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!"
music sales down 10% last year (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:music sales down 10% last year (Score:2)
You can't say the increase is due to piracy until you can verify the increase would not happen on the same timeperiod without piracy. This, of course, is impossible to verify.
In other words, sure it sounds good for Napster users, but in court/math/logic, it is passed off as a useless statistic.
Sorry to be a broken record about this, but people love to spout the same stuff. If that's your only argument for Napster/Music&File Sharing, then its time to research a better argument.
Re:music sales down 10% last year (Score:2, Insightful)
So, let's get this right:
Yeah, right.
The rest of the world says thanks (Score:2, Funny)
If they really pull that off, R&D and manufacturing will spread around the rest of the world, while the US is assembling dumbed down AOL-compliant Warner-Brothers approved cable TV boxes with embedded, digitally rights managed entertainment capabilities.
Re:The rest of the world says thanks (Score:2, Insightful)
How long will it take the nations that don't adopt SSSCA-like laws to overtake those that legislate meaningful research in CS out of existence? If they are able to maintain the current pace of technological progress, it may not be long at all.
My advice: teach your children Mandarin or Cantonese if you want to ensure their future.
Re:The rest of the world says thanks (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:According to the article: (Score:2, Insightful)
hollywood's version of "broadband" (Score:2)
I believe it's called pay-per-view cable.
Re:According to the article: (Score:2)
Hollywood believes that copy protection will spur the use of broadband.
Incorrect. They know that there will be more content available if Copy Proctecion is unavoidable, since they'll be "guaranteed" thier cut. What they're saying is "No copy protection, No movies on Digital media, including broadband."
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.
Some pay services are doing OK, but no where near the level that the RIAA/MPAA need to support thier ludicrace market caps. This is the real reason they are fighting like crazy - a lot of rich people would be reduced to "normal" people in net worth - we can't have that, can we?
And downloading movies would only require one or two purchases, until someone cracked the copy protection. (I've heard rumours that there are movies filmed in the theatre with a digital mini-cam that were of acceptable quality being passed about KaaZa - even before the theatre has shown it to one paying patron.) As someone else said, "It's easier making water not wet than to stop bits from being copied". They're trying to perpetuate the status quo with old laws and methods - until they have technology to protect thier old business models. They don't seem to think they can try a new business model, or that they can scale back thier market caps to a level that will be in line with the lower revenues of digital content production. It's like we're trying to bury Godzilla alive here.
I, for one would not base my conversion to broadband on the fact that I could purchase movies.
Good for you - neither did I. Broadband isn't necessary for most of what the 'net offers. It's just real nice to have - especially for Telecommuting. I say respect the law of the land (for now), but not current copyright ideology. It will change one day.
Soko
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.
good way for congress to sign their own pink slip (Score:2)
Its been how long and nobody has given him a clue? (Score:2)
And other myths and legends... (Score:4, Funny)
A Hollywood spokesman was later heard to also profess strong belief in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and honest politicians.
The core problem (Score:2)
Re:The core problem (Score:2)
Futher the market for old technology devices, which can't be covered by such a law, will thrive.
It's hard to know where to begin to describe just how misbegotten this legislation is.
But on the same tack - I would expect the market for new technology devices to have a damper put on them if the legislation is passed. If I were a hardware manufacturer, I'd be quite leery of this kind of legislation.
Imagine Joe Consumer, with an opportunity to buy a post SSSCA music playing device. It has more memory than an old Diamond Rio, but it requires Joe to "synch it up" over the wireless network so that his credit card can be charged each time he listens to a particular song.
Next thing you know the volume level controls on the devices or the earphone output jacks will be hobbled so that Joe can't play his new song for his friends in a semi-public forum.
The upshot is that I hate to see such pecuniary interests erode our present freedoms.
Sheesh, at least let such a 1984-ish development be nominally for something to "protect me from terrorism" and not to protect the revenue stream of a Fritz Holling's big soft money contributors, the MPAA. I would be cautiously willing to consider the former motivation, while the latter has to be dismissed as disgusting.
Re:The core problem (Score:2)
Customs Agent Bob: "Hey, Jack, I just found 5 K's of coccain in a spare tire!"
Customs Agent Fred: "That's nothing, Arnold just caught a guy with a false gas tank full of DVD burners, he's beating the hell out of the driver with a spiked maul, wanna go watch?"
Customs Agent Bob: "Wow, cool! Sure, I'll just let this guy off with a warning and be there in a second."
Re:The core problem (Score:2)
The ad shows a huge blowup of the face of Drug Czar John Walters, and states: "This week, I had lunch with the President, testified before Congress, and helped funnel $40 million in illegal drug money to groups like the Taliban."
Right on target.
linux bios (Score:2)
I may even hack around my future systems in order to get them bug-free
Post-Enron (Score:5, Insightful)
Post Enron, and all the campaign finance issues that it has brought up, might there be a way to defeat this through bringing to light the contributions recieved by the sponsors?
