Analog Hole Legislation - MPEG to be illegal?

[Roundabout]

From Boing Boing:

Hollywood after the Anal. Hole again

Hollywood has fielded a shockingly ambitious piece of "Analog Hole" legislation while everyone was out partying in costume. 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.

This is like the Broadcast Flag on steroids. The Broadcast Flag only covered TV receivers. This covers everything with an analog video input. If this had been around in 1976, the VCR would have been illegal. Today, it would ban Mythtv, every tuner-card in the market, and boxes like Elgato's eyeTV the Slingbox and the Orb and the vPod. This is a proposal to turn huge classes of technology into something that exists only at the sufferance of the studios.

And what do they suffer? Not much. Here are a couple of the stupid ideas we can expect to see protected through rules like this, all drawn from real discussions with DRM lobbyists from the MPAA:

1. You can "accept a contract" by changing the channel. If you change the channel from 3 to 4, and the show on channel 4 has a signal that says it can't be recorded, then by watching channel 4, you're "making an agreement" to waive your time-shifting right in exchange for the show. This is like a shopkeeper hiding a "I reserve the right to punch you in the nose" sign somewhere in his shop and then randomly clobbering his customers, answering any complaints by saying that you agreed to it when you came through the door.

2. Everything with value has a price-tag. Today you can rewind TV, fast-forward it, skip the ads, move it to another device in your house, or stream it to your web-browser on the road. Tomorrow all of these features will only exist if they are permitted, on a case by case basis. The studios will "enable the business-model" of charging you money for the stuff that you get for free today. Here's a quote: "Doing this stuff has value, and if it has value, we should be able to charge money for it." They do indeed have value: you currently enjoy that value. Under this proposal, the value will be stolen from you and sold back to you piecemeal.

Now, will this solve any problems? Don't be ridiculous. There are literally tens, if not hundreds of millions of products in the market today that don't obey the rules the studios want to embed in their video. If just one of those devices gets access to the video, then poof, it's on the Internet. In other words, you won't need to own a free and open digitizer card to get access to digitized video: you'll just need to own Internet access.

So what problem does this solve? In the parlance of the studios, this will "keep honest users honest." Which is to say that if you're someone who only wants to go on doing all the perfectly legal things that you can do with video today -- watch, store, time-shift, space-shift, format-shift -- then you will be prevented from doing so without permission.

However, if you're someone who actually wants to infringe copyright by downloading video from the Internet, this will have zero effect on you. This is not a proposal to protect copyright -- this is a proposal to bootstrap Hollywood's limited monopoly over who can copy its movies into an unlimited monopoly over the design of deivces capable of copying its videos.

Any lawmaker who supports this is an idiot. Americans will forgive a lot of sins from their elected representatives, but there's one thing they won't stand for and that's breaking their TVs. Watch this space for information on how you can contact your congresscritter and make sure s/he gets the message.

For Entire Article: Click Here

[CaptainVideo]

I applaud the MPAA for it's relentless pursuit to lock down content. Only they can prevent draconian measures from passing Congress. These "discussion drafts" only help prove the insanity of the MPAA and how overreaching they can be.

I wouldn't worry about this. There is no way the government is going to approve something like this that would render inoperable millions of legally established devices.

[lordsmurf]

Anal hole.

[adam]

http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/analog_hole_discussion_draft.pdf

There is a link to the actual draft that is being proposed. In my opinion you should just read this and use your own mind. Any commentary you find on this is going to be way biased one way or the other.

There is no way the government is going to approve something like this that would render inoperable millions of legally established devices.

CaptainVideo, as the draft states, this law is not retroactive and indeed little legislation ever is. All devices manufactured prior to its enactment will be wholly unaffected. That's the author's (of the blurb) point...that anyone who really wants to get around this can just track down older hardware.

This law in conjunction with the broadcast flag bill should pretty much give broadcasters (note NOT necessarily the film industry) complete control over broadcasted content. Good thing neither have passed yet.

[CaptainVideo]

I didn't imply that it would require hardware already out there to be destroyed or upgraded. I meant to imply that because such devices are widely used and have been free from such a restrictive copy protection measure and not to mention there are plenty of legal uses of such devices that the government would not approve something like this.

In fact the MPAA might just use it as a negotiating trick. Will drop our demands and lobbying for plugging the analog hole if you make the broadcast flag law and stiffen penalties on illegal file-sharing or something.

[Roundabout]

In fact the MPAA might just use it as a negotiating trick. Will drop our demands and lobbying for plugging the analog hole if you make the broadcast flag law and stiffen penalties on illegal file-sharing or something.

What you said makes a lot of sense, and you might well be right. Wouldn't be the first time a trick like this was used. Ask for the moon, and settle for less. Common ploy.

[satviewer2000]

They will try to take away any and all forms of multimedia. We'll be left with nothing but "fireside chat" and "campfire stories".

Then they will try to copyright and control "fire", the "fireplace", and even human language.

