[opendtv] Did Apple Just Crush the Next Revolution?
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2011 10:00:50 -0400
Just another patent application...
But it demonstrates just how far the "content owners" (and those who
want to leverage that content) mightbe willing to go to protect it...
Regards
Craig
http://www.minyanville.com/dailyfeed/2011/06/17/did-apple-just-crush-the/?camp=syndication&medium=portals&from=yahoo
Did Apple Just Crush the Next Revolution?
By Mike Schuster June 17, 2011 01:13 PM
THIS WON'T BE TELEVISED
This year saw a collection of high-profile uprisings in the Arab
world. Revolts taking place in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and the like
had a boost of public awareness not from the 24-hour news cycle, but
from something as simple yet powerful as millions of mobile phones.
Protests, atrocities, demonstrations, speeches, government
suppression, everything was documented via Twitter and video-capable
smartphones. The world was watching, thanks to the cameras on
iPhones, Droids, BlackBerries, etc.
But now, a new patent filed by Apple could potentially crush that
worldwide audience for any future revolution.
Fox News reported, "A patent application filed by Apple, and obtained
by the Times, reveals how the software would work. If a person were
to hold up their iPhone, the device would trigger the attention of
infra-red sensors installed at the venue. These sensors would then
instruct the iPhone to disable its camera."
The main goal from such technology is to curb unauthorized recordings
of concerts, sports, movies, plays, etc.
"The software is seen as an attempt to protect the interests of event
organizers and television broadcasters who have exclusive rights to
film an event. These companies often sell their own recordings but
are frustrated when cell phone videos appear online via websites such
as YouTube, allowing people to watch the concert free," the site said.
However, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media Tim O'Reilly sees this as
disastrous for the international masses who depended on such
technology to document their own revolutions. He believes that this
patent could easily be abused by oppressive regimes and silence any
record of dissent.
O'Reilly wrote, "I sometimes think that our entertainment industries
are one of the most pernicious industries on our planet. Not only are
we "Amusing Ourselves to Death" as Neil Postman once suggested, we're
letting these industries put a serious crimp on innovations whose
impact are far more important to our society. When we look back on
the history of media in our era, we will see how, bit by bit, we
gutted one of the engines of democracy in the interest of protecting
and enlarging media industry profits. A very poor trade indeed."
In response to the news, documentarian Greg Scott suspected it could
lead to a series of one-upmanship where conflicting technologies
begin canceling the previous one out. "[Some] enterprising programmer
will develop an app to disable the venue camera disabler. And so on."
However, it would be much more comforting if Apple didn't cater to
the entertainment industry or prevent features that should be
universally available to the user.
Otherwise, the results could be much worse than just not being able
to record Green Lantern.
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