Halloween on the Hill

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: November 1, 2005 9:52:18 AM EST
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Halloween on the Hill
Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com

Halloween on the Hill
October 31, 2005
<http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004106.php>

    If you would like to join our jamboree
    There's a simple rule that's compulsory
    Mortals pay a token fee
    Rest in peace; the haunting's free

- The Crypt, Disney's The Haunted Mansion

Halloween is traditionally the time when the undead walk;  
preposterous monstrosities that no-one could imagine living stumble  
and moan through the land.

So guess what the entertainment industry decided to dust off for an  
extra spooky session with the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday?

Why, yes, they are bringing the broadcast flag. And, certainly, there  
is talk of their henchmen at the RIAA clumsily re-animating their  
insane digital radio requirements.

But that's not spooky enough for the MPAA. For their party trick this  
year, they want to take one of the most basic and ubiquitous  
components in multimedia, and encase it within a pile of legally- 
enforced, complex, and patented proprietary technology - forever.

Ladies and gentlemen, the MPAA have chosen Halloween week to  
resurrect their most misconceived monster ever: the Thing from the  
Analog Hole.

Feel free to flick through this new Halloween document: it's a  
legislative draft proposed by the MPAA for a hearing of the House  
Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, on  
the topic "Content Protection in the Digital Age: The Broadcast Flag,  
High-Definition Radio, and the Analog Hole," on November 3rd.

On Thursday, they'll be no doubt declaring this law's passing to be  
vital to the entertainment industry's survival, just as Jack Valenti  
told the same committee that the home video-recorder would kill the  
film industry.

Here's what the proposed law says, in a nutshell:

Every consumer analog video input device manufactured in the United  
States will be, within a year, forced to obey not one, but two new  
copy restriction technologies: a watermarking system called VEIL, and  
a rights system called CGMS-A (we've covered CGMS-A before; we'll  
talk a bit more about VEIL soon).

And what might these MPAA-specified, government-mandated technologies  
do?

[snip]

Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>


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