Senator Pushes Bill To Limit Anti-Copying Schemes 358
Brushfireb writes "Republican Sen. Sam Brownback is pushing a bill that will limit the ability of record labels, movie studios and others to use anticopying technology on their products. Most notably, this is important because it states that people will be able to resell their used DVDs, along with putting a concrete limit on this behavior of DRM/anticopying schemes by the RIAA and MPAA."
protecting the right of consumers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:protecting the right of consumers (Score:5, Funny)
Re:protecting the right of consumers (Score:5, Informative)
You got a +5 funny mod, but I'm not sure you weren't being serious. I can only think of three in either house who have come out in favor of this sort of thing: Lofgren (BALANCE act), Boucher (DMCRA), and now this guy.
Re:protecting the right of consumers (Score:5, Informative)
Ron Wyden [slashdot.org] (D-Oregon).
Re:protecting the right of consumers (Score:5, Funny)
Re:protecting the right of consumers (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:protecting the right of consumers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:protecting the right of consumers (Score:5, Informative)
Interestingly, Verizon's lead counsel was quoted [nytimes.com] in a NY Times article as saying "in light of the court's decision, it is time for Congress to become involved and offer a legislative solution" when they agreed to name the names of their four filesharers.
IMHO, the only portion of Brownback's bill to pass will be the part concerning big telecom firms... we'll have to wait for Boucher or whoever to reform the DMCA, but I would have liked to have seen Fritz Hollings' face when his fellow committee member offered up this legislation.
Re:protecting the right of consumers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:protecting the right of consumers (Score:5, Insightful)
OK Time is up.. VOTES
Can you think of a better way to get them?
They may be out voted on the floor, but they will bet there next term when much of the others will not be.
Re:protecting the right of consumers (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, and so can every other politician. First you get a shit-load of money, then you blow it on advertising, to brainwash people into voting for you. With a few kickbacks, you can get money AND votes. Woo hoo !
Re:protecting the right of consumers (Score:5, Funny)
Re:protecting the right of consumers (Score:2, Insightful)
perhaps that trend is getting old for some politicians and they feel they can maker a bigger d
Protecting the right of Private Citizens (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Protecting the right of Private Citizens (Score:5, Insightful)
The ability not to be able to copy something could, and eventually will (how many original copies of the bible are left?), lead to the loss of that work. That is a shame. When its a large scale loss, human knowlege could go back 2000 years. When the libary of alexandria was burnt down, that was a crime of horrific proportions, centuries of human work lost because the only copy was lost.
Had they made copies, it would have been ok. Copy prevention stops everyone except the copyright holder making copies. Forever. The copyright holder goes bust, or loses interest, and we lose part of human culture.
Re:Protecting the right of Private Citizens (Score:5, Informative)
Let's say Shakespere was released on a format with DRM dispite it being public domain, and the company who produces this media burnt all other copies of this work. Let's say in some new great depression this company goes out of business. How do you get granted the right to read your e-book with DRM encoding?
Hypothetical? Try realistic. You can't get the right to view if there is no one left to give you that right.
Re:Protecting the right of Private Citizens (Score:5, Insightful)
And that was just over the span of only 20 years?
Re:Protecting the right of Private Citizens (Score:5, Interesting)
From what I can tell, you can only get from amature software libraries. Storage isn't a big deal, it's like 45K minium depending on the version you get. But I've actually been trying to jump through the hurtles at Scholastic, and basicly while it is one of their registered trademarks, they don't sell it, and none of their references helped locate one, nor are they able to answer questions about the release license.
Again, this isn't shakespere, but it is something that otherwise would be lost.
But that's the way it is. They can't sell me a copy, according to them, they don't have any. It's not like I can convience them to make more, why should they. So it's either get a copy off a website or do without.
Same deal with a game called, "Mercenary". Dispite people trying to contact the copyright holder for either a copy of this game or the rights to distribute either the old versions or the right to freely distribute a clone, the guy is no where to be found. While I don't see a tremdious demand for the game, and this is a game after all, it's one of those cases that the only reason it's still in existance is it was preserved dispite it violating the letter of the copyright.
Imagine of Thomas Paine's "Common Sence" was written as an adobe e-book [http://www.ebookmall.com/alpha-titles/c-titles/C
In the importal words of Danny Elfman, "Wake up! It's 1984".
