The Good & Bad of DRM (Digital Rights Management) Technology on Future Video Formats (1 Viewer)

[ChristopherDAC]

Francis, I have to ask: Do you understand what these terms you're using -- "firmware", "analog", "digital", &c. -- really mean? I ask because your use of them is very confusing to me!
For instance: all DVD players are digital. That's what that first "D" stands for, no matter whom you listen to. In fact, there's no totally analog video disc system out there, unless maybe it's TeD. LaserDisc, Selectavision CED, and VHD all used analog encoding for audio and video, but they all also had digital logic circuits to control the players, and digital codes embedded in the video stream to interact with those circuits. In those cases, however, the "control" in question involved normal user functions such as audio-track selection and Random Access. LaserDisc and VHD both added CD-type Digital audio later on, and LD even implemented Dolby Digital AC-3 and dts Zeta audio formats in the middle '90s.
There's nothing analog about a DVD player at all, except for the headend circuitry around the optical head, and the audio/video ouptuts -- and not even all of those, if you've got HDMI, or DVI, or SDI video out, and TosLink or coax digital audio output.

 

[Aaron_Brez]

I agree. Unfortunately, there are lots of laws on the books which make this not the case. In this context, chief among them is the DMCA.

I don't have a problem with someone selling me a home theater device which contains code which can deactivate it; unless they use it, it means nothing, and if they use it in an unwarranted fashion, they'll suffer the full legal consequences in the form of class action suits. It's just not something I fear. Obviously you differ. If it was something vital to my life like an automobile or a house, I just wouldn't buy the dang thing. That's the decision you're deciding to make. Fine. While I love home theater, the threat that one component might stop working because of an idiotic company doesn't bother me, because I know it's not gonna kill me and I have legal recourse.

I'd prefer to be able to fight back by hacking it myself (or with the help of others) to remove that code. DMCA removes that opportunity from the realm of legality. Doesn't mean it's not gonna happen (DeCSS is illegal, too, but it's certainly not unused), but there's an artificial barrier there protecting Hollywood no matter how weak their encryption is, as long as they can claim with a straight face that their intent was to protect their copyrighted material.

 

[Cees Alons]

So what you're saying is you don't have much of a problem with someone selling me a home theater device which contains code which can deactivate it.

I mean, you'd rather have it without such a damned code, wouldn't you?


Cees

 

[Kevin M]

Perhaps the studios are counting on HT enthusiasts so rabid for any kind of HD disc format that they will accept quite a lot just to get their greedy hands on one.......I'm just saying.

 

[Damin J Toell]

No, it didn't. The Betamax decision has nothing to do with whether recording was done by analog means. Recording technology at the time may have been largely analog in nature, but that's completely irrelevant. The word "analog" appears nowhere in the decision or even the dissenting opinion (nor does "digital," for that matter).

Indeed, analog recording doesn't need to be "brought under" fair use, as the kind of technology used to make a given copy should have no impact on whether or not it is a fair use (it's surely not one of the four statutory factors). Fair use existed for quite a long time before digital recording technologies existed, and it applied.

The action that the Betamax decision found to be fair use had to do with the business structure of television broadcast and the way in which time-shifted recordings are used. The characterize the Betamax decision as bringing analog recording under fair use would be like to characterize the decision in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose (the 2 Live Crew case) as bringing music under fair use. It just misses the point entirely.

I can't help but ask the same question I asked the last time I saw you posting weird misstatements about the Betamax decision: have you actually read it?

DJ

 

[JeremyErwin]

Good grief!

Sony was sued by Hollywood for contributory copyright infringement. Since the VCR was marketed for the purpose of copyright infringement (home recording, building a tape library), and was incapable of any substantial non infringing use, the studios argued that Sony should be held liable for monetary damages and that production of the VCR should cease.

The court, however, found that a number of production companies explicitly allowed viewers to time shift and/or record programs, and this constituted a substantial non-infringing use. Even in the absence of such explicit permission, the recording of programs may still be fair use. While commercial infringement is presumptively unfair, noncommercial use ins presumptively fair. The studios failed to prove their case, and thus time-shifting for home use was protected by the court.

Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios 464 U.S. 417 (1984)

If sony had lost the case, analog video recorders capable of recording television signals probably would not exist.

BTW, ACCUF-Rose's chief impact was to allow commercial parodists to claim fair usage rights.

 

[Damin J Toell]

Just as the Betamax decision's chief impact was to apply the "substantial noninfringing use" rule from patent law to copyright law's theories of contributory and vicarious liability. Referring to either decision based upon the specific type of thing at issue (analog recording, music) is a mistake that goes to the very heart of the issues.