Or is that even relevant? Should we be looking at the motives of politicians who sponsor bills? IMO, we should when the bills are being passed for the benefit of donors to the pol's campaign. It seems to me that Senators and Congressmen forget who they work for (the people who elect them) and just care about fundraising.
Okay, rant mode off.
Re:Post-Enron (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, we absolutely should. Especially when the politician in question has received almost $300,000 in corporate donations [theregister.co.uk] from the worlds largest media companies.
Slashdot Contributors Should Consider... (Score:5, Informative)
Of most interest on that page? Top Industries and Top contributors on the left hand side. And yes, big media companies are giving him a lot of cash. And yes, I'd say he's probably just returning the favor.
Hmm. Perhaps it's time to send a couple of hundred dollars to the South Carolina Republican party in the hopes that they can defeat him in the next election cycle.
Re:Post-Enron (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.publicampaign.org/press_releases/pr6_29 _99.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/21830 .html
There are more; just do a google search on "Fritz Hollings campaign contributions" and see what you get.
Not likely, too many hypocrites (Score:2)
Hollings has received campaign donations from Enron, but that hasn't slowed him from raising a stink over Ashcroft recusing himself from the Enron investigation. Ashcroft did receive donations from Enron, when he ran as a senator, so he recused himself from the criminal investigation, to avoid the appearance that the donation had tainted his objectivity.
Likewise, as governor of South Carolina, he signed a bill to fly the confederate flag over the state capitol, and recently tried to use that issue in the 2000 Presidential campaign against the Republicans, for them not insisting that it should come down.
A senator with as much seniority as he has only listens to the highest bidder.
-- Len
Re:Post-Enron (Score:2)
This about sums it up for me:
The Honorable Senator Earnest Hollings, D-Disney
Fritz just wants to make sweet sweet love to Sonny Bono.
</flame>
Last thing we need (Score:3, Insightful)
I find it interesting, though, that Intel is on our side in this issue: "We don't think government-mandated technology solutions are in the best interests of consumers or anyone else," according to their spokesperson. It's not too often that big business comes down on our side, although I can certainly understand why Intel would on this issue. Being forced to implement copy-protection in their hardware would NOT be compatible with their business interests.
I also find it interesting that the senator promoting this heinous piece of legislation is a Democrat. Aren't the Democrats supposed be the party that sticks up for the common people as opposed to big media interests like Disney and the MPAA?
Re:Last thing we need (Score:3, Informative)
I think it's less
"We don't think government-mandated technology solutions are in the best interests of consumers or anyone else,"
and more
"We think Intel-mandated technology solutions are in the best interests of Intel and anyone else."
Re:Last thing we need (Score:2)
Oh you mean like Sonny Bono.
Come one man, hasn't anyone figured it out yet? Libertarians are the ONLY ones that give a flying fuck about anything buy money and power.
Re:Last thing we need (Score:2)
The Democrats are the ones who talk about personal freedoms, equality, and a kinder, gentler government that forces everyone to be kinder, gentler people, while taking money from special interests and being as corrupt as they think they can get away with.
The Republicans are the ones who talk about war, family, morality, and using government to bring everyone in line with their morality, while taking money from special interests and being as corrupt as they think they can get away with.
I hope this clears things up for you.
copy protection in my alarm clock? (Score:2)
home of the brave"
copy protection in my Video Camera!
copy protection in my Game controller!
cool, all this won't cost much
copy protection in my modem
copy protection in my monitor
copy protection in my watch
copy protection in my microwave
one more victory for the lawyers
If it goes through we should try and prosecute the manufacturers of as many digital devices as possible!
Re:copy protection in my alarm clock? (Score:2)
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.
MPAA want DRM by law (Score:3, Informative)
the Boston strangler to single women") Valenti of the MPAA wrote a depressing editorial at The Washington Post [theregister.co.uk], calling for DRM-enabled OSes to be the (presumably, legally mandated) standard, in order to save Hollywood from the same
terrible fate [slashdot.org] that befell the music industry while Napster was operating. Depressing because, although his case has more holes than Internet Explorer, it smells of a ploy to get more bad laws [google.com] passed. Three guesses what would happen to non-compliant (read: Free) OSes once this terrible law goes through...
The Register [theregister.co.uk]
has a good scathing response.
When Free software is against the law, only outlaws will have Free software...
Something scary... plus more lies and videotape (Score:3, Insightful)
Yikes... if they think SSSCA is merely "moderate", I'd hate to imagine what they *really* want.
Also this week, the Recording Industry Association of America published data saying that music sales were down 10 percent last year and online piracy and CD burning were a "large factor contributing to the decrease."
Let's see, CD sales were rising when Napster was in its hey-day so obviously the dismantling of it is a "large factor contributing to the decrease."
The DMCA sparked controversy after the eight largest movie studios successfully used it to stop 2600 magazine from distributing the DeCSS DVD-descrambling program.
As I recall, 2600 only linked to sites with DeCSS; it didn't distribute it.
The entire article reads like a blowjob for the RIAA and MPAA.
