Court blocks anti-piracy device for TV

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

"RobH" <Rob@aol.com> wrote in message news:Xns964E8BFC7468FRobH@24.93.44.119...
> Court blocks anti-piracy device for TV
>
> 12:19 PM CDT on Friday, May 6, 2005
>
> Associated Press

> Friday's ruling was no real surprise. During courtroom arguments, U.S.
> Circuit Judge Harry T. Edwards told the FCC it had "crossed the line" by
> requiring the new anti-piracy technology for next-generation television
> devices and rhetorically asked the FCC whether it also intended to
> regulate household appliances.
>
> "You've gone too far," Edwards told the FCC's lawyer. "Are washing
> machines next?"

You better believe it, if the corporate whores who now
reside in Congress and the White House get their way.

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

"Richard C." <post-age@spamcop.net> wrote in message news:hIadnUOy3aEQQubfRVn-rA@comcast.com...
> X-No-archive: yes
>
> "Rick" <nospam@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:SwPee.6653$GQ5.4980@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> >
> > You better believe it, if the corporate whores who now
> > reside in Congress and the White House get their way.
> >
> ========================================
> Is that as opposed to socialist whores?

Oh please. The current bunch in D.C. spend like drunken
sailors. Our House has been under Republican control for
12+ years now. Result? Record spending, record budget
deficits, record trade deficits etc. Forty years of tax and
spend never got us into such trouble as we're in today.

But back to the topic, our federal government has been
converted into little more than enforcement and public
relations departments for megacorporate interests. Joe
Sixpack can go to hell as far as they're concerned.
If you take an objective look at the legislation passed
since the DMCA no other conclusion is possible.

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

A common question, repeatedly ask over the last year or so has been
"is the FCC going too far"? The judicial branch has now answered that
for us. I think this issue extends above the FCC. I think there is a
large degree of misinterpretation of what is fair use of the copyright
laws in this country. The copyright laws were originally written to
protect the artist/owners work from competition stealing that work and
profiting from it. For example, if the FOX network created a new show
called Survival, the NBC network would have a valid case against FOX
for copyright infringement. You don't have to be a student of law to
read what was the copyright law pre DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright
Act) and review the past cased of infringement to see this.

Then along came the "digital age" and now all of sudden the
Entertainment industry is "losing money because of piracy". Jonny
downloads a few songs from the internet instead of buying an artist CD.
Jonny has a part-time job he could pay for the CD, but thanks to
Amazon.com he's already previewed samples of all the songs, read
reviews and determined that only two or three songs were worth it. So
what has he done by downloading these songs? Jonny has made a copy from
a copy. Downloading is technically copying something from one computer
(i.e. server) to another (i.e. desktop), And the source copy is almost
always in MP3 or a similar format, that means it's been compressed
further than the original 16-bit "master" as it is on the CD, it's
technically inferior and this is something that can most certainly be
heard when comparing the two . So Jonny is making a copy of an
inferior copy of a song off of a CD that he wouldn't have purchased in
the first place, because he was unhappy with the quality of the 85% of
the material on that CD.

What has he stolen? Jonny taken nothing tangible, he's made a copy of
a copy and he's not even going to use that copy for profit. It soley
for his private use. There is a huge defense that no one has had the
guts to make to support that Jonny has done nothing wrong and the old
copyright laws couldn't address this that's why we now have the DMCA
and it's a bunch of garbage!

Technically when you walk into a library and photocopy 10-15 pages of a
100 page book (which I think many of us have done at some point during
our pre-Internet education), technically you're walking out of the
library with 10-15% of that book, no one's going to care. This is where
we get into intent and what is fair use. What's the difference when
copying music?

The difference is the entertainment industry has power in high places
and it will stop at nothing to protect itself (even influencing new
laws to "protect it" ). The film industry is governed by a collection of
Guilds that help balance out equality for everyone (many will argue
it's still very unfair) but the music industry is much worse! There is
nothing stoping the upside down pyramid that insures those at the top
(doing the least) get the most and the "artist" are passing
commodities. Instead of focusing on putting out a better quality (more
diverse) product they have decided to "standardize" radio with nice
little cookie cutter 3.5 minutes "radio ready" songs, stripped of
intros, solos, etc...There is very little art left, but instead of
digressing further, just objectively looking at the entertainment
industry's actions is a scary thing.

The good news is that the industry continues to fail, as we continue to
embrace a digital world the industry executives will become as needless
brokers who can no longer add value. I hope to live to see the day
where music industry executives are a thing of the past and if the
downfall of the current crop happens in public that's just sugar on top.

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

On Fri, 6 May 2005 18:22:29 -0400, "Randy Sweeney"
<rsweeney1@comcast.net> wrote:

>
>"RobH" <Rob@aol.com> wrote in message
>news:Xns964E8BFC7468FRobH@24.93.44.119...
>> Court blocks anti-piracy device for TV
>
>Ok
>
>Let's take bets on whether the Congress's move on this issue is even WORSE
>than the FCC position.
>
>Unless the owners of HD monitors speak up, Congress will probably give
>Hollywood the "right" to turn off or down-convert to SD component analog
>outputs on STB's and tuners to close the "analog hole" for HD material.
>

One always wonders if congress enjoys taping TV themselves

The health care industry bought them out by giving them great
individual heath care plans.

Maybe they could come up with special cable boxes for Congressmen.

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

"Jeff Rife" <wevsr@nabs.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.1ce6a8e32506da92989d16@news.nabs.net...


> Since the broadcast flag doesn't prevent recording, does it really matter?
>
> The broadcast flag is about preventing distribution over the Internet. A
> device the the HD TiVo doesn't have to comply with the broadcast flag
> since
> it has no way to output the recordings to the Internet (no FireWire).
> But,
> it already does comply, because the recordings on disc are encrypted.
> This
> doesn't prevent recording or playback, so the broadcast flag is
> irrelevant.

