Tauzin Says Congress Will Have to Legislate Digital Piracy Flap (Bye-Bye To Your Recording Rights?)

Mediaweek.com ^ | July 15, 2002 | Todd Shields

[Timesink]

BREAKING NEWS FROM ADWEEK ONLINE*MEDIAWEEK ONLINE*BRANDWEEK ONLINE --

Tauzin Says Congress Will Have to Legislate Digital Piracy Flap

Private industry has failed to agree on how to protect digital-TV broadcasts from Internet piracy, so Congress will move to impose standards, Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.), the chairman of the powerful House Commerce Committee, said Monday.

Tauzin, who has been pushing for movement in the much-delayed transition to digital television, spoke upon emerging from a closed-door Capitol Hill meeting of broadcasters, movie studio executives, consumer group representatives and officials of the computer and consumer electronics industries.

Tauzin said he had told his committee's staff to begin drafting legislation to create a copy-protection standard. Such a standard is considered necessary because movie studios and networks may withhold digital programming if it is vulnerable to piracy.

Tauzin said he would seek hearings in September. He invited industry figures to continue working toward the compromise that has eluded them since cross-industry negotiations commenced in November, and indicated such an agreement could yet be incorporated into legislation.

"If they have a compromise we'll have less work to do," Tauzin said. "If they don't, well do it for them." -- Todd Shields

[Timesink]

This could, theoretically, lead to Congress taking away our rights to use VCRs, or even Tivos, once all the TV stations in the country are forced to switch over to all-digital broadcasts.

[Recovering_Democrat]

I'm not worried: SCOTUS, I believe, has ruled on the Constitutionality of videotapes...this shouldn't be a threat.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

I've been watching this guy Tauzin for a while. There is no doubt in my mind that he has been in the pocket of the regional Bells (i.e SW Bell, Verizon etc.) and against the interest of the inter-exchange carriers (i.e. AT&T and others). I think this guy has a lot of power and a lot of clout and is for sale to the highest bidder. It looks like the recording and movie industries have just made a similar move to the Baby Bells. This stuff is of more than just passing interest as there are those that argue that the re-emergence of the Baby Bells at the explense of the inter-exchange carriers and the competitive local exchange carriers, has caused a good bit of the telecom wreck that we're all seeing. Tauzin may be a Republican, but I think he's an old fashioned influence peddler. I'd be happy for someone to prove me wrong, but I have yet to see anything that goes against that conclusion.

[Timesink]

Tauzin may be a Republican, but I think he's an old fashioned influence peddler. I'd be happy for someone to prove me wrong, but I have yet to see anything that goes against that conclusion.

Ask any ham radio operator or scanner enthusiast about Billy Tauzin, and you will have your suspicions confirmed.

[Djarum]

The same possibilities for infringement exist now. The industry is only using DTV as an excuse to gain extraordinary protections for their business.

[hoosierham]

The push to digital TV is simply to regain control over the viewers AND force them to pay for every viewing.

Pay per program has been the long-sought dream of the entertainment industry for 50 years.

Software licenses and the continual "upgrades" have conditioned many people to forget what it meant to OWN a copy of a movie , book , etc. The industry wants you to pay every time you plunk "It's a Wonderful Life" in the vcr or read Grisham.

[Charles Martel]

Tauzin may be a Republican, but I think he's an old fashioned influence peddler. I'd be happy for someone to prove me wrong, but I have yet to see anything that goes against that conclusion.

Well, Tauzin wasn't always a Republican, y'know.

[Alas Babylon!]

Well, as the hackers say, "If it's makeable, it's breakable."

The backlash will be either a lot of hacking and devices made to hack the encryption, or their sales will actually go down over the long run. Hey Hollywood, ya ever hear the story about the goose that laid golden egss?

[Paleo Conservative]

Well, Tauzin wasn't always a Republican, y'know.

Tauzin always belongs the the majority party.

[HAL9000]

Although Rep. Tauzin says this legislation is obstensibly about Digital Television, that is probably a smokescreen to get legislation mandating Microsoft's "Palladium" initiative.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

I guess since Tauzin walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, he's probably a duck. Thanks for the insights.

[steve-b]

Tauzin, who has been pushing for movement in the much-delayed transition to digital television

Frankly, the whole idea should be scrapped, and the bandwidth sold for some useful purpose. A 75fps, 1200x1600, 24-bit color image of imbecilic crap is still imbecilic crap.

