End of "Fair Use" for TVs, new July 2005 rules passed last Nov

[RandomUser]

Losing Control of Your TV

In the future, the Motion Picture Association of America will control your television set. Every TV sold in the United States will come equipped with an electronic circuit that will search incoming TV programs for a tiny electronic “flag.” The MPAA’s members will control this flag, putting it into broadcast movies and television shows as they see fit. If the flag is present, your TV will go into a special high-security mode and lock down its high-quality digital outputs. If you want to record a flagged program, you’ll have to do so on analog tape or on a special low-resolution DVD. Any recording will be limited to analog-quality sound. This security measure is not designed to protect the television from viruses or computer hackers—it’s designed to protect TV programs from you.

This future arrives on July 1, 2005.

Legally known as the Advanced Television Systems Committee Flag, but better known as the broadcast flag, this little bit of Machiavellian technology was folded into the Federal Communications Commission’s rulebooks last November. Reaction since then has been mixed. Most journalists writing about the flag have said that it won’t affect most consumers—unless they try to record high-quality digital video in their living room and play it back in their bedroom. The Center for Democracy and Technology called the FCC’s ruling a historic compromise that will preserve many consumer rights while preventing rampant video piracy as television goes digital, but CDT also notes that the FCC’s whole process for approving the broadcast flag sets a dangerous precedent that could easily turn against consumers. Indeed, many technologists that I’ve spoken with believe that the broadcast flag introduces dangerous Trojan Horse technology—a technology that could be rejiggered with even stronger anti-consumer provisions as time goes on. “Any broadcaster who uses it should lose their license because it is a misuse of the public’s trust,” says Andrew Lippman, a senior research scientist at the MIT Media Lab.

--snip--


Here's the article:

http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/wo_garfinkel030304.asp

And here's a discussion of the article:

http://slashdot.org/articles/04/03/04/1912200.shtml

[namvet73]

1. But....

If this technology interferes or degrades my analog recording of shows to time-shift them to when I am able to watch them, then I am getting my cable removed. And, shows that are on too late will not be watched.

I can definitely find better things to do like read a book or something else productive.

[tkmorris]

2. LOL this is stupid

Anyone competent enough to know which end of a soldering gun gets hot will mod their TV so fast it wont even be funny. These clowns are fighting a losing battle and I think they know it.

Come on people. Make the works and collect the sales, trying to preserve the rights into perpetuity through syndication etc is a losing game. Consumerism has grown too big for it's own britches, particularly in the field of creative works. Create the work, sell the work, then let it spread via whatever means it does. You can't stop that anyway. So you can't make 10 million a year anymore, who ever said that was a God-given right anyway? When artistic works provide a good living and little more perhaps the art itself will improve rather than be dominated by make-a-buck-quick no-talent hacks we have now. Maybe the height of the art form won't be dominated by people who want to become gazillionares because they happen to have a callipygian butt (J-Lo) or because they have a 14 year old face atop a 19 year old body wearing clamshell pants (Brittney).

[Atlant]

3. When the entire signal path exists in one chip, what will you solder?

> Anyone competent enough to know which end of a soldering gun gets
> hot will mod their TV so fast it wont even be funny.

When the entire signal path exists in one chip, what will you solder?
That is, if the entire digital signal path, from QAM demodulators to
the drivers that drive the digital outputs exist within one quad
flat pack with leads on 25 mil spacing, how would you propose to
do this mod? Your only hope would be that someone produces "mod'd"
chips *AND* that you can somehow manage to desolder and resolder
(say) 100 legs on 0.025" spacing.

It ain't gonna happen.

On the other hand, why should anyone have the right to make a
digital (full resolution) copy of material that someone else
owns? Won't an analog or TiVo-quality copy suffice for the
purported purposes of "time-shifting"?

Atlant

[Woodstock]

4. I take it you never heard the term "slippery slope" before

Or you'd know the answer to your question.

[Atlant]

5. Actually I'm quite familiar with the term.

I just think that people who steal data are just as much thieves as
a footpad who mugs you in the night. And the fact that a zillion
kids have done it, or that some posters on this thread may wish to
do it doesn't make it any less of a crime.

So I have no objections to DRM systems that are reasonable. And
this system seems pretty reasonable.

And if someone feels it isn't reasonable, let them build a chip
that "taps" the digital data between the Set-top-box and the
monitor, and then litigate the legality of their chip.

Atlant