Re:Copyright and libraries.... (Score:5, Informative)
Negative on that. It was once true that a published work had to be registered with the copyright office, and that the registration process involved submitting a number of copies of the work, at least one of which would find their way into the Library of Congress.
However, the Berne Convention, which all but a handful of the world's nations implelement, banned copyright registration for foreign authors so that the author did not have to go through the separate registration processes of hundreds of nations to secure international copyright. Rather, if one had a copyright in one's own signatory nation, one had copyright for at least life+50 years in all the signatories.
Of course, the logical next step is that if foreign author's don't have to register, why should domestics? And this step has been taken. Now, in most Berne nations, copyright is inherent in the work, meaning that it exists automaticaly from the moment of the work's creation, and no action is required to copyright a work.
But even in the early days, registration was only necessary for published works. While published works required registration and had a limited-term copyright, unpublished works automatically had a perpetual copyright (mainly as a protection against unauthorized publication). In fact, the Sonny Bono act can be said to have done one good thing in actually limiting the copyright term on unpublished works.
Re:Copyright and libraries.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Windows 95 was released roughly in 1995...
windows 3.1 was released roughly 1992
windows windows v1.00 was released in roughly 1985
[unsure about v2 aka 286 or windows 386.
For the most part, windows 3.1 is still implemented on some machines, not many though. Internet Explorer was released for it oddly enough, which isn't bad for a circa 1992 platform.
For some reason I was under the impression that copyrights were held in place till like 100 years after an authors death, which honestly I don't know if that's still true. But I can say it's kinda pointless for software copyrights to be that long cause, typicaly speaking software kinda looses it's comercial value after 10 - 20 years.
The copyright length should reflect that. Comercial enterprises can still make a buck with their IP for up to 20 years, and after that, let it go into the public domain.
While the downside is companies like microsoft might loose some of their early IP if it's still implemented, it would be hard to sell folks on that point.
Additionaly, I think there should be some form of manditory registration of copyrights on software, let's say every 5 years or so. This way, inovations that got purchaced by a bigger fish but got ignored cause they were interested in some other product they developed. Ignore it, loose it!
Why such a radical plan? Cause already we have experenced lots of dataloss due data stored on obscure platforms with little to no hope of recovery cause no one knows where to buy them anymore. No one knows who owns the rights to the software, and no one can get them.
DesqViewX was going to be one of my examples of something inovative but was bought by a bigger fish [Symantec}. http://slashdot.org/articles/02/01/27/1950244.sht
Don't use it, loose it.
But alas my attidude is alone, it seems big corps want to hold on to copyrights forever, even if it no longer holds profit for them to do so.
Re:Protecting the right of Private Citizens (Score:4, Interesting)
Just a question, something to think about...
If you owned the last copy of Shakespeare, do you have an obligation to copy it or even preserve it? I don't mean would you, I most certainly would make sure it was available for mass distribution, and so would most people I'd wager. I just mean, if some strange person were to own it, does anyone else have the right to force him/her to give it up? (we'll assume the person owns it outright physically, and has no copyright on it)
Yes, I have my own answers to that question, but I'm not interested in leading a long discussion about why I'm right or not. Simply, I think it's a question a lot of people would skip over without much concern. Something for you to think about.
Re:Protecting the right of Private Citizens (Score:3, Informative)
Privately owned works of art and other objects which are broadly part of our national heritage, may get exemption from taxes on capital, including inheritance tax. In return for exemption, the owner must
- keep the exempt object in the United Kingdom,
- look after it, and
- allow the public reasonable access to it.
If the owner fails to do any of these things, the exempt
Re:Protecting the right of Private Citizens (Score:5, Insightful)
However, copy protection limits fair-use rights that are explicit in the US Code and are upheld by such case law as the Sony Betamax case and the failed attempt to shutdown Diamond Rio. For that reason, it is not so far out to stop companies from employing technological protections that impede the already enumerated rights of consumers, no?
Come to think of it, I'm curious why noone has yet argued the case that copyright protection technologies themselves are already illegal because they impede fair use.
Re:Protecting the right of Private Citizens (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Protecting the right of Private Citizens (Score:4, Insightful)
Right now, copyright law is an articifial, legally created monopoly on intellectual/artistic works. The law explicitly grants special permission to one person restrict the supply of that work. We're talking about restricting the scope of an existing figment of legislation, not creating an entirely new one. In effect, we're restoring a freedom to the market rather than taking one away.
Let me say this one more time. I want my freedoms, not a warning label reminding me that they've been revoked.
