‘Massive power grab’
p2pnet.net news:- Back in December, 2002, p2pnet posted, “The official deadline for submissions to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Hollywood’s Broadcast Flag scheme was passed on December 6. What now remains is whether or not this, the entertainment industry’s most blatant attempt so far to directly control what consumers see and do, will be forced through.
“Concocted by that small group of movie companies and record labels known collectively as Hollywood (with a handful of associated hardware and software manufacturers lurking behind them), Broadcast Flag ostensibly calls for purpose-built technology to be ‘inserted’ into streaming stations under the pretext of preventing copyrighted items from being pirated.
“Actually, it’s part of an ongoing, very carefully orchestrated plan by Hollywood and others to plug directly into user environments – ie, private homes – to control what’s being played and/or viewed also gaining, in the process, hitherto private and confidential information from, and about, users and their habits.”
The companies band together under the Digital Video Broadcasting Project (DVB) and they’ve now made their move.
“The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the only public interest group to have gained entrance into the secretive meetings of the Digital Video Broadcasting Project (DVB), a group that creates the television and video specifications used in Europe, Australia, and much of Asia and Africa,” say the foundation’s Ren Bucholz and Seth Schoen, announcing Who Controls Your Television? – a new briefing paper.
US movie and TV companies have convinced the DVB to create new technical specifications that would build digital rights management technologies into televisions, they say, stressing, “These specifications are likely to take away consumers’ rights, which will subsequently be sold back to them piecemeal – so entertainment fans will have to pay again and again for legitimate uses of lawfully acquired digital television content.”
Hollywood spin organization the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) recently reported eye-popping revenues for the major studios.
And yet, says the EFF, “American movie and television studios insist that new technologies could ruin their industry. In past battles against innovation, these same studios sued to block the sale of the VCR and the first mass-marketed digital video recorder in the U.S. Having failed in those efforts, they have now turned to creating technical standards that, when backed by law, are likely to restrict consumers’ existing rights and threaten the future of technological innovation.”
“A little-noticed standards body is crafting a new regime of restrictions that will shape the future of television,” wrote Cory Doctorow in 2005, going on, “The Digital Video Broadcasting Project (DVB) is a standards-specifying body that creates standards for digital television in Europe, Australia, and much of Asia. Consumers – who have not been consulted – have much to fear from behind the closed doors of DVB.
“This specification is called Content Protection Copy Management (CPCM) and it represents a grave danger to national development priorities, social concepts of the family, competition, customary public rights in copyright, and innovation.
“When CPCM emerges from its DVB committees, it will be presented to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the European standardisation body that turns the DVB’s specifications into standards. Thereafter, each nation whose digital television system is based on DVB specifications will be encouraged with all the lobbying pressure big U.S. entertainment companies can bring to bear to adopt regulations giving CPCM the force of law. “
Well, it’s emerged and, “”DVB is abetting a massive power grab by the content industry, and many of the world’s largest technology companies are simply watching,” says Bucholz, EFF policy coordinator, Americas. “This regime was concocted without input from consumer rights organizations or public interest groups, and it shows.”
With DVB, “the plan begun by entertainment companies in the U.S. has now gone global,” warns the EFF, saying its report is aimed at alerting European consumer groups and consumers about the dangers posed by the proposed standards and providing informational resources for European regulators.
Also See:
p2pnet posted – Broadcast Flag – to be, or not to be?, December 8, 2002
EFF – American Studios’ Secret Plan to Lock Down European TV Devices, March 13, 2007
eye-popping revenues – Hollywood reports record revenues, March 6, 2007
Cory Doctorow – New Digital Restriction regime, October 17, 2007
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