Death By DMCA 414
Dino writes "There's a good article in the IEEE Spectrum, titled 'Death by DMCA', which talks about how whole classes of devices were eliminated, and how others won't even see the light of day as a result of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. One example is ReplayTV's TiVo-like devices which featured sharing capabilities, along with automatic ad skipping; the company was sued to bankruptcy, and the reincarnated device supported neither sharing nor ad skipping."
more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:5, Insightful)
This is cool, I don't have to change my "subject" lines for posts any more... it's all about the entertainment industry's state of mental health.
From the article: "These new capabilities did not please Hollywood. Jamie Kellner, then CEO of Turner Broadcasting System Inc., called skipping commercials "theft" and, along with 28 entertainment companies including major movie studios and television networks--such as Disney, Paramount, Time Warner, Fox, Columbia, ABC, NBC, and CBS--sued ReplayTV for contributing to copyright infringement."
WTF? Skipping commercials is theft? FUCK YOU Jamie Kellner.... FUCK YOU TBS, FUCK YOU Disney, Paramount, Time Warner, Fox, Columbia, ABC, NBC and CBS! So, for those not using some sort of tivo-like device, if they should step out to relieve themselves, is THAT theft?
It galls that devices are being driven away from the marketplace because they're too good. And it equally galls that layer upon layer of obfuscation continues to be heaped on existing technology, to the point that when something works, my heart palpitates: is it the signal?, is it the unit?, or is the FUCKING DRM that I somehow forgot to set correctly?
Also from the article (referring to the ability to create "unencumbered digital tuners": "The entertainment companies do not like the flexibility of these home-built machines--or, more significant to them, the flexibility of the machines that consumer electronics manufacturers could offer under the current copyright law and its Betamax rule." WTF?, again?
They don't like the flexibility of these machines? I'm willing to bet somewhere in their ad campaigns they're bragging on some feature they're offering as flexible, etc. Gawd, I hate the industry.
So, technology continues to improve in quantum leaps, but the governor that is the RIAA/MPAA consortium does everything in their power to ensure technology is crippled to their whims, to enhance their power and profit.
Has anyone read Player Piano by Vonnegut? Great book... pretty good story about technology and designed obsolescence, and the collapse therein of a society... I won't give away the ending, it's worth reading.
</vent> Thanks, I feel better now.
The only way to fight the DMCA (Score:2, Insightful)
Otherwise, this article reads just like any other rant on the DMCA. Honestly, why can't anyone think beyond "all your stuff should be free!" mentality. It won't work. Music is a bussiness. It will always be a bussiness. Same with movies. And software. Stop bitching when idustry chooses to fight technology rather than embrace it. Organize, make contacts in industry, lobby, tell everyone you know, VOTE! And remember:
Flaming != helping.
Flaming == counter-productive. Always.
Smuggling opportunities (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, they might stop companies... (Score:3, Insightful)
All the *AA will ever manage to do is drive the sharing and fair use into a dark underground where they can never be able to find it without spending all of the money they do make. At that point, they will have to blame the loss of sales on their own crappy content, and their insane business practice of financially murdering any company that stood even half a chance of helping them find the 21st century.
Yep, so by all means, lets all work together to help the *AA find the real world, and do all our sharing underground, off the net, so they have only themselves to blame. Who knows, it might work..... NOT
Can't we just shoot them now?
Seriously, this is just one more reason to have them outlawed for monopolistic and draconian business practices. I personally don't see anything wrong with making *AA groups illegal... If enough of us vote, well, you never know...
Proof we are not a democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:3, Insightful)
However, I'd like to ask a simple question. If the networks can no longer count on people watching at least some ads, how are they to pay for content? The day most people have "auto-commercial-skip" is the day advertisers stop paying to be a part of the program. At that point, the networks would have to charge the consumers directly. Are you interested in paying even more for cable TV then?
