SSSCA Squirms Forward Again Thursday 606
An anonymous reader writes: "Here we go! Only temporarily tripped up by Sept. 11th (and of course journalists and webmasters calling his office), Fritz Hollings is starting hearings on embedding copy protection in all digital devices and making the removal or circumvention of these protections a crime. Hurrah for freedom!"
According to the article: (Score:2, Interesting)
Why do they think this? With copy protection, downmloading movies would require a purchase, and fee-based online music services are already not doing well.
I, for one would not base my conversion to broadband on the fact that I could purchase movies.
Unwarranted tax on consumers (Score:2, Interesting)
Arent TVs supposed to have some stupid Vchip in them? Its just material trumped up so someone can campaign on the platform of stopping it, and like sheep everyone will vote for that idiot.
Sick of it all.
What's sad is... (Score:3, Interesting)
How's this for a scary quote? (Score:3, Interesting)
First, the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) created the legal framework that punished people who bypassed copy protection -- and now, the SSSCA would compel Americans to buy only systems with copy protection on by default. Davis says: "I think the DMCA was a first step."
Mandatory copy protection COULD work... (Score:2, Interesting)
If implemented correctly, we could have something akin to IPsec -- a virtual, encrypted layer where copy-protected information is transmitted. PGP has had an option for a while for encrypting a text document with a flag set that prevents the recipient from saving it as a file. In theory, something like this could be implemented and actually work.
In reality, it would probably be nothing of the kind... because of the DMCA, you could have an entire movie encoded ROT-1, and breaking that encryption (or even describing, in an educational setting, how to break that encryption) would be a felony. This strikes me as just absurd.
If it was set up like net service, though, with a network-wide DES encryption layer, the content creators could retain some degree of control, and the actual implementation code would not reveal the secret. Thus the implementation code could be opensourced under an artistic license of some sort. In that case, I couldn't see any reason why it couldn't be incorporated into Linux, BSD, etc.
My point is, copy protection would have to be enabled by a techological protection with a degree of cracking difficulty greater than the cost of purchasing the content legally. I am certain that, technically, this can be done.
Unfortunately, I am nearly certain that, from a political standpoint, this cannot be done.
3 blind mice .. see how they think .. (Score:4, Interesting)
I suppose a Global recession, the conversion to Euro's in Europe, and the resulting chaos from the Sept 11 attack probally didn't concern CD buyers. [or the fact that the red cross had an ad campaign playing on the radio .. something along the lines of 'for the price of one CD, you can give assistance to aiding the victoms of this grevious event.']
Seems to me that maybe good-ol` America had better things to spend their disposable income on around the holiday seasons last year.
As for requiring devices to have imbedded encryption devices in them .. lets assume for a second that no one would be able to hack them [regardless of all the results you get if you google 'cable descramblers'] How would this benifit the 'Average' American.
Just how does protecting Disney's IP [or Warnerbrother-aol-wwf] help the farmers in the midwest who grow the wheat for Eisner's mid afternoon power-bagel. From what I have seen latley (Return to Neverland, and the upcoming Cinderella sequil) Disney IP isn't exactly cutting edge anymore. Walt - the man who wouldnt let Izzy Isbourne recycle cels in their OLD animation must be pacing his cryo-chamber in angst at not only recycling cels .. but WHOLE MOVIES.
Why corporations like these folks can decide a SECURITY LAW for the rest of america bothers me. Intel hit it right on the nose with their statement. It will not benifit the average consumer .. and to add to that .. WHY ARE COMMUNICATIONS companies deciding what is good for COMPUTER COMPANIES ?? Do they REALLY believe that I use the net (or .. chuckle . the web) to watch movies? Do they think my burning desire is to ignore the big TV box downstairs, or .. god forbid .. the movie theatre, and download a grainy pan&scan that some college kid made with a cam corder ?
I mean .. Broadband must not be widespread because of this .. it can't have anything to do with cable companies haveing exclusivity in their areas with no-competition clauses .. or the fact that when you combine a $40 Broadband charge with your normal $50-60 TV bill .. that puts it out of the reach of the average income family.
