Internet Radio Gets F*cked (Again) - P2P-Zone

theknife · 20-10-02, 04:55 PM

While we were sleeping....and why it matters.

Quote:

Unfortunately, the Capital Hill savvy RIAA was able to corrupt that bill only moments before it was passed last week, counting on the fact that none of the members of the house would look it over again prior to voting on it. The House passed the bill, never realizing until it was too late that the one paragraph passage temporarily freeing small Webcasters was rewritten by the RIAA in the dead of night into a 28 page monster that put even more restrictions on Webcasters

TankGirl · 20-10-02, 05:00 PM

Thanks, theknife!

That mp3 newswire story is a great essay, recommended.

- tg

JackSpratts · 20-10-02, 06:34 PM

well don't worry kids, yer pal jackspratts is on the case. i recommended against passage by the senate and guess what? the senate didn't pass it. heh.

if only it were that easy.

this is obviously taking much longer than anyone realized but in the end if better legislation results it will have been worth it, and i think we will get a better bill.

- js.

Mazer · 20-10-02, 07:06 PM

Quote:

I had extensive discussions with my own Congressperson's staff in DC (Jennifer Dunn) from early on the Monday morning after the weekend of those negotiations. Dunn was one of the cosigners on the bill - I had a feeling they were not aware of the meetings that took the bill from one paragraph to 28 pages; in fact when I mentioned that to the aide he said they would not accept anything different than the one paragraph. He indicated that as far as they knew the bill would come up at 6:30pm as scheduled and that there were no changes. I called back when I saw the first copy of the bill as 28 pages - they still did not have a copy so I emailed him one. He was looking at it when I told him it was up on the floor - by the time he had tuned it in, the bill had been passed. I suspect there was nobody in the chamber when it passed.

So as far as I can determine, the Congressperson who had signed on as a cosigner did not see the new bill at all - it would appear that she was hoodwinked by Sensenbrenner.

It pisses me off the way th RIAA butts into congressional hearings and adds arbitrary laws to the books without opposition. They could probably insert a declaration of war into any bill they like and we wouldn't know about it until after it was signed into law. It's nice to know the people in the Senate are more vigilant, but it's plainly obvious that the RIAA is getting way more representation then they deserve, and I hate seeing congressmen relinquish their duties and hand their powers over to a trade group.

JackSpratts · 20-10-02, 07:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Mazer

It pisses me off the way th RIAA butts into congressional hearings and adds arbitrary laws to the books without opposition. They could probably insert a declaration of war into any bill they like and we wouldn't know about it until after it was signed into law. It's nice to know the people in the Senate are more vigilant, but it's plainly obvious that the RIAA is getting way more representation then they deserve, and I hate seeing congressmen relinquish their duties and hand their powers over to a trade group.

NO SH%T SHERLOCK!!!

- js.

multi · 22-10-02, 05:39 AM

yes that was a good read i hope this is relevent...
from: Hollywood's copyright fight might hit digitally close to home
Hollywood provides a great escape, right? But how do consumers escape Tinseltown's desire to control more of our digital future?

Because, if Hollywood gets its way, future digital devices will be manufactured only if approved by the entertainment industry. Also, digital monitoring systems would prohibit analog-to-digital media conversions -- no matter how innocuous. Plus, under one proposal, computer file-sharing services, such as Morpheus, Gnutella and other peer-to-peer networks, will go the way of recently departed yet highly popular Napster.

All of these plans are being considered because technology is at the center of the copyright debate. Entertainment interests argue that the Internet threatens to topple their businesses by facilitating the easy exchange of all works, including copyrighted works, through file-sharing networks such as Kazaa and Gnutella. Accordingly, the entertainment industries are calling for a dramatic reformulation of copyright through laws and policies that erode many public freedoms in order to safeguard entertainment profits.

On April 25th, 2002, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) filed a document with the Senate Judiciary Committee called the "Content Protection Status Report," in which the major film studios set out their three-point battle-plan for the copyright wars.

First is the so-called "Broadcast Flag" mandate. [The Broadcast Flag is a signal embedded in a digital television signal, thus the name of the mandate.] Under this regime, all devices capable of receiving a digital television (DTV) broadcast will only be allowed to employ "output" or recording technologies that have been approved by MPAA member-companies. While this is proposed as a means of slowing the "Napsterization" of Hollywood movies that are aired on DTV channels, it goes much farther than that.

Never before have American technologists been required to seek the entertainment industry's permission before making new devices. That's a lucky thing, too, as entertainment interests have sought to ban entertainment technologies from the player piano to the radio to the VCR.

A Broadcast Flag mandate, like the one currently under consideration by the FCC, could grant those same companies the right to veto features in both special-purpose entertainment devices and general-purpose PCs that may never even be used in connection with a DTV program.

The Broadcast Flag sets the stage for a much more sweeping objective: plugging the "analog hole." The "analog hole" refers to the fact that no matter how much copy-prevention there is wrapped around a digital file, eventually the file's contents have to be converted to an "analog" signal, which can be captured and re-digitized. For example, the music on a CD might be locked up in all kinds of advanced secret codes that prevent unauthorized copying and distribution, but when the CD is playing, the music can be captured by a digital audio recorder and converted to an "unprotected" MP3 that can be freely played on any device.

