Public Knowledge vs FCC
p2pnet.net News:- Mike Godwin, legal director for the digital-rights advocacy group Public Knowledge, missed the season finale of the new drama series Huff. So he downloaded it.
It took about seven hours, “using the latest file-sharing software designed to handle large digital files,” says the New York Times.
But the time it took to download, and the file’s poor quality, suggest to Godwin that the “rampant piracy of digitized broadcast programs – a threat Hollywood has long warned against” is less than imminent, says the story, going on, “But to the Federal Communications Commission and the Motion Picture Association of America, cases like this one suggest a future of widespread illegal file-sharing that must be stopped before it begins.”
Of course, not only has file-sharing already begun, it’s well under way and has been so for some considerable time.
Some files are indeed poor quality. But BitTorrent sites are can be extremely fast and many of them are replete not only with TV shows, but also with high resolution full-length movies.
Which is why some of the larger and better known BT sites are being targetted by the MPAA in a multi-million-dollar PR move that’s more than a little reminiscent of the RIAA’s (Recording Industry Association of America) unsuccessful sue ‘em all campaign aimed at music file sharers.
“The debate will be presented in oral arguments tomorrow before the District of Columbia Circuit for the United States Court of Appeals in a lawsuit brought by Public Knowledge and others against the F.C.C., challenging a new regulation that is intended to prevent such bleeding of television content onto the Internet,” says the NYT.
“This is about whether the F.C.C. is going to become the Federal Computer Commission and the Federal Copyright Commission,” it has said Gigi B. Sohn, the co-founder and president of Public Knowledge, saying. “The F.C.C. does not have the power to tell technology manufacturers how to build their machines.”
The new rule would limit “unauthorized” online sharing of digital broadcast content and as of July 1, all new consumer electronics equipment capable of receiving over-the-air digital signals – from digital televisions to computers equipped with TV tuner cards – must include technology that will recognize a Broadcast Flag, says the report.
The entertainment industry and major hardware and software makers claim this will allow them to prevent copyright infringements.
Another way of looking at it is that Broadcast Flag would give Hollywood and its adherents complete remote control over what people hear and see in the privacy of their homes.
“There is no evidence on the record that piracy of digital broadcast content is a problem now or is going to be a problem in the near future,” Sohn states. “We don’t want agencies making rules based on nothing. And there’s also no evidence that the broadcast flag will do what it wants it to do.”
“Everything would have to be built to this single standard,” Susan Crawford, a professor of Internet law at the Cardozo School of Law in New York says in the story. “It’s like being bitten in the neck by a vampire. As soon as you buy one compliant device, you’ll have to continue buying new devices to keep them working together.”
Of course, there’s always the DIY solution
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See:-
seven hours - Federal Effort to Head Off TV Piracy Is Challenged, New York Times, February 21, 2005
targetted – Hollywood vs BitTorrent, p2pnet, December 15, 2004
DIY solution – Beat Broadcast Flag, p2pnet, July 5, 2004
