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Consensus At Lawyerpoint 75

Posted by michael from the send-lawyers-guns-money-and-blogs dept.
Seth Schoen writes "The EFF has started a weblog about the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (BPDG), called "Consensus At Lawyerpoint". This is the EFF's first-ever blog, the brainchild of new EFF staffer Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing blogging fame. Consensus At Lawyerpoint covers the efforts of Hollywood -- with the complicity of consumer electronics and computer companies -- to impose a new government mandate for copy controls in digital TV devices. This mandate would outlaw tuner cards for digital HDTV, unless they included DRM (and prevented the end-user from getting a cleartext recording). PVRs and VCRs might be allowed, but only if all their outputs were encrypted. Since all TV broadcasting in the U.S. is supposed to be digital by 2006, this could have an enormous effect on technology and on the competition for video standards in the marketplace. We hope that the blog format will help us get the word out and let interested people see what this group is up to." Interesting for a couple of reasons, both the subject matter (the beloved SSSCA/CBDTPA) and the method.
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Consensus At Lawyerpoint More

Consensus At Lawyerpoint

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  • So? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Zorgoth ( 68241 )
    As I understand it, this would just make it more difficult to record HDTV broadcasts in a digital format that's easy to redistribute on the net. And, of course, this would come at a correspondingly higher price for the hardware for the consumer. This might deter casual users, but some one determined will still be able to capture the broadcast at a reasonable quality. And I will still be able to get Simpsons episodes over some P2P network.
    • The problem is that the "analog hole" is impossible to close without direct neural implants.

      Our eyes and ears are devices that take analog input-- therefore for us to hear the sound or see the picture indicates that there is an analog hole which cannot be plugged through legislation.
  • > Since all TV broadcasting in the U.S. is supposed
    > to be digital by 2006,

    I think 'supposed' is the key. In the UK the govt. is aiming for 2008 to turn off the analogue masts, but noone really expects this to happen - there are *far* too many sets out there, both as primary and second sets, that can not receive digital TV.
    Even the introduction of a 100 quid box to convert wont help, because it requires SCART (old TV's only have co-ax) and my grandma wont understand (a key test !).
    So I dont think we need to worry too much on that front.
    • And the rest of the world will be even further behind.

      Of course they'll just get laws passed making importation illegal. Then we'll have stories of intrepid TV card smugglers being gunned down at the border with their evil wares.

      Whatever happened to the free market? Oh, we sold it to the entertainment industry.
    • Of course, another issue for the 2008 turnoff is that ITV Digital have gone into adminstration and NTL (the largest cable company) is about a hair's breadth away from joining it there. So far, only the massive pockets of Rupert Murdoch have been able to make Digital TV stay afloat at all, and even before the financial collapse ITV Digital were having to race to replace their customers; 40% dropped the service each year.
      • NTL should be OK - they'd make money if it wasnt for 12B ukp of debt - an intrest payment on is what they defaulted the other day.
        They wont go under, someone will bail them out (but not the debts !) and make a killing, maybe mergeing with Telewest (no competion is allowed betwen then anyhow !).

      • Re:All digital ? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Martin S. ( 98249 )
        > So far, only the massive pockets of Rupert
        > Murdoch have been able to make Digital TV stay
        > afloat at all,

        The big problem for most Digital providers is they spent a fortune on infrastructure, a fortune giving away STB's that are obsolete after a year and a fortune on rights to Sporting Events. However not enough people are prepared to pay enough to watch sporting events events they used to get for free to balance the books. Sky are also losing money fast, they plan to be the last man standing, then winding up the prices and presure. However this is doomed to failure.

        To make Digital TV work, the providers need to provide new value added services that people are prepared to pay for. Games/Video/Music on Demand, High Speed Internet, and a truly Interactive (2Way) experience. The technology used by the existing Digital Providers can not provide these valued added services.

        1) Terrestrial Digital (ITV Digital) is broadcast only; no return-path/uplink; no On-Demand Services; No Email, Web or other Internet service. Client Side PVR only.