IMMINENT, PRESSING NEED - in the Constitution (Score:5, Interesting)
Copyright is so fundamental that it's clearly provided for in the U.S. Constitution. That document also talks about the reason for copyright. It's NOT to make more money for Disney. It's "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries". Specifically, in return for the legal protection of copyrights and patents for a limited time, the public is promised that these works will eventually become public property.
This legal concept is being completely perverted in two different ways, and there is an IMMINENT, PRESSING NEED to correct this. The first problem is, of course, that our own lawmakers are giving the special interests longer and longer extensions on these rights. Some have even openly stated an intention to continue to extend copyrights perpetually so that any current copyright would never expire. This needs to be stopped to prevent even further erosion of the constitution. The second is DRM technology. In extreme cases DRM technology can give the publisher so much control that it would be unreasonable to expect a work to ever pass into the public domain. Imagine for example a movie released only to a digital rights managed medium that can not be re-recorded and must be authorized by the publisher for every single viewing (and be confident that work is progressing towards this end). While such a company would enjoy all the protection of copyright laws (even the excesses of the DMCA), they might never pass their protected works on to public ownership, even if copyright extension creep is stopped. Even if they are still around when the copyright expires, there is no provision in the law that would compel them to activity take actions to turn over digital rights keys or other technology that could be needed to avail the public of their eventual ownership of previously protected works.
Look at patents - in this case a patent is granted in return for disclosure on how the invention works. You are not required to patent an invention. You could, for example, make some invention a trade secret, and never disclose it's secrets outside of your organization. In such a case others are free to try to invent it also, but if no one legitimately can duplicate your invention you might well have complete use of it for more than the term of a patent. But if you do want patent protection, you must disclose it so that it will be owned by the public after the patent expires in exchange for your exclusive patent monopoly for the term of the patent. DRM presents the danger that a corporation can get the legal protections of a copyright but also keep private the work as if it were a trade secret. The need to correct this problem is indeed IMMINENT and PRESSING now, before it becomes widespread.
Re:IMMINENT, PRESSING NEED - in the Constitution (Score:3, Funny)
It seems to me that this might be a silly way to promote such things... My suggestion is to make it considered increadibly cool to be an inventer or an author or an artist, and even cooler to buy them a beer/sleep with them. All you would need is a few laws controlling the media forcing them to cast inventors/authors into their shows as
Re:Protecting the right of Private Citizens (Score:5, Insightful)
This debate, like the entire debate on copyrights and fair use, is a matter of perspective. Is this bill taking away their right to copy protect their works or asserting our fair use right to copy the things we own? That's the crux of the whole copyright issue, right there. Do Americans have a right to the free exchange of ideas without restrictions that is simply deferred for a few years by copyrights or do artists have a right to restrict and sell their ideas up until the public domain defers their right to sell after a few years?
I think that basically, the whole thing comes down to someone eventually getting screwed. As a consumer, I would prefer that the law screw THEM. As the guys that have sole ownership of the works of the artists that they've bought, the RIAA and MPAA would prefer that the law screw ME. There needs to be a compromise somewhere, but the situation that we have right now isn't it. Consumers have no fair use rights whatsoever, but the RIAA and MPAA have perpetual copyrights that last more than a century, the right to put copy protection on CDs, and total control of the hardware medium that lets them decide when I can rewind and fast forward, and whether I can play a DVD that I've bought depending on where I live and where I got my DVD player. The consumer is taking it up the ass right now and the copyright holders could stand to lose a couple of their extremely extensive and occasionally unconstitutional rights.
Re:Protecting the right of Private Citizens (Score:4, Insightful)
There is an imminent, pressing need. (Score:5, Insightful)
Copy prevention takes away both. Under the excuse of enforcing the rights granted by copyright law, they use it to leverage complete and utter control, something the law was never intended to do.
And the law makers fell for it with the DMCA, essentially granting both eternal copyright, the right to revoke a work out of existance, and to deny all fair use rights.
I, for one, think that the US was not created to take away liberties without societal need
I agree completely. So when you see that corporations have taken away the liberties of the Private Citizen using US law as a puppet, you work to restore those rights. Or did I completely misunderstand your subject line? Corporations have no interest in the public domain nor in fair use, those are your liberties. Protect them indeed.
