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EFF And MPAA On Broadcast Flags
Posted by
timothy
on Sun Jul 07, 2002 03:46 PM
from the little-markers-everywhere dept.
from the little-markers-everywhere dept.
mpawlo writes: "Greplaw reports that a broadcast flag is a digital tagging technique used for television programs distributed through digital TV stations. The broadcast flag is used as information stating that the program may not be redistributed. It is not your everyday digital watermarking technique. The idea is to mandate a standard for a broadcast flag. The content providers, through The Motion Picture Association ('MPAA'), will most likely aim for the standard to be lobbied into a law through The Broadcast Protection Discussion Group. Hence, the law would require all hardware able to play the digital TV content to carry broadcast flag equipment (not playing unmarked content). The Electronic Frontier Foundation ('EFF') fears that a law stipulating the standard would threaten creativity. The MPAA has published a list of frequently asked questions ('FAQ') regarding broadcast flags. The EFF has commented the MPAA FAQ."
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The problem isn't home recording (Score:3, Insightful)
Great!!! (Score:3, Funny)
EFF version has it all (Score:3, Informative)
You can skip MPAA document and go right to the EFF version without missing anything.
-Pete
Re:EFF version has it all (Score:2, Funny)
Support the EFF. [eff.org]
From MPAA's FAQ (Score:5, Interesting)
They sure love the word spur, which is derived from the term used to kick the shit out of a horse to get it going. A spur is a sharp instrument worn on the ankle of an abusive cowboy to beat a tired horse into submission.
Is this what the MPAA has in store for consumers? Wouldn't you love to have the MPAA spur your living room technology?
Guy Montag! (Score:5, Insightful)
Once they lock down electronic media, they will want to plug "the analog hole."
We are in the middle of a slow descent back into illiteracy. It's no economics and lack of education driving it. It's the people in control. They want to control you, the information you can get, and how you can use that information.
Broadcast news is insipid, but print is a little better, for now. This is largely because it's easier to spot stupidity in written form, when you're not distracted by boobies, animated graphics and short sound/video clips.
Once you can't control your electronic entertainment anymore, because of DRM, broadcast tags, Fritz Hollings's legislation, Palladium, etc., what will you do?
Newspapers and books? How long will those be allowed to exist in their current forms? Paper?!?! How insecure! There will be e-books and e-paper, as in Minority Report. And you won't have control over those either.
In Minority Report, there was scene of a guy on a train reading an "E-USA Today." The front page, which he was reading, changed to the Official Story about the A-Large PreCriminal without the reader requesting it. The reader was told what to read.
Who doubts that this will not be turned into reality?
The problem with science fiction is that it's pretty depressing. So much of it depicts a totalitarian future of some sort. These stories capture and guide the imaginations and creative energy of the current and future generations of designers and engineers. How long have people been working on making things they've seen in Star Trek and Star Wars? And more depressing works, like Minority report?
It's all very anti-freedom, anti-citizen, and stupid.
Obligatory "Right to Read" Link (Score:3, Informative)
Stallman's "Right to Read" [gnu.org]
I guess, what doesn't kill us makes us stupid.
Re:Obligatory "Right to Read" Link (Score:5, Interesting)
From the notes at the end of "Right to Read": Well, it's been proposed now. It's called "Palladium." What's a good non-computer career that pays well?
Parent
Re:Obligatory "Right to Read" Link (Score:2, Funny)
Apparantly the position of "Senator" fits the bill.
Re:Obligatory "Right to Read" Link (Score:2)
IP Lawyer. Lots of work for them coming up.
I hear you though. I am seriously considering downsizing my life and finding a job where I can actually do something worthwhile (park ranger?). The only problem is that at the moment, making $40K before tax, I can barely afford a small 2 bedroom suburban house in a quiet kid-friendly residential area, a car that starts reliably, worthwhile healthcare, pension provision and a college fund for my (single) kid. I can cut back on a lot of things, but I don't want to (quite literally) gamble my family's life and future on an HMO, community college and ultimately social security.
Something for angry young men to to bear in mind is that a mortgage, a college fund and dental bills put a real crimp on high ideals.
Re:Guy Montag! (Score:2)
We somehow opened the world of information to us with the internet but now it's going to be closed to a pin-hole size.
Re:Guy Montag! (Score:3, Insightful)
Or perhaps the reader had set his E-USA Today Preferences to automatically switch to #1 priority news as it was released. The E-USA Today provider was simply giving the consumer what he asked for. There's no reason for you to assume the worst.
Re:Guy Montag! (Score:3, Insightful)
That's true for now. But as the technology for playback gets locked down, you'll find that to release content for free you have to pay licensing fees to get your content playable as an e-book, e-movie etc.
This has happened before. Look how tightly printing presses or copy machines were controlled in Communist countries.