        2) Satellite (Sky) is broadcast only, si no return-path/uplink, so no On-Demand Services, No Email, Web or other Internet service. PVR on Client Side.

        3) Cable looks good on the surface but it has a big road-block. Its network topology is a ring, the capacity is finite and this causes big contention problems, it also has the most expensive infrastructure to install.

        4) xDSL, the new distruptive technology, it cheaper infrastructure than cable, includes a proper return path and supports IP; So true On-Demand and High-Speed Internet, the value added service to win.

        I've seen the future and it's IP TV.

    • Re:All digital ? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by oldsk8r ( 570275 )
      This could actually be a good thing. Imagine how the TV execs would react if people just didn't buy a new TV set or a converter box. They might just understand what people really think about TV content. I thought we had some crap on TV here (UK) until I went to the states, I feel really sorry for you guys there, the ammount of dumbing down, commercials, and daily repeats just made it unwatchable for me, I had to resort to talking to my wife instead! I rarely watch TV now, and if it wasn't for the kids I'd be tempted to get rid of it.
      • a chance to talk far too much!

        i.e. when a US show is shown live in the UK (in this case the Oscars), the BBC needs to hire some mouthy guy to fill in all the gaps caused by the commercials in the US. Save us! Put less commercials on so we get to see less of Ross next time!

      • >They might just understand what people really think about TV content. I thought we had some crap on TV here (UK) until I went to the states, I feel really sorry for you guys there, the ammount of dumbing down, commercials, and daily repeats just made it unwatchable for me, I had to resort to talking to my wife instead!

        I was just about to say the same thing about UK TV!

        4 channels of schlok! Lets watch the news on 100% of our channels at the same time! And lets all have a breakfast show on at the same time! And lets make sure we have mentally retarded shows like "The Buzzcocks" on daily! And do I even need to mention Banzai!

        I've never actually read so much on TV until I was over in the UK. Teletext helped keep the pain of nothing good on TV away!

        It's hard to have a repeat when you only get 4 channels. And if you don't want dumbing down, try an educational channel! Where I live I get two over the air (just think, that's 50% of your total over the air programming): PBS and TVO. I got 0 educational programs in the UK.

        And, the last straw that breaks the camel's back -- I don't pay by the year to get TV, so if it sucks, I'm only out the cost of the set (almost nil if your neighbour gives you their old one). In the UK I'm out over 100 pounds! That's the cost of a basic cable subscription here, and basic cable gets you 500% - 1000% more channels.

        Fortunately, in my multi-satellite universe, if you look through enough guides, there's _always_ something new on. Hell, I'll watch FSTV for the rest of my life over the Beeb.
        • My comment wasn't only aimed at US TV, I freely admit that UK TV is crap, it's just that with less channels we have less crap. Still very little worth watching though. I used to watch Discovery, then they started the other Disco channels and repeat everything all the time. You'll find that most folks here don't want the licence fee either, it used to be justified when the BBC were producing a lot of quality content and produced minority (non-sport) content, but those were the golden days, long gone now. I guess you were in the UK some time back, we now have the grand total of 5 terestial (sp?) channels, wow, plus most folk have cable or satellite, still a load of crap on though. We used to get some good educational stuff here, then the BBC did a deal with Discovery and started to make programs for both the UK and US markets, for some strange reason the programe makers (both here & the US) think that you Americans are a bit dense and everything is either dummbed down, repeated a lot, or both. Now, this isn't another dig at the states, I know, like you know, that every country probably has about the same ratio when it comes to being stupid. All I want is good quality original TV.

  • Google (Score:3, Funny)

    by Alsee ( 515537 ) on Wednesday April 03, 2002 @06:25AM (#3275931) Homepage
    Now that the EFF has their own blog, they can start Google Bombing!