Kjella
And even from my state (Score:5, Interesting)
his contributions [senate.gov] to legislation
He seems to be quite good, and in many ways opposite certain cenators such as Hollings. (doesn't mean I think hes the greatest at all, but from our evolution-not-required state, certainly beats some states.)
Nice (Score:5, Interesting)
After all, these days, politicians care more about compaign money than actually pleasing the people who do the real voting; enough compaign money, it doesn't matter how much of a bastard you are. ~,^
Seriously, tho, who are the backers of this bill?
Re:Nice (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Nice (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe Verizon and At&T? They are companies that have an interest in not being bugged by the *AA everytime attempts to download a file off the internet.
Everyone makes a big deal about about how powerful the *AA are, well they are sticking alot of burdens on other companies to support their business model, it is only a matter of time before someone is going to strike back.
Re:Nice (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nice (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nice (Score:4, Funny)
Please?
PLEASE?!
Re:Nice (Score:4, Insightful)
So, just a friendly reminder...
WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMEN!
and in other news (Score:5, Funny)
what do you want, your job or the bling bling... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mike
Re:what do you want, your job or the bling bling.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:what do you want, your job or the bling bling.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Ultimately, whatever the lobbyists are pumping in, the one thing corporations don't have is the vote, and as consumers at large become aware of what's going on, I bet you will see more Congresspeople under pressure to come around to "our side".
finally! (Score:2)
Re:finally! (Score:2)
Wow... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Funny)
A congress of compromises (Score:5, Insightful)
I applaud the congressman for taking such a bold step. I guess it is time for the all of us to get out a pen and write some letters of support. Can everyone please write in support of this? We all know that email is mostly ignored, while they actually have to carry the weight of our letters.
It's about time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's about time (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Interesting)
Bah! More money as in a 47%-53% split. Sounds to me like they're greasing both sides of the aisle and concentrating on incumbents. I mean, it's not like AOL/TW, who gave 100% to dems, or Curb Records, who gave 100% to reps.
This is a lesson to be an independant (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is a lesson to be an independant (Score:4, Insightful)
If more people voted their conscience, rather than their party, I think you would find that congresspeople themselves would follow suit.
It seems to me the party-line vote largely arises out of the party dynamics of elections. If reps/sens vote against their party, then they lose its support and that impedes their progress in the system. If party support was less important than truly serving the constituency, the partisanship would be much reduced and we would find congress doing the will of the people rather than playing a power-sharing game between two elite groups.
Excellent news! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also our big chance. Take the time to write a polite letter, encouraging your Senators and Congressman to support this bill. Then print it out, sign it and MAIL it (that's right, snail mail!).
Things are still very early. There's plenty of time for it to die in committee, or be riddled with amendments (some irrelevant, some helpful, some counterproductive). Your job, if you care, is to express your support for this bill-- and those who support it.
If you're from Kansas, you should be especially supportive of Senator Brownback's position in this-- even if you disagree with him on other issues, you should take the time to publicly agree with him on IP reform.
This is a great first step. We need to remember that it isn't the only step, and there's work in here for us to do, too.
Re:Excellent news! (Score:2)
Please lobby this. If you decide to, please... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hitting Sen. Brownback's website, there's no mention of this bill at all. My guess is that we're ahead of the curve on this. The work to do now is going to be more along the lines of organizing the effort to work this bill. It's going to take time and commitment (not to mention attention span). If the bill's not submitted yet, selected calls to the right senators can help collect cosponsors. After it's been submitted, it's a good idea to contact the committee staff and committee members of the appropriate committee (especially if they're from your state) to encourage their support in scheduling the bill for a hearing and their vote to report it out of committee. This process is slow and long (review "I'm Just a Bill" from Schoolhouse Rock for a brief reminder).
It is good to contact Congressfolk to tell them what you want them to do. It's very good to be polite, succinct, and thoughtful in your presentation. It's very important to have the right message at the right time -- they get so much mail and email and phone comments every day that asking for their support for something that won't need their attention for months (or years) can seem to them an annoying waste of time.
Contacting Sen. Brownback's staff to thank them for this bill is a very good idea, especially for Kansans. Asking how you could help would also be a good idea.
Take care,
Blain
nice, but hopefully not MORE regulation (Score:3, Insightful)
However, all of this back-and-forth runs the risk of over-regulation.. so let's just cut to the obvious solution: REPEAL the anti-circumvention garbage in the DMCA. Then companies would be free to sell DVD-copying technology, or stream decryptors, or DRM-busters, or whatever.