Re:Something scary... plus more lies and videotape (Score:2)
> As I recall, 2600 only linked
There is also the question of their definition of success. While they have, for now, stopped *2600* from linking to it, they've hardly supressed it's existance off the net.
Today... (Score:2)
Re:Today... (Score:2)
Or did you think our politicians were not as corrupt.... It's a tragic shame that we didn't keep the death penalty just for politicians who perform "favours".
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."
Read This Rob (Score:2, Funny)
(I say this with a deeply heavy heart. I am honestly scared as to what the world holds for me as a CS major when I graduate.)
PrisonerCX
What, me worry? (Score:2)
"a Disney lobbyist defended Hollings' draft SSSCA as "an exceedingly moderate and reasonable approach." "
Well then, I don't see that I have any cause to be concerned... I mean, if DISNEY says it's okay how bad can it be?
The Letter Fritz sent me when I asked about SSSCA (Score:5, Informative)
Dear Mr. Sattler
Thank you for your recent communication regarding legislation that address copyright protection on the internet.
I believe that any proposed legislation must meet consumers' expectations while protecting intellectual property. Ideally, the private sector will work to solve these problems. While I am considering legislation in this area, I am not intoducing a bill at this time.
You can be certain that if legislation is developed, I will take your concerns into consideration in order to ensure the rights of consumers as well as those of the creators of Internet material.
With kindest regards, I am
Sincerely,
Ernest F. Hollings
So basically he denied that the SSSCA existed at the time. What a blatant lie.
Re:The Letter Fritz sent me when I asked about SSS (Score:2)
I'm no fan of the SSSCA, but he didn't deny its existance. He denied that it was being introduced at that time, which is true. It's hardly a "blatant lie".
Re:The Letter Fritz sent me when I asked about SSS (Score:5, Insightful)
To me the most infuriating part of this is the mentality, expressed in Hollings' letter, that the world is divided into content "creators" and "consumers".
If we are not in the business of making money off copyrighted works, then we must be "consumers" of copyrighted works. There appears to be no notion in either government or most major media outlets that some of us might value some of our rights that don't necessarily advance our positions as "consumers".
Clearly it is too much to expect the public at large to "get" open source, but is there no general sense that our rights ought not be pidgeon-holed like this?
-Steve
Re:The Letter Fritz sent me when I asked about SSS (Score:4, Funny)
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.
What's so important about broadband??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Bandwidth is a wonderful thing, but it seems like inacting legislation to artificially generate demand for it is an ill conceived idea. Fine, if copyright controls aren't built into every single piece of electronic equipment it might mean never watching Lord of the Rings on-line. WHO CARES? Fine, I'll go to a theater and watch it, and there I can get the experience of being with a large audience, getting the big sound and picture that I can never hope to replicate in my home. What is so almighty important to our society to be able to download this stuff?
I guess my feeling is that if the big movie studios don't want to put their stuff on-line, fine, don't, I don't really care. What's the worst that happens? Nothing. Nothing at all. They keep making money the way they always have and we keep watching movies the way we always have. The only risk to them is that somebody else is going to come along and make something of that market without any of this copy protection technology built in. So really, in the end, this is all just an effort to further the monopoly of the MPAA over movie production and distribution. Isn't that grand?
Re:What's so important about broadband??? (Score:2)
Also, it seems that they don't want the expense of securing their own product, they want the responsibility on the manufacturers of devices designed to present the Movie Studios and Music Industries content in a secure manner. That hardware security will be cracked so fast it'll make their collective heads spin right off - better to have that security be programmatic/software based.
Regulation is not the answer.
Oh bah (Score:5, Insightful)
The total cost to me is between $.99 and $3.99 Canadian Dollars, plus $1.99 for the blank cassette tape.
I could also record it to my computer, and eliminate the second cost.
Why do video stores exist? Shouldn't the MPAA be burning them down, or whatever it is that happens to offenders that enable piracy?
Oh, because they generate revenue. Slipped my mind. The MPAA sure are clever fellas, realizing that.
Except that they didn't realize that until after-the-fact. They had permitted rentals of BetaMax, and discovered that they could not legitimately restrict rentals on the basis of the VHS medium. They went with it because they had to, not because they wanted to.
And look at all the money!
The reason that the Internet is so scary to the MPAA and ol' Jack is because it's so big. They think, "My goodness, 400 million people can download our movie and watch it." What they fail to realize is that if they provided a service to download movies legitimately, with no worries about stripped frames or out-of-sync sound, then perhaps 40 million of those 400 million would pay a $5 service fee. Because, hey, $5 is worth saving me a half an hour of frustration. If I could pay $5 for a movie, and KNOW that it would play correctly, and have it certified to run on all hardware exceeding a specific spec, I'd pay it. My serenity in watching a movie is worth a fiver. Really, it is.
This has been said and said and said. Not everybody who downloads something off the internet ever would have purchased it. If I download a Britney Spears song because I'm having an argument over whether she's saying "My loneliness is killing me" or "Fuck me now, Tiger!" with my roommate, I'm not stealing their profit, because a stupid argument isn't worth buying a CD. Although it might be worth a micropayment, if that service existed. Of course it doesn't.