[paulw]

I applaud the MPAA for it's relentless pursuit to lock down content. Only they can prevent draconian measures from passing Congress. These "discussion drafts" only help prove the insanity of the MPAA and how overreaching they can be.

I wouldn't worry about this. There is no way the government is going to approve something like this that would render inoperable millions of legally established devices.

Want a bet?? A few well placed bribes and it will fly thru..

[Shadowmistress]

I honestly don't understand these people. Don't they realize that the more greedy they become the more they stand to lose? Stuff like this will just encourage honest people to turn into warez hounds. It's exacerbating the problem. Even if they were able to stop every device known to man aside from a tv from displaying a signal, some guy somewhere would just handycam the picture off his projection tv and put it on the net.

What's next? Net snooping? Can't upload/download a file anywhere on the internet unless it's cleared by hollywood first?

And meanwhile the movies get crappier and crappier every year.

[ebenton]

Kind of reminds me of this article from The Onion, back in 1998:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29130

[Tom Saurus]

This all makes me wonder about the Capture Card Industry. ATI has it built in that you can't record a Macrovision Protected Tape: you would think that would be enough. If this legislation goes through they would be out of business after awhile. I hope Canada doesn't follow the direction things may be headed in the United States. It has all went downhill since Janet Jackson's Wardrobe Malfunction.

[SatStorm]

They 'ld ask the copyright of our dreams if they could....

[dvdguy4]

Maybe they should out law the lobbiest who buy the politicians. I dont want to make this political but maybe we the voters of the USAS should vote in different people. I know it wont happen but hey its worth shot.
Im looking forward to the day that the MPAA falls on its face.

[GullyFoyle]

Hollywood claims to be losing money. Yet they continually release crappy product. This has nothing to do with "piracy" ( the real pirates who duplicate thousands of dvds). It has everything to do with the chance to view the product BEFORE purchasing.
Why spend the outrageous price to either attend the cinema or buy the dvd itself if it is garbage?
But what is troubling is their lack of respect for the gen pop who merely time shift or record for their own archives. Surely they should not be punished for PAYING for a service? If the service you PAY for does not allow you to keep the COMMERCIAL riddled product ( effectively causing a payed for twice state) why use that service?
Finally these ideas are put forth by a FEW greedy individuals who make outrageous salaries. Possibly if they took pay cuts and pumped that excess into better written/directed/acted NON-PG13 films then more people would purchase their product creating a profit as in the old days.

[pdemondo]

It is troubling that the media industry has the BIGGEST voice in this legislation and we have NONE. The problem (I believe) has its roots in
2 things:

1. Supreme Court decision that gave corporations, esentially, the same
rights as individuals.

2. People/Corporations can lobby/contribute to legislators outside of their own district .

They act as if they OWN all technology related to their industry in any way. Very scary to think that these guys will chart the future of a majority of computing and other electronics technology.

[ROF]

This is interesting. After reading the draft it appears this is solely directed towards hardware that is primarily designed to override, remove, or bypass rights signaling.

It's currently illegal to backup media. It's also illegal to archive television. This proposal seems to back those up by making possession of devices that assist violations of current laws illegal.

[dvdguy4]

Well there goes our burners and capture cards. Whats next? The US is going in the wrong direction and its gonna hurt them sooner than later.

[Shadowmistress]

It's currently illegal to backup media.

Well then, they better start selling indestructable disks then. It's my understanding that if you buy a movie, you buy the right to view it forever. If the disk itself is damaged and you wish to replace it by making a copy, why is it illegal? They've gone to great pains to convince everyone that it's not the disk itself that you're buying, it's the license to view it so how can intellectual property be damaged or expire? It's not like you're buying a toaster and when it breaks you're out of luck, it's intellectual property.

Actually, if they want to stick to the "no replication of the product in any way" rule, then they would be in breach of the license agreement the consumer buys once that disk becomes no longer playable, since they have been paid for something that is no longer being delivered. And since they are in breach, they should be liable to replace the product.

Now imagine how much money people could cost these companies if they purchased disks just to damage them and send them back over and over.

It's also illegal to archive television.

Have you not heard of a thing called a VCR?

[compuser]

This reminds me of a similar article that was posted here about a lawsuit with Macrovision v. Sima/Interburn https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=271606&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

[lordsmurf]

It has all went downhill since Janet Jackson's Wardrobe Malfunction.

Yeah, boobies are evil and harmful. Violence and gore are fine.

At least nudity is a natural state of existence. Violence is an abberation of natural behavior. Even "wild animals" are not randomly violent, that's something humans have all to their own.

There is actually a "cultural" law out there right now, UNESCO written, similar to how the Kyoto accords work. While something like this doesn't yet exist to maintain "intelligent use" of copyrights, I would like to think someday it could happen.

Once upon a time, content... art.. material culture... was made to express and to share. Profit often went with it, but that was not the goal. Had something as retarded as this existed 100-500 years ago, Dickens, Shakepeare .... even the Bible itself.. likely all would have been lost. I cannot imagine a world where culture can only be accessed when "they" (some magic group of ******** sitting in some room) say you can.

