stefanb
04-18-2002, 06:17 PM
The Motion Picture Ass. of America is back up to their old tricks (circa 1983). For those of you who don't follow, or don't care about Copyright laws, now might be a good wake-up time. Back in the early 80's, Disney and Universal Studios fought Sony, all the way to the Supreme Court, to stop the first Betamax VCR from being released and sold commercially. They argued that it could be used to pirate movies. They lost (thankfully), and VCR's are the freedom we enjoy today because of that. One could argue that they should learn from their past mistakes, but they don't. Rather then trying to embrace new technology and look for ways to market their products through it, the MPAA continually tries to quash anything new, and stamp it out of existance...
It's rare that really well written articles come along, but I like this one...
http://online.securityfocus.com/columnists/71
...If you don't want Hollywood being able to supress the innovation of new technology (in the same way they wanted to supress VCR's back in the 80's), this might just be a good time to take an active interest. The louder people complain, the less likely Hollywood will be allowed this sort of control...
From the article...
What is all this likely to mean to consumers? A lot less functionality, with content locked down to single device. Want to listen to that song on your MP3 player? Fat chance. Play that movie on a different machine when yours dies? Forget about it. And don't even think about writing software that might show video, play music or display images without ensuring that it is pre-approved by Hollywood. They will be happy to sic the copyright police on you.
Under this legislation, many of the innovative devices we use every day like VCRs and MP3 players would never have been permitted to come to market, without first being pre-approved by the copyright police. It will be like the old days when you could not hook up anything to your phone line unless Ma Bell approved. Except this time it's Ma Mickey.
It's also likely that they will try and use the standard to ban retention of any home copies, automatically refusing to play recorded items after some period of time. (The bill claims that it protects consumer rights -- but the FCC will do its usual hand wringing and cave into industry demands.) It seems like the studios' dream device is a box, with no remote, that plays whatever they want it to play and hooks directly into your eyes to prevent copying and into your bank account to debit on demand.
For once the IT industry is unified in opposing a bill on copyright -- hoping that a strong defeat of this will send a message that Hollywood doesn't get everything it wants. Let's hope they are right. It's a good time to bury this Mickey Mouse legislation.
http://142.165.49.53/images/sig.gif
It's rare that really well written articles come along, but I like this one...
http://online.securityfocus.com/columnists/71
...If you don't want Hollywood being able to supress the innovation of new technology (in the same way they wanted to supress VCR's back in the 80's), this might just be a good time to take an active interest. The louder people complain, the less likely Hollywood will be allowed this sort of control...
From the article...
What is all this likely to mean to consumers? A lot less functionality, with content locked down to single device. Want to listen to that song on your MP3 player? Fat chance. Play that movie on a different machine when yours dies? Forget about it. And don't even think about writing software that might show video, play music or display images without ensuring that it is pre-approved by Hollywood. They will be happy to sic the copyright police on you.
Under this legislation, many of the innovative devices we use every day like VCRs and MP3 players would never have been permitted to come to market, without first being pre-approved by the copyright police. It will be like the old days when you could not hook up anything to your phone line unless Ma Bell approved. Except this time it's Ma Mickey.
It's also likely that they will try and use the standard to ban retention of any home copies, automatically refusing to play recorded items after some period of time. (The bill claims that it protects consumer rights -- but the FCC will do its usual hand wringing and cave into industry demands.) It seems like the studios' dream device is a box, with no remote, that plays whatever they want it to play and hooks directly into your eyes to prevent copying and into your bank account to debit on demand.
For once the IT industry is unified in opposing a bill on copyright -- hoping that a strong defeat of this will send a message that Hollywood doesn't get everything it wants. Let's hope they are right. It's a good time to bury this Mickey Mouse legislation.
http://142.165.49.53/images/sig.gif