The MPAA and RIAA are both trying to take traditional bricks and mortar businesses online. But, unlike Amazon, they run into a big problem: on-line, for the media formats they're pushing, they run into competition from the illegitimate side of things (Books aren't often pirated). What they have to do is make their service offering more attractive than theft.
You'd think it wouldn't be hard to do that, except that their service offering is, and has been for about 40 years now, theft. They overcharge, they price in a predatory fashion, they artificially increase demand and artificially decrease supply. They constantly reduce production costs and yet constantly raise price tags.
Look at the computer industry: The first computer I bought and paid for with my own money was a 386 SX 20. It had a 20 meg hard drive. It cost me a fucking mint -- over $1000, and I was getting it at a discount.
Now, I can buy a 1 gigahertz computer for that price. Or, I could buy myself a K6 2/300 for $300. An increase in production efficiency coupled with a decrease in production costs resulted in a decrease of the price-to-consumer.
Well, duh.
But a CD? I bought a CD 10 years ago. It cost me $18.99 (Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense). I bought a CD yesterday, it cost me $24.99 (Kristin Hersch, Strange Angels). We all know that the price of pressable audio CDs has been decreasing, right? We all know that the methods of pressing tham have grown more efficient, right?
Q:So why did the price of my CD *increase* instead of *decreasing*?
A: Because the crooks in this equation are the RIAA.
Oh bleh. I buy CDs to support the artists I like. The more copies sold, the more important they are to the label. The more important they are, the more exposure they get. The more exposure they get, the more people listen to them. The more people listen to them, the more shows they play. The more shows they play, the better the odds that I'll get to see them -- except, of course, that the tickets will probably cost enough that I'll have to sell a kidney.
Fuckers.
-l
That Movie on your hard drive (Score:2)
As for why the cost of CDs keeps going up, that's because the RIAA's a price-fixing cartel that artificially inflates prices. I bought a few CDs from mp3.com a while back, at $8 a pop and they were better than most of the crap that the RIAA promotes. You know why they were $8 a pop instead of $16-$25 a pop? Because mp3.com was outside the RIAA cartel and could therefore set their own prices.
Re: Oh bah (Score:3, Insightful)
The MPAA with this legislation is targetting the home user. I do not need a 2nd or 3rd generation copy of a rental -- only a 1st. Why would I need more than that? Pirate video shops that produce on a large scale utilise technology that allows them to produce numerous acceptable-quality copies of films. They are not the targets of this legislation, as there is law in place to deal with them already.
Labour costs such as you mentioned fall under inflation -- but the cost of a CD has risen much quicker than inflation. As cost-of-living increases, so must wages, yes, and the service offerings tied to wages, such as studio time, shipping, packaging. This is acceptable, but why are prices rising, rising, rising at a much higher rate than inflation, and have historically been doing so since the advent of the Compact Disc (in fact, since the advent of factory-pressed vinyls, though at least in that case it could be argued that the increasing quality of artwork and packaging had a lot to do with it).
They are not looking to protect a healthy margin, they are looking to maintain a margin that is the highest bearable by the market. While this may seem logical, it is not. When you enforce the highest possible margin on the consumer, the consumer eventually gets fed up, and prices fall as demand decreases. The MPAA is trying to legislate away the right of the market to decide what is and is not acceptable in terms of a bearable margin. This is sneaky, underhanded, and just plain wrong.
Let's say I cut your lawn for you in the summer. Year 1, I charge you $5 a day. Year 2, $6 a day, and so on and so on. Adjustment due to under-pricing initially caps out at $7 a day -- my margins are, at this price, secure, and need only be adjusted for inflation. And yet, I continue to raise them at 4 times the inflation rate! I do this until it hits $20 a day, at which point you tell me to fuck off.
I respond by treating your lawn with a chemical that renders your grass uncuttable, that can only be removed by Nifty Spray, a product which I and only I produce. I then make it illegal for you to purchase any sod not treated with that nefarious chemical, locking you into the maximum bearable market load, as opposed to the optimal load.
This was written in a hurry, so YMMV and I may have made a few bad points. Sorry.
Basically, the MPAA hit the maximum bearable load, and should suffer backlash from it, resulting in an optimal margin. But, they are trying to legislate themselves a nice, fat margin by removing the consumer backlash (piracy is a backlash -- it remains less convenient than purchasing a CD, but the price is right). If they adjusted prices downward, piracy would decrease. Amazingly, quite a lot of people view their time and convenience to be worth a lot and product packaging to boot, hence the success story of bottled water.
That same success story could apply to CDs. There might be a nastier one instead, though.
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.
Re:3 blind mice .. see how they think .. (Score:2)
Maybe, just maybe, the substantial number of people they've alienated have decided to stop giving them money.
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
Different philosophies (Score:2, Insightful)
I see no reason why every computer should comply with their "standards" just in order to accomodate some business or the other...
If they cannot adapt to the medium then tough luck ! It's not theirs to change in the first place.
