At 9:30 AM -0700 10/30/04, Dale Kelly wrote: >My mistake was in using the word "employed", you are clearly a consultant. >Does such a title somehow anoint you to be an objective observer? I guess that depends on how a person actually uses their role as a consultant, and the track record they have established over the years in terms of objectivity. >You do write a monthly article for Broadcast Engineering magazine, which is >CEA advertising supported . Really? Yest there are a number of advertisers that ALSO have CE divisions, but frankly, any CE company is wasting their money if they think they are going to reach consumers of CE products via Broadcast Engineering. And I have absolutely no connection to the advertising side of the business. The ONLY "influence" I get are the press releases sent to me directly, or forwarded to me by the magazine's editors. We publish an editorial calendar every year, and many PR firms (and manufacturers) try to make suggestions about including their products in any given topic. Anyone who reads my columns know that I am not a shill for any manufacturer or product. As far as any relationship or favoritism for the CE industry or the CEA, I'd suggest you look at what I have written over the years. Let's just say that my relationship with the CEA has been luke warm at best over the years. It is true that my opinions about the copyright issue tend to be closer to those of the CEA than the mass media conglomerates. This should not come as any surprise. The CE business is strongly affected by copyright law; the CEA has been quite adamant about protecting Fair Use rights. If you look at my work in this area, you will not find much if any "promotion" of the CEA or their views. I have been consistent in my belief that our copyright and patent laws have been abused by the special interests who help finance two billion dollar election cycles, like the one we are in at the moment. I have been consistent in my contentions that it is completely unwarranted and unnecessary to implement the content management restrictions that the media moguls are lobbying for. I have been consistent in my contentions that the current perceived problems with piracy are the public's reaction to the way they have been abused by the content oligopoly. But MOST IMPORTANT, I have been consistent in my opinions that there are simple technical solutions to these problems. But more important, rampant piracy is a strong indication that the marketplace is NOT working; that the special interests are trying to exact unwarranted premiums for content, and bundling stuff that consumers do not want with the stuff they do want. There is ample evidence that consumers will pay a fair price for content. It is after all a huge business where consumers spend hundred of billions annually in the U.S. alone. There are examples all over the place of successful new products with relatively painless content management restrictions. DVDs have been a huge success, in large measure because of aggressive pricing by many distributors. Apple's iTunes demonstrates that it is quite feasible to SELL music online at reasonable prices, without the bundling that makes CDs ridiculously expensive. >Your published and posted opinions on broadcast >issues has significantly changed to the negative over the last couple of >years and now seems to echo that of the CEA, even in your increased use of >hyperbole. Obviously, you only seem to be familiar with my recent work. I have only been writing for BE for the past three years. Prior to that I wrote for Videography and Digital TV (aka Television Broadcast). IF you would like, I can send you at least two dozen articles that are critical of broadcasters and the U.S. DTV transition since 1990. Or I could send you some of the comments I filed with the FCC in the Advanced Television process. I HAVE been working on this problem since 1992. There is no hyperbole in the the reality that the US DTV transition is NOT working, at least with respect to OTA broadcasting. ON the other hand there is MUCH hyperbole about the notion that DTV broadcasting is about to turn a corner in the U.S., thanks in part to the arrival of receivers that work. The problems with the U.S. DTV transition ARE NOT technical. They are political and economic, based in the reality that broadcasters have been used to assemble and maintain the media oligopoly that is now being exposed as the political propaganda machine that it is. Some consumers are even beginning to understand that the perceived animosity between cable, DBS and broadcasters is just a smoke screen to prop up a failing business model that forces most Americans to pay an unwarranted premium for bundles of programming that they do not watch and should not have to pay for. In short, there is no marketplace for mass media content, it is a tightly controlled oligopoly. And the Consitituional notion of a public commons for intellectual property has been turned on its head, thanks to the political and economic power wielded by the media moguls, who seek to have total control over the distribution of high value content. Regards Craig ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.