I'm not saying it's theft or agreeing with any of the other comments made by those companies, but you need to put down emotion and maybe start coming up with reasonable alternative business models if you want to see devices like this suceed. Of course, once those business models are in use, there won't be any need for devices like this... so it's kind of pointless.
I don't know what the answer is, but venting on Slash about the end of society isn't any way to bring it about.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:2, Insightful)
These are the choices we make (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's what needs to happen: put your money where your mouth is. Set up a PAC (Political Action Committee); fund it liberally so it has a lot of clout; and let it loose after the politicians who sponsor legislations which hurt consumers. In the end, it's all a matter of money. If you people are willing to put your money where your (loud) mouths are, then you can expect change for the better. Otherwise, just bend over and take it quietly from the *AA.
EFF has its place; but it's not a PAC. You need a Consumer's PAC, with at least $10M+/year of budget, to have a serious impact.
All this surprises you? (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider this - though the (analog) VCR was invented by Ampex, a USA corporation (now defunct I believe), not a SINGLE VCR was ever built in this country! I don't believe that there is a single motherboard or other computer part that can claim to be 100% USA made either.
We are a country of takers and users and Congress leads the pack in taking! WHEN (not if) our style of living falls flat on its face, we'll have no one but ourselves to blame!dvd software for copying (Score:1, Insightful)
Hurting customers in more ways than one (Score:4, Insightful)
First, it hurts the end user or consumer by imposing government restrictions on how we use things that we "own". Or more to the point, we no longer own things that we buy.
It also hurts us that we don't see competition. This means higher prices, collusion, price gouging, and all the other nasties that come along with pseudo-monopolies.
We are further harmed by the lack of new jobs and opportunities. Real growth for our country is not in the 1000+ employee multinational corporations, but in the small companies employing 25 or less employees. The DMCA seriously harms innovation and prohibits companies that are more truly American companies from growing, making money, paying taxes, and employing more workers.
And we get the short end of the stick when these companies no longer need to innovate from the unnatural monopoly caused by the DMCA protects them from newer, more competent competitors. Not only do we not see the innovative, improved, products from fresher companies, we also see outdated technology from the companies that have lost the need to improve in a free market system.
It's called (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't support the DCMA, however... (Score:4, Insightful)
My question is, if this is such a big deal, what are you doing about it? If every person who was pissed off about this gave $100 to a lobby to fight it, we'd have it overturned by next week. Imagine the political power that could be brought against the MPAA/RIAA if we took our DVD/CD money and spent it on lobbyists...
(voting and writing to representatives is for wimps)
Re:It's called (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess that's the broadcasters problem, not mine. They should adapt their business model around this. Maybe air shorter, more interesting and targeted commercials, that people want to watch. I am willing to fill a questionnaire to help them select the best commercials for me. I don't know and I don't care how they would pay for content.
However, what they should not be allowed to do, is telling me what I can do with my TV and my video recorder, in my house.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:5, Insightful)
How about "that's their fucking problem not mine"?
Pro-capitalism, pro-"free trade", pro-whatever-you-think-that-is americans (I'm not american btw) usually point out that the market sorts itself out, how about letting it sort itself out for once?
They could switch to 100% pay-per-view, or a single "free" channel and some for-pay channels, or they could die altogether for all i'd care, but the fact that their current business model would be fucked is not a good enough reason for me nor for anyone else to accept that kind of crap.
How are they to pay for content? I don't give a fuck, seriously. It's their job to figure it out but it's not their job to make it impossible for me to get devices I'm interrested in.
Progress always win in the end, while they can delay the widespread use of TiVo-like devices they can't slaughter it altogether, they're merely getting some more time.
Of course not, I don't need to come up with "reasonable alternative business models", nor does the GP, I'm not a content provider or anything, it's not my job. If they can't come up with alternative business models by themselves then they're better off dead, and the sooner the better, other more intelligent guys will think of something and take their place in no time.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you never once wondered why almost no one objects to Google's ubiquitous ads?
