New FCC Chair and DRM

[Meuge]

Quoted from Slashdot:
Newest Commissioner Deborah Tate has apparently announced that while she knows its outside the FCC's authority, she's a huge fan of copy protection and hopes to use her new position as a "bully pulpit" on the topic.

Now is it just me, or is this just the next logical step in the continued bribing of government officials by the RIAA/MPAA? I file this under the next "broadcast flag" initiative, which,despite being struck as illegal on FCCs part last year, is likely to come back with the new FCC chair.

Maybe I am misunderstanding something, but I don't think that it's the function of the FCC to force the consumers to abide by RIAAs failed business model of beating their customers into obeying their every whim.

 

[zendari]

Pretty crappy, but I doub't she will do much other than blow smoke.

 

[MadRat]

Why should our tax dollars support another Bush appointed ackjass like her?

 

[zendari]

Originally posted by: MadRat
Why should our tax dollars support another Bush appointed ackjass like her?

Because Congress and FDR decided to establish the FCC in the first place.

Text

 

[jackschmittusa]

I keep waiting for the government to tell us how DRM will help in the war on terror. Then they can call you a traitor if you oppose it.

 

[EatSpam]

Originally posted by: zendari
Pretty crappy, but I doub't she will do much other than blow smoke.

I thought you'd be a huge fan of DRM and copy protection. I mean, isn't it great for the CEOs when a person has to buy several copies of a given movie or CD, just so they can use it in more than one place?

 

[M00T]

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa
I keep waiting for the government to tell us how DRM will help in the war on terror. Then they can call you a traitor if you oppose it.

true, true.

 

[MAW1082]

Originally posted by: Meuge
Maybe I am misunderstanding something, but I don't think that it's the function of the FCC to force the consumers to abide by RIAAs failed business model of beating their customers into obeying their every whim.

Yeah, I think you have a lot to learn about the history of the FCC and broadcast regulations. It brings us back to the dawn of wireless communications and the story of the famous inventor Howard Armstrong. You should read it . . .

But a Cliffs Notes version for the lazy: Armstrong invented both AM and FM radio but he got in a fight with the chairman of RCA David Sarnoff and Sarnoff about the future of this communication. After Armstrong invented FM radio, Sarnoff immediately rejected it supposed "noiseless"quality and labeled it as inferior to AM, Later, after his engineers had verified it superiority, Sarnoff bribed the FCC to relocate its bandwidth allocation in order to render useless the receivers Armstrong had produced and sold. The story continues . . . its pretty interesting

Link to Story

 

[Rainsford]

The story of the FCC and DRM is a textbook example of why we need a strong and independent judiciary. The FCC LOVES DRM and the industry groups that support it, but the FCC is in the tragic position of not actually having the authority to regulate DRM on an end-user box. Their charter is for regulating SIGNALS, nothing else. They can madate, for example, that over the air HDTV must include a broadcast flag, but they can't mandate that the end-user box has to obey it.

Being the typical corrupt bunch of jackasses, they decided to hell with what they were supposed to be doing, they are going to stick their noses into the end-user box. And they tried, making themselves look to be as much in the pocket of the RIAA/MPAA as humanly possible. But the courts pretty much told them that they were outside of their authority, and they could go cram it with walnuts. In a system with an all powerful executive branch, that would never have happened. Thankfully, we live in a system where corrupt assholes can't quite ruin everything yet.

 

[zendari]

Originally posted by: EatSpam

Originally posted by: zendari
Pretty crappy, but I doub't she will do much other than blow smoke.

I thought you'd be a huge fan of DRM and copy protection. I mean, isn't it great for the CEOs when a person has to buy several copies of a given movie or CD, just so they can use it in more than one place?

No, it isn't, and nobody has to.