Will your big-screen Super Bowl party violate copyright law?: Via Law & Disorder Section - Ars Technica.
An offhand comment the other day by a friend caught my attention—"Did you know that you can't watch the Super Bowl on a TV screen larger than 55 inches? Yeah, it's right there in the law."
With the Colts and Saints set to do battle in Super Bowl XLIV, this seemed worth looking into as a public service. Could it be that some of those giant flat panel TV sets now finding their way into US living rooms are actually violating copyright law?
Read Original Article:(Via Law & Disorder Section - Ars Technica.)
SOC's slippery slope: good enough for movies, why not sports?: Via Law & Disorder Section - Ars Technica.
Back when we had our debate with cable's top lobbyist Kyle McSlarrow over whether to let Hollywood block analog streams to your home theater setup, I asked a worried question. If the Federal Communications Commission does give movie studios and cable companies the green light to implement Selectable Output Control (SOC) on "premium" early run movies, who else might petition for it next? read more... »
MPAA to FCC: critics of video blocking proposals are lying: Via Law & Disorder Section - Ars Technica.
The movie studios have a new Holy Grail, it seems: Federal Communications Commission permission to cable companies to shut down the analog streams on video-on-demand movie programming. As Ars readers know, we've been covering this issue for a while. But the Motion Picture Association of America's latest letter to the FCC pulls out all the stops, rhetoric-wise, calling criticisms of this scheme "complete and utter nonsense that only can be intended to stir up baseless fears among consumers that their equipment will suddenly go dark and be unusable for any purpose." read more... »
Apple’s iTunes Pitch: TV for $30 a Month: Via Your Mac Life - The Internet's #1 Mac Broadcast!.
Would you pay $30 a month to watch TV via iTunes?
That’s the pitch Apple has been making to TV networks in recent weeks. The company is trying to round up support for a monthly subscription service that would deliver TV programs via its multimedia software. read more... »
Hollywood Pressuring FCC on Selectable Output Control Again: Via EFF.org Updates.
Our friends at Public Knowledge have been doing a great job in Washington, D.C., fighting against the MPAA's efforts to selectively disable the high-definition analog (i.e., "component" video) outputs on your cable box. In essence, Hollywood is telling the FCC that it won't give Americans early access to blockbuster movies unless the FCC lets it kill your analog outputs.
Public Knowledge has an update today, letting us know that Hollywood is back at the FCC pushing for this anti-consumer, anti-innovation change in the FCC rules: read more... »
License to Kill Innovation: the Broadcast Flag for UK Digital TV?: Via EFF.org Updates.
The British MP Tom Watson has highlighted a digital TV consultation by UK regulator Ofcom, held in response to an inquiry from the BBC (the consultation deadline is this Wednesday):
The BBC has indicated that third party content owners are seeking to ensure that reception equipment will implement ... copy protection. Because [these] requirements are not mandatory, representatives of content owners have asked the BBC to take steps to ensure that reception equipment will implement the specified content management arrangements.
Veterans of the broadcast flag battle in the United States will recognise this language: rightsholders are once again attempting to use the power of the public regulators to force universal DRM on the general public, and place their veto power over the next generation of HD digital TV technology. read more... »
Digital Television begins today - 6/13/09: Via New York News and Tri-State News - 7online.com.
NEW YORK (WABC) -- TV shows were replaced by the hiss of static in perhaps 1 million U.S. homes Friday as stations ended their analog broadcasts and abandoned the transmission technology in use since the days of Milton Berle, Sid Caesar and Howdy Doody.
Channel 7 turned off its analog signal and switched to digital at 12:30 p.m. following Eyewitness News at Noon. read more... »
Into the DTV era, with no broadcast flag mandate: Via EFF.org Updates.
Today (June 12, 2009) marks the completion of the U.S. transition to digital television, as TV stations switch off their analog transmitters.
Just a few years ago, some broadcasters and movie studios argued that this transition couldn't happen without a DRM mandate -- a legal requirement for devices to obey the broadcast flag and apply DRM restrictions to free, over-the-air broadcasts. And they said they would hold up and obstruct this transition unless they got their way.
The DMCA has already been used to restrict the ability to produce innovative, useful products that copyright holders disapprove of. read more... »
"Wake up and smell the converter box": FCC talks DTV switch: Via Law & Disorder Section - Ars Technica.
"Let's do it, man. Lock and load," declared
G.W. Green, aka "Offender #576" just prior to his execution by the state of Texas in 1991. One sensed a somewhat similar esprit de corps here at the Federal Communications Commission, where a mid-sized platoon of government, industry, and technology types gathered on Wednesday to stare DTV Day version 2.0 in the face—it's coming (yes way; for real) on Friday, June 12. read more... »
FCC will run nationwide DTV "soft test" on May 21: Via Law & Disorder Section - Ars Technica.
The "end is near," declared Federal Communications Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein at Tuesday's Open Commission meeting. Adelstein was referring to the DTV transition, scheduled to conclude on Friday, June 12, one month from now. There are still 927 full power television stations that have to make the jump from analog to digital by then. To get a sense of who is or isn't really ready for this apocalypse, the agency has called upon those broadcasters to run a "soft test" of the switch three times on Thursday, May 21.
Read Original Article:(Via Law & Disorder Section - Ars Technica.)