Perhaps you think it's because they bribe us with all those cool toys. I thought about that. I don't believe it.
I think it's because they offer the ads. They're easy to ignore.
You can skip right over them without even noticing.
But, say the networks, if they can't shove ads in your face for twenty minutes an hour, and sue you for ignoring them, they'll go broke? They're running ads for companies that can't sell their product without bludgeoning people into insensibility. "Revolutionary new garden tool!!!! Makes a great gift!!!!". Christ, buddy, they're trying to sue us for not watching spam.
Re:Proof we are not a democracy (Score:2, Insightful)
Some States have issue-based ballots where you vote on specific issues. The feds could copy this model.
imagine how hard it would be not to be corrupted by the RIAA/MPAA.
Right now it is *legal* for organizations like the **AA to give campaign donations. Perhaps that should change. Free-speach laws prevent stopping issue-based advertizing on their part, but it should be possible to ban direct contributions to political candidates and perks such as luncheons. Politicians don't need cushy perks. There are plenty of candidates that will be happy to take the position, yet brown-bag their lunch.
Does anyone watch ads they record with Tivo? (Score:2, Insightful)
Whenever I use a VCR to record something, I really enjoy the fast forward to skip ads. In fact, I usually prefer using the VCR than watching the thing live for that very reason...
So I wonder. Does Tivo prevent you to make a fast-forward? Otherwise, wtf about this ad skipping capability... no one is gonna watch ads if they have the ability to skip them by pressing a button. No? Am wrong?
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:5, Insightful)
How about "that's their fucking problem not mine"?
Sure is, and they're trying to solve it. Look at it this way - for the people working in those companies, it is their job to get you to watch TV and more specifically watch those ads. They will pursue all means that they think are ethical/legal and probably some that they don't. But it's their job, and you can hardly blame them for doing it any more than they can blame you for flipping burgers at the local Mickey Ds (or whatever your country has - but I live in Switzerland at the moment, and even these guys have the golden arches). Obviously they haven't yet come up with better ideas. When they do, they'll get implemented, and given the quality of technical skill some Slashdotters have, there's even a chance that the solution could come from here.
We're getting back to copyright issue, I think - it's their content, according to current copyright law, and they think they grant you a very specific use - to watch it on your TV. You, on the other hand, think that once they broadcast the content to you, it's yours to do with as you please. In this case, the law would appear to disagree with you. Until and unless a majority of people within the US share your view, which will not happen until you can share it without cussing and sounding like a fool, then US law will continue to protect the interests of those TV networks. Unbridled anger rarely serves effective change.
Sure is nice to see one of my posts stir up so many comments, though.
Proof we are not capitalist (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:3, Insightful)
Trying to stall something has never been a solution has never been a solution, and couldn't ever be called one.
Works wonder since I don't own a TV anymore.
Point is that they're not even trying to, the only thing they're trying to do is to keep the current statu-quo.
Non-U.S.'ers not safe either (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, this was a damn good article, one of the most thoughtful and thorough ones I've read in a long, long time.
Second of all, non-U.S. citizens aren't safe. The RIAA and MPAA are pushing our government to force other countries to sign their digital freedoms away in trade agreements and treaties. The article specifically deals with this issue.
Remember, the guy who released deCSS was arrested for breaking no Norweigian law. The Pirate Bay guys have had their equipment seized for breaking no Swedish law. The point is that just as the U.S. flexes its military muscles in places like Iraq, it flexes its corporate muscles in countries such as the one that you call home, wherever that may be. And as weird and hard as it may be to believe, I'm 100% sure that the government in your country is just as capable of doing the same really boneheaded stupid things that the U.S. government has done given the right (*ahem*) incentives.
