MPAA to FCC — We know what we want to do! Eliminate Fair Use!
The MPAA finally filed its reply brief with the FCC on its request to reach into your living room and turn off the component output on your satellite and cable box. Why not? They have more money than you – which makes it OK, right? Their latest FCC filing also reveals the MPAA wants to make you buy a new copy of a movie for every new format they seek to introduce.
This scheme was revealed through a single quote from their filing to turn off component outputs. The MPAA said, “Yet the scope of MPAA’s request is quite specific and well-defined: in order to qualify for the Waiver, a movie must be initially released in theaters and not yet released in DVD format that does not utilize SOC.”
Statements made in filings are carefully crafted and narrowly state EXACTLY what it meant by the filer – this is certainly so when the filer is represented by a law firm, such is the case with the MPAA. That quote, in plan words, means that as long as the MPAA members release a movie on Blu-ray, but refrain from issuing a DVD they can force your equipment to ignore the component outputs. Directv must be kicking itself for supporting the MPAA. I’m sure they thought they would be able to exclusively market a HD version of a movie. However, they will be competing with the Blu-ray release.
Lets visit just a second on the major DRM differences between DVDs and Blu-ray. A DVD player is designed to output its signal through unprotected interfaces after decrypting the digital information on the physical media. It does not use SOC as a DRM. Blu-ray, on the other hand, was designed from the ground-up to introduce DRM into every step of the in-home performance – because the MPAA thinks your a thief. One of the DRM protections in Blu-ray is the authority to turn off your component outputs (SOC) if they don’t want you to view the movie. This is to ensure your movie travels through a DRMed receiver, from a DRMed player, to be viewed on a DRMed screen. You don’t really own that Blu-ray player, you use it at the mercy and beneficence of the large movie studios.
Although Directv has it bad (and may have been suckered), it is even worse for consumers. The MPAA seeks to lock all consumers into a particular format – Blu-ray. Then, in the future, when a different format is introduced the MPAA wants to re-sell to you a title you already own. Some may recall the article on the RIAA. It said:
“More important for the music industry, in the 1990s there was a format transition from cassette to CD occurring. The music industry has always made money reselling its “back catalog” over and over as formats for playing prerecorded music change. Those who are older than 30 remember repurchasing on CD that album you had in vinyl or cassette. There were even many who had purchased a cassette of an album they already owned in the “LP” format. Sometimes you would have to repurchase a LP or cassette that had worn out from being played over and over (or had been left in a hot car and melted).”
It is too late for the music labels; their back catalog is no longer worth what it once was worth – but the movie studios want to make sure you have to come back to them over and over to view the movie on the latest consumer electronics or in those circumstances where the disc is scratched. MP3s released music and the Sony DRM scheme in Blu-ray seeks to forever encapsule a movie in that format.
Just as scary, the MPAA will gain the unfettered right to turn off all component outputs when they stop releasing DVDs. THAT’S THE POINT – once DVDs go away, so does the analog hole – and your freedom to exercise the right to fair use.
Below is a pretty good video discussing the MPAA proposal. However, even public knowledge gets it a little wrong – there is nothing to say the MPAA promises to release anything on DVD.
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