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."
"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:5, Insightful)
but you could still stop people from recording your broadcast, reproducing it or distributing it.
I would assume "old" recording technologies such as VCRs and PVRs would still be able to record the signal? (Current protection, Macrovision, is easily scrubbed from a signal.) These bastards have forgotten what the term "Fair Use" is all about.
I don't see how (Score:5, Insightful)
No fair... (Score:5, Insightful)
I say if you don't have the copyright to what you broadcast, you shouldn't have the right to prevent redistribution.
Important things first. (Score:5, Insightful)
DMCA & Such (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to sound all Princess Leia, but they keep piling this nonsense on, and we keep ignoring it/circumventing it (and ignoring the laws against circumvention). At some point the whole thing becomes a joke and enforcement becomes impossible.
That's not to say that I don't think we'd be better off without this stuff. I'd rather not be a criminal, if it's all the same. OTOH, I'm not going to run Windows just so I can watch DVDs that I've bought.
I guess time will tell.
-Peter
as in.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I'm waiting for some smart guy who can understand lawspeek to read the PDF and translate it into a paragraph or so of normal english.
Next they'll want to brain scan you and make sure you don't REMEMBER a tune or news story or a video scene, because you would be avoiding some royalty payments...
If you can play it... (Score:2, Insightful)
It'll be cracked (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Too many bosses (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Uh. What's wrong with this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:DMCA & Such (Score:3, Insightful)
This is all well and good if you're a consumer who just wants to watch the stuff and maybe keep a personal recording or two.
What if you actually want to use outlawed tools for research or political activism or your own art? Then your violations are public knowledge, and you no longer depend on flying below the radar.
--Bruce Fields
Re:No fair... (Score:5, Insightful)
How to kill an industry (Score:5, Insightful)
Theres a massive market for high quality recording off of tv/dvd/hd/whatever. All that legislation like this does is raise the barrier to entry, and thereby cause LESS competition, giving the consumer (fitting word in this example) less of an option.
Besides, if/when it becomes widely known that you cant record your favorite sports game/movie/whatever with these new tools, people simply wont purchase them, and will stick with their old equipment.
And when that happens, theyll blame "piracy."
Re:"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:4, Insightful)
True, but what happens when everything moves to pure digital and they close the analog hole? With "trusted" computing looming on the horizon, stuff like this is very creepy. When they take away our ability to play media on older hardware (e.g., a movie-on-demand whose codec is only available in broadcast flag compatible hardware and whose emulation would be too inefficient to be practical), then we're screwed. I know there will always be ways around this, but it still annoys me. If nothing else, I don't want to see someone be branded "Broadcast Flag Jon" somewhere in Scandinavia.
reverse the question (Score:3, Insightful)
You've got the question backwards. The point of copyright is to further the people's interest by encouraging the creation of new works. So long as copyright is providing enough incentive to entice people to create more art, then the system is working as intended.
It isn't the copyright system's purpose to maximize profits for creators, but merely to ensure that there is just enough - and no more - commercial advantage to keep them producing more art.
Somehow, somewhere along the way popular perception changed to the idea that copyright serves the author. Not so, it always was about the people's interest.
The second dark age (Score:5, Insightful)
The second dark age will not be caused by organized religion, but by the "content" industries and those politicians that deliberately or unwittingly serve their interests. Their power will come, not from the flawed dogma of authoritarian religion, but from the flawed dogma of intellectual property.
The people pushing this are not creators, in fact, if they really understood creativity they would understand why the whole concept of knowledge as property is so flawed. Walter Elias Disney understood, but those that control today's Disney Corp certainly does not (or just don't care).
The free software movement is a powerful demonstration of why these concepts are flawed, but could be rendered powerless by some of the more potent forms of intellectual property, such as patent law.
We must fight this on the political battlefield, if you haven't contacted your political representatives about this - now is the time.
Re:No. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Uh. What's wrong with this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Will that make a difference then?
