Digital media - Not without MPAA approval?

[Andrew Green]

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/01/hollywood_after_the_.html

Under a new proposed Analog Hole bill, it will be illegal to make anything capable of digitizing video unless it either has all its outputs approved by the Hollywood studios, or is closed-source, proprietary and tamper-resistant. The idea is to make it impossible to create an MPEG from a video signal unless Hollywood approves it.

I don't think "This is stupid" can even begin to describe this...

 

[bignick]

Yeah, did you read the story about the Sony DRM protection that installs a rootkit on your machine...

Check here for the whole story...

 

[Andrew Green]

This is one of those times I am very thankful for Linux

and even more thankful google is throwing some more programmers into OpenOffice, as that is what I do most of my work in

The honesty of Open Source has got to be it's biggest strength...

 

[bignick]

Yes, even though I'm a little worried about the information Google is collecting, I'm really pumped about the weight they're throwing behind projects like OO...can't imagine how good it's going to get with dedicated, PAYED, developers...

Not to mention it looks like Microsoft really is going to be going to a subscription based software licensing scheme. Which they just announced with the online prodects Windows and Office Live. Which will be a subscription service...

you don't pay up every year...you're software goes bye bye....

 

[arnisador]

It can never succeed. Work-arounds will be on the Net within days.

 

[Andrew Green]

It can never succeed. Work-arounds will be on the Net within days.

As with any copy protection plan, all it does is punish people for following the rules.

Look at games, I could pay for it, install (using a large cd-key) be forced to activate online, AND required to put the original cd in everytime I play, even though nothing on the cd gets used.

Or download it for free, install and not have to worry about cd-keys, activation or having the original cd.

Music? Buy a full cd, rip 2-3 songs off it and have it collect dust, or pay for a DRMed digital version, or download illegally and get no restrictions.

Does nothing to stop infringment, just pisses off the people that DO pay.

 

[bignick]

It will definitely drive a lot of people towards the Open Source Movement

"Free as in Freedom"

 

[CrankyDragon]

It can never succeed. Work-arounds will be on the Net within days.

Ive already got mine... Sony DCR-TRV120 camcorder, and push analog in and get DV out, all without Macrovision! Doh! "Anything is mine!"

 

[bignick]

what really pisses me off is that I'm planning to set up a MythTV box and if it becomes unusable I'm gonna be one big, pissed off dude...

 

[arnisador]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051107/ap_on_hi_te/downloading_music

Grokster Downloading Service Shuts Down

Grokster Ltd., a leading developer of Internet file-sharing software popular for stealing songs and movies online, agreed Monday to shut down operations to settle a landmark piracy case filed by Hollywood and the music industry

[...]

Grokster's Web site was changed to display a message that its file-sharing service was illegal and no longer available. "There are legal services for downloading music and movies," the message said. "This service is not one of them."

 

[CrankyDragon]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051107/ap_on_hi_te/downloading_music

Grokster Downloading Service Shuts Down

Hurry up and get EMule before the Edonkey network gets haxed!

 

[Andrew Green]

Grokster got shut down not because of the program, but because of the marketing. They marketed it as a way to download copyrighted material.

If I built a dvd copier and marketed it as a "Just rent'em and copy'em instead of paying full price" I'd get shut down too.

Other peer to peer services should be ok as they have many legal uses as well.

Bit torrent for example, is used to download movies, games, applications and many other illegal things. But it is also a widely used way of distributing Linux distributions, I believe Warcraft uses it, and is a great way for publishers to distribute large files without melting there servers....

 

[arnisador]

Meanwhile...BitTorrent makes some changes:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051123/ap_en_mo/downloading_movies

The agreement negotiated Tuesday requires 30-year-old software designer Bram Cohen to remove Web links to pirated versions of movies from his Web site, bittorrent.com, effectively frustrating people who search for illegal copies of films.

The agreement involves connections to content owned by the seven studios that are members of the Motion Picture Association of America.

 

[Andrew Green]

kind of a empty thing though, his search program might not link them, but torrents of movies are still easy to find without that search engine.

 

[arnisador]

That's what I thought. I don't use BitTorrent though.

 

[arnisador]

Meanwhile...back to Kazaa:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20051128/tc_pcworld/123696

The operators of the Kazaa file-sharing service have until December 5 to update their software with a filter to screen out copyrighted material or else face the prospect of being shut down.

The filter will prevent users from trading files containing 3000 keywords selected by record companies, including the names of popular artists and songs. The filter can be updated every two weeks to include the latest and most popular releases, the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said in a statement.

So you can't trade any file that has 'Madonna' in its title? Sheesh. First, this seems excessively intrusive;a list of banned words, in effect. Second, someone will just start a web site with an approved list of code words, or a procedure (pig Latin would work) to encode the names. Search on adonnamay for Madonna. Third...don't they realize yet that they need to find a better way to stop this sort of thing (or failing that, to work with it?).

 

[Cryozombie]

So lemme make sure I understand this...

I make a Home Movie of, say, Christmas, and then I want to make an MPG and do some edititing and share it on the web... But my card is oly capable of digitizing "approved streams" so because my Home movie doesnt have the approved stream, I cant digitize it.

LOL.

Yeah. Sure.

 

[Andrew Green]

But how do they know you're home movie isn't going to catch som Star Wars action on the tv in the background? The present opening and turkey eating could be just a cover for a international movie piracy ring....:idunno:

 

[Kreth]

This is ridiculous. In the case of music, IMO, once I pay for that CD, I should be able to convert it to any format I choose for my personal use. That includes ripping it to MP3 or converting it to QPC format to use as a ringer.

 

[Andrew Green]

This is ridiculous. In the case of music, IMO, once I pay for that CD, I should be able to convert it to any format I choose for my personal use. That includes ripping it to MP3 or converting it to QPC format to use as a ringer.

Didn't used to be like that though

One of the industries big income sources has been reselling people stuff they already had.

They had the record, the 8-trax, the cassette, the cd, and now they see no reason to buy it yet again cause the quality isn't any better, and even if it was it would be unnoticable for most people, except maybe the supper music geeks with $50000 stereos...