DJ

 

[AaronMK]

Aaron_Brez,

Making it illegal for protection measures to prevent non-infringing uses would not have the effect of making the protection measures themselves illegal, just limit the scope of their use.

For example, it might prevent DCP from withholding an HDCP lincense and keys from someone who wishes to create and interoperable product. If a court determined that product to be incompatible with copyright law, it would not prevent the use of HDCP's revocation features to lock it out.

 

[Shawn Perron]

Here's my problem with Hollywood and thier supposed stance against piracy. Both of the "secure" formats they are looking at for HD media are going to be inside everyone's computer someday. If a computer can access the disc, it will eventually be pirated by anyone with a computer equipped with the appropriate drive. Have they learned nothing from the DVD debacle?

The best way to stop casual piracy would be to make the standard media proprietary to set top boxes. This would stop the ease of the current "rip and burn" dvd piracy. Part of the license to produce the proprietary hardware would be a prohibition of adding any other media playing hardware/software. If people couldn't burn high def to a format easily played in the living room, piracy would die down tremendously.

To me it looks like they are following a recipe to repeat DVD no matter what protections they add.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

You guys are just screwing with my head, right?

Once upon a time - before VHS, 99.9% of the people had no way of recording anything at home. If you had any movies, odds were that they were on 8mm film, and silent.

But VHS screwed all of that up. As it was pointed out above, the courts found nothing wrong with recording a show now so that you could see it in a day or two, because you had a life, and were out doing something else. I don't think that the court intended the consumer to make copies of everything that was on TV, and to keep them forever.

If a Hollywood/VHS suit happened today, who would win? The Betaqmax decision woke up Hollywood, and now that they've had their caffiene fix, they're taking the control back. It wasn't that Betamax didn't mention analog or digital, but it WAS about keeping copyrighted material. There was no way to stop people from recording.

Now they get to start all over with digital signals. If you can ONLY receive digital tv stations and you don't have any digital recording equipment, you won't be recording very much, will you? Ah, but there are digital recorders out there now, right?

Yes, but they are built so that if a station/network decides that they don't want anybody making a copy of it, they can flag it, and the digital recorder will see the flag and stop. I'm not a football fan, but this looks like an end run around Betamax.

If you don't have any pre-recorded VHS tapes in your house and only use it to record off of the air, in a few years you won't be pushing that record button, ever again!

Glenn

 

[Kevin M]

Glenn Overholt echoed what I basically said before the new software crashed and erased quite a few posts...Glenn just said it better than I (and it has been a concern for quite a few folks for a while now).
I personally don't blindly trust corporations off hand & I know how much they despise commercial skipping and, although I was disputed at the time by the "two legs bad, four legs good" crowd, I still say that the rather wide berth that the DMCRA gives networks and studios to play with is going to lead to some significant hobbling of timeshifting ability...yeah, yeah, it's "stealing" to not watch commercials...I disagree, my consumer habits have not decreased in the some 13+ years I have been time shifting commercials out of my life, in fact they have increased if anything.
I do not consider commercial skipping to be "stealing" any more than I consider getting up to go to the bathroom or get something to eat, etc. etc. during a commercial break to be "stealing".

 

[FrancisP]

The studios have talked about new revenue streams. Maybe more people will be downloading hits like Desperate Housewives and Lost if they can't record them. Or maybe you can record for a fee or subscription. I believe this is the ultimate goal. There will probably be enough idiots to make it work if Hollywood can get rid of analog tv and get hi-def dvd to fly.

 

[Aaron_Brez]

Now this sort of thing is a different sort of law altogether. This would be a "prohibition of discriminatory licensing" law.

 

[Aaron_Brez]

This sort of paragraph is why ChristopherDAC is questioning your understanding of the technological jargon. "Firmware" doesn't have a thing to do with it: this could (and would) be done in software or hardware as well, so your opposition to "firmware" seems odd.

The "fair use doctrine" has said that certain uses of copyrighted material such as time-shifting were not against the law, and that building and selling a device to perform them was not illegal. It did not say "you have a right to make copies", or even "you have a right to time-shift". It only said that making and selling devices which could do this was not illegal.

The DMCA has already made this technologically useless in the digital age, as they can slap an "increment every byte by one" algorithm, no matter how trivial, on the bitstream, and claim it's "encrypted" and thus illegal to "break". The only bit left, as you've noted, is analog, and even with the new "analog hole" protection act, this hole remains open, since analog recorders are still allowed to exist and disobey the flags. Only digital is restricted.