We already can not fast forward through the commercials on several DVDs, even though we purchased the DVD or legitimately rented it, and own the DVD player. This is due to agreements forced upon the hardware manufacturers. It is the law that makes it a crime for you to try and fix this unwanted feature, and that part is entirely wrong.
Also, I don't see how placing additional non-flexible restrictions advances the sciences and useful arts, when your equipment refuses to record clips of various media for debate, parody, discussion, etc.
Re:DMCA & Such (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Important things first. (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh yes, it's part of accepted Western culture. Silly me.
K
Re:"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:3, Insightful)
We (Average Joes) don't have the millions of dollars the Broadcast Fuckers have. All you can do is not support them. Don't buy a new TV, cancel all forms of TV (satellite, cable) and make sure they know why.
If you see TV elsewhere don't buy from the advertisers you see. Tell your friends and family. People don't like being treated as children and premptively as thieves. Knowledge is your weapon.
Thankfully they can't DRM good ol' paper books.
Re:This really won't change a thing (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that in early 2005, it will be illegal to sell hardware that does not obey this flag. So, the major changes come at the receiver side, not the broadcaster. It adds complexity and cost to the hundreds of millions of receiving devices. Even though my current PC is completely capable of recording, viewing, and modifying HDTV content, which I've been doing for a couple years now... In order to do that in 2005 and beyond, I need to buy all new hardware, which enforces DRM control as defined by the big media companies.. You want to copy this weeks episode of "The West Wing" to your powerbook to watch on that long flight? No can do.. Not until you buy a new laptop that obeys DRM, and makes sure thieving bastards like you don't have open access to this precious material.
Once it goes into effect, the current ATSC receiver cards will no longer be sold. Eventually, a new breed of receiver cards will come out. They will enforce the flag in hardware, and will not pass the transport stream to your PC, unless it also has hardware support for DRM, and the stream can be saved in an encrypted format.
So, say goodbye to any open source software to modify the transport stream (like I have today, to transcode HDTV to save in DVD format, or edit the streams to remove commercials). Say goodbye to broad innovation in digital TV. This locks the current structure firmly in place.. Disney, Viacom, GE, and Fox have their positions cemented. You'll watch their programs in the way that they allow, you'll watch their commercials, and anyone who tries to circumvent that will have their DRM license revoked and a lawsuit slapped on them.
Yes, there will still be some basic HD receiver cards floating around which do not care about the broadcast flag. But, how does that matter? Any product you want to buy in the future will be crippled, and the flag will give the big media companies an easy way to sue anyone who dares to challenge their stranglehold on digital media.
wow... (Score:5, Insightful)
Alternative V
(2) In particular, legal remedies shall be provided against those who:
(i) decrypt an encrypted program-carrying signal;
(ii) receive and distribute or communicate to the public an encrypted program-carrying signal that has been decrypted without the express authorization of the broadcasting organizatoin that emitted it;
(iii) participate in the manufacture, importation, sale or any other act that makes available a device or system capable of decrypting or helping to decrypt an encrypted program-carrying signal.
so... this means that digital TVs would become illegal. Or, in fact, any device that would allow you to actually watch the encrypted TV, since the proposal is that a device which can decrypt the content under any circumstances (even to watch it) is illegal. Period. No exceptions. Only part (ii) here has an exemption for express authorization by the broadcaster. Part (i) makes it illegal to watch TV if it was encrypted (since you have to decrypt it to watch it) and part (iii) makes it illegal to sell a TV.
Y'know, I'm thinking maybe that isn't what they meant. Isn't overbroad legislation wonderful? :-)
what rights do we have anymore? (Score:2, Insightful)
Taking control from the actual Copyright owner! (Score:4, Insightful)
Do we really need this? What will it solve? Television programming is ALREADY copyrighted. By adding this explicity copying restriction then are calling all television viewers CRIMINALS.
Also. This thing needs a new name. Just like DRM's correct name is "Digital Restrictions Management". Calling this a "broadcast flag" isn't descriptive enough to the average person. It needs to be referred to as something else. "Copy prevention flag", etc...