The broadcast flag can indeed prevent recording if recorders are forced to
incorporate serial copy management - or as Hollywood wants - to even prevent
the STB analog output (component) of full HD that would allow A/D
re-recording.

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

On Sat, 07 May 2005 03:35:54 -0700, easy@makemeanoffer.com wrote:

>On Fri, 6 May 2005 18:22:29 -0400, "Randy Sweeney"
><rsweeney1@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>
>>"RobH" <Rob@aol.com> wrote in message
>>news:Xns964E8BFC7468FRobH@24.93.44.119...
>>> Court blocks anti-piracy device for TV
>>
>>Ok
>>
>>Let's take bets on whether the Congress's move on this issue is even WORSE
>>than the FCC position.
>>
>>Unless the owners of HD monitors speak up, Congress will probably give
>>Hollywood the "right" to turn off or down-convert to SD component analog
>>outputs on STB's and tuners to close the "analog hole" for HD material.
>>
>
>One always wonders if congress enjoys taping TV themselves
>
>The health care industry bought them out by giving them great
>individual heath care plans.
>


Nonsense. They gave them huge campaign contributions.
Thumper
>Maybe they could come up with special cable boxes for Congressmen.
>

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

Jeff Rife wrote:
> Since the broadcast flag doesn't prevent recording, does it really
matter?
>
> The broadcast flag is about preventing distribution over the
Internet. A
> device the the HD TiVo doesn't have to comply with the broadcast flag
since
> it has no way to output the recordings to the Internet (no FireWire).
But,
> it already does comply, because the recordings on disc are encrypted.
This
> doesn't prevent recording or playback, so the broadcast flag is
irrelevant.

On the contrary, it affects all tuners:
<http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/HDTV/Final_Rule_FCC-03-273A1.pdf>

In brief...
<http://www.eff.org/broadcastflag/>

The essence of the FCC's rule is in 47 CFR 73.9002(b) and the following
sections:

"No party shall sell or distribute in interstate commerce a Covered
Demodulator Product that does not comply with the Demodulator
Compliance Requirements and Demodulator Robustness Requirements."

The Demodulator Compliance Requirements insist that all HDTV
demodulators must listen for the flag (or assume it to be present in
all signals). Flagged content must be output only to "protected
outputs" or in degraded form: through analog outputs or digital outputs
with visual resolution of 720x480 pixels or less--less than 1/4 of
HDTV's capability. Flagged content may be recorded only by "Authorized"
methods, which may include tethering of recordings to a single device.

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

Jeff Rife wrote:
> (easy@makemeanoffer.com) wrote in alt.tv.tech.hdtv:
>
>>>Unless the owners of HD monitors speak up, Congress will probably give
>>>Hollywood the "right" to turn off or down-convert to SD component analog
>>>outputs on STB's and tuners to close the "analog hole" for HD material.
>>
>>One always wonders if congress enjoys taping TV themselves
>
> Since the broadcast flag doesn't prevent recording, does it really matter?
>
> The broadcast flag is about preventing distribution over the Internet. A
> device the the HD TiVo doesn't have to comply with the broadcast flag since
> it has no way to output the recordings to the Internet (no FireWire). But,
> it already does comply, because the recordings on disc are encrypted. This
> doesn't prevent recording or playback, so the broadcast flag is irrelevant.

Maybe the Internet is what scares the MPAA the most, but remember that
they found VHS similarly scary two decades ago, so much so that they
sued Sony (but they lost). They don't want anyone who hasn't paid them
to see their shows, whether it be by VHS, DVD, TiVo, or BitTorrent. As
far as it's possible, they want to totally control when, where, and how
to see their shows. (They prefer theaters - one ticket, one person, one
viewing.)

And, the broadcast flag rules do indeed affect TiVo. The broadcast flag
can say "copy freely," "copy only once," or "never copy." When a TiVo
makes a hard disk recording of a show, that's "one copy," so for any
show flagged "never," TiVo can't record it AT ALL. If it's been flagged
"copy once" TiVo can record it, but it'll add MacroMedia copy protection
to any viewing so you can't archive it (tape it on VHS) afterward.

So don't say TiVo's wouldn't be affected.

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

Richard Krehbiel (krehbiel@comcast.net) wrote in alt.tv.tech.hdtv:
> And, the broadcast flag rules do indeed affect TiVo. The broadcast flag
> can say "copy freely," "copy only once," or "never copy."

No, it cannot.

Content can be either "marked" or "unmarked". There is no other setting
for the broadcast flag. It's either "on" or "off". Technically, there is
a 3rd setting called "unscreened", where the demodulator never checks the
flag. The rules say that a compliant device can do this, as long as it does
not alter the flag, and it outputs content by assuming the flag is set.

--
Jeff Rife |
| http://www.nabs.net/Cartoons/Dilbert/TechSupport.gif

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

"Richard Krehbiel" <krehbiel@comcast.net> wrote in message
newsqCdnUmGcptWJOPfRVn-

> Maybe the Internet is what scares the MPAA the most, but remember that
> they found VHS similarly scary two decades ago, so much so that they sued
> Sony (but they lost). They don't want anyone who hasn't paid them to see
> their shows, whether it be by VHS, DVD, TiVo, or BitTorrent. As far as
> it's possible, they want to totally control when, where, and how to see
> their shows. (They prefer theaters - one ticket, one person, one
> viewing.)

Everything scares the MPAA because the studios know that their position as
gate keeper, as star maker, as money source is over.

Technology is destroying the studios' power over creative talent and
distribution and they are terrified.