[IP] Group Warns DVRs Endangered
Begin forwarded message:
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: July 28, 2004 5:37:50 PM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Group Warns DVRs Endangered
Reply-To: dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Group Warns DVRs Endangered
By Katie Dean
Story location:
<http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,64309,00.html>
02:00 AM Jul. 28, 2004 PT
Editor's note: This story has been updated to include comments from the
MPAA.
Television fans who like to choose when and where they watch their
favorite programs are in for a rude awakening next year when new copy
controls encoded in digital television streams will limit such
freedoms.
Broadcasters have been steadily moving from broadcasting content in
analog to digital format over the past several years, as required by
the Telecommunications Act of 1996. To protect this digital content
from piracy, the Federal Communications Commission adopted a rule that
digital television tuners recognize copy controls, called the broadcast
flag (PDF), encoded in content streams. Digital video-recording devices
would detect the broadcast flag, and the flag would prevent users from
making multiple high-quality copies of the programs for illegal
distribution. As of July 1, 2005, it would be illegal to manufacture or
import devices that can receive digital programming without responding
to the broadcast flag.
To fight the impending rule and to stoke backlash from TV viewers, the
Electronic Frontier Foundation earlier this month launched the Digital
Television Liberation Project to guide people on how to make their own
personal video recorders from off-the-shelf parts. The digital-rights
group is encouraging people to buy digital TV, or DTV, tuner cards for
their PCs, and is distributing instructions on how to build TiVo-like
digital video recorders. The idea is to get people hooked on the charms
of time-shifting -- recording a program and then watching it at a later
time -- and to help them understand what they would be missing once the
broadcast flag rule goes into effect.
"A tuner that is built today sees the whole stream but just ignores the
flag," said Wendy Seltzer, EFF attorney and leader of the Digital
Television Liberation Project. "A tuner that is built after the flag
goes into effect must recognize and respond to the flag."
Representatives from the EFF will demonstrate a homemade DTV personal
video recorder at Defcon this week in Las Vegas. Seltzer said the EFF
hopes to have a stable of devices to demonstrate what people get when
they construct their own DTV personal video recorder, and what wouldn't
be available when Hollywood dictates what the machines can do.
"The FCC has required that manufacturers make their devices less
capable, and that's all at the urging of Hollywood and the
entertainment companies," Seltzer said. "We think this is a ridiculous
way to advance digital television."
She said the broadcast flag would prevent a lot of actions that aren't
violations of copyright law. For instance, copying a clip from Fox News
might not be possible with the broadcast flag -- even though it's
legal. Or time-shifting might become cumbersome with the broadcast flag
restrictions, even though it's also perfectly legal.
"There are a lot of things that are still going to be allowed under the
broadcast flag. It's not panic time," countered Brad Hunt, chief
technology officer for the Motion Picture Association of America.
"Consumers will be able to buy devices that will allow them to make
secure copies on to DVD and that secure media can be shared with other
people." He said that consumers will also retain the right to time
shift and send secure digital media over a home network, but not
electronically re-distribute the content.
The broadcast flag protection is an important step in preserving free,
over-the-air programming, he said.
"There is a process going on within the FCC that is evaluating content
protection technologies," he said. "Hollywood is not the one certifying
the technologies."
To build a DTV PVR, users need a tuner card capable of reading the DTV
signal. Once installed, the tuner card can record programs to the hard
drive of a PC. Users would then hook their PC to a television or a
high-definition monitor for viewing. The PCs also could burn the
programming to a DVD and perform TiVo tricks like pausing, replaying
and fast-forwarding.
The EFF uses a software platform called MythTV, written for the Linux
operating system, to manage content on its demo machine, but other
projects like Freevo and eBox are also available.
The broadcast flag only applies to over-the-air broadcasts. Cable and
satellite companies already have their own digital-rights management in
place.
Raffi Krikorian, a Ph.D. candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology Media Lab and author of TiVo Hacks, has already built his
own high-definition PVR. His computer is outfitted with an HDTV tuner
card, MythTV software and an HDTV antenna. He watches programs on a
high-resolution computer monitor.
"It's exactly like having a TiVo for HDTV," Krikorian said. "I can
record the HDTV broadcast of West Wing and watch it some other time."
The EFF is also fighting the flag in court. Along with the American
Library Association and Public Knowledge, it has challenged the FCC in
a lawsuit, arguing that the commission has no right to impose such
controls on technology manufacturers or to restrict copying.
If the broadcast flag proceeds as planned, "We'll be able to (do) less
with DTV than we've been able to do with analog television," Seltzer
said. "Most disturbing (is) that the new capabilities that could exist
will never get the chance to be tested."
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