You'd be free to watch to your DVD on any player. You'd be free to make backup copies of stuff you were afraid of losing.
Copyright infringement would still be illegal.
At the same time, companies would be able to take advantage of the fact that most people won't bother with cracking the DRM, if the product is *reasonably* priced and access is *reasonably* limited.
Free market principles would apply (anybody remember those? Rather quaint, I know).
Seems like the best possible solution, don't you think???? Rather than piling on law after law.
PS: This story showed up on my RSS reader a few days ago, is it me, or is slashdot way behind the curve these days? Almost every story, I've seen days before..........
Re:nice, but hopefully not MORE regulation (Score:3, Interesting)
Do the same with DRM. You break encryption to make backups, do fair-usey stuff, you're fine. You break encryption to commit copyright infringement, and you get harsher penalties than standard coryright law applies.
Do they have enought muscle..... (Score:2, Insightful)
I hope this bill get's back some of the fair use we lost to the DMCA.
Free Karma for reading the article. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Free Karma for reading the article. (Score:2)
Law is not the solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Law is not the solution (Score:2)
Re:Law is not the solution (Score:5, Funny)
So... what is this telling our kids?
*****DON'T COPY THAT DISK*****
-*-*-KILL SOMEONE, YOU'LL SERVE LESS TIME-*-*-
---Murder, the choice for a new generation
Re:Law is not the solution (Score:2)
Re:Law is not the solution (Score:3)
Re:Law is not the solution (Score:5, Informative)
The bill, authored by Sen. Sam Brownback, would regulate digital rights management systems, granting consumers the right to resell copy-protected products and requiring digital media manufacturers to prominently disclose to consumers the presence of anticopying technology in their products.
The Kansas Republican's bill requires that a copyright holder obtain a judge's approval before receiving the name of an alleged peer-to-peer pirate. That would amend the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which a federal court concluded enables a copyright holder to force the disclosure of a suspected pirate's identity without a judge's review. This law is at issue in the recording industry's recent pursuit of the identity of a Verizon Communications subscriber.
It would *ALSO* limit the ability for producers to restrict fair-use abilities of end-users. Pretty much, it's saying you're perfectly fine to sell your movies, music, books, etc., however you want, so long as you enable the end user to do whatever they want within legal reason with it.
If you want to sell it, turn your DVD into a Hi-8 tape instead, or have your eBook be read aloud to you by a reader, even though the company who produced the product did not want you to do any of these, looks like this bill would require them to allow you to do this.
I'd say that's a good bill and still allows the producers to sell their works however they wish, again, without restricting the end-user's ability to resell or change the medium.
Great (Score:4, Interesting)
Though this doesn't mean there won't be copy protection. It just means that if you download copy protected material, the DRM can't prevent you from moving it (copy&delete) to another computer.
Just what we need (Score:4, Insightful)
More laws to protect consumers from themselves. I'm sorry, if I want to buy a crippled product, I should have that right.
As for requiring labels, that's a bit more reasonable. "This product is rated U for useless."
Re:Just what we need (Score:3, Interesting)
What aspect of this article makes you think you wouldn't?
The bill pretty much just means that they can't sic the DMCA on you if you break the DRM for a legit purpose. If they cripple it so that you can only listen to it once, and with one ear, and only while standing on your head, they still are allowed to. If you really wanna buy it, you still can.
You can't sell used DVDs? (Score:5, Interesting)
No, I am not a co-owner or anything, I just have never seen a store like this before, and the owner is truly righteous. They deserve all the praise they get (they are wildly popular amongst cubicle workers in the area).
Re:You can't sell used DVDs? (Score:3, Insightful)
Is he trying to prevent the media giants from preventing the sale of used DVDs, or is this current law?
I think that provision is mostly intended for ebooks, and maybe some of the newer music stuff. It could reasonably be applied to region coding, though.
Can't be (Score:3, Funny)
amazing - if it gets to the floor (Score:3, Informative)
Being one of his constituants, I welcome this type of legislation
EFF Faxes (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm pleasantly surprised I was wrong and will have to call and thank him or something. Kansas roxors.
This guy is great! (Score:5, Interesting)
DMCA = Carefully crafted compromise (Score:5, Informative)
I spit the yogurt i was eating all over my keyboard when I read that one. It's funny and sad at the same time. Yes, it was a compromise all right. Between the RIAA and MPAA.... very carefully crafted and balanced indeed.