They want to see broadband in every house ? drop the fees to $20 a month.
ObConspiracy Theory (Score:2, Interesting)
Give me a break (Score:3, Interesting)
If you can read it, you can copy it
Give me an e-book that I can display on a screen, and I'll make screenshots, paste them together using Adobe, and create a non-protected copy of that work for free.
Oh, you disable screenshots? I'll take a digital camera and photograph it, toss them on my PC, and make a PDF out of them.
Oh, you don't let me take a digital image of it? I'll copy it down onto a piece of FSCKING paper and scan that in.
If it can be read, it can be copied
The money to be made (Score:5, Interesting)
I suggest a new law... (Score:4, Interesting)
I think we need a law that deals with crimes against the Constitution.
Any person caught proposing a law or voting for a law which is later found to be in violation against the Constitution shall be banned from any government work, either as elected or appointed. If found to be lobbying another elected official after being banned, all those who were lobbied can not vote on the legislation lobbied on behalf of.
Although H.B. Piper had a few good ideas in his books too... Anyone else up for a law that allows up to shoot elected officals that we feel aren't acting in our best intrests?
Re:I suggest a new law... (Score:4, Interesting)
Loophole? (Score:2, Interesting)
So does this mean that only a *complete* PC counts as an "interactive digital device"? A video card or motherboard isn't interactive by itself.
So, could one could still buy "non-protected" components and build your own clean PC, and thus be guilty of merely
If mpaa/riaa wish to prevent digital copying... (Score:2, Interesting)
SSSCA is a real danger (Score:5, Interesting)
The universal implementation of digital rights protection would be enormously dangerous to free speech as a whole.
Let's just say, years in the future, World Net Daily [worldnetdaily.com] publishes an article containing information that is very embarassing to the government. Officials want the story squelched.
So, just register a signature for the page in the Digital Rights MAnagement system, and call it proprietary. Pooft! No one can access it. No one can email it. It's gone, for all intents and purposes, excepting for those who have broken the protection system on their hardware.
What case do they have? (Score:3, Interesting)
a.) It's unconstitutional. The Gov't is happy to step in and cap prices, but they rarely go for the idea of regulating behaviour.
b.) The people heading this up are asking for measures that are too extreme. This is usually an indication that they have something sneaky going down they're trying to create a loophole for.
c.) Also, the people heading this up are in the position of 'we are a huge corporation who wants to milk more money out of the consumer.'
d.) I seriously doubt that the people backing this up can show they've suffered any serious damage due to piracy. They can't really. They don't even transmit stuff online.
e.) The spirit of copyright is to protect people's works so that they are rewarded to keep creating. The problem is that if they take away abilities to create, then they are working against copyright. If the MPAA and RIAA have their ways, I won't be allowed to be 'inspired' by content. I think if a judge understands this, he or she won't allow this particular form of legislation to take place.
I haven't heard any arguments from these guys that don't sound incredibly extreme. It could be likened to gun control. We all know that guns are primarily used to kill people. (Please please PLEASE don't send me stupid comments about rare circumstances where they can be used for turning off the TV or for shutting up noisy neighbors. I hate when people here nitpick details instead of ideas.) Yet, nobody's been successful at making the acquisition guns illegal. This is probably because the USA refuses to take away one's right to defend themselves. It's for this reason that I don't think this heavy-handed proposal will go through.
Personally, I think the MPAA should just accept that some people are going to make content available. If somebody seeks that content instead of the legitimate ways of obtaining it (which, btw, is difficult today since the MPAA doesn't make it available..GRRR), then somebody will provide a means for it. Instead of fighting it, provide better service. Making it a challenge for people to obtain pirated copies is going to increase piracy.
Write your senator. (Score:3, Interesting)
Use it to find your Senator's sites and send them an email. Both of my Seantors had form built into their site, so it was very easy for me do do so.
Below is the letter I wrote. It's not very well written, but I think the more important thing is that they know people don't like this sort of legislation.
Be sure to write YOUR senators, and include your address. They pay more attention to people in their state. Also, please be civil. I doubt they'll respond well to "tHiS 1Aw suXoRs!!!", or the like. If you don't feel like writing much, just a brief sentence about how you are oppossed to the law will do fine.