Look what happened to "micro-radio" stations. You can provide your own content, but just try and broadcast it.
Look at the service agreements with you Cable/DSL service providers. No servers allowed!
Last Question... (Score:2)
MPAA Answer : It is unfortunate that some people may attempt to illegally hack or break into this security system. However, even if a few are successful, the flag will not be worthless. Most people are honest and will not attempt to circumvent the flag.
What they really mean : Ofcourse they are going to crack this half assed security system. But we would go on pretending that its unbreakable. And we would hunt down and sue any half intelligent intellectual out there who attempt to crack it even for academic purposes. And yes we understand that even if someone cracks it, the majority of the dumb ass public wouldnt care, or wouldnt know, and hence most of our investment is still secure. i.e. until some one else figures out a way to get this crack to the masses. Then we would just put out another FAQ.
Re:Last Question... (Score:2)
I (am starting to) think this whole thing has nothing to do with piracy, it only is going to exist to sell more hardware devices - making old systems no good, and your recordings also no good.
Where is this from? (Score:2, Informative)
Where did the poster get this bit of info? I see nothing about this in the FAQ, which seems to indicate the opposite, and the FAQ appears to be the only deep link in the article.
The only purpose this seems to serve is to allow the Broadcast providers know when someone stupid is redistibuting their stuff.
One small obstacle (Score:3, Redundant)
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
This, along with the M$ stuff, is drifting towards "only approved content will play on your [TV/Rio/PC/PDA]" Who approves the content? Whoops! First amendment!
GOODNIGHT EVERYBODY!!!
Re:One small obstacle (Score:2, Funny)
i'd say the cops are telling you to move along because you're in, or will be in someone elses way.
Re:One small obstacle (Score:2)
This would affect any player prorgam (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand, like most copy protection measures, it will surely be cracked within a day or two.
Distribution Channels (Score:4, Insightful)
As with the RIAA, the MPAA is using filesharing as a pretense to make a big powergrab over their potential competitors.
They want to be recognized as the only legitimate video content publishers, thus locking out potential upstart competitors that may be empowered by new video distribution networks.
And they want to dictate all terms to consumer electronics manufacturers, who in many cases are their direct competitors. It becomes much easier to shut out electronics manufacturers that are not part of the MPAA when you are drafting the legislation that governs their rules of business.
So I need to bye a HD capture card now? (Score:2)
Help me out, does this mean I aught to buy one of those before this passes, so as to be able to capture HD content in the future... or is the HD format as yet insufficiently negotiated/agreed upon by the players, such that if i were to drop $400 on this HD tuner and capture card, that it will be useless in a year when they come out with an new encrypted HD standard.
Basically, what I want to know, is how -standard- and commited is the current HD protocal?
Re:So I need to bye a HD capture card now? (Score:2)
Nobody really knows, but it looks like Congress/FCC isn't willing to change the spec and screw all the people who already bought HD equipment. So I'd say the time to buy that HD capture card is now.
Most people are honest (Score:5, Insightful)
Q: Even if the motion picture and other industries come up with a system to protect this content with a broadcast flag, the security technology will just be broken into and made worthless in a very short time. Given that, whats the point?
MPAA answer: It is unfortunate that some people may attempt to illegally hack or break into this security system. However, even if a few are successful, the flag will not be worthless. Most people are honest and will not attempt to circumvent the flag.
So if most people are honest and will not attempt to circumvent the flag, why not just trust the people not to do the horrible, dishonest deeds this measure wants to prevent?
MPAA definition of honest (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey MPAA, DVDs already have copy protection, and that doesn't stop them from being swapped on P2P file sharing systems, IRC, FTP servers, and person to person via burner (just like floppies in the old days). Do you really think that this will be better than DVD/CSS security?
BTW I was in Fry's Electronics yesterday and was astonished to see how cheap the various CD-RW and DVD-R/RW/whatever drives are (hadn't bothered to look at prices for a while). Remember the days (late 80s) when the main mode of copying software was floppy swap meets? One person cracked the copy protection, then folks physically went over to someone else's house where they made a copy for each person who then went home and did the same thing. CD-R[W] drives and media are in a similar price range now, and I see the same thing happening with CDs that I saw with floppies years ago. It's totally feasible to go over to your friend's house, bring a PC or two with you, and sit there and burn 100 or more CDs at a time.
This is just a historical reminder about why copy protection is a foolish endeavor. The only difference between nobody being able to copy something and everybody being able to copy something is that one guy who cracks it. If you know anybody who has acquired a cracked copy, then everybody you know can get one.
It's kinda like buying illegal drugs - if you want them, and you know somebody you trust who has them, you can get them. I bet that for every person who is sure they couldn't get them (and thus that the drug war is being won) there is a friend who can get them whom they just haven't bothered to ask yet. Hello, entertainment industry, welcome to your own private drug war. I can't wait to pay taxes for cops to put DVD copiers in jail right next to potheads.
