[opendtv] Re: Microsoft's Masters: Whose Rules Does Your Media Center Play By?
- From: Albert Manfredi <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 23 May 2008 21:42:16 -0400
Adam Goldberg wrote:
> I don't think MSFT should act this way, but I'd be against
> a regulation which required them to do it otherwise. There
> /is/ not regulation which requires a device to be able to
> record particular content, only law/regulation which
> requires that it be /possible/.
I got that reaction on this list ages ago, when I suggested that ATSC receivers
have to become mandatory in TV sets, just as UHF receivers became mandatory
back in 1962 or so, if analog broadcasting was to cease. And that happened. It
makes sense, if the FCC is entrusted with management of the RF spectrum.
In this case, I suppose one might argue that the situation with a PC is not as
obvious as the case of a PVR or DVDR. But in the case of the latter two
devices, their intended function, as marketed to unsuspecting consumers, is not
in doubt. So it should be well within the FCC's charter, or some govt agency's
charter (NTIA?), to require that today's TV recording devices work as they were
meant to after the Betamax decision.
And this also applies to CGMS, as far as I'm concerned. There should be no way
that a broadcaster, or a CE vendor, should be allowed to prevent a consumer
from recording FOTA TV for the purpose of time-shift recording. It's not very
complicated, really.
In the case of CGMS, no matter what the transmitted code says, any TV recording
device should be required to allow at least copy once, since that is necessary
for the intended time-shift recording function. Simple, I think.
In the case of the redistribution control flag, since the ATSC nowhere defines
its purpose, and the ATSC has no legal mandate anyway, some agency like the FCC
or NTIA should define its purpose. As the FCC had attempted to do. But WHATEVER
the definition, the time-shift recording function has to be possible, in any TV
recording device sold to the public.
There are tons of precedents for this sort of govt regulation. Just look at the
auto industry.
As to the PC example, one MIGHT argue that it's okay for Vista to prevent
copying the program to DVD-R or DVD-RW, and it would be okay to prevent the PC
from transmitting the broadcast flagged file over its Ethernet interface, but
it would be a real stretch to allow ANY broadcaster's setting to prevent the
file from being copied to the hard drive at least that first time.
Bert
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