Senator Mikulski,
I just wanted to write a brief message to let you know that I, as someone who works in the Technology industry, oppose the "Security Systems Standards and Certification Act" (SSSCA), as proposed by Senate Commerce chairman Fritz Hollings.
This plan is, in my opinion, and MANY others, unworkable. It unfairly places the responsibility of protecting the content of the entertainment industry on the technology industry. It also restricts and unfairly places additional cost on the consumer.
The fact is, the bootleggers will still be able to make copies. This legislation actually does nothing to prevent them from copying discs or making discs with unreleased movies or audio. They have access to professional-grade or modified equipment that, by design or modification, will be unaffected by these new standards. Many of them operate in countries where these laws would not affect them, using equipment made outside of our zone of influence. (Proof of this is that many Hollywood movies are illegally available on DVD and Video CD in foreign countries within days, and sometimes even before, of their release to theaters in America.)
Also, the average user will still be able to find these items in digital format. All it takes is one user who is savvy enough to make a copy, then the information is available. Or, if one person is willing to upload an illegally purchased bootleg that does not have the protections encoded on it, then again, the information is available to those who want it.
This legislation will force excess cost and restriction on both the consumers and the technology industry, as well as stifling innovation. If every technological innovation had to be designed to that it would make piracy impossible, we would not have cassette tapes, VCRS, the internet or even the printing press. Many of these inventions were followed by predictions of doom for copyright holders, but that has yet to come to pass.
If every company has to consider how a new invention will relate to the intellectual property of another industry before deciding to develop that technology it will, at the least, slow down technological development.
These rules will also present a significant barrier of entry to new, smaller firms who wish to try and compete in the technological arena. It is difficult and expensive to develop a technological product or piece of software as it is. If companies have to build various artifical safeguards into their products to protect the work of other companies from activities that are already illegal, then it may become to costly for them to compete effectively with the other, larger, companies in their field.
Beyond these factors is the fact that citizens and consumers should not be faced with these restrictions, as they will not effectively prevent piracy, only fair use.
Piracy is a bad thing, yes, but the fact is, piracy is already illegal. Please don't force the consumer and the technology industry to pay through the nose AND accept heavy restrictions on their activities and business to fight this impossible fight to stamp out piracy.
Thank you for your time,
Joshua A Sisk
Solution: Analog (Score:3, Interesting)
After all, if a device has some dirty old analog technology, it's not *truely* digital, correct?
Really, this could just fall upon lawyers looking for ways to define how a digital device isn't truely digital. Lots of hair splitting.
As usual, the only people who win are the lawyers.
Re:Lets Face Reality here and it eat hamburgers (Score:3, Interesting)
If I make a hamburger.. the best hamburger in the world... and it costs $200, I'll charge $225 for it, OK?
Now, after I've gotten my $225 how many more times should I charge for it? Should I charge for each burp the original eater gets later in the day? Should I charge the bacteria that digest the burger? Six months later, should I be collecting royalties from the cows that ate the grass that was fertilized by the hamburger?
My point is, that once I've done something and gotten paid for it, I need to do something else to get paid more... except when I am a record label or a movie studio.
What if I make a crappy hamburger? I don't get paid for it.
How many times over should anyone get paid for creating something?
Vortran out
Re:I suggest a new law... (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's a slightly more relaxed variant I came up with some years ago. When Congress spends time debating and passing laws which end up being ruled unconstitutional, it is wasting time, taxpayer money, and its own attention. A law that ends up being ruled null and void, after all, costs just as much in Congressional salary and support costs as a law that is effective. Members of Congress who support and vote for such laws are in effect advocating that Congress throw its time away -- and unnecessarily panic the populace to boot.
Therefore, members of Congress and the voting public need a proportional incentive to spend time debating and passing only laws which are constitutional. One way to do this would be to penalize every member of Congress a fraction of his or her vote for every unconstitutional law he or she votes for.