So no, this is not a problem unique to the United States. Yes, the U.S. may be the worst of the lot, and yes, a lot of this foolishness has arisen primarily because of corrupt greedy U.S. organizations who don't give a flip about consumers there or anywhere else, but if you believe nothing else, believe this: This idiocy will reach you in your supposedly safe and comfortable home country unless you are vigilant and active about stopping it.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:1, Insightful)
Obviously you're not skipping them all - their commercials have worked and you are buying their crap. They couldn't be happier.
Re:So what? (Score:2, Insightful)
the point of copyright is to insure compensation, not control. Copyright does not equal property, it is only a right to be the exclusive seller. Just because you monopolize a market does not give you the right to start regulating others because you've reached the limit of what you can squeeze from your market.
if they are worried only about revenue streams, then they should be requesting levvies. they are not, theyre demanding control, and a technologically illiterate congress is giving it to them and stifling huge sectors of the free market.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:5, Insightful)
Technological advances have cut costs across the whole industry, yet the monopoly protected businesses costs go on rising all the time. Have you considered the possibility that, in fact, the content is expensive because it's protected, not the other way around?
Opensource has shown us software can be produced at a fraction of the cost. Music has been freely produced for centuries. We're seeing more and more freely produced approaching quality pictures.
Maybe the networks dont have to charge consumers, maybe the producers need to damn well cut their coke habits down a notch.
"Are you interested in paying even more for cable TV then?"
Are you? Every serious analysis of the pricing shows that more protection equals _higher_ pricing. The day you're locked into a clockwork orange type setup in front of the TV, you can be damn sure the commercial break isnt ending. Ever.
Almost every other economic sector has to play by free market rules; it's time for the IP sectors to do the same.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:4, Insightful)
Mr. President, the correct term is "empire." 1/2 :)
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:3, Insightful)
Playing at being King Canute is unlikely to solve anything.
Look at it this way - for the people working in those companies, it is their job to get you to watch TV and more specifically watch those ads They will pursue all means that they think are ethical/legal and probably some that they don't.
The problem with the latter is the way in which corporations are not exactly treated as people. i.e. they don't get jailed or subject to bail conditions when accused of breaking the law.
But it's their job, and you can hardly blame them for doing it any more than they can blame you for flipping burgers at the local Mickey Ds (or whatever your country has - but I live in Switzerland at the moment, and even these guys have the golden arches).
The difference is that "Mickey Ds" dosn't appear to be incapable of changing their menu or even their pricing structure.
We're getting back to copyright issue, I think - it's their content, according to current copyright law, and they think they grant you a very specific use - to watch it on your TV. You, on the other hand, think that once they broadcast the content to you, it's yours to do with as you please. In this case, the law would appear to disagree with you. Until and unless a majority of people within the US share your view, which will not happen until you can share it without cussing and sounding like a fool, then US law will continue to protect the interests of those TV networks.
If you went and asked you would probably find that even if a majority of viewers did not think that way the number who did would be likely to vastly outnumber those TV networks.
Re:Non-U.S.'ers not safe either (Score:5, Insightful)
The Pirate Bay guys have had their equipment seized for breaking no Swedish law.
The difference is that, in Sweden, this is a huge scandal, and great publicity for the fledgeling political party that's forming out of this debacle. It should be interesting to see what happens in sweden in the next election.
Re:Seriously... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:5, Insightful)
I beg to differ. You can blame them, and in fact you should blame them. That is how a market economy works: if I don't like that a certain shoe manufacturer profits from child labour, then I blame them for it, and stop buying their shoes.
When we accept questionable and dishonest behaviour from corporations, simply because it is somehow expected of them, then that is how they will behave. The truth is, it is expected from them only because we accept it. If we didn't, it would no longer be profitable and they wouldn't do it. Companies have no intrinsic moral; their only moral stems solely from the criticism we as consumers place on them. Humans are the only source of moral in the system, and we must use it.
Qoute by Robert Heinlein (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:When the masses awaken, corporations will liste (Score:3, Insightful)
OTA Television is not encrypted, so there is no reason to avoid television because of DMCA, yet.
