Re: [DMCA-Activists] DRM news

[Jonathan Watterson]

My profoundest apologies, Serge. It won't happen again.

J

On Thu, 2002-06-13 at 12:38, Serge Wroclawski wrote:
> This is the second time you've done this!
> 
> You take my personal mail and you decide to address it to a public group.
> 
> You clearly have no clue about privacy or manners.
> 
> I will be sure not to mail you anything I don't want to be personal again.
> 
> - Serge Wroclawski
> 
> On 13 Jun 2002, Jonathan Watterson wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 2002-06-13 at 11:09, Serge Wroclawski wrote:
> > >
> > > I thought it as the issue that RMS and Bruce Perens were discussing a
> > > month or so back...
> > >
> > > They (certain parties) want to make DRM a requirement in television and
> > > furthermore a requirement that all devices have it.
> > >
> > > That means no FS implementations of TV.
> > >
> > > Wish I had more details.
> > >
> > > - Serge
> >
> > Hey, Serge, thanks for asking, and you're not a schmuck. ;) I suddenly
> > realize I haven't been keeping you guys posted on what's going on. Let
> > me catch up.
> >
> > The issue you mention is the BPDG, or the Broadcast Protection
> > Discussion Group. It is a nominally "open" group, reporting to a
> > subcommittee of the MPAA, that's been meeting for the past year to come
> > up with tech specifications for copy-protection/DRM controls to be
> > installed in all devices capable of transmitting digital TV signals,
> > including any computer with a video card. The end goal of the group was
> > to present its results to Congress and have them made mandatory. This
> > would criminalize GNU Radio. The group consists mostly of people from
> > the tech industry, Hollywood, cable and satellite TV, and related
> > industries.
> >
> > We and the EFF crashed the party. We put ourselves on the BPDG mailing
> > list. Seth and Cory at the EFF maintain a weblog documenting the whole
> > thing, at http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/. Last month Brad and I, along with
> > Seth, Cory, and dozens of slashdotters, sat in on a conference call,
> > scheduled to hammer out the details just before the "final report" was
> > to be presented. That phone call is documented here:
> > http://old.lwn.net/daily/bpdg-notes.php3.
> >
> > Largely as a result of our free-software advocacy and the EFF's consumer
> > advocacy, the whole BPDG process fell apart. Tech companies like
> > Philips, who looked ready to comply with Hollywood's plan for political
> > purposes, suddenly were willing to raise their concerns -- after all,
> > the plan would have given Hollywood *veto power* over any new
> > digital-TV-related technology. Even *Microsoft* objected to the process,
> > essentially putting them on our side. As a result, the "final report"
> > was mostly a documentation of the group's inability to achieve
> > consensus.
> >
> > I would forward the "final report" to the list, but it consists of
> > several large ZIP files each including a bunch of really gnarly Word
> > documents. If anyone wants it, let me know.
> >
> > The next steps: the BPDG has passed the buck to the shadier "policy" or
> > "parallel" group, formed in conjunction with the BPDG to handle politics
> > while BPDG handled tech. We're on their mailing list too, but after the
> > slashdotted conference call, the cabal seems to be much less willing to
> > discuss their business online. It is likely that before the end of the
> > year, either (1) the parallel group will produce a DRM system that they
> > will ask Congress to rubber-stamp, or (2) we will see a renewed push for
> > the Hollings bill. Either way, however, we have thrown a big monkey
> > wrench into the system and bought some time.
> >
> > The most immediate thing that y'all can do is spread the word. Shining
> > the light of day on this process is what will thwart it. They're still
> > putting people on the mailing lists for BPDG and the "parallel" group;
> > directions are at http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/archives/000005.html#000005.
> > Other than that, we're still formulating a longer-term strategy (and
> > we're always open to ideas). But the bottom line is that now the DRM
> > hydra will stick another head up somewhere and we have to watch for
> > where that somewhere will be.
> >
> > J
> >
> >
> 
> -- 
> "If you try to call the nested function through its address after the
> containing function has exited, all hell will break loose." - St IGNUcius
> 
> 
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-- 
Jonathan Watterson                                Digital Freedom Organizer
http://digitalspeech.org                          Free Software Foundation

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