    -

  • Press Conference. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Vidmaster_Steve ( 455301 ) on Wednesday April 03, 2002 @06:46AM (#3275971) Homepage
    Bill Gates/Micheal Dell/Steve Jobs steps up to a podium. He holds out a plain white mouse in one hand. Then swiftly, he closes his hand upon it. The rodent makes a sharp, shrill sqeak that booms in the ampitheatre...

    He drops the mouse to the floor, and silently, solemnly walks offstage...

    In all seriousness, doesn't Microsoft have orders of magnitude more LIQUID CASH than the Movie/Record industries make per annum? Why don't they just crush these ninnies, remind them that their place is to entertain us, not create laws in which to enslave us.
    • Duh. How about the fact that the hardware/software for DRM will be more expensive. BG/MD/SJ will make MORE money and that pile of liquid cash will grow even bigger. Do you think any of them personally worries about the effect on the consumer. They have their secretary buy 10 copies of the latest DVD so they can have one in each house. They all exist to make more money and being able to charge more for DRM serves that goal nicely.

      • (Costs more) != (Greater profit)

        Notes from ECO 101: If something costs more fewer people will buy it. If sufficiently fewer people buy it your marginal profit becomes negative. Pair this with the impression that the product is somehow defective and the risk of a negative marginal profit becomes significant.

    • Microsoft owns most of the patents on DRM as applied to computing technology.

      Passing the SSSCA/whatever-they-call-it-now will legislate the Microsoft Monopoly into unassailability. Microsoft favors the legislation, unlike every other company in the industry, large and small alike.

      If this bill passes, Microsoft would be able to pick and choose which token 'competitors' survive by deciding to whome the would and would not license the mandated technology ... and it certainly wouldn't be to GNU/Linux.
      • If this bill passes, Microsoft would be able to pick and choose which token 'competitors' survive by deciding to whom they would and would not license the mandated technology ... and it certainly wouldn't be to GNU/Linux.

        That is certainly one possibility, but another one is that Microsoft (a company that is certainly *not* run by dummies) really does know that the value of their current OS monopoly cannot possibly grow at the rate that would continue to make them the dominant player they surely wish to be.

        Recent MS moves actually seem more focused on becoming the kind of company that gets 1% or 2% of every transaction rather than one that gets 95% of a more limited pie. If that's the real strategy, they have no reason not to license their stuff to anybody else. Indeed, if licensing DRM technology substantially slows any effort in the Linux community to work around it, re-implement it, or come up with a competing standard, they would have to be silly not to do so.

        Or even give it away, if the client use was associated with a revenue stream at the server end. (Indeed, that's *classic* MS behavior.) I personally also find a parable in the story of MS and its manipulation of the .DOC format. Once upon a time, you couldn't do the .DOC format if you weren't MS, then the licensing became less and less restrictive as the format became more and more prevalent. Last I checked, you could do anything with it you liked except (I believe) use it as a default file format for your software. This isn't really giving anything away, though, since Word is what 98% of mankind will use to edit any .DOC files. Plus, they had to do something once it became clear that XML and stylesheets really would be a serious contender to anything that MS put out...so guess who leads the w3.org efforts on XSL?

      • Microsoft favors the legislation, unlike every other company in the industry, large and small alike.

        I don't suppose you can back up that assertion with links to authoritative source(s), can you?

    • Re:Press Conference. (Score:4, Funny)

      by Melantha_Bacchae ( 232402 ) on Wednesday April 03, 2002 @02:01PM (#3278041)
      Vidmaster Steve wrote:

      > Bill Gates/Micheal Dell/Steve Jobs steps up to a podium. He holds out
      > a plain white mouse in one hand. Then swiftly, he closes his hand upon
      > it. The rodent makes a sharp, shrill sqeak that booms in the
      > ampitheatre...

      Steve Jobs would never do that! Mice are sacred to Mothra, due to the heroic antics of Shiro ("Mothra" 1961) and Kimi-chan ("Mothra 3: King Ghidora Attacks" 1998).