Like you'd need another reason to avoid television.
Re:dmca loophole (Score:3, Insightful)
The US has strong armed most trading partners into adopting similar legislation.
It's usually not quite as brass as the original.
For example, over in the UK and here in Holland it's quite common to find large advertisements for 'Region Free' DVD players. Cable and digital broadcasters sell TIVO like recorders and advertise all these things that are so useful and forbidden in the US.
A different matter is that US customs would confiscate anything that would not comply with local laws, would the importer/ retailer still try he'd be liable. The exeption is software, as it's very difficult to stop it at the border you will find US citisen using software that's only free outside of the USofA.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:1, Insightful)
They already solved it once. It was called "Cable TV." People payed for TV because it didn't have advertisements. but they had more dollar signs in their eyes so they slowly inserted a few ads here and there where people wouldn't notice and then we got where we are today. We're paying for a service twice.
If they have ads on broadcast TV I don't give a shit. But when I'm paying for TV subscription I don't want ads, and I certainly don't want to be required by law to watch them. When I buy a DVD the same thing. Why the hell would I pay to subject myself to ads.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:here's the proof that they're evil (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is to remove fair use loopholes. With CSS, any unencrypted copy of a DVD is prima facie evidence of the crime of circumventing a protection mechanism (created by the DMCA).
CSS is there to make MPAA thuggery legally easier as much as to prevent any copying.
Re:Well, they might stop companies... (Score:1, Insightful)
If they can drive it underground, they will decimate the amount of people prepared to share.
Most people are prepared to take the risk of a fine because everyone else is doing it. It's seen as almost normal.
The 'sneakernet' will die as media will only play back on the machine it is authorised for, via DRM measures.
The moment file sharing becomes a minority underground interest is the moment they will claim their success.
Re:Proof we are not capitalist (Score:3, Insightful)
That is only true in a free economy.
Once the government gets involved and limits that freedom, things like black markets and "the underground" come up.
The media companies are not interested in being part of a free economy, they are interested in control and big bucks, and they pay government officials regularly to ensure this lack of freedom.
Re:Non-U.S.'ers not safe either (Score:5, Insightful)
We got centralized Napster to introduce P2P to the masses, then things like Kazaa, Gnutella, eDonkey and Overnet, with them shifting focus more and more to decentralized implementations. Now we have BitTorrent which has a centralized tracker, but intelligently set up to not host or transmit anything copyrighted, which can both put it in a legal grey zone, and also make it quite easy to set up. And that's not even the cutting edge P2P tools -- these would be the existing and upcoming anonymous clients.
With a future, at least in Sweden where I live, of 10 and 100 Mbps connections fairly common, there's tons of redundant bandwidth all over in case you can accept e.g a 0.5-1 Mbps down/up speed which is more than enough for reasonably efficient piracy. And that extra bandwidth could probably be enough for "anonymizing" clients.
And once you get a fresh new P2P client to get very popular and using encryption with onion routing, I think that's the final nail in the coffin against **AA's "shut down" or even lawsuit strategy. They won't even know whom to sue, unless they venture into the painful realm of tracing through proxies. For effiicent shutdowns or suits, they simply have to move into banning encryption and proxies, and then I suspect pirates will finally find peace, because that won't happen. Tracing people through a maze of proxies in a popular anonymous P2P net is also something I seriously doubt even the police have the resources for on a massive scale.
It would be very interesting to hear **AA commentary on what they think of anonymous nets, something they've had the pleasure of not having overly popular yet due to less performance. But performance will increase proportionally to how popular the network is and how many can share their bandwidth.
Dream. (Score:3, Insightful)
Last year, I wrote to Senator Dianne Feinstein (apparently the best California lawmaker money can buy, given that she's the progenitor, all or in part, of so much of the anti-consumer legislation we're seeing) and voiced my concerns. I got a boilerplate reply implying my concerns were without merit, and that the preservation of movies and television and recordings were of utmost importance.