Lets Face Reality here (rarely done on /.) (Score:2, Troll)
Premise Two : If someone is allowed to enjoy such created content, whatever to media, without paying for it they decrease the incentive the creators of such content have to produce it. If so few people pay for it in some manner that it is more effort to create content than the creators are compensated (measured in subjective terms, of course) then the creator of the content will likely move on to a more productive form of employment. Hence, noone makes a sequel to a movie that fails economically, and when the
Premise 3 : The digital age allows one to make absolutely perfect copies of content, for almost any form. Many people find they can get content for free with perfect quality. The same incentive rule applies : if you can get media for free, why pay for it? Thus, Something Must Be Done. Especially the major media creators who risk billions in making motion pictures (which is why the MPAA is the most strict about copy protection : a movie takes hundreds of times the money and effort as most other forms of content creation).
I have not seen any proposals made by
One last thing to note : some of you will allege that content creators do not in fact receive "fair" compensation...that they make obscene amounts of money compared to the cost of producing the media. That is simply false. First, in the case of music the $15 you pay for the cd goes to the ADVERTISING, which is just as big a part of the content you pay for as the music itself. The advertising makes you "feel good" about listening to the music, even if the music actually sucks. (hence the popularity of Miss Spears. Remember, advertising refers to more subtle forms of expression than mere T.V. commercials). For the movie example, much of the profit studios make on successful movies has to go to pay for the films that flop.
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
The money to be made (Score:5, Interesting)
Passing the Costs Off (Score:3, Insightful)
"The content industry has been trying to force the costs of secure IP on everyone BUT themselves. First users, then ISPs, now electronics manufacturers. When the hell will they figure out that securing their content is their own damn problem? It's like they can't figure out how to lock their own door, and instead of building a better lock, they'd rather criminalize the act of using a doorknob - er, excuse me, "wall-circumvention device." Obviously, that was a subversive Freudian slip.
Okay, so maybe recycling comments is bad form, but its even more prescient now than before.
That being said, feel free to call me hopelessly optimistic here... but I sense the tide turning.
Okay, I can hear the collective huh? out there, but I'm saying this seriously. I think there's two indicators that may mean the tide is turning away from the property rights hawks and toward the rest of us.
First, the Senate has gotten into the game. Sen. Boucher has given the RIAA flack recently about copy protection schemes and digital watermarking, and Sen. Hatch has voiced on at least one occasion that the DMCA may not be working. ("Hey, no kidding, Orrin!?")
Second, the Supreme Court has gotten into the game. Last year's Tasini decision (look it up on Findlaw) was the first subtle blow to content owners, and I think the Eldred appeal, if the Court strikes down the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, may be the next.
To paraphrase Churchill, I'm not saying this is the end. It's not even the beginning of the end. It may, however, be the end of the beginning.
Excuse my proselytizing, but where that ends is up to you. Email your Congressperson about the SSSCA. I don't care - tell them you think Hollings is a weenie. Just make yourself heard. If you've got time to peruse Slashdot, you've got time to write the damn email. And that doesn't even have to be in HMTL.
What are you waiting for?
Re:Passing the Costs Off (Score:2)
Email doesn't count for the same reason spam doesn't count. Show them you care enough to spring for an envelope and a stamp. My impression is that legislators take signed postal mail much more seriously than email, and what's more, I think that is a reasonable position for them to take.
More obsolete computers for Asian dumps (Score:2)
Think of all of the equipment that will become 'unusable' by the masses and therefore discarded. This will certainly help push California's new computer recycling legislation through.
Also, notice there is no consumer representation at this hearing (the closest thing being Intel). The consumers are affected by this law just as much as the tech industry, and probably much more than the recording and film industries (they will push the legislation through and then sit back and watch while everyone else suffers through it, but ultimately it probably won't make them any more money).
The nice thing is that during the transitional phase, they will probably end up alienating the masses who can't afford the equipment required to listen to new music or rent new movies. Then they will complain that piracy has caused their sales to go down. Lather, rinse, repeat...
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)
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.
Government Moving into Marketing. News at Eleven. (Score:2)
"The technology community doesn't want any standards regardless of what form they take. There's an impasse that needs to be bridged if we want to create broadband services and increase consumer demand for those services," Davis said on Tuesday.
Davis is Hollings' spokesman. So, the government believes it has a duty to increase demand from consumers for certain kinds of commercial services?
Frightening.
-Steve
Heh, the people who write these quotes are funny (Score:2)
With the exception of posting to Slashdot, how can something be 'exceedingly moderated'?
It's coming... (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact is that technology is created by giant corporations. Can you manufacture a Pentium in your garage? Nope. Hard drives? Monitors? Network cards? Cable? Infrared mice? Nope, nope, nope. Basically the only thing that we have control of is the software, the rest is made by multinational corporations who have very little of our best interests in mind.
No one really respected computers before 1995. Only office workers used them and NO one used them for entertainment. The same argument can be made for most digital devices. Now suddenly, everyone gets the clue and realizes what sort thing of thing that Greek chick has let out of the digital box. In the coming years every book, every piece of music, every movie, every television show EVER CREATED will be available digitally. And as it is now every piece of this copyrighted material is free to be transferred between people without cost.