This vs DMCRA (Score:4, Interesting)
The DMCA is applied as a 400 pound gorilla, or rather, a 4 000 000 pound sterling gorilla: nobody that the DMCA is used againt has the resources to do the legal fight. The DMCRA doesn't help that; you have to use your day in court to demonstrate that your use falls under the DMCRA. The 400 pound gorilla can still intimidate you into giving up.
The Brownback bill allows the FTC to stop technologies before they can be used as a threat, so the DMCRA is never an issue, and the 2600s of the world don't need to spend way too much to assert that they didn't do anything wrong.
Perhaps a compromise: the FTC can declare DRM technologies to be "overreaching". Overreaching DRM may still be sold, but DMCA protections do not apply, only traditional copyright protections. (The provisions of the DMCRA then become redundant.)
This needs some work, but may be an idea.
What a mixed bag. (Score:4, Insightful)
We need to let the market drive the mechanism for backups, resale, time shifting, format shifting, etc. Otherwise, consumers lose because certain companies don't see a profit in making those things convenient. This bill attempts to substitute a government beaurocracy for market forces, which is inefficient and ineffective.
On the other hand, these items are all great:
I wouldn't support this particular bill because it's a band-aid when stiches are needed.
Writing Your Senator Works! (Score:4, Insightful)
I encourage all of you to write your senators and get this thing passed!
Bill summary (Score:3, Informative)
The language is vague at this point, though. The bill hasn't actually been introduced yet.
I'm disappointed in the whole thing... (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's be honest. The one thing we all truly respect around here is hacking ability. And that's how this whole game used to (and should still) work. If you were hardcore enough to figure out a way to copy-protect your stuff so that people couldn't easily break it, you deserved to have your IP protected (remember when the first SimCity came out and it shipped with a purple and black page of codes that you couldn't photocopy? Good Stuff!). And if you were enough of a cracking stud to find the tiny, oddly-named file in which X-Wing hid its copy protection (or figured out how to decrypt a DVD), by God you deserved a free copy.
It was a delicate balance, but it worked! We the technologically-gifted were able to either crack stuff on our own or find people on BBS's that could, while the lamers who made fun of us at school kept the IP-producing companies rolling in dough by buying their products at Wal-Mart.
But now they've gone and ruined the game. Where's the fun in not being able to crack stuff, and where's the fun in not being able to wrap your IP in stuff for other people to crack?
Re:I'm disappointed in the whole thing... (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree, but for different reasons. Consumers will decide if they want to buy all the DRM-burdened crap, that's how our precious free market works.
In addition, the major problem with DRM is that it only harms the Joe Consumer,
Re:I'm disappointed in the whole thing... (Score:3, Insightful)
If only the US was a Free Market. In 10 years every CD player, DVD player, TV and computer will have DRM up the wing wang. And you (yes YOU) will buy it. Why? Because there won;t be anything else out there. The RIAA and MPAA will make discs that only work on system "xyz" compliant players, after they "work together in the spirit of open markets" (i.e. oilogop
Thanks (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In nother news (Score:3, Insightful)
These issues have nothing to do with political party. To a great extent, they have to do with integrity-- how much is one willing to stand up to monied interests (i.e., the RIAA and the MPAA), or serve them? There are Republicans like Sam Brownback and Rep. Tom Davis who get it, and there are Democrats like Joe Lieberman (aka Sen. Microsoft), Fritz Hollings, and Reps. Adam Smith and Howard Berman who don't. They prefer to speak for those who bankroll their campaigns.
Brownback's bill sounds like a go
Proud to be a Kansan (Score:3, Insightful)
Ugh.. "unauthorized Internet retransmission" (Score:3, Insightful)
Permits the FCC to establish a functional requirement preventing unauthorized Internet
retransmission of digital television signals to the public, but only if such a requirement preserves
reasonable and customary consumer, educational institution and library access and use practices. *
Ugh! I guess that would give the FCC power to actually take down bit-torrent links. Realisticly speaking, I guess fair use doesn't include making a copy of Enterprise and letting random strangers download it before local air times. It doesn't mean I have to like it.
But on the other side of things... would this permit Libaries from doing the service instead?
It's actually something I thought about. One issue that concers the entertainment industry is file sharing of telivision programing. Like it or not, comercials pay for programing on comercial telivision. I know I have to tell my self that. And unfortunatly, this is the part I have to grumble at, getting a copy of enterprise online circumvents the comercials.