Also, keep in mind, it's really not preventing only copies to be made. It actually prevents you from even making a FIRST GENERATION recording of a live program as well. Guess what, no more timeshifting. TIVO just got a whole lot less useful. No more instant replays of Janet Jackson's boob.
Re:and just wait ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Memory Augmentation (Score:4, Insightful)
Are they going to make such a device illegal because you might wear it to a concert / movie / theme park and then get to play back your experience again later?
What happens when the technology advances so far that it becomes a sort of implant?
When we begin to become practically symbiotic with such a device such that our competitiveness and our daliy lives begin to depend on it more and more, will we still be told by large media organizations what we can and can't re-experience?
When our human memories become fully meshed with technology (which I expect will happen within the next 100 years), where will we draw the line between our rights to re-experience something from memory and the content producer's right to get compensated for repeated experiences?
Re:DMCA & Such (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider a hypothetical political activist that wants to tape broadcasts of the president saying contradictory things on two different occasions, and use these recordings in a documentary. He could just paraphrase the president, but it wouldn't be as effective as actually showing the clips side-by-side. He'd obviously like the largest possible distribution of the resulting documentary, without getting hung up on legal problems having to do with the tools used to capture the original broadcasts.
A court reviewing such cases after the fact has the chance to weight first amendment, fair use, and other concerns, to arrive at a balanced decision in a complicated case. A device plugged into your TV can't do that.
--Bruce Fields
oh, well (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:and just wait ... (Score:4, Insightful)
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/naz
Or how about that whole bit denying insurance payouts to survivors of the holocaust?
Yeah, I think the Swiss would work really well there.
Is everyone a fulltime media pirate now? (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, how is it possible that series DVD sales are through the roof yet piracy is supposedly so rampant that it warrents an international treaty to spend billions of dollars to develop and disseminate technology to stop people from recording a show broadcast on tv?
Here's the end result: now I can't record my favorite program 'x' and watch it later because I have to work late.
Wow, awesome. Who did we put into office that treats the entire population like criminals because a miniscule fraction actually are? I think it's time to pass some laws about lobbying - you should be able to mail one(1) letter, 2,000 words or less, stating your case to the politician of your choice. That's it, fini. Nada mas. No more big business can afford 3 full time lobbyists to push and pull the administration at their whim. Everyone gets an equal opportunity to affect policy decisions, because policy is what determines our laws and how our society functions. Only the elections are democratic, the rest of the system is as corrupt and elite money-driven as any communist state.
Re:wow... (Score:4, Insightful)
Make all TV watching illegal by default, and then selectively enforce this when and where you want to, and now you have full legal control over the television market.
That's why I don't respect the argument that "if they can't catch you doing it, then who cares that they made a benign activity illegal? It's no real harm, right?"
Re:The second dark age (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No. (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, the UN wasn't doing their job with Iraq. The US didn't ignore them, they just couldn't wait any longer. Somehow I doubt that'll take place here, especially if the US's interests are being served.
Re:The second dark age (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't give up before you have even started fighting, that is the only way we are guaranteed to fail. apathy and pessimism are our greatest enemies.
Re:No. (Score:2, Insightful)
They couldn't wait any longer? Couldn't? As in, "Oh, boy, I can't wait to go start a war!"?
...Actually, now that I think about it, that sounds pretty much correct.
Re:"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:3, Insightful)
But you can vote the palms those dollars grease out of office. Congress can decrease the length of copyright protection just as easy as they can increase it.
The reason broadcasters want this (Score:5, Insightful)
1. They have lost all control of their schedules. With easy, good-quality time-shifting, they can no longer target a particular show for a particular day and time. Counter-programming one show against another is futile.
2. They have to stop people from easily skipping commercials. With any PVR, that's a simple matter of recording a show, and starting to watch it about 20 minutes after it starts.
Instead of adapting to the new reality of the consumer being in charge of their own entertainment, the broadcast networks are forced into these draconian measures.
The first network to use this flag will get a lot of complaints, and lose viewers to the competition. That competition will be most happy to use its lack of the broadcast flag as a major selling point.