[cva66snipe]

Ask any ham radio operator or scanner enthusiast about Billy Tauzin, and you will have your suspicions confirmed.

Yea he's no friend of mine. I still got a couple of oldies that can image the 800's. I tried to talk to him one night on a tv call in show about radio transmissions & scanning. He was not interested on hearing our side of it. Billy is too stupid to realize that if you want secure communications then encrypt it. But then again I doubt Billy is too concerned about my privacy rights vs the governments new technology to listen in either.

[dheretic]

Share every song and movie you own. What drives those who act against your rights into bankrupcy is good for the soul in the long run. Every commercial program, every song, every movie, etc I own I am willing to copy for friends, especially ones that will buy them (unless the band is unusually good). Friends don't let friends pay for IP when that money will be used to buy members of Congress. Well actually the best way to do this is to send the army around DC to round up all of the lobbyists and their *ahem* wholly-owned subsidiaries in the civil body politic and send them to a gulag in Alaska.

[Chunga]

"every song, every movie, etc I own I am willing to copy for friends..."

Which songs do you own?

[Greeklawyer]

"Tauzin, who has been pushing for movement in the much-delayed transition to digital television..."

HDTV came about to free the television frequencies for other use. I have read they are going to be ten years behind schedule. Consumers are voting with dollars that they do not have an driving urge to go to the new system. Once moved the old tv frequencies will be sold for other uses.

The problems with the move is:

1) The entertainment distributors are hesitating because they want eternal and absolute control of their product even in the consumers hand. (ie in future you don't buy a
movie, you lease the right to see it in a specific format for a specific number of times.)

2) The delay is costing the people waiting for the frequencies money.

3) The studio distributors wish to alter intilectual copyright to be even more controlling.

These politicians should allow the free market to find a solution. This just a political coercion in an area where the free market has failed to follow political directives.

[Richard Kimball]

He was not interested on hearing our side of it.

All he wants to know is how much money you'll send him.

[Timesink]

You forgot one problem:

4) Any new federally-mandated digital "copyright protection" chip would make almost all currently-extant HDTVs completely useless. And no company is going to waste time developing any sort of convertor box for these sets, because there aren't enough of them out there. Totally alienating the first-adopter crowd is not the best way to launch a new electronic gizmo even under the best of circumstances. I think if this chip BS becomes law, most people won't buy new HDTVs until they become as cheap as current models. Why pay more for a lesser product? The picture is not that much better. It's nicer, but it's not so nice that it's a must-have. These people lying to the public about HDTVs being "just like looking through a window" are the same sales goons that were hyping CDs in 1983 as "utterly indestructible discs that will last forever."

[Timesink]

Just wanted to remind everyone, that the guvment GAVE away our bandwidth to the major networks for free!!!!! The next questions should be WHY???

Are you talking about the original allocation of bandwidth to broadcast radio back in the early 1920s? If you are, the answer is because back then, they had no idea spectrum would turn out to be so limited. Heck, they didn't even know if such a thing as a radio station could ever actually make money. It was just experimental goofing around, which happened to take off. And they did not "give the bandwidth away for free," either. The office that eventually became the FCC authorized each station to broadcast on a certain frequency, provided they abided by a number of provisions about "serving the public interest" and so forth, and any station that didn't comply could have their licenses yanked at any time. Although much of those original rules have long since been thrown out, there are still a number that remain, and stations still occasionally get their licenses pulled, rendering their businesses worthless overnight. Anyway, in the end, the FCC still controls all that spectrum. Radio and TV stations in this country operate at the pleasure of the government.

One last thing: The networks were never granted anything. They're merely agglomerations of affiliates that choose to air each given network's programming, and the networks themselves exist only as conduits, sending their programming via satellite to each station. Of course, the networks are allowed to own TV and radio stations themselves, but those stations are subject to the same FCC regs as any others. If WNBC-TV, arguably the single most powerful network flagship TV station in the country, were to suddenly find itself enmeshed in an Enron-style accounding fraud situation, reports of hard drugs being sold on the premises, too many profanities making it out onto the air, etc, the feds could yank their license as easily as they could kill some mom-and-pop 50-watt K-BUBBA radio station in the forests of Arkansas.