At the core of this operation is a standard piece of electronics called an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), a low-cost, general purpose component that is employed any time the real world -- its sounds, sights and motion -- are fed into a computer. ADCs in your cellphone convert your voice to digital data; ADCs convert the signals captured by scientific instruments as diverse as MRIs, CAT scanners, seismographs and radio telescopes.

Accordingly, the report calls for a regimen where "watermark detectors would be required in all devices that perform analog to digital conversions." The plan is to embed a "watermark" (a theoretical, possibly infeasible, invisible mark that can only be detected by special equipment and that can't be removed without damaging the media in which it was embedded) in all copyrighted works. Thereafter, every ADC would be accompanied by a "cop chip" that would sense this watermark's presence and disable certain features depending on the conditions.

This is meant to work like so: You point your camcorder at a movie screen. The theoretical watermark embedded in the film on the screen is detected, and your camcorder records nothing but dead air.

Under such a system, all unauthorized analog-to-digital conversion of copyrighted works is prevented. The problem is that not all unauthorized reproduction is unlawful -- in fact, a great deal of unauthorized reproduction is legal and customary, such as quoting a politician's stump-speech in a newscast, or recording a "mix-tape" of your favorite upbeat songs to listen to during your morning jog.

More important still are the little, incidental reproductions we make of copyrighted works as we move through our daily round. A cop-chip in your cellphone would kill your conversation if you strayed too close to the watermarked music playing on a nearby stereo; your camcorder might refuse to capture your daughter's first steps if she takes them in front of your television during playback of a watermarked cartoon -- even your family holiday photos might come out blank if your loved ones pose too close to copyrighted building facades or logoed signage.

Hollywood's report to Congress moves onto its third legislative goal: "Putting an end to the avalanche of movie theft on so-called 'file-sharing' services, such as Morpheus, Gnutella and other peer-to-peer (P2P) networks."

P2P networks -- such as the Internet itself -- are simply general-purpose technologies, like VCRs or crowbars, with lawful and unlawful uses. Nevertheless, Hollywood argues that any system that facilitates infringement should be shut down by the courts. This is a time-honored tradition for the American entertainment industry, which spent 1976 to 1984 working in Congress and the Supreme Court to ban the VCR.

That initiative resulted in the landmark "Betamax" Supreme Court decision, which established the principle that the test of a technology's lawfulness is not its potential for being used for infringement, but its capacity to be employed for "substantial non-infringing uses."

VCRs -- which can be used to make unlawful copies of copyrighted videos -- are legal, on the basis of their myriad lawful uses.

P2P networks are much the same. P2P networks are systems that permit two or more parties to share digital files. These networks are employed by academics to share audio-recordings of lectures, by archivists who share public domain books, music and films, and by independent artists who share promotional works freely with their fans.

And yes, P2P networks are also used by file-traders who illegally share copyrighted audio, video and text files; just as VCRs are used by bootleggers who illegally duplicate pre-recorded VHS cassettes for resale.

The Hollywood call for a ban on P2P is the most recent attack on the Betamax principle. While it's not clear how the MPAA companies will shut down P2P networks -- which are inherent in the Internet's architecture -- we can, perhaps, look to recent history for some idea.

In 1995, Hollywood's representatives in government penned "The Report of the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights," calling for a neutered Internet whose functionality had been magically constrained to "permit [rights-holders] to enforce the terms and conditions under which their works are made public."

To observers of Hollywood's lobbying efforts, the third section of the Status Report is a return to this old objective.