We used to call that sort of ideal "fascism".

As it stands right now, massive amounts of literature, paintings, photography ... even music and television .... is lost on a yearly basis. Why? Because the copyright holder didn't consider it worthwhile, it was not going to make the person rich overnight. And before some loud-mouthed lawyer jumps in here spouting off bullshit, copyright owners these days are rarely the creators of said art/culture. Creators never wanted their work locked away in a vault, forgotten to time.

Preventing people from recording audio/video is merely one more way to insure the damage continues to be done. It's ironic too. We now have the technology that is supposedly able to capture something in an "eternal" state of existence (assuming we continue to back up discs prior to death), yet not allowed to use it.

[compuser]

So, I guess that would mean that Sony and other manufactures of Camcorders that offer Analog pass-thru would have to be license with Hollywood? It would be interesting to see how they react.

[mbellot]

It's also illegal to archive television.

Have you not heard of a thing called a VCR?

Time shifting with a VCR is legal. Building a permanent archive of TV shows is not...

[adam]

Shadowmistress you are actually incorrect on both accounts. In the United States and in most countries in the world you have no right to backup audio/visual works. You DO only buy a license to the content. That is the whole point of intellectual property and how its worked since 1662.

Archiving television is also illegal in the United States, though many other countries have made exceptions for this. The VCR is intended to be used to time-shift, not archive. You can record it to watch later, you cannot record it to keep it indefinitely.

http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/betamax/betamax_supreme_ct.pdf

[Shadowmistress]

Lordsmurf, very well said!!!

[adam]

And before some loud-mouthed lawyer jumps in here spouting off bullshit, copyright owners these days are rarely the creators of said art/culture.

What are you talking about? By definition of a copyright, it is always owned by its creator unless they choose to sell it later. The only exception is if they are hired to create the work, but then they can always just say no and go make it on their own anyway.

[dvdguy4]

Pretty soon your gonna have to pay to use everything .

[Shadowmistress]

By definition of a copyright, it is always owned by its creator

Define the creator though. Unfortunately in this day and age it's usually the money men that finance the project rather than the artist himself that gains the copywright. Quite sad in principle when you really look at it.

[adam]

That is 100% completely untrue. The money men buy specific rights to the work. They buy the right to film the movie, or produce the play, or distribute the song, etc... In all of these cases the person who actually made the source work is still the copyright holder and always is unless they sell the actual copyright which is rarely done. The person who physically makes the work of art is always the copyright holder unless its a work for hire (which again they can always just choose to make it on their own.) MGM, Miramax, Fox, etc... the studios NEVER own the copyright if they can help it because corporate copyrights expire (almost always) much much sooner than those held by individuals.

I don't know why keeping something copyrighted is equivalent to locking it away in a vault like Lordsmurf says....they can still publish it as much as they want. If any artist truly wants their work to be free, or thinks copyright terms are too long, then they can just make a public dedication at anytime. Poof, no more copyright protection. All it takes is a press release or a call to the Copyright Office.

[lordsmurf]

It all comes back to theory versus practice. What you say makes sense in theory, but that's just not how the world works right now. If something is not new, it's locked away until it'll make a million dollars. If that will never happen, it never comes out of the vault.

I can actually name a number of writers, actors and estates that are "locked out" of something they had a part in creating. Pretty much all of them are disgusted by it too. They cannot even show their children a video, audio or printed version of what they did in their younger days, because some dickhead somewhere has deemed it "worthless". It was often destroyed, or worse, allowed to whither away rather than give it away (greed in action),

Had a VCR or DVD recorder or MP3 existed 50 years ago to the "common man" ... and had he been allowed to share it after say 15-20 years later without fear of being eaten alive by MPAA lawyers... this problem would not exist. Luckily modern loss is less, but it still happens more than most people think. Preventing recording equipment (archiving equipment, in this mindset) from existing or being used would set us back 50-75 years.

Forcing people to only timeshift via analog methods is also counter-productive to advancement of technologies. Bunch of xenophobic bastards, afraid of new technologies, especially the positive ones.

[adam]

Bullshit, that is exactly how it has always worked. The creator can do whatever they want with it at any time. If they don't want to sell the film rights they don't have to... but how many people can afford to write a screenplay and see it through to a finished product? This has nothing to do with copyrights and everything to do with economics.

If a project costs 70 million dollars to make it doesn't matter whether your copyright expires in a day or 100 years..you've still got to wait until someone is willing to fund your project before it sees the light of day. You are just bitching about the nature of the film industry. It is a high-risk, high investment business. 100 million dollar movies don't get greenlighted just because society will benefit from that art. No one can afford that.

On the contrary something like a children's book has the same copyright term and protection yet doesn't face these same problems. Its not because of the law, its because of the nature of the work.

Forcing people to only timeshift via analog methods is also counter-productive to advancement of technologies.

Where are you getting this from? Neither this law nor the broadcast flag have this effect at all.