MPAA, RIAA, Broadcast Flag
p2p news / p2pnet:- The entertainment and software cartels have millions of dollars to spend and thousands of lawyers available to steamroll their self-interest agendas through congress, not to mention other law-making bodies throughout the world.
Fortunately, thanks to the Net and blogs and news web sites and citizen reporters, they’re losing control of the way the public at large gets its information >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Stopping the Signal: Broadcast Flag Update #2
By Danny O’Brien – EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
Not long ago we updated you on the MPAA and RIAA’s shenanigans to smuggle the Broadcast Flag through the United States Senate. Those who paid attention during “Schoolhouse Rock” will realize that’s only half of the duo’s burden. To make the Flag law, they must march it past the House of Representatives, too.
Now the second shoe has dropped: 20 members of the House sent an open letter to Congressman Fred Upton, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet (part of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce), and its ranking member, Edward J. Markey. All 20 pledged their allegiance to the Broadcast Flag.
The letter is short, with a single substantive talking point. If Congress doesn’t deliver a Broadcast Flag pronto, warns the letter, content producers will abandon free, over-the-air broadcast TV.
To pound home this dire threat, the phrase “free, over-the-air television” is repeated no fewer than eight times – with four repetitions in four consecutive sentences. It’s a little like the local racketeer rustling up extra protection money by emphasizing over and over how beautiful your precious Ming vase is, and what a tragedy it would be if anything were to happen to it.
But no matter how many times this threat is repeated, it’s not even close to credible. The corporations that make up the MPAA have been threatening to boycott digital TV for years, without ever actually managing to stop broadcasting. Of course, Mr. Upton doesn’t really need convincing, anyway. He’s already gone on record as supporting the Broadcast Flag.
So why are 20 House representatives writing him a public letter? Because Mr. Upton is the one who needs a show of support.
You see, it appears that the MPAA and RIAA may have a problem with the House of Representatives.
The driver of digital TV legislation in the House is Joe Barton, Chairman of the Commerce Committee. And if what we hear through beltway back channels is true, Barton wants a deal. He believes that if the MPAA wants the Broadcast Flag in his bill so badly, it should be willing to compromise.
But the MPAA is in no mood for discussion. It wants to ram this bill through as quickly as possible, and it’s leaning on Upton to stay the course. The letter is a way of saying that Upton isn’t alone.
Fortunately for us, the fact that 20 out of 57 committee members support the Flag sends a message the MPAA doesn’t want anyone to hear: the Broadcast Flag is controversial. If it wasn’t, no one would be writing open letters to anyone else. And that means this committee has a duty to engage in serious, careful, comprehensive discussion and debate before the Flag legislation goes anywhere.
The Hollywood lobbyists are tallying their support, but they don’t have the majority of the committee convinced. Do your part: tell your representative that you and your fellow constituents won’t stand for the Broadcast Flag, especially without a hearing showing evidence that anyone but the MPAA and RIAA supports it.
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- Mohandas Gandhi
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October 11th, 2005 at 10:16 pm
thank christ i dont live in the US!!
October 11th, 2005 at 11:02 pm
How is your comment helpful? I go to /. today and get a little fed up with how, when there’s a very serious threat to privacy in a Canadian public policy initiative, the board fills up with cheap Canadian jokes. Here the issue is a serious threat to digital freedom in U.S. public policy, which could well turn into a template for the rest of the West, and you rush to post such an asinine comment. Proud of getting first post?
October 11th, 2005 at 11:52 pm
don’t be too thankful yet. I just read a news article where Industry groups overseas in Hong Kong and in other countries are banding together with the US anti “piracy” groups and are going to review our laws to see how they can make them apply in their countries.
http://www.news.gov.hk/en/category/lawandorder/051010/features/html/051010en08004.htm
October 12th, 2005 at 1:43 am
I wrote my congressmen and they had not heard of this. Seems these ogres are cloaking their actions somehow and just pushing them right past the Congress. How? Collusion?
October 12th, 2005 at 6:32 am
Every tv/video/dvd/tivo etc manufacturer in the world who ever MIGHT want to sell so much as ONE single product to the us will be REQUIRED to implement the broadcast flag in ALL of their product lines. Just in case. And i’m sure all of them do sell some product to the US as well as everywhere else.
This is regardless of what the law in your country thinks about broadcast flags too. After all, if other countries could get the same content without the broadcast flag in it, that content could be pirated back to US ppl couldn’t it? So once the US govt is tamed, the rest of the world will be targeted soon after.
Here’s the link to the p2p article on the euro version of a broadcast flag. http://p2pnet.net/story/6466
October 12th, 2005 at 8:21 pm
It would seem that some Amercans want to legislate for the world to limit the exchange of free speech (text/sound/video), works in the public domain and works that were produced by foreigners.
Let us consider:
- Hardly any communications, recording, playback and viweing equipment in used anywhere, including America, is manufactured in America. Why this is so is another story.
- The vast majority (about 95 percent) of published and non published speech (text/sound/video) is produced outside of America.
- The vast majority of works produced by humans are in the public domain.
- As time goes by, all communications will be one big international system as is already the Internet.
Who the hell are these arrogant legislators that want to limit the free movement of speech (text/sound/video) throught the world? Fascists in desguise?
Rafael Venengas
http://www.gvenegas.com
October 13th, 2005 at 12:03 am
I can’t believe the first poster is so dense as to believe that if it happens here where the majority of media wants to be because of the largest market that he himself will never see such being in another country.
Typically the cartels get such passed in one country and hold it up as “the shining example” that other countries should emulate. Through hook or crook the other countries usually fall into line, either by being presented with WIPO penalties if they don’t or with heavy “contributions” to policital figureheads if that won’t work. Ask those in Canada now fighting for their rights if they aren’t seeing some of this same stuff being employed within their lawmakers.
October 13th, 2005 at 8:37 pm
I got the impression they are just banning together to do this. Or to put it more bluntly the media cartel is saying that only systems that follow their new broadcast flag standard will have access to their ‘content’. Since it’s already illegal to decrypt the encrypted signals only systems they provide can legally be used… no laws need to be changed for them to do it.
Bend over little guy, here comes the cartels!