So, I'm taking matters into my own hands, inasmuch as I cannot form them into more than tiny fists against the RI- and MPAA hegemonies. I am canceling my digital and premium cable services, reverting back to basic. When a commercial comes on, I already turn down the volume and go to the can. Or go for a snack. I'll be sure to buy my CDs second-hand, and I'm not buying from the iTMS any longer. (For the love of Pete, people, don't rent your music!) I have no plans to buy new video equipment; my 1989 Sony 21" Trinitron will be my last video monitor when it breaks down, because what will I be able to buy other than a DRM-hobbled flatscreen? If I buy HD-DVD or Blu-Ray equipment, it'll only be for computer storage, that is, if the rights I currently enjoy with my computer still exist. If I go to the movies, it'll be at a Century or Camera cinema instead of one belonging to AMC, because AMC sees nothing wrong with foisting commercials on my girlfriend and I after I've paid twenty bucks for us to see a film. And when the fall quarter comes along at my local community college this year, I'm digging my saxophones out of the closet and signing up for concert band. Or perhaps the local non-profit production company's pit orchestra. I probably didn't touch on everything one could do, but, you get the idea.
If enough people did all that, perhaps those such as Jamie Kellner (he of the infamous not-watching-commercials-is-stealing quote) or Thomas Hesse ("Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?") would have no alternative but to rent themselves out as urinals.
Well, twenty years ago.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I later heard that the charge to Comcast went to a dollar per month per subscribing home.
Is it enough money to fund an entire network without 'commercial break' advertising? Probably not, unless all those people take cuts in pay (or their operation gets outsourced).
Which to me, is an entirely viable solution. The pay scales in the TV and movie industries tend to be pretty high....
As far as OTA distribution goes, I think that is a dinosaur marketing scheme that deserves to become extinct. If technology hastens this extinction - great. I certainly object to Congress passing laws to guarantee these bozos their rents.
The business model of television is based on blind advertising - interrupting as many people as possible, with the hope that *some* are not annoyed, but instead buy. Please let me illustrate by analogy.
Imagine a freeway, where every ten minutes, you go through a toll booth, where they stop you, tell you you smell bad or have ring-around-the-collar, and ask: "would you like to buy some deodorant? Soap? Your teeth are yellow too. We have whiteners."
For some strange reason, this is drives people away from the freeway, and toward private airplanes.
At the heart of the RIAA and MPAA lobbying is the demand by the toll-booth industry that private airplanes be forced to land every ten minutes and go through the toll-booth. Those toll booths made good money, and the tool-booth industry has a right to it.
From their point of view, people should have no right to bypass the toll booth, to bypass the insults to their cleanliness or beauty, to bypass the 'opportunity' to shell out some cash.
It seems to me there are three business models working here: OTA (charging advertisers 100%), Cable / Satellite TV (charging customers 25%, charging advertisers 75%), and subscription services (Pay-per-view, iTunes, XM Radio) (charging customers 100%).
For streaming media, only subscription services make long term financial sense to me.
"Broadcast" means not knowing your audience. Anything that shifts the cost to advertisers to subsidize consumers to choose broadcasts has made the fundamental mistake of disconnecting the money paid (to advertise) from the results.
It may work today, but (barring Congressional action) in twenty years it will appear as ignorant as junk faxes.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:5, Insightful)
In Communist China, if I purchase a legal VCD of The Incredibles at HMV and rip it to my iPod video, I have not committed a crime.
Guess which country got my money when I wanted The Incredibles on video.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:2, Insightful)
"By all means?" Since when the end justifies the means? I lived 30 years in a country like that and I did not move to US to meekly watch how a bunch of American oligarchs are implementing the same immoral and cynical philosophy in THIS country.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:3, Insightful)
Doesn't bother the BBC :-)
There is enough content on there to keep me busy for a while anyway...