Does anyone else see this trend? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it that organizations so huge can become so blatantly selfish? Without consumers, they cannot make money -- their ultimate goal. Yes this is also selfish, but not in the same sense that they are no longer paying attention to what is wanted of them. They have been forced with a situation where consumers wants have changed, and they can no longer continue to make money doing what they currently do. They have to options, keep giving the consumers what they are getting now -- but what they no longer want. Or, give them what they want.
The choice they chose is obvious.
It is just disturbing how organizations like this have lost so much respect for the buying public.
Yeah, right... (Score:2, Funny)
MPAA answer: No. The broadcasters that transmit the programming will set the broadcast flag as "on or off" based on private contractual agreements with content providers. Content providers can choose, on a program-by-program basis, whether the flag will be turned on.
Translation: Excluding infomercials and ads, yes. It is illegal to record anything else, since you, the consumer, are thieves, murderers, pirating pices of shit and can not be trusted. Only big business can be trusted and knows what is good for us^H^Hyou.
A Few Choice Quotes (Score:4, Interesting)
They go on to say what seems like... aw who cares. There's so much in that FAQ that just makes me want to grab one of their execs, throw em in a chair, and grill them about what they actually believe. Crazy stuff.
The whole thing smells like (is) propaganda, but that's the age we live in.
What about independent content providers? (Score:4, Insightful)
Will I be able to mark my content in the same manner as the big studios do? If I cannot, then this "broadcast flag" becomes a means for the current content providers to effectively ban any new competition.
Will I be able to obtain technical details of the new flag in order that I may create my own recording/playback equipment that is compliant with this? If not, then it becomes a means of creating a monopoly in the consumer electronics market. If I can get the technical information, it becomes a joke as that same information would make it trivially easy to defeat the broadcast flag at will.
Re:What about independent content providers? (Score:2)
Is this rhetorical? They'll just watermark a copy of your footage. But that just validates your point that this is about all controlling who can create content.
Bundling up restrictions is a *bad* idea (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a Brit, and I have friends in the states, so I was planning on having them ship me some games (Chrono Trigger, etc, stuff you can't get here *at all*).
Now, I had a choice. I could not be able to play any import games, even ones that I purchased, or were purchased for me, or I could get my Playstation modded. I chose the latter.
Now, temptation wise, if somebody offers me a copied game, I probably won't say no. If they hadn't put stupid region locks on, I would probably never have bothered - it's nice to be honest sometimes, but since they force me to mod it in the first place, then it means odds are I will end up pirating something.
Everyone of these protections can be circumvented in the end - and if it's pushed too far (as with DVDs) you will turn a substantial proportion of your customers into criminals (or at the very least, people who are happy to change the way your system works)....
Commercial blocker (Score:3, Funny)
The broadcast flag is used as information stating that the program may not be redistributed.
As long as they only turn on the flag during the commercials, sounds like a great idea!
The dangers of tagging (Score:2)
The reason is simple: the studios and TV stations will always flip the flag to "not allowed to record". And then sue the pants off anyone who wants to tape the show for later.
Why bother having a tagging system if it is always going to be set to the same value, and that value is incompatible with common sense uses of the work?
I just hope that the EFF can get their FAQ seen by a sufficient number of politicians that lawmakers begin to see the futility and stupidity of access control tagging. A flag that is set to a constant value is no better than no flag at all.
Re:The dangers of tagging (Score:2)
It's interesting that Tom7, who posted a utility to turn off the "do not embed" bit on fonts (and got a DMCA letter for his troubles), did so because his font maker always made fonts with the "do not embed" bit and had no option not to set it.
Re:The dangers of tagging (Score:2)
Where we can go from here... (Score:3, Interesting)
For now, we can get HD signals over component analog outputs, which when done right, are of excellent quality. And capture cards with component inputs will come around soon enough. Macrovision in these cards is often implemented or enabled through the drivers, which can and will be hacked. So if we're using an external tuner and a capture card, the video can end up on a computer, just as long as macrovision over component is defeated.
The enemy of this approach is the external tuner that refuses to output anything greater than 480p over component. We'll see about this - all TVs currently on the market will only accept HD signals over component, so this would be breaking compatibility with the entire installed base today. Mod chipping is a possibility here, or APEX-style hidden menus.
Some day, we'll have HD transferred digitally over 1394. It's a certainty that your 1394 tv will accept a signal only from an approved 1394 tuner and will output only to an approved 1394 recording device that implements DRM. But interestingly enough, I have a 1394 port on my computer right now.
I can transfer DV over 1394 from my camara to my computer. What's to stop me from transferring MPEG2 over it from my future tv? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only thing stopping me is a lack of driver support, and the DRM layer in firewire. The latter is the challenge: cracking DRM at the hardware level. All the EE geeks of the world have their jobs cut out for them.
