Lauren Weinstein's Blog Update: Trying to Plug the Analog Hole -- An Exercise in MPAA Futility

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: lauren () vortex com
Date: November 2, 2005 11:46:45 AM EST
To: lauren-blog-notify () vortex com
Subject: Lauren Weinstein's Blog Update: Trying to Plug the Analog  
Hole -- An Exercise in MPAA Futility

 Lauren Weinstein's Blog Update: Trying to Plug the Analog Hole --  
An Exercise in MPAA Futility

                           November 02, 2005


------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000159.html



------------------------------------------------------------------------

Greetings.   As you can read for yourself in a <a
href="http://www.eepi.org/analog-hole-2005.pdf";>new MPAA draft
document</a>, the MPAA is back with another astoundingly inane proposal
that would take Digital Rights Management (DRM) somewhere to the right
of Attila the Hun.  The Target: The infamous "analog hole" and the
ability of consumers to digitize analog materials on their own.

I won't even bother itemizing here the long list of ways in which
attempts to "copy protect" analog sources are outrageous, oppressive,
anti-consumer, and expressions of hubris on high, with a vast range of
negative technological and social consequences, both planned and
unintended by the proponents of such malarkey.

Instead, I have a simple comment for the would-be "analog hole
pluggers":

Take a memo guys, it ain't gonna work!     You will put yourselves,
politicians, and the rest of us through the wringer, and in the end the
video piracy situation will be as bad as before -- probably even worse
since otherwise law-abiding and anti-piracy viewers may be driven to
piracy just out of spite from your  overreaching.

The main reason that the plan is doomed from the word go is that it
only takes <b>one</b> digital copy of any given material to render the
analog hole meaningless for that item.  And that digital copy will be
able to saturate the Internet despite any attempts at controlling ISPs,
blocking file sharing, or even the return of Hypnovision!

There will always be very large numbers of "uncontrolled" analog
conversion points.  It is guaranteed that unauthorized
analog-to-digital conversions will take place, in most cases at
multiple locations.  And once that happens, it's game over for
controlling the digital existence of that particular item.  This
<b>will</b> happen with every single desirable item of media that
you're attempting to control down by the ol' analog hole.

So in the end, what you'll have accomplished is inconveniencing honest
consumers -- who aren't your real enemies -- while living up to old
Soviet-style information control philosophies (which, by the way, were
largely ineffective for them, too.)

I don't like piracy.  I'm sympathetic to <b>legitimate</b> concerns
about piracy.  But as a famous fictional starship engineer once said,
"Ya' cannot change the laws of physics!"  Attempts to plug the analog
hole won't do any good, but will do a lot of damage to technology,
society, and -- oh yes -- to you.

--Lauren--

--
Powered by Movable Type
Version 2.64
http://www.movabletype.org/


-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/