So, for instance, if Sen. Jones voted for the Communications Decency Act and four other unconstitutional laws in one year, he would end up with only 0.95 votes once the Supreme Court had ruled the laws unconstitutional. Thus, to preserve his own power base, he would have every reason to stick closely to the Constitution.
Moreover, this would be an effective alternative to term limits. Since every member of Congress is likely to vote for a couple of unconstitutional laws every year, challengers would have an automatic advantage over incumbents, since constituents would prefer to be represented by a full vote (which every freshman congressman would bring) rather than just the 90% or 80% of a vote which an incumbent might have left.
Strom Thurmond would be long gone.
Re:The rest of the world says thanks (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:According to the article: (Score:3, Interesting)
>
> Why do they think this? With copy protection, downmloading movies would require a purchase, and fee-based online music services are already not doing well.
Without copy control, you can just download your music once, or your South Park episodes once, or your Star Wars DivX's once, and keep 'em on your local drive. Everything from USENET to FTP to the Web to Napster supports this model. You download it with some sort of client, perform a File->SaveAs function, and then render the downloaded material in a separate client that plays back the music or movie.
Ultimately the only way to make sure the user can't "File->SaveAs" is to do away with the file. You pay, a transaction occurs in a database, and a bitstream is served. The thing that's doing the downloading is the same thing that's rendering the bistream into music or video. It's a closed-source application that has no capacity to save files. (It has the capacity to put banner ads up. It has the capacity to track what you read, watch, and listen to. But it'll never have a "File->SaveAs" button. Period. Paragraph.)
The MPAA and RIAA want you to live in a world of "my copy-controlled music sounds like ass on a 28K bitstream, and my movies are the size of postage stamps, better get broadband so I can have it sound less like ass and look half-decent... and pay to re-download it every time I want to hear/watch it."
What they fear is that the consumer will say "Fuck this stuff that looks/sounds like ass. I'll download the album overnight and I'll rent a DVD for $1.99 and encode my own DivX."
The funny thing is that the ISPs themselves are pushing the user to make this choice. Due to bandwidth-capping on DSL and cablemodems, it's gotten to the point that if you live in the US, you can download as much with an "Unlimited" dialup (with unmetered local calls) account as you can with broadband. 6-8 hours of 56k downloading per day is about an hour's worth of high-bitrate MP3s.
Best of all, you can do it with a clean conscience -- if you do it in off-peak hours (say, cron jobs and USENET from midnight to 8am), you're not even taking more than your share of the ISP's modem bank, because that modem bank is largely idle at those times. And if it's USENET traffic off your ISP's own news server, you're not even imposing a transit cost on your ISP for shovelling all those bits around, because as far as your ISP is concerned, it's all local traffic.
Not far enough (Score:3, Interesting)
A little history lesson:
Great Britain started the Industrial Revolution and passed all sorts of laws that protected IP to keep its dominant position. We see that this worked...for a while. The early 1800s had massive leaps in development and inventions and the 1900s started with the British on top of the world in a global empire.
Also at the start of the Industrial Revolution, consider the US. It was not by any means a global power, recently seperated from the British. However, it enacted laws and gave incentives to steal as much IP as possible and the talent who created it from Great Britain. The beginning of the 20th century saw the US emerging as a contender in world affairs. After WWII, they were the last ones standing (that did not have their manufacturing centers ravaged by war) and continuing to coast from the war build-up.
Now the US is passing laws to protect its IP and dominant position. When Britain was dominant, history shows that they were unable to successfully force thier interests across the Atlantic. To reach the same situation in the modern era, a similarly unreachable outpost must be found where monopolistic IP laws don't have effect. Since the US is the global superpower in war, economics and culture, I don't think that there is anywhere on the planet that is safe.
So...it's time to cross the new Atlantic--and reach accross the solar system.
Re:Why is the tail allowed to wag the dog? (Score:1, Interesting)
The government asked them to make movies glorifing military service and american soldiers and wars.
So now that they are starting to deliver..
We Were Soldiers and Hart's War are the first batch...
Well now it's time for congress to pay the bill for hollywoods propoganda services.