22-10-02, 05:39 AM	#6
multi Thanks for being with arse Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: The other side of the world Posts: 10,343	yes that was a good read i hope this is relevent... from: Hollywood's copyright fight might hit digitally close to home Hollywood provides a great escape, right? But how do consumers escape Tinseltown's desire to control more of our digital future? Because, if Hollywood gets its way, future digital devices will be manufactured only if approved by the entertainment industry. Also, digital monitoring systems would prohibit analog-to-digital media conversions -- no matter how innocuous. Plus, under one proposal, computer file-sharing services, such as Morpheus, Gnutella and other peer-to-peer networks, will go the way of recently departed yet highly popular Napster. All of these plans are being considered because technology is at the center of the copyright debate. Entertainment interests argue that the Internet threatens to topple their businesses by facilitating the easy exchange of all works, including copyrighted works, through file-sharing networks such as Kazaa and Gnutella. Accordingly, the entertainment industries are calling for a dramatic reformulation of copyright through laws and policies that erode many public freedoms in order to safeguard entertainment profits. On April 25th, 2002, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) filed a document with the Senate Judiciary Committee called the "Content Protection Status Report," in which the major film studios set out their three-point battle-plan for the copyright wars. First is the so-called "Broadcast Flag" mandate. [The Broadcast Flag is a signal embedded in a digital television signal, thus the name of the mandate.] Under this regime, all devices capable of receiving a digital television (DTV) broadcast will only be allowed to employ "output" or recording technologies that have been approved by MPAA member-companies. While this is proposed as a means of slowing the "Napsterization" of Hollywood movies that are aired on DTV channels, it goes much farther than that. Never before have American technologists been required to seek the entertainment industry's permission before making new devices. That's a lucky thing, too, as entertainment interests have sought to ban entertainment technologies from the player piano to the radio to the VCR. A Broadcast Flag mandate, like the one currently under consideration by the FCC, could grant those same companies the right to veto features in both special-purpose entertainment devices and general-purpose PCs that may never even be used in connection with a DTV program. The Broadcast Flag sets the stage for a much more sweeping objective: plugging the "analog hole." The "analog hole" refers to the fact that no matter how much copy-prevention there is wrapped around a digital file, eventually the file's contents have to be converted to an "analog" signal, which can be captured and re-digitized. For example, the music on a CD might be locked up in all kinds of advanced secret codes that prevent unauthorized copying and distribution, but when the CD is playing, the music can be captured by a digital audio recorder and converted to an "unprotected" MP3 that can be freely played on any device. At the core of this operation is a standard piece of electronics called an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), a low-cost, general purpose component that is employed any time the real world -- its sounds, sights and motion -- are fed into a computer. ADCs in your cellphone convert your voice to digital data; ADCs convert the signals captured by scientific instruments as diverse as MRIs, CAT scanners, seismographs and radio telescopes. Accordingly, the report calls for a regimen where "watermark detectors would be required in all devices that perform analog to digital conversions." The plan is to embed a "watermark" (a theoretical, possibly infeasible, invisible mark that can only be detected by special equipment and that can't be removed without damaging the media in which it was embedded) in all copyrighted works. Thereafter, every ADC would be accompanied by a "cop chip" that would sense this watermark's presence and disable certain features depending on the conditions. This is meant to work like so: You point your camcorder at a movie screen. The theoretical watermark embedded in the film on the screen is detected, and your camcorder records nothing but dead air. Under such a system, all unauthorized analog-to-digital conversion of copyrighted works is prevented. The problem is that not all unauthorized reproduction is unlawful -- in fact, a great deal of unauthorized reproduction is legal and customary, such as quoting a politician's stump-speech in a newscast, or recording a "mix-tape" of your favorite upbeat songs to listen to during your morning jog. More important still are the little, incidental reproductions we make of copyrighted works as we move through our daily round. A cop-chip in your cellphone would kill your conversation if you strayed too close to the watermarked music playing on a nearby stereo; your camcorder might refuse to capture your daughter's first steps if she takes them in front of your television during playback of a watermarked cartoon -- even your family holiday photos might come out blank if your loved ones pose too close to copyrighted building facades or logoed signage. Hollywood's report to Congress moves onto its third legislative goal: "Putting an end to the avalanche of movie theft on so-called 'file-sharing' services, such as Morpheus, Gnutella and other peer-to-peer (P2P) networks." P2P networks -- such as the Internet itself -- are simply general-purpose technologies, like VCRs or crowbars, with lawful and unlawful uses. Nevertheless, Hollywood argues that any system that facilitates infringement should be shut down by the courts. This is a time-honored tradition for the American entertainment industry, which spent 1976 to 1984 working in Congress and the Supreme Court to ban the VCR. That initiative resulted in the landmark "Betamax" Supreme Court decision, which established the principle that the test of a technology's lawfulness is not its potential for being used for infringement, but its capacity to be employed for "substantial non-infringing uses." VCRs -- which can be used to make unlawful copies of copyrighted videos -- are legal, on the basis of their myriad lawful uses. P2P networks are much the same. P2P networks are systems that permit two or more parties to share digital files. These networks are employed by academics to share audio-recordings of lectures, by archivists who share public domain books, music and films, and by independent artists who share promotional works freely with their fans. And yes, P2P networks are also used by file-traders who illegally share copyrighted audio, video and text files; just as VCRs are used by bootleggers who illegally duplicate pre-recorded VHS cassettes for resale. The Hollywood call for a ban on P2P is the most recent attack on the Betamax principle. While it's not clear how the MPAA companies will shut down P2P networks -- which are inherent in the Internet's architecture -- we can, perhaps, look to recent history for some idea. In 1995, Hollywood's representatives in government penned "The Report of the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights," calling for a neutered Internet whose functionality had been magically constrained to "permit [rights-holders] to enforce the terms and conditions under which their works are made public." To observers of Hollywood's lobbying efforts, the third section of the Status Report is a return to this old objective. __________________ i beat the internet - the end boss is hard Secret Temple of It

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20-10-02, 05:00 PM	#2
TankGirl Madame Comrade Join Date: May 2000 Location: Area 25 Posts: 5,587	Thanks, theknife! That mp3 newswire story is a great essay, recommended. - tg

20-10-02, 06:34 PM	#3
JackSpratts Join Date: May 2001 Location: New England Posts: 10,018	well don't worry kids, yer pal jackspratts is on the case. i recommended against passage by the senate and guess what? the senate didn't pass it. heh. if only it were that easy. this is obviously taking much longer than anyone realized but in the end if better legislation results it will have been worth it, and i think we will get a better bill. - js.