      > In all seriousness, doesn't Microsoft have orders of magnitude more
      > LIQUID CASH than the Movie/Record industries make per annum?
      > Why don't they just crush these ninnies, remind them that their place
      > is to entertain us, not create laws in which to enslave us.

      Microsoft is now sitting on a DRMOS patent. Any law like the SSSCA would benefit them enormously by essentially giving their monopoly force of law. The one you can look to for help with this is Steve Jobs. When he accepted a Grammy for Apple this year, he told off the RIAA on their silly obsession over DRM. He said that 80% of the people would happily buy if they made their products convenient and affordable. Due to Apple's contributions to both the music and the movie industries, and his being the head of Pixar, Steve Jobs is the one man they might actually listen to.

      If they don't listen to him, they can argue point with Typhoon #8, now equipped with a stinger. Yep, Mothra, nemesis of the MPAA and RIAA, is on her way to America, and this time, she's not alone. Baragon is quite upset to hear about our "war on terror" resulting in the destruction of wild life santuaries and "clean" coal being seen an a solution to our energy "problems". Godzilla has had it up to here ("here" being 60 meters up, his current height) with Microsoft, not to mention the US government's attempts at trivializing the use of nuclear weapons (that leaked memo). King Ghidora, well he's happy to fight with Godzilla and cause destruction. ;)

      "Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidora: Giant Monster All Out Attack" is due in American theatres possibly as early as this summer! Repent and shape up, for the end is pretty seriously nigh!

  • Whatever happend to? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by red5 ( 51324 ) <gired5@gm a i l.com> on Wednesday April 03, 2002 @07:01AM (#3275995) Homepage Journal
    Whatever happend to the air waves belonging to the people and the brodcasters using them as a privilege?
    CSS on DVDs is one think (still evil if you ask me) but on brodcast TV when dose the madness end?

    I can see my donation to the EFF was worth every cent.
    • The airwaves belong to the people, but there won't be anything on them unless content producers can be assured they can make a profit.

      Think about it. If the Lord of the Rings is broadcast for free in 1080i with an AC3 soundtrack and I can record it straight to my hard disk, what incentive do I have to go out and buy the DVD? The version I recorded off the airwaves is higher resolution, has a better soundtrack and best of all was free.

      This will kill DVD sales of any movie that is broadcast on the public airwaves.

      The only way the studio can afford to release the movie for broadcast is if they charge the broadcasters a huge fee, and commercials just don't pay enough to afford that.

      The alternative is to allow them to encrypt the content sent out over our airwaves.
      • Don't forget that the broadcast version is packed with commercials, "station bugs", was edited for time, and has all of the cuss words badly overdubbed.

        I don't even watch movies on TV anymore. Why should I put up with all that, when I can just rent the DVD for a few bucks instead?
        • I don't even watch movies on TV anymore. Why should I put up with all that, when I can just rent the DVD for a few bucks instead?

          How long will it be before we all just throw out our tvs and use the PC for DVD playback in our home theates? Get a SB Live! or other 5.1 sound card and hook up a digital projector. You could replace your home theater. Just imageine games on that...

          Of course, that assumes that the restrictions on PCs don't make all of that illegal.

      • Think about it. If the Lord of the Rings is broadcast for free in 1080i with an AC3 soundtrack and I can record it straight to my hard disk, what incentive do I have to go out and buy the DVD? The version I recorded off the airwaves is higher resolution, has a better soundtrack and best of all was free.

        Thats a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
        I don't think that TV needs to be a movie network.
        Nor should it be a vecile to sell us shit.
        In my mind the alternative is to let them show somthing else.

  • On "Lawyerpoint"... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Colin Bayer ( 313849 ) <<gro.sulucci> <ta> <nogov>> on Wednesday April 03, 2002 @07:03AM (#3276002) Homepage
    Isn't "Lawyerpoint" the coolest phrase ever? I can hear the news reports now...