Re:Alternatives (Score:3, Interesting)
Clearly, one solution is keeping copyright data encrypted until it is eventually displayed. This can be strengthened by ensuring that copyright data that is distributed is encrypted only for the recipient. While inconvenient, it becomes trivial if on-line distribution takes off. This allows for tracking each copy, to make sure that that those who possess a copy are entitled to, and provides an audit trail to illegal redistributors. It also reduces the effect of cracking an encryption key. Such technology would mesh well with existing PKI mechanisms for encryption, authentication, and digital signatures: you could keep your home movies secure if you wanted.
Of course, you could still make analog recordings of displayed copyright content, and perfect untracable copies of those, unless all digital content had to be signed, making the copy tracable, at least. Frankly the loss of anonymity this would imply would be worse than the protections it would provide. Of course, if interactive content increases in popularity, such analog transcriptions, losing the interactive components, would be less desireable than "the real thing". Furthermore, they'd have to me made in real-time, further inconveniencing the casual infringer. Commercial infringers, presumably, would be caught by virtue of their distribution volume.
Of course, any such mechanism will require some form of secure DRM in playback, or transcription devices. However, it is not necessary to have it in recording devices, so making backup copies of content, and redistributing them in encrypted form (say, emailing a movie from your city home to your country home) would not be an issue. Laws against circumventing such DRM would, of course, be necessary, and technology making it difficult would be desirable. But, such DRM would not have to be ubiquitously installed in storage devices, only transcoding and playback devices (like video cards, TVs, etc.) Already we are seeing crude forms of this in the form of region-coded hardware DVD decoders. While undesirable for other reasons, at least the technology does not pollute the computer itself.
Of course, besides content backups, one also needs to be assured that defective hardware can be replaced and rekeyed to permit playback of existing encrypted content. Furthermore, the private decryption key needs to be kept secret from the owner (lest he produce unencrypted content for distribution): the owner provides a public key when getting custom encrypted content. Obviously, the decryption should take place in the final digital to analog conversion stages, lest a cleartext signal be available for capture (creative use of epoxy, and tamper switches, can help defeat such casual hacking, though).
Of course, content providers would like to be the ones to control the generation of private and public keys, and the installation of private keys in playback and transcoding hardware. But, this is not practical: there are many content providers, and to burden the end-user with a plethora of key pairs is unreasonable. From the consumer's perspective, they'd like to have (a) a single key pair (or a few at most), (b) the ability to install their private key on new or replacement equipment with little difficulty (i.e. independent of manufacturer, or even product type). One possibility is the installation of a user private key encrypted with the public key corresponding to yet another equiment-specific private key.
The new equipment is connected to an on-line key escrow service, the user's public key is provided to the equipment (say, via a smart card, or other device), the key escrow service validates the public keys of user and equipment, and ensures that neither are revoked, and then downloads the user private key encrypted with the equipment public key to the equipment. This requires that equipment and user key-pairs be registered with a "media key escrow service". This service can generate the user key pairs, and either generate the equipment key pairs, or escrow the equipment public keys for the manufacturer. One can envsion several such escrow services, each escrowing equipment public keys pairs from major equipment manufacturers, and honouring key revocation requests from manufacturers, and courts (who'd revoke a user key upon conviction of copyright infringement).
For this system to work, most media key escrow services would have to escrow public keys from most manufacturers, but, since the keys are public, this should not be a problem. Ensuring that they properly revoke such keys on demand from the manufacturer is more important. Furthermore, in the event that an escrow service becomes defunct, it is important that the private keys they escrow for end-users not be lost. Howewver, even this is not completely essential, for each playback or transcoding device already escrows the end-user private key: it just needs to be coaxed into reencrypting it with the non-revoked equipment public key of new equipment and transfering it to same. So long as an end user has at least one peice of equipment holding their private key, they won't lose access to their licensed content.
Of course, because end-user equipment is uncontrolled, getting it to reencrypt isn't easy -- it needs to be sure that the public key of the new equipment isn't bogus, and that the corresponding private key is, indeed, secret, and not generated by the end-user himself. One posibility is to have the new equipment actually at the end of a network connection to a new media key escrow service, with the corresponding public key installed in the old equipment when it was manufactured. Obviously, all known media key escrow services would be so coded in equipment manufactured. This moves the point of weakness to the media escrow services, whose very public operation makes it difficult to covertly engage in copyright infringement, and which will likely have deep pockets if they do. Nothing stops a government, for example, from providing this service.