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:4, Insightful)
They aren't; they should go out of business if they can't figure out a new business model under changing market conditions. In fact, advertising supported network television is obsolete.
but you need to put down emotion and maybe start coming up with reasonable alternative business models
Why do I have to figure out a new business model for them? Or why should Congress artificially limit technology just so that outdated business models continue to work?
Do you want Congress to pass laws against combustion engines so that the business model of hay producers and blacksmiths continues to work?
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:5, Insightful)
Today, all the politicians are people who lived through Vietnam and Watergate. It doesn't seem to have made them any less inclined to invade other countries on the slimmest pretext, nor does it seem to have made them any less inclined to commit crimes in office and then lie about them.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell that to the administrators of The Pirate Bay.
Re:Non-U.S.'ers not safe either (Score:3, Insightful)
That's easy. They are terrorist tools and should be illegal. They'll get lots of support from the spook-overlords in the government too, probably end up reducing their bribery^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcampaign controbutions budget in the process.
Re:Well, twenty years ago.... (Score:3, Insightful)
We already have this. They're called billboards.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:5, Insightful)
Bills have already been introduced making it illegal.
Toilet-going, water-drinking, talking, etc., will be outlawed in a few years unless its for buying a product shown as advert.
No, am NOT joking. With the lawyer-shit in control of entertainment companies, it will be only a few years from now in US that these would be illegal. These STUPID laws would then be exported to other countries either through "trade" negotiations or "peace missions".
Re:Media company's own greed spawned the devices (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed...I'm one of them. I'm this close --> -- to canceling my cable TV subscription because (a) I don't watch it enough to make it worthwhile and (b) I pay for erxtra channels, and yet they have commercials. Wasn't the idea behind paid content (like cable) that you paid for the channels thus no commericals? Now I'm paying for commercials. Am I missing something or has cable TV slowly evolved into a type of commercial TV that gets revenue from ads AND paid subscriptions?
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:3, Insightful)
The RIAA does precisely this, albeit with the threat of lawsuits instead. There is no doubt at all that these actions are criminal, its an indictment on the corruption of politicians and the law-enforcement community that these felons can operate with impunity as they are currently doing. Leveraged with bribes in the form of campaign donations. Its one of the few truly black-and-white issues in government, they sure as hell arent acting in the interests of their consituents, and the conflict-of-interest position that govt members are in makes corruption a certainty rather than a mere possibility.
What is a well-meaning citizen to do? Sitting idly by and becoming another victim of the RIAA and their pet senators and congressmen is not an option. Its a war against slavery in a way, and the battle is against a group of powerful people who believe they have a right to own and control you, and everything you see and hear.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:3, Insightful)
I wish there was some merit to the idea that future politicians will have a more modern viewpoint (even if their views are 20 years old by that point), but I'm not convinced that we will elect leaders who are any less susceptible to corporate (or other special interest group) influence, or that any of them will actually carry through on their campaign promises. Moreover, once a law has been on the books for a few decades, it's almost gospel. People can't remember a time when it didn't exist, and thus it's unlikely to go away. I think part of the solution would be to make laws more difficult to enact and easier to repeal. Banning riders would also help, along with eliminating any/all forms of contribution, compensation, and "pampering" of officials by third parties, other than X thousand dollars donatable, by individuals only, directly to campaigns. I'm not sure how much of an effect that would have, but it would be a good start.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane (Score:4, Insightful)
Sad part is, had I not read an article detailing the DMCA's younger (but 10x scarier) brother, I wouldn't believe you. It seems unthinkable that they would make it ILLEGAL to change channels.
Yet that is exactly what the bill calls for. Forcing TV's to refuse to allow you to change channels during commercials, and impose huge penalties for 'interfering' with the technology that prohibits channel changing.
It's sickening.
Re:Non-U.S.'ers not safe either (Score:2, Insightful)
Wait, I'll be trading corporate tyranny with government tyranny there. On second thought, the US have both of them! On to China!