[opendtv] Re: Microsoft's Masters: Whose Rules Does Your Media Center Play By?

We will have to continue to disagree about whether all conspirators are necessarily competent. It seems unlikely to me since I don't assume all conspiracies are successful in their goals.
But it would certainly seem then that you would not take my statements as suggesting a conspiracy if I had not accused anyone of trying to break a law, which of course I didn't.
The rest of your argument devolves to name calling and of course labeling others comments as whining. We can ignore that part. 

- Tom


John Willkie wrote:

what?
If you are incompetent or ignorant, you lack the ABILITY to carry off a consipracy. And, this is the "central problem" with most of the fools that see conspiracies under every other rock. 
I have a simple procedure that eliminates most conspiracy theories.  First, you require 
the person to prove that the actors are competent, then you let them try to prove the 
conspiracy.  They fail every time, since "conspiracy theories" are the province 
of the lazy types of folk that use such theories to explain what they generally do not 
understand.

Do you and I use the same definition of conspiracy?  Mine is centered around 
two or more persons acting in concert to violate one or more laws.  I suspect 
that you have a more flexibile definition than mine.
Conspiracies are generally easy to discover. In court, it takes much effort to prove a conspiracies, then just a little effort to prove that one or more defendants are members of the conspiracy. 
And, to assert that "efforts" to change laws to impose tighter restrictions on 
content -- absent a violation of the law, like bribing someone -- cannot be conspiracies.

You are merely a lazy, inarticulate thinker who alleges conspiracies when 
something that you do not favor is attempted, or when you hear of something 
that you don't fully understand.

How successful are these lobbying efforts of which you whine?  The 
rc_descriptor decision is about four years old.  Has even a bill been entered 
into either house or senate to give the FCC the needed jurisdiction to simply 
enforce the rc_descriptor?  If so, I've never gotten wind of it, and I tend to 
follow this area, since my gear is one of the few devices in the world that can 
assert the rc_descriptor.

It seems to me that if Hollywood -- which seems to be aligned at one level or 
another with r's and d's alike -- should have gotten at least a bill into the 
hopper, and marked up by a committee, if they had truly been interested in 
additional restrictions as you 'allege.'

John Willkie



-----Original Message-----

From: Tom Barry <trbarry@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: May 25, 2008 11:40 AM
To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [opendtv] Re: Microsoft's Masters: Whose Rules Does Your Media Center 
Play By?
Also, just because someone conspires you cannot assume they are not also ignorant and incompetent. But I hate to reward that sort of thing in the marketplace.
OTOH, I like to think of myself as effortlessly conspiring with many tens of thousands of like-minded consumers, all sharing a believe that what we do matters since in these cases we can reliably predict the existence and action of the other pissed off people quickly finding out about this issue on the Internet.
And your logic incorrectly started with the assumption I had named a conspiracy and reasoned from there to the typical incorrect but insulting conclusion. Repeatedly ;-)
But let's go with that and decide your definition of conspiracy. I think we can all agree there is currently an ongoing Hollywood lobbying effort to get more copy protection laws passed and to get CE makers to implement such things. Is that a conspiracy? Or just self serving business as usual? 

- Tom

John Willkie wrote:

Never attribute to conspiracy that which is easier explained by incompetence or 
ignorance.
And, somehow you ignore the fact that there have been FOUR MAJOR changes in ownership of Universal since the filing of the initial court case in the Betamax case. Not to mention the changes in executives, strategies (they now make much money off home content that didn't exist in 1979) and attorneys. 
The only evidence that you have that GE feels the same now as Sidney Sheinberg did in 
1979 is the name "Universal."
LET ME REPEAT THIS. CBS asserts the flag at all o&o's for all content, in all the transport stream captures I have. Ron Economos has seen it in FOX transport streams. 
What you should be thinking about is the deltas: why did this complaint come 
about on NBC content?  Is it that American Gladiator (ugh!, a bad idea in the 
early 1990s, now in digital) or Medium have less sophisticated or more vocal 
viewers using Vista?

And, I'm not sure if I said it here, but CBS also is generating a decimal 
255/hex FF after the only two bytes that the FCC permits in the rc_descriptor.  
This is something that could result in an FCC fine.

LET ME REPEAT. "Never attribute to conspiracy that which is easier explained by 
incompetence or ignorance."

The alternative is to appear to be foolish.  Repeatedly.

John Willkie

-----Original Message-----

From: Tom Barry <trbarry@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: May 25, 2008 4:07 AM
To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [opendtv] Re: Microsoft's Masters: Whose Rules Does Your Media Center 
Play By?



Richard C. Ramsden wrote:

I'm still trying to figure out what GE's goal is in this episode.
I'd guess they were just testing the winds to see what they could get away with, both technically and politically. And as the corporate owner of the plaintiff in the original Sony vs Universal Supreme Court VCR case maybe GE exec's still feel they have some unfinished business here.
I would like the public to send a message to both GE and Microsoft that overly crippled products will not be purchased, even if those products "make rights holders feel more comfortable releasing their content".
So the more hoopla and flack on this issue the better. And I'll personally boycott MS Media Center. I have other alternatives. 

- Tom
Microsoft is in an odd position. Technically respecting the "broadcast flag" is illegal. 
But, since they could claim it's just a bug in their code...
I will never buy a computer with vista installed.

I'm still trying to figure out what GE's goal is in this episode.

Monty Solomon wrote:

May 19th, 2008
Microsoft's Masters: Whose Rules Does Your Media Center Play By?
Posted by Danny O'Brien
While its customers are still puzzling over why Vista Media Center is suddenly refusing to record over-the-air NBC digital TV, Microsoft has come out with an astounding admission, courtesy of Greg Sandoval at CNet News:
"Microsoft included technologies in Windows based on rules set forth by the (Federal Communications Commission)," a Microsoft spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail to CNET News.com. "As part of these regulations, Windows Media Center fully adheres to the flags used by broadcasters and content owners to determine how their content is distributed and consumed."
Microsoft's statement shines light on how Microsoft expects Media Center to behave. If this is the company's explanation for what users are seeing when attempting to record digital NBC broadcasts over-the-air, then Microsoft is saying Vista obeys the broadcast flag: a requirement rejected by courts and Congress. 

...
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/05/microsofts-masters-whose-rules-does-your-media-cen
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