Everyone gets the idea now. And they're going to do something about it.
So, multinationals are going to do what they can to protect their own and the government (especially a Republican led government) will let them. Companies like Sony who once pushed for BetaMax openness will now push for DRM on everything. Even little companies like Blizzard get it and pushes for complete control over it's product and how it's used on the Internet. It won't be long before Microsoft does the same for Windows (want to use the net? You have to use the Microsoft Internet Protocol TM - or you go to jail.)
And what are we, the people, going to do when the corporations do this? Nothing. Because again, we can't create our own fiber-optic cable in our bathroom, we can't create DRAM in our kitchen, etc. We are at the bottom end of the line waiting for whatever digital product these corporations produce.
Normally we would not buy such horrible products and then we would go to our government for protection from such strongarm tactics, but the government is not on our side (and hasn't been for a while). In FACT, they are ASKING the corporations to COLLUDE! PLEASE restrict choice. PLEASE come to an agreement on how to best restrict digital freedoms. PLEASE make it so the status quo can be maintained. THAT is best for the country.
The corporations and the government know NOW that the technology user only has as much power as they GIVE them, so they're going to come to an agreement on the best way to restrict this power.
Get used to it.
-Russ
Re:It's coming... (Score:2, Insightful)
If you bring your ball to the field, but refuse to let anyone else play don't you think sooner or later someone else is going to get another ball and kick you out along with your ball? As long as people want to play, there will be a ball with which everyone can play.
Time to start scratching your noggin for ideas. That company could be you.
The way I see it, this (the bill being passed) is actually a good thing. This seems like the only way big mega-corps can be shackled -- and the irony is that they do it themselves by creating that wall around them. (You build a fort with no doors for the sake of security, how do you expect to reach the masses that are outside?) History shows that smaller companies find an opportunity somewhere in there. Too bad they grow big and this whole process repeats itself.
Anyhow, IMO, it's just a cyclic evolution in the corporate world. nothing new.
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
Unbelievable. (Score:5, Insightful)
We trust the people enough to sell lethal firearms to anybody who walks in off of the street.
We trust the people enough to let a soccer mom drive a 3-ton truck with no special training.
But we don't trust the people enough to let them have a general-purpose computer.
It's insane.
Under the new rules... (Score:2)
- Only one TV show about a bunch of pretty 20-somethings living together with lots of free time, trendy clothing & furnishings and a penchant for drinking coffee together
- Only one TV show about a hard working dedicated bunch of Drs/Lawyers/Teachers who all exhibit a full DSM-Guide of personality disorders and apparently only date or socialize with each other.
- Only one talk show hosted by a comedian with an endless series of "celebrity" guests shilling their latest project.
- Only one band fronted by a nasal-voiced Bob-Dillon wannabe singing about teenage angst and lost love.
- Only one all-girl/all-boy teen band singing out processed harmonies written for them by an ad agency committee.
- Only one swords & sorcerer novel allowed to be pushed at once all using pretty much Tolkien's plot & milieu, set in three parts but with a twist
- Only one religion allowed to claim to be the one true one and all of the others prosecuted as Intellectual Property infringers.
- All books and non-digital media have the same rules applied as proposed for digital media. Photocopiers, scanner, tapes, pens, pencils, carbon paper, all must have copyright-protection devices built in. Oh, mechanical pencils are *very* suspect and will require a license.
- Cameras are of course geo-shuttered unless one gets a permit for the view desired. California will begin charging 10 cents for a Golden Gate Bridge shot, NY, NJ and the Nat'l Park Service will be in court over rights to the Statue of Liberty, France will angle for a cut too.
- Every politician who promises to be tough on crime, cut taxes and restore pride to our great nation will be fined for copying.
- Ownership of saws, screwdriver & T-squares will be regulated to prevent the illicit construction of unlicensed buildings or machines.
- Web-browsers will come equipped with Digital-Media-Rights-Modules determining for how long a page can be displayed and ensuring no copies are made. Webcams with biometrics will be utilized to ensure the identity of properly authorized readers.
Etc.Write your Congress-Critters. [mrsmith.com]
If mpaa/riaa wish to prevent digital copying... (Score:2, Interesting)
I can't speak for everyone, but... (Score:2)
DMCA and UCITA need to be repealed. They're bad, and they're blatantly unconstitutional, but let's be honest: they aren't outrageous in the technical sense. They're certainly a quid pro quo for soft money, and potentially worse, and they're certainly only going to last until their first appointment with a high court.
They are not "let's try to paint the sky red."
The SSSCA is.
And this is where I draw the line.
If this law passes, I will put my current career on hold. I will become a political activist.
Soft money reform is only the beginning.
I will vote against every incumbent in the following election, and I will devote every available bit of my energy towards encouraging others to do the same.
If we, as a nation, can seriously consider bribe-legislation so foul, so odious, so obviously pernicious both to our own economy and our basic civial rights, then it's time for some turnover.