    "7 people brutally murdered at lawyerpoint. The suspect is still on the loose, assumed armed and litigious."
    • Reminds me of a gag from an old friends episode.
      where Chandiler said somthing like:
      As a kid I thought that gun point was a place.
      And I couldn't figure out why people would keep going there. You'd here about people getting robbed, raped and killed at gun point.

  • For some interesting essays ... (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ... look at the counter-WIPO essays page (http://www.wipout.net/essays.html) and links (http://www.wipout.net/links.html) to alternatives, such as Free Music Philosophy. This indicates that ordinary people are waking up to some of the consequences of abandoning all content control to the legal system.

  • There is nothing llike... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by theolein ( 316044 ) on Wednesday April 03, 2002 @07:57AM (#3276101) Journal
    a lawyer to destroy any incentive for invention. I think that if there is If there is anything in your country that will one day make the US a technnological backwater it will be American laws giving lawyers so much power.

    At the moment it is in a balance in that people who invent have a large incentive to make an enormous amount of money but will that always be so?
    • You know, it would be so ironic if being threatened with a frivolous lawsuit that would take hundreds of thousands of dollars and lots of time to defend against, were legally ruled as "duress" such that agreements made under said threats were legally null and void. Of course, to make sure the law remained a valid deterrent when used as intended, there would have to be some clause like "defendant knew, or had reason to believe, that said lawsuit would be frivolous, or otherwise had little chance of prevailing".
  • I've just finished reading a sci-fi anthalogy called Starlight 3, and one of the stories was "Power Punctuation" by Cory Doctorow (and I see now he's got an excerpt on his website).

    The story is about a country boy working in a big corporation (File-Agator) in a world where corporations (Microsoft, literally) own cities and wage war on each other. The boy gets bumped up the corporate ladder on the whim of the CEO and stuff happens (don't want to ruin the story ;).

    I quite enjoyed the story and had a good laugh at the ending so I would say that this bodes well for the content of the blog.

  • Am I just naïve? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Control Group ( 105494 ) on Wednesday April 03, 2002 @10:45AM (#3276640) Homepage
    I've always believed that one should never ascribe to evil what can be explained by stupidity. In my mind, this applies to the House and Senate as much as (or more than) it does to the American public at large.

    But we're hitting a point here where I find it literally incredible that anyone capable of getting him/her self elected into the legislative branch can possibly not realize what's going on. Is it just me? Is this issue tougher to understand than I think? Do I just think the injustice is so obvious because most people on /. agree with me?

    My one hope has been that if the demands of the entertainment industry got preposterous enough, someone would "catch on," the light bulb would go off, etc. But that hope is rapidly being crushed. I'm beginning to think that we've already lost, and all the valiant, worthy efforts of the EFF won't end up mattering a tinker's damn.
    • I find it literally incredible that anyone capable of getting him/her self elected into the legislative branch can possibly not realize what's going on. Is it just me? Is this issue tougher to understand than I think? Do I just think the injustice is so obvious because most people on /. agree with me?

      I don't think it is that hard to understand. The entertainment industry offers bribes\b\b\b\b\b\b donations to US Legislators [opensecrets.org] of about $40M USD in 2000. That works out to an average donation of about $70,000 USD, or more than I make in a year.

      Taking that into consideration, I wouldn't blame it on stupidity or evil, but greed.

  • what I don't get... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mikeee ( 137160 ) on Wednesday April 03, 2002 @10:52AM (#3276697)
    Forgetting for a moment that this is wrong and harmful, it's also stupid: how on earth is copy-protection of TV ever supposed to work? I point a camcorder at my TV during play, and boom, low-quality copy. Use optical zoom and some moderately cunning software to merge video streams and I might even be able to get a copy at near-full resolution.
  • This all confuses me terribly. First... television basically sucks. If they actually had content that was WORTH riping off and WORTH watching I could see the point... but 99% of television is terrible. What is the point of strongarming other industries to protect something that MOST people don't want to record anyway. Normally, if I want a copy of something that I saw on TV, I usually buy the Video tape or DVD. The DVD is useful because they tend to pack extra material on it that you would not normally see on TV anyway - making it added value.