So the question is this: how hard is it to build a black box that takes an mpeg2 video stream over 1394 and strips it of its copy protection? We usually can't fab our own ASICs, but what about FPGA? Can/will it reach high enough speeds to process firewire signals in realtime?
Ah well, I'm skeptical. It seems to be taking an increasing amount of sophistication to defeat DRM, and the one thing the underground community doesn't do too well is coordinate its efforts. It would need the cooperation of the EE geeks for the hardware level DRM, the CS geeks for making mpeg2 over firewire work on the PC, etc.
Re:Where we can go from here... (Score:2)
Pretty hard, since your black box won't have a certificate issued by the DTCP certificate authority. You can read more about DTCP [dtcp.com] at the official site.
However, it looks like the manufacturers are turning from 1394/DTCP to DVI/HDCP [digital-cp.com] (and later, HDMI [hdmi.org]/DTCP). Theoretically, HDCP has been cracked [nunce.org], but it looks like it would take a lot of resources to actually execute the crack.
New Pledge (Score:5, Funny)
Re:VHS Recording... (Score:4, Insightful)
Since it's digital it's also trivial to remove said flag, so it won't even slow the pirates down, let alone stop them.
Parent
Re:VHS Recording... (Score:2)
You think the MPAA cares about your legal rights? (Hint: they don't)
Re:VHS Recording... (Score:4, Informative)
You don't mean "already". You mean "currently (despite the efforts of the MPAA)".
2001: US prerecorded videocassette sales are approximately $4 billion [videobusiness.com].
Parent
Ok ... i found the answer myself (Score:4, Informative)
Q: When the broadcast flag is implemented, can I record any TV program with my existing digital player/recorder and watch it later at more convenient time?
MPAA answer: Yes. If you own an early model digital player/recorder, you will be able to record and playback time-shifted digital recordings of flagged broadcasts. These digital recordings will also play on legacy DVD players. However, when Broadcast Flag-compliant DTV receivers are introduced in the marketplace, their recordings will only play on other compliant players and not on older (legacy) devices. Of course, you can still record and playback digital programs with any existing analog videocassettes recorders/players. The broadcast flag does not affect what you have been able to do in the analog world.
EFF comment: This answer confirms that "Compliant" devices produced under the BPDG-proposed rules are less capable than current-generation devices.
i wonder if they also record device-specific information. like preventing me to watch a movie i recorded at my friend's house (digitally of course)
Parent
Re:NIH? (Score:2)
Re:Alternative Systems (Score:2, Insightful)
That is what will happen with this. Some electronic companies are going to release recorders that will bypass the compliance requirement once they relize that the compliant recorders are not selling well(who is going to buy a recorder that can't record anything?).
But if the MPAA get their legislation through, won't it be illegal to own a non-compliant device?
Re:Alternative Systems (Score:2)
The "best Congress money can buy" may make it illegal to _sell_ non-compliant devices, but I very much doubt that the public would stand for the cops coming into people's houses to check their DVD players. As for manufacturing non-compliant devices, they haven't bought the legislatures in other countries yet - for instance, it's easy to get all-region DVD players in Australia and Europe. So at most, they might create another bootlegging business.
I almost hope that the **AA idiots do get some horribly intrusive laws passed - fscking up people's video players is about the only thing I can thing of that would wake up the American public and get all those corrupt, halfwitted, permanent Congressmen kicked out at last. They'll be replaced by other corrupt halfwits, but most of the new ones will see bigger opportunities in bashing the media than in taking their b^r^i^b^ campaign contributions - there are lots of other corporations handing out the payola. The new Congress would repeal that law ASAP (on the general grounds that if they broke that election promise, they might not _live_ until the next election), then when the next election approaches they'd need to do something further to garner the votes. Maybe rolling back copyright terms to a reasonable length, or even taking a look at EULA's, and at software & business method patents too...
Re:Its Clear. (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't even think all of these technological measures enforcing copyright would be so terrible, if after 12 years, all copyrighted works would be available for all.
Our copyright laws are outdated. They were created in a time when there was no such thing as a free book, or a free movie, because there were printing costs, and there was a natural scarcity to these products. So no one was really hurt too much by giving the author exclusive right to sell it. But now we are imposing artificial scarcity onto art, locking it up forever, just to squeeze an extra 10% of revenue out of it, and preventing 99.9% of people who would've seen it if it were free, from seeing it at all.
Parent
Re:What the heck (Score:2)
Because, consumer, you might try to distribute it without the commercials, thus depriving the broadcasters of their rightful income.
</sarcasm>.
Re:Must be Sunday today.... (Score:2)
So... well the
Re:Makes curent HD sets junk (Score:2)
Re:Makes curent HD sets junk (Score:2)