[IP] Halloween on the Hill
Begin forwarded message:
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: November 1, 2005 9:52:18 AM EST
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Halloween on the Hill
Reply-To: dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Halloween on the Hill
October 31, 2005
<http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004106.php>
If you would like to join our jamboree
There's a simple rule that's compulsory
Mortals pay a token fee
Rest in peace; the haunting's free
- The Crypt, Disney's The Haunted Mansion
Halloween is traditionally the time when the undead walk;
preposterous monstrosities that no-one could imagine living stumble
and moan through the land.
So guess what the entertainment industry decided to dust off for an
extra spooky session with the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday?
Why, yes, they are bringing the broadcast flag. And, certainly, there
is talk of their henchmen at the RIAA clumsily re-animating their
insane digital radio requirements.
But that's not spooky enough for the MPAA. For their party trick this
year, they want to take one of the most basic and ubiquitous
components in multimedia, and encase it within a pile of legally-
enforced, complex, and patented proprietary technology - forever.
Ladies and gentlemen, the MPAA have chosen Halloween week to
resurrect their most misconceived monster ever: the Thing from the
Analog Hole.
Feel free to flick through this new Halloween document: it's a
legislative draft proposed by the MPAA for a hearing of the House
Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, on
the topic "Content Protection in the Digital Age: The Broadcast Flag,
High-Definition Radio, and the Analog Hole," on November 3rd.
On Thursday, they'll be no doubt declaring this law's passing to be
vital to the entertainment industry's survival, just as Jack Valenti
told the same committee that the home video-recorder would kill the
film industry.
Here's what the proposed law says, in a nutshell:
Every consumer analog video input device manufactured in the United
States will be, within a year, forced to obey not one, but two new
copy restriction technologies: a watermarking system called VEIL, and
a rights system called CGMS-A (we've covered CGMS-A before; we'll
talk a bit more about VEIL soon).
And what might these MPAA-specified, government-mandated technologies
do?
[snip]
Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>
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