Where he got his money... (Score:2)
So, yes, Hollings is in the entertainment industry's pocket.
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.
It's not too late (Score:5, Informative)
You can find this list at http://www.senate.gov/~commerce/members.htm
202-224-5115
508 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510-6125
Democrats Phone Number Fax Number
Ernest F. Hollings, SC (202)224-6121 (202)224-4293
Daniel K. Inouye, Hawaii (202)224-3934 (202)224-3934
John D. Rockefeller IV, WV (202)224-6472 (202)224-7665
John F. Kerry, Massachusetts (202)224-2742 (202)224-8525
John B. Breaux, Louisiana (202)224-4623 (202)228-2577
Byron L. Dorgan, North Dakota (202)224-2551 (202)224-1193
Ron Wyden, Oregon (202)224-5244 (202)228-2717
Max Cleland, Georgia (202)224-3521 (202)224-0072
Barbara Boxer, California (202)224-3553 (202)228-1338
John Edwards, North Carolina (202)224-3154 (202)224-3154
Jean Carnahan, Missouri (202)224-6154 (202)224-6154
Bill Nelson, Florida (202)224-5274 (202)228-2183
Republicans Phone Number Fax Number
John McCain, Arizona (202)224-2235 (202)228-2862
Ted Stevens, Alaska (202)224-3004 (202)224-2354
Conrad Burns, Montana (202)224-2644 (202)224-2644
Trent Lott, Mississippi (202)224-6253 (202)224-2262
Kay Bailey Hutchison,Texas (202)224-5922 (202)224-0776
Olympia J. Snowe, Maine (202)224-5344 (202)224-1946
Sam Brownback, Kansas (202)224-6521 (202)228 1265
Gordon Smith, Oregon (202)224-3753 (202)228-3997
Peter G. Fitzgerald, Illinois (202)224-2854 (202)228-1372
John Ensign, Nevada (202)224-6244 (202)228-2193
George Allen, Virginia (202)224-4024 (202)224-4024
Re:Writing might be better than calling (Score:3, Informative)
Getting the written reply ensures that your opinion will be recorded. We often kept tabs on an issue based on the number of yes replys and the number of no replys we sent out.
hurrah for freedom (Score:2, Insightful)
If you think about it for a moment though, you'll realize that something like this is bound to happen some time. Instead of protesting and hoping it won't, you need to accept that it will, and try to shape and influence it so that it doesn't become a nuissance for legitimate uses, make sure it doesn't become a Windows-only thing, etcetera.
What's In It For Congress (Score:2)
This is stranger than fiction (Score:2)
I remember when I was reading 'Atlas Shrugged' (yes, it's a bad novel, but it's interesting too) and thought the whole "moratorium on brains" thing was just too ridiculous and unbelievable. It was like an over-the-top exaggeration badly told, to make a religeous point. Nobody is that crazy, I thought.
And now stuff on the same scale of stupidity is happening in Real Life. This is one of the most stupifying, amazing things I have ever heard of, which leaves the most imaginative fiction in the dust. And supposedly grown-up people in positions of power are taking this seriously. Even passing a law that outlaws tinfoil hats would make more sense than a law to outlaw general-purpose programmable computers.
I hope that the people who pass it have to live with the consequences, while the rest of us openly break the law. "Sorry, you cannot print or save the letter that you just typed."
It's worse than you think: SSSCA and Microsoft (Score:5, Informative)
One of the initial concerns over SSSCA had to do with the fact that Windows XP already had DRM built in, and so the law would give it an unfair advantage. "Unfair advantage" has now become a gross understatement. Microsoft has patented what the SSSCA would require of every OS. This leaves Apple, Linux, etc. with only three options:
1) Try to license DRMOS from Microsoft, and MS refuses: your OS is history.
2) Try to license DRMOS from Microsoft, and MS lets you. Be prepared to pay through the nose. Also, realize that MS is going to throw all kinds of things into the agreement, from IE to
3) Try to break their patent. Good luck.
I would strongly suggest fighting SSSCA tooth and nail, now while we still can. Give Apple and the various corporate allies of Linux a heads-up, they can help. Raise the alarm in the world outside Slashdot.
If we don't stop this, Microsoft (and the MPAA and RIAA) will have their Millenium (thousand year rule).
Come on, Tok Wira, these sharks have got to pay!
New Kirk calling Mothra: "We need you today!"
Re:It's worse than you think: SSSCA and Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
LINUX CAN NOT RUN on SSCA hardware because everything from the chip to the hard drive incorporates this encryption and trusts one another with handshakes! In other words without a key all data is locked@ IT can't be revesersed engineered thanks to the dmca, it can be broken because its in hardware, and if it incorporates any drm technology, guess who already has a patent on it? Microsoft!
USe Windows or go to jail. Oh. by the way the license for the upcomming Windows.NET is rumoured to be timebombed so expect to pay a monthly bill to Microsoft or TURN YOUR PC INTO A DOORSTOP!
If this goes through into law I will be so f*cking angry that It will be beyond words! I may even throw my computer out in protest. If this is the future of computers, then I want not part in it!
