Draft of 'Broadcast Flag' Treaty Now Available 324
The Importance of writes "If you liked the broadcast flag, you're going to love WIPO's proposed 'broadcast flag' treaty (PDF link). The draft treaty will give copyright-like rights to broadcasters, cablecasters and, if the US gets its way, webcasters. As a broadcaster, you wouldn't have to own the copyright in what you broadcast, but you could still stop people from recording your broadcast, reproducing it or distributing it. The treaty also includes DMCA-like protections, in case you try to circumvent the broadcast flag. The treaty is going to be discussed in Geneva, June 7-9. The draft is discussed over on Corante.com and late last year on the DMCA activists list."
and just wait ... (Score:1, Funny)
Ok.... (Score:5, Funny)
er. wait... I mean, eventually I'll get tired of it and stop watching TV altogether.
First reply (Score:0, Funny)
1 4|\/| teh l33t35t!
ah jeez (Score:4, Funny)
If I read that correctly, this means that even if I release something for free to the public, they can *still* find a way to prevent people from copying it and distributing it? In that case, I throw my full support behind the lo-techs and their falling cars of doom. Get your VCRs ready. I may even start carrying around 80 gigs of divx files in my head, childhood memories be damned.
Re:and just wait ... (Score:4, Funny)
If they UN ran the internet, the committee would probably be headed by a nation like Tongo seeing how the UN's great wisdom lead to Libya heading up the Human Rights committee.
Re:"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:1, Funny)
sue_evil_pirates truth table (Score:3, Funny)
0 1 0
1 1 1
evil_bit
1 forAll evil_pirates
0 forAll good_guys(TM) = {RIAA, MPAA, political_puppets}
broadcast_flag
1 always 1
Re:"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:3, Funny)
Heh - Fahrenheit 451 style, we'll soon be memorizing and reciting episodes of "Sister Sister" on a remote island somewhere, far from the prying eyes of the evil broadcast flaggers.
I know I speak for a lot of people when I say... (Score:3, Funny)
Gravy!
Re:This really won't change a thing (Score:3, Funny)
The V-Chip is already in TVs
And that's been such a rousing success [msn.com].
But to be fair, the V-chip was merely implemented to prevent our future citizens from becoming conditioned to violence and growing up to be hardened criminals.
With the broadcast flag we're talking about a much more serious issue to the fabric of civilization - the potential loss of revenue by content owners from unregulated viewing of copyrighted media!
Given it's importance, I expect effective unambiguous government regulations to be expedited, probably without the needless delays of debate in open legislative session.
Bad TV (Score:2, Funny)
Now if only broadcaster's would broadcast something worth recording. Since FOX canceled both Firefly and Wonderfalls, and after Angel's demise (the show, not the character) at the end of the season, I'll be watching one single TV show for the 2004-2005 season.
I'm personally not a reality TV fan, or a teen-sex drama fan, or a law and order fan, so there's not much more on these days. There's a reason I'm watching less TV [slashdot.org], and it's not all because of EverCrack. Thank god for Netflix.
Which I guess is a good thing -- sitting in front of the TV really kills your... your... what's that thing called? The one in my... uhh... uhh...
Re:and just wait ... (Score:3, Funny)