It is the digital age, though, and regardless of analog holes of this nature, they are going to fade with time as digital becomes the only path for content-- by default, and not by legislation. My suggestion is not to concentrate on perceived "locking of analog holes" (which is not happening), but on maintaining the freedom of the public airwaves from the "broadcast flag" and other copy protection mechanisms. This, not the analog hole bill, is the true threat: since all broadcasts are moving to digital-- and analog VCRs will become less and less available purely for business reasons, and not due to the law-- this is what will prevent or curtail your ability to time shift or skip commercials or whatever your pet peeve happens to be.

Head this off, get Congress to pass legislation prohibiting Hollywood to put "copy never" flags in the over the air digital bitstream which digital recorders must obey, and you will succeed. Analog doesn't mean jack, and Hollywood knows it, otherwise they'd be trying to truly close the hole by insisting that analog recorders obey the flags instead of just passing them on.

Note that your best chance of getting this done concentrates on the public airwaves: the stations license this spectrum, and it thus traditionally and legally has been subject to "the public good" in ways cable and satellite are not (witness the movement of FCC-smacked broadcasters to satellite radio, where they are better insulated from the law). Trying to get this to apply to cable and satellite would be a nice try, but it would be a harder job to make that fly, as it would subject private business arrangements (between the cable company and content owners) to law.

 

[Aaron_Brez]

I would rather have lots of things, but I don't advocate laws just so I can have everything I want.

What I'm saying is that I don't object to Hollywood trying to make copying or otherwise using their content in ways they don't like difficult to do. I just object to them legislating what I (and by extension, other private bodies such as companies) can do with technology in my own private use. Their technological incompetence at being able to protect their content is not my problem and should not be protected by law, but the DMCA haa changed that.

I don't object to laws which allow them to find and prosecute pirates (I'm sure the Kazaa people would hate me for that), but I do object to them limiting technology because they're scared it may be used for piracy.

The act should be illegal, not the possibility of the act.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

While I would agree with you in general, we need to be careful about this. The last thing we need in this country is another set of non-violent felonies committed by a huge percentage of the population, which will only be used to imprison people arbitrarily [not necessarily maliciously, only because it would be impossible to prosecute all violators, and certain people tend to be watched more closely by the police, and prosecuted more agressively, and to recieve less of the Benefit Of The Doubt from juries]. If an action doesn't involve disturbance of the peace, or an injury to the State [e.g. tax evasion], spending State funds to prosecute it represents a subsidy to private interests under colour of an excercise of sovreign power, and I for one would call that abusive.

As I have said from the beginning, these "copy-protection" measures, and their special legal status, encroach not only on "substantial non-infringing uses", but also on the use for which the customer has explicitly paid -- the ability to have a movie in his possession, and watch it when he pleases, as he pleases, without having to pay a fee, or watch advertisments, or watch the whole thing through if he only wants to see a part. This "VEIL" act would additionally impose what I can only call an undue and unwarranted burden on the manufacturers of equipment with substantial non-infringing uses, and basically constitutes a bill of attainder fixing contributory and vicarious infringement on them.
All this rubbish is simply bad law, and its blatant favouritism to a tiny segment of the National economy -- at the expense of both domestic and foreign producers and consumers of entertainment, electronics, and unrelated products such as computer-printer cartridges -- is disgraceful.

 

[JeremyErwin]

There's nothing wrong with a technological arms race. It serve to reinvigorate creative energies. Besides, it's the way of he future. Ever read cyberpunk fiction and wondered what a dataslicer was? Now, that career path may become a reality.

 

[RobertR]

I agree completely. It really, REALLY irks me when private interests manage to use State power to compel their own enrichment while saying with a straight face that it's for "the good of all". "Special interest" is an overused term, but it truly applies here.

 

[Damin J Toell]

And, therefore, you appear to concede that your previous summary that Sony "brought analog recording under the fair use doctrine" is incorrect. I'm sorry that it took a bunch of mumbo jumbo to clarify that for everyone else.

DJ

 

[Aaron_Brez]

Um, I'm not seeing where we disagree here. I agree with this wholeheartedly. I think copyright infringement, in terms of people pirating movies and selling or giving them away to friends and relatives (or strangers) should be prosecutable and that copying for non-infringing uses (such as backup copies or putting the data on a hard drive for personal streaming use) should be legal.

What I don't agree with is that Hollywood should be forced to make it possible or even easy. I'm not saying that's your assertion, but when people talk about laws "prohibiting protection measures from preventing non-infringing uses", that's what's being proposed.

I object to the VEIL act, as well as its vile predecessor the DMCA, on the same grounds you do.