdings U.S., Inc. They own things like the Denon, Marantz, and Boston Acoustics brands as well as Rio and ReplayTV.
SonicBlue 5000-series models supported internet and local program sharing and both manual (Show/Nav) and automatic commercial skipping as well as a 30-second FF button (QuickSkip). The commercial skipping features navigate between marks which are created at the start and end of commercial advertising blocks that the unit detects and marks at show recording time (it isn't just a simple time skip). Those units still perform as they did when initially purchased.
Current 5500-series models still mark commercial blockss while recording and still fully support both Show/Nav (manual movement between block markers) and QuickSkip, so manual commercial skipping and the 30-second FF is still present, but the automatic commercial skip has been removed. Also, the internet sharing capabilities were removed.
I believe a 5500-series ReplayTV can be made to temporarily regain both automatic commercial skipping and internet sharing capabilities if the disk is reimaged with a 5000-series formatted disk, but I can't personally vouch for that (I own a 5000-series box myself).
Here are their names (Score:5, Interesting)
"In an attempt to put an end to all that, Hollywood has drafted the Digital Transition Content Security Act, introduced as H.R. 4569 in December 2005 by Reps. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) and John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.). This legislation, better known as the Analog Hole Bill, would impose a design mandate on any "analog video input device that converts into digital form an analog video signal.""
The RIAA is urging the FCC and Congress to impose design restrictions on any future HD Radio recorders to stave off a successful new mutation: a digital hard disk recorder that allows easy and flexible archiving of radio broadcasts. As similar devices have appeared for satellite radio, the recording industry has also begun pushing for legislation to restrict them, such as S. 2644, the Platform Equity and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music (PERFORM) Act of 2006, introduced by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Cal.).
Hollywood lobbyists actually convinced the FCC to impose broadcast flag regulations in 2003, but a U.S. Court of Appeals found that the Commission lacked the authority to regulate the internal workings of televisions. Hollywood is now asking Congress to give the FCC that legal authority by passing the Audio Broadcast Flag Licensing Act of 2006, sponsored by Rep. Michael Ferguson (R-N.J.)."
Re:Media company's own greed spawned the devices (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed...I'm one of them. I'm this close --> -- to canceling my cable TV subscription because (a) I don't watch it enough to make it worthwhile and (b) I pay for erxtra channels, and yet they have commercials. Wasn't the idea behind paid content (like cable) that you paid for the channels thus no commericals? Now I'm paying for commercials. Am I missing something or has cable TV slowly evolved into a type of commercial TV that gets revenue from ads AND paid subscriptions?