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.
Why this is bad for America . . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever can be said about intellectual property laws, they are grounded in a fundamental need to balance conflicting interests -- the interest in giving incentives to talent to create, and the interest of giving those who follow and stand on the shoulders of those giants to innovate therefrom. IP, when properly balanced, stimulates growth and innovation. When unbalanced, one way or the other, leads at best, to stagnation.
But TSHB serves none of these policies. It dumbs down and compromises technologies that are at the very economic core of our modern economy, for no reason at all, but for the litigation convenience of a political constituency that, apparently has more dollars than sense.
This is the same constituency that years ago whined about its death in the face of the piano rolls, then the radio, then the television, then the audio tape, then the video tape, then the DAT, and now the Internet. In every case, they lost their war to regulate technology and media, and despite themselves, profited immensely. Losing the Betamax case was the single best thing that happened to the movie industry, except for the few dinosaurs who liked too much their old ways.
And America benefitted from such changes, despite the whinings of the powers that be. Each new technology meaningfully changed our lives in useful ways, created growth and jobs, and most important, made new and greater incentives for people of talent to create.
Imagine if each and every new medium and technology was subject to regulation and review, subject to vetting by every content provider. Who is going to pay for test-drives of new media? Answer: noone, at least noone in the United States. Capital will be invested elsewhere, and the innovators who brought to us these wonderful technologies will go to medical school, law school or elsewhere.
This much we know. The "parade of horribles" of the RIAA and MPAA against underregulation never happened. None of these industries were destroyed by any of the aforementioned technologies. We have seen regulation, however, keep novel technologies from prospering. (And, although cause and effect is certainly not evident, I take great pride in noting that RIAA had their best year in history the year before the Napster decision, when they were terrified that Napster would kill it, but virtually contemporaneously with their 9th Circuit victory, found themselves suddenly unable to sell records.)
TSHB is bad for America because it is unnecessary trade regulation. It is bad for America because it deters creativity from the very sector that has provided the most vital growth (jobs and GNP) to the new economy, in favor of a whining constituency that has ALWAYS argued they were about to die, but has never really needed the protectionism for which they continue to fight.
TSHB is bad for America because it is, at its heart and sole, unAmerican. We need to foster technology, not regulate it. We need to encourage growth in new media, not to staunch its flow. Hollings would make the Commerce Department the gatekeeper of new media, serving as lapdog to content creators.
And in so doing, will only deprive them of the very success that new media technologists have provided in the past, and can always provide in the future.
New technology is driven by natural market forces. Regulation stops these things from working. Content people are the least qualified of all to vet and evaluate new media, except perhaps, for Commerce Department regulators. (And these remarks are coming from a "left of Che" liberal!)
TSHB will not help anything, for there is no real problem here, but it will cause harm. In my view, grievous harm, to America.
On the other hand, think of the opportunities this will create for EC economic and content development! (Has anyone checked for foreign contributors to Hollings campaigns?)
Re:Seriously... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Seriously... (Score:2, Insightful)
Fritz Hollings: "All your computer are belong to us"
Re:Seriously... (Score:2)
Simply by making them feel obsolete with abusively power-hungry new applications, like DVD++readers, games, etc.
Actually they give people one more reason to turn to Free Software : Feeling right.
Re:Seriously... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Alternatives (Score:2)
Have you read "The Future of Ideas" by Lessing? He has plenty of good ideas.
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:Alternatives (Score:2)
You would think they could come up with a business model to support this.
Hell, they sell bottled water for a $1, and most people can get water at their home for damn near free. You can't tell me they can't find a way to sell digital music without finding out a way to mitigate and minimize copyright violations.
Re:err wtf.. (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately, Senator Hollings has been bought out by corporate interests for some time now. He is basically now the elected Disney representative. He has received almost $300,000 since 1995 in "donations" from large corporations, including AOL/TW, Disney, News Corp (Fox), Viacom (CBS), and NBC. Check out this article on The Register [theregister.co.uk] for more info.
If you are a resident of South Carolina, then you are a constituent of Sen. Hollings. PLEASE, contact a rep at any of his offices [senate.gov], and tell them you are a constituent who is AGAINST the SSSCA. Be polite, be firm, give your address, make sure they know you are a citizen & a voter. Only activism by us geeks is going to get these types of things stopped.
Re:err wtf.. (Score:2)
This is the problem with focus on single issues.
Sneaky Troll (Score:2)
Re:ATT & RCN & AOL & MSN (Score:2)
This is why I plan to vote for Green party candidates for the forseeable future -- in addition to having a platform that I agree with (well, 95% anyway), they do not accept campaign contributions from corporations. I'm sure there is a correlation there.
At best, some of them will get elected and actually represent the public good, as opposed to the corporate agendas that completely dominate politics today. At worst, no Greens get elected, but they siphon off enough votes from the Democrats that the Democratic party will be forced to wake up and re-examine what used to be its core principals, before it sold itself like a $2 whore in return for campaign money.
If in the meantime, the Republicans win a few elections, then so be it.
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.