I've often thought if this really became an issue that I would actually support comercials in downloads in order maintain this service I enjoy. It looks like there are a couple other concepts in this Legislative Alert that I agree with, and that would be a small price to pay.
* http://www.ala.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Our_Ass
wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Copyright is a temporary period of exclusivity granted to authors, in return for a promise eventually to release the work into the public domain. In other words: releasing material into the public domain is the price you pay for having the law protect your exclusivity. As an author, you get a short-term assurance that nobody is going to make money by pretending that your work was actually theirs {which, I am sure, some people are nasty enough to do}. Or at least, if they try, the law will be on your side. As a consumer, you get an assurance that you will - eventually, at any rate - be able to obtain the works you are entitled to {for, as I have stated before; no person is an island, and all the fruits of all human endeavour belong to all humanity} for only a nominal cost.
The compromise is determined by the duration for which exclusivity is provided. It should be long enough to permit authors to make a reasonable amount of money, but short enough to allow consumers reasonable access to material. This is, by definition, a highly subjective matter and I don't believe it improper for government to attempt to define some guidelines as to what is "reasonable".
The corollary of this is: if an author has no intention of ever releasing a work into the public domain, then they have no right to expect anyone - least of all the taxpayer - to assist in the maintenance of their exclusivity. Put it like this; either you make your work available to everybody (sooner or later), or you don't make it available at all. There is nothing in between.
There should also be a requirement for anyone wanting to use technological measures to prevent copying of a copyrighted work, to have an unencumbered copy kept in escrow, in order to ensure that when the time comes for it to be released into the public domain, this actually can be done. Any author who does not wish to comply with this measure, and who does not wish to release their work into the public domain after a fixed, non-extensible {though I would not say it shouldn't be shortenable -- this is analogous to the defence being allowed to appeal against a conviction but the prosecution not being allowed to appeal against an acquittal} term, should be denied the protection of the law; and, if they use technological measures to attempt to prevent people from copying their work, then no action should be taken against those who circumvent such measures {cf. reasonable force -- when polite requests fail, less benign methods may legitimately be employed in pursuit of one's rights}.
But the law should never protect any excess of authority, not even one achieved through the (mis)use of technological copy-restriction measures.
Ye olde push and pull in action (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, I hope he can get Bill to remove that pesky Windows Activation scheme, it doesn't work anyway.
Bad Economics (Score:4, Interesting)
Simply put, our economy does NOT have a problem with volume. The money is quite obviously here. We have the largest GDP in the world, nearly twice that of Japan, who ranks second. No, that is not the problem. The problem is velocity of exchange -- money isn't moving around enough. People aren't buying, selling, transacting...
Strictly economically speaking, the RIAA, MPAA, and their sympathizers have in the last few years shot themselves in their proverbial feet. If their only provably claim is that they're losing money, but someone actually believes them when they sling the blame elsewhere (like on you and me, for proudly participating in the great experiment called "freedom"), then they will continue to get away with it because their revenues will certainly continue to fall. (I am not speaking of nominal revenues, but of real revenues -- taking inflation and other economic factors into account.)
I, for one, am glad to see that the US government is finally starting to do something about this, even if 9 in 10 Congressmen probably don't understand the economic impact of their actions (kinda makes you wonder why Congress makes all the laws about money).
Democrats, take note: (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Democrats, take note: (Score:3, Insightful)
Senator Brownback is one of my heros. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:resell DVDs (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay, it's Friday, so I'll bite ... there's nothing new here.
Re:I may actually have to switch parties (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I may actually have to switch parties (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a fairly recent problem, though. I'd like to see the party return to the Teddy Roosevelt trust-buster style instead of catering to the evil bastards like the RIAA, and this legislation is a good start.
Re:I may actually have to switch parties (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I may actually have to switch parties (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I may actually have to switch parties (Score:3, Interesting)
Trouble is, it's become politically correct to at least mouth the "family values" line of bull, because otherwise come the next election, you won't get the nee
Re:huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
2. The "free market" for DRM consists of cartels--the RIAA, MPAA, BSA, etc. If intrusive DRM is allowed, then that is the only format in which the cartel will make media and software available. The cartel controls 99 44/100% of all media and software made.
3. The "free market" won't be able to work its magic, because of a bigassed barrier to entry known alternately as TCPA, Palladium, and the Next Generation Secure Computing Base. The cartel will hold the signing keys needed to