The Shit has hit the FAN!

[Technoid]

time is up

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ordered US computer and TV manufacturers to incorporate digital rights management (DRM) technology into their products by July 2005.

http://www.vnunet.com/News/1147647

[Gurm]

I'd love to hear their technological explanation of how this is to be implemented. I'm pretty sure we can safely ignore this latest ruling. After reading the article, the idea seems laughable.

How, exactly, are they going to force 3rd-party software manufacturers, many from countries where this law has no meaning, to enforce it?

Are they going to mandate that every person on the planet upgrade their media player?

I scoff at them.

- Gurm

[Jammrock]

Quoth the Jammrock:

Nothing is pirate-proof to a sufficiently talented and dedicated pirate.

[Gurm]

Yeah but this is worse.

This is the sort of legislation that says:

"We're going to mandate that EVERYONE on the PLANET upgrade to piracy-proof hardware and software, and that NOBODY uses any alternative software by anyone except Microsoft or Apple."

Not gonna happen.

- Gurm

[DukeP]

And how much are you going to bet that this shitty piece of US legislation is going to hit us poor US-centric Europeans?

We allready suffer under the piss-irritating DvD region II code (for the lucky or uninitiated, region II DvD's are on the street years after region I, and usually at a MUCH worse quality).

Ah well. We just need a bigger army.

~~DukeP~~

[The PIT]

I wouldn't be surprised if the cloth heads in the EU come up with a very similar idea. Since the world is 85% Microshaft 10% Apple and 5% other. All Microshaft and Apple have to say is "For the software too work on our systems the software has to use this rights crap and then be it certified by us otherwise it won't install".

[Gurm]

Yeah but will they? I seriously doubt it.

This would essentially require a fundamental shift in the way that apps are written for the PC. The Justice Department isn't going to be overly pleased if the FCC suggests that all apps have to be approved by Microsoft in order to be legal.

Then you'll STILL get black-market apps.

It's just silly, and it'll get shot down in whatever oversight committee is reserved for "this can't be done with the current level of technology" decisions.

Just like "taxing" the Internet was shot down, and "screening all e-mail everywhere" was shot down.

- Gurm

[spadnos]

@Gurm:

The US government can't make every manufacturer in the world add this shit to their devices. What they can do is prevent the import of any devices which don't have the required shit installed.

It's not illegal to make something without this technology, it's just illegal to import or sell it in the US.

(sometimes I hate the US corp^H^H^H^Hgovernment)

- Steve

edit: corrected typo

[Wulfman]

didn't linus say that it was ok for him to implement DRM into the kernel?

something along the lines of "he writes software and does not want to get involved in politics".

yeah, sure - you can always compile your own kernel without DRM, but how much of the global information pool (be it internet, software or media) will still be accessible then? time to learn chinese?

mfg
wulfman

[The PIT]

Looks like drm is on it's way one way or the other.

[Gurm]

No, it isn't.

How are they going to get it into products?

They're not going to just sue everyone.

Someone in a little oversight committee is going to say "uh... sir? You realize you've just legislated something that can't actually be done, right?"

How are they going to ensure that the software that I write contains that code? It never will. They'd have to arrest me, and if they arrested me, I'd be in jail - and not releasing software with that code.

The problem is that I think that everyone in government is under the impression that all PC's are made by Dell... and that Dell actually builds all their own components.

Then they think that all software is made by Microsoft... and that Microsoft actually hand-codes every part of it.

It's legislation based on unrealistic expectations. It'll get ignored, trust me on this one.

It's not just that I _want_ it to go away, although that is also surely true. It's that it WILL go away, much like the telecommunications act did.

- Gurm

[Dr Mordrid]

One way is in the IEEE-1394 spec, which will increasingly be used for connecting home theater devices. The IEEE-1394 chipsets made for use in them have DRM embedded.

Dr. Mordrid

[Wulfman]

or like the DMCA? everybody laughed about that one too... until the first people were arrested when arriving in the US.

mfg
wulfman

[Gurm]

Arrested, but... has anyone been successfully JAILED on this? Last I knew everyone was walking free while it was challenged. The Supreme Court is, IIRC, scheduled to have a hearing on its constitutionality.

But the DMCA is merely a means to sue people - not a legal requirement to perform impossible tasks.

Laws saying what you CAN'T do are more likely to pass than laws saying what you MUST do.

- Gurm

[Marshmallowman]

Great...the information revolution, information and ideas can be copied and spread across the world with lightning ease. A boom for communciation and development of ideas in various virtual comunitites....So lets legislate it back to the pen paper age, I think these people better realise they can have some control of which direction it progress's if the keep in step, but if the try and force shite to happen they are going to lose any semblance of control they think they have.

And to sum up...

HAHAHAHAHAHA......yeah ROFL