Corporate greed created this flag, and that same corporate greed will prevent its widespread use. This whole issue will become a tempest in a TV plot.
Re:"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:3, Insightful)
Untrue. They know exactly what it's all about - and they hate it.
Re:No. (Score:1, Insightful)
Note I didn't say that Kerry, Clinton or some other random "Democrat" would have done anything better. It just makes me fucking sick when I see guys who still believe that the people who have clawed their way up to the highest leadership positions in the country really care about morals and not just about money and power. I arrived at the conslusion that the system does not reward people who care about morals all on my own, imagine that.
Re:No. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, you are right. I wasn't thinking of you specifically when I wrote that. Sorry for not being clearer about that.
"It just makes me fucking sick when I see guys who still believe that the people who have clawed their way up to the highest leadership positions in the country really care about morals and not just about money and power."
We share agreement here.
" I arrived at the conslusion that the system does not reward people who care about morals all on my own, imagine that."
I agree with you here as well. I don't think the system is encouraging the right people to come by and be president. Wish I knew how to fix it but I'm still chewing on what the actual problem is. I feel that if you have to win by pointing out the faults of your competitors on TV (be they truthful or not), then anybody who campaigns is negatively tainted.
The seeds they are sowing in children (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder about the effect these moves are having on kids. I have two kids, and they have already heard an earful from me about how the corporations and government are conspiring to take away their rights. They are growing up to absolutely LOATHE government and corporations.
The future generation, mark my words, the ones who are little kids now will start the revolution. No longer will there be a demarcation between libertarians ("the government sucks, problems are all the government's fault, take fetters off corporations") and socialists ("the corporations suck, problems are all the corporations' fault, take fetters off the government). Finally people realize it is BOTH their faults. And the little kids are feeling the loss of their rights worst of all. My kids are smart. Want to hear the type of conversation that actually goes on in my house, and probably in millions of others:
Child: "Why can't Daddy record Finding Nemo for me?"
Mom: "Because the government and corporations got together and passed a bad law to make it difficult for Daddy to do so. DVDs aren't like VCRs. "They" won't let us copy DVDs, and Daddy has to try to figure out how to do it on his computer, although they're trying to take that right away, too."
Child: "I HATE corporations and the government! They don't sound any different than those bad kings over in the Middle East who weren't letting their people even dance or play music."
Dad: "Well, you're right. There are a lot of similarities. As citizens, it's our job to fight against mean people who make bad rules, try to stop them from doing so."
Child: "When I grow up, I'm not gonna let them."
Actual conversation. Happens more and more frequently, too. Think I'm kidding? These clowns in the fascist UNITED CORPORATIONS OF AMERICA new government we seem to have will reap what they sow. They're teaching the current crop of little kids to HATE THEM with a passion. NEVER fuck with a little kid's Finding Nemo.
Re:No. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:2, Insightful)
Exactly. Now, how much of that was unedited? More precisely, how much of the image he presented on the tube was the result of the media picking and choosing what would be presented on the tube, and how much of it was the unedited truth?
If a lot of it was unedited then I concede that point and retract Dean as an example.
Digital Watermarks and Freedom (Score:2, Insightful)
Unfortunately, there is heavy research into DRM techniques such as digital watermarks [google.com] which survive DA/AD conversion. They can be distributed across the medium, making removal impossible without significantly deteriorating the quality. Not only could these watermarks be used stenographically to uniquely identify copies for legal prosecution, [slashdot.org] but also to hold DRM authorization information.
Of course, even with old analog equipment, forces like macrovision (V1,V2) are still trying to close the analog hole. So, at the very least, technically, it will be a hassle and more costly to break whatever DRM system is used.
I used to believe as you and your sibling poster, holding high my and my fellow engineer's technical skills, which gave me peace of mind that I would always retain my freedom. But I've grown to be saddened when I see such posts because that attitude breeds apathy.
Ultimately, the war will be won or lost through legislation and its enforcement, and currently, those of us interested in "fair use" and freedom are losing. Consider that even in the best case, what good is technical freedom if you are fined or thrown in jail for exercising it?