    Instead, it appears that they want to remove value. I don't see how this can work.

    Here in Hawaii we have digital cable. But MOST subscribers refuse to get it because of the cost (hawaii has terrible economy). When 2006 rolls around are they going to turn off normal cable? If they do that... will my TV simply stop working period? If that happens... I'll gladly smash my TV into thousands of pieces and ship it to hollywood.

    But, as another poster pointed out... this can be pretty easily defeated. Signal Processing algorithms can do AMAZING things in cleaning up recorded data. Thus... to *rip* a digital signal all you would need to do is point a camera or microphone (in the case of audio) and capture the material. Then apply filters to remove the noise and scan lines and have a very very good quality reproduction.

    Are these nitwits forgetting that we really don't care about PERFECT playback? We're more than happy to settle on ANY playback - otherwise VCR's wouldn't have been popular.

    So that brings up the next point... at what point will they make designing software algorithms illegal without a license? When will they force us to submit our source code to a goverment entity to ensure that the source can't be used to record signals?

    Don't throw out your old electronics.... they could become very very useful.

    • Ah yes, but, see, that 1% that's watchable or even good - it changes for every person.

      I've got a collection of old VHS tapes from way back. Old shows I loved, old footage I wanted to preserve, and so on. I've undertaken a project to rip them all, clean them, and put them on VCD so that I can still watch them (I hope!) when the hardware incompatability act of 2006 rolls around. I want to make sure there's old school entertainment around for my future kids so they don't get completely stranded in the WTO-generated cultural wasteland I think I see on the horizon.

      It's probably illegal. I don't share the files, I don't publicly broadcast the files, I don't sell copies of the CDs, but I expect it's illegal anyway, or will be soon enough.

      Screw 'em. I prefer to think of it as time-shifting on a transgenerational scale.
      GMFTatsujin
      • I've undertaken a project to rip them all, clean them, and put them on VCD so that I can still watch them (I hope!) when the hardware incompatability act of 2006 rolls around

        How does mandating HDTV by 2006 make your VHS tapes not play in your VCR on your TV?

        • I honestly don't know. I really don't.

          I'm sure the Con will figure out a way though. :)

          Actually, I'm really working to undo all that nasty magnetic degredation and store my vids on a more durable medium. For the apocalypse.

          PREPARE...
          GMFTatsujin
  • The only real effect this will have is to force consumers to stop purchasing computer hardware in the US and buy foreign units that lack the draconian restrictive controls. If these become difficult to import, it will encourage the smugglers to bring more goods in through grey and black market routes.

    Case in point, PGP. How many people out there used the "legal" crippled version, and how many just downloaded the international version that worked as it was intended?

    I'm thinking any forced DRM attempt is quite simply going to fail, and will take a good bite out of what little consumer confidence is left in the high-tech sector.

  • Digital TV doesn't excite me. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Wednesday April 03, 2002 @01:53PM (#3277977) Homepage Journal
    Part of me can't help but think that the real reason this industry is trying to encrypt the digital signal is so that VCR companies will have to pay them royalties. I don't think they care as much about what happens to their signal after it hits household TV's.

    I'd be okay with royalty extortion, except they're trying to control what I do with the content. Well, I have a piece of advice for them. The minute that a TV show becomes too hard to watch because I refuse to be anchored to my TV day and night is the minute that I stop watching TV. I have plenty of things I could be off doing, TV is more of a luxury than anything else.

    How do they seriously expect people to adopt Digital TV over Analog TV when they don't get the same priveledges they are used to? Hell, the reason I don't have Digital Cable right now is that my home-brew PVR can't work with it!
    • The minute that a TV show becomes too hard to watch because I refuse to be anchored to my TV day and night is the minute that I stop watching TV.

      For me, the minute that a TV show becomes intelligent, meaningful, and engaging enough for me to spend an hour watching it is the minute I start watching TV again.

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