Is the idea of key escrow frightening, in that one's data isn't really secure? Perhaps, but remember that it isn't the end-user's data but that of the copyright holder. The trust relationship needs to be established between them and the escrow service.
This infrustructure is hardly perfect. There are always ways to circumvent copy protection or access schemes. However, this can be made (a) sufficiently difficult to be a strong casual deterrent, (b) ensure that those parties engaging in widespread infringement are likely visible and have deep pockets (if an escrow service goes bad, for example).
Oh, and if anyone else thinks of patenting these ideas... FORGET IT! I GOT FIRST DIBS!!
Re:I suggest a new law... (Score:2, Interesting)
How about an ammendment requiring congress to submit all bills to SCOTUS for a non-binding judicial review? The "non-binding" would mean that the law could still be declared unconstitutional at some later date. The purpose of the review would simply be to spot obvious issues. Making it non-binding would allow the court to just skim it for keywords and stuff. They could have clerks or other lower officials hired by SCOTUS do this job. Any bill failing review would be illegal to pass.
If congresspeople or the president knowingly pass unconstitutional legislation, I believe they should be impeached. That's right, yours truly, registered Republican, would support impeaching GWB if he signs Campaign Finance Reform. So would a lot of others. I hope he realizes that. The hard part would be proving that they know it's unconstitutional. That's why a judicial review would be needed.
Then again, IANAL or Constitution expert. There could be unforseen consequences of having the SCOTUS involved in legislation that hasn't passed yet. In particular, the court would become more politicized, as if it isn't already. Even as we speak, congress is busy slandering and hog-tying Bush's nominees for this very reason.
Look at the definition of "digital device"... (Score:2, Interesting)
The proposed bill defined it quite clearly as:
If Linux cannot comply, then not only is it unable to run on hardware that implements the standard, but Linux itself will be illegal.
Note that what I just said about Linux applies to every piece of software in the standard Unix toolkit as well.
Now you can feel free to get upset.
Sounds like Assasination Politics (Score:2, Interesting)
Here's a clue to everyone who doesn't understand the nature of power. There is no conspiracy to subvert laws. The laws are there to protect the powerful and the monied. As long as the laws do that, they are "good laws". The moment something happens which prevents the powerful from getting their money, something legal has to be done, and there are armies of greedy short-sighted fools willing to step in and help to right any injustice against the monied and the powerful. And if the reality doesn't mate up with the injustice, there are small armies of people willing to step in and paint any picture they're paid to. Yes, it happens everywhere, regardless of the legal system, laws of the land, etc..etc...
Regardless of what anyone says, might makes right, and that's a natural law. Natural laws don't obey false frameworks, like the Constitution; no matter how nicely written and fawned over. And at the end of the day, only the mighty win--everything else is a compromise in the favor of the mighty. So for all our whining about politics (which is just like watching football and bitching about an outcome) unless people are willing to somehow rework human nature, nobody here is going to change anything involving the political process.
And on the issue of hardware-based encryption...if one monkey invents it, another one will figure out how to circumvent it. Hardware solutions only work if they explode when you do anything other than use the unit as intended, and we know that's not going to happen.
The bottom line to all this is that unless every media capable device on the planet is suddenly rounded up and melted down, people are still going to be downloading illegal movies and music forever. It's no more stoppable than a sound, or a thought. Unless the government starts a massive campgain of implanting nerual shunts in our optic and retinal nerves which respond only to frequencies emitted by a perfectly decoded signals from audio and video media that enable us to enjoy the product (Get a free player and free implants for the whole family! Limited time offer!!), nothing they do is going to make a difference--other than make the prison budgets bigger and create an even more elite criminal class.
Re:The SSSCA is not unconstitutional! (Score:3, Interesting)
"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. "
If software is speech (still up for debate) the SSSCA is unconstitutionally abridging the freedom of speech.