Analog hole legislation has been put forward

December 19, 2005

RTV71 and shimman used our news submit to tell us about some frightening legislation being posed to congress by a couple of reps from both sides of the aisle. Waving the flag of piracy and in the name of protecting intellectual property, the men are attempting to among other things, plug the analog hole. The "analog hole" has long been an obstacle between us and the content providers, preventing a situation of complete control. Sort of a last bastion for the consumer. The old adage, if you can play it, you can copy it is about to be addressed, at least in their minds.

Shimman had this to say: "U.S. might be the last place to receive world"s cool stuffs, but when it comes to the "protections" for contents providers, we (folks in U.S.) are the frontiers unfortunately. I knew this would come someday, but it has come in U.S. way too soon. When this legistration becomes a law, then U.S. will push it to other nations through trade agreements, so this isn"t just my problem, but everyone in the world"s problem."

Reading through the proposed text of the DTSCA, it is easy to see the hand of the MPAA at work. The proposed legislation defines four "Technical Content Protection Responses" that consumer devices will have based on the type of signal transmitted in a broadcast.

Copy Prohibited Content, which would mark the transmission as off limits for copying or recording of any kind
Copy Unlimited No Redistribution Content, which means that the analog content could be passed through to a digital device for copying, but redistribution would be limited
Copy One Generation Content, which would allow viewers to make a single generation of copies
No Technical Protection Applied, programming that could still be recorded

And this bill is ridiculously hard on timeshifting. Section 201 (b) (1) of the DTCSA gives you all of 90 minutes from the initial reception of a "unit of content" to watch your recordings. Heaven forbid you get a long phone call or an unscheduled visit from a neighbor when you"re engaged in some delayed viewing'”once that 90-minute window closes you"re out of luck until the next broadcast.

This is a thinly veiled push by the MPAA to further trounce our fair use rights. Soon, we can look forward to paying for many actions that we once took for granted. We have to wonder how much the consumer will tolerate if these corporations take this as far as they could. What would it take to finally cause a consumer backlash and corresponding boycott?

Source: ArsTechnica