Google Blocking Set Top Boxes From Showing YouTube Unless They Pay Up?

from the evil-is-as-evil-does dept

I'm wondering if there's more to this, because it seems rather "un-Google-like." The makers of a set top box that can display internet content are complaining that Google is blocking them from displaying YouTube content, unless they agree to "partner" and commit to buying lots of ads (the amount is in dispute). If this sounds quite a bit like the ongoing battle between Hulu and Boxee, you might be right. However, in that case, at least you could sort of understand the (misguided) thinking behind it, since Hulu is owned by the colossally short-sighted content companies. But what's Google's excuse? If all these set top boxes are really doing is accessing free internet content and formatting it better for a TV, why stop it? They're really no different than accessing content via a computer and a browser -- it's just that the "computer" is a set top box and the "browser" is formatted for a television. That shouldn't require a special agreement, or any sort of ad buy commitment. Update: Received a confused and angry email from YouTube PR linking us to the very Wired article we linked to and demanding we add their PR statement (which is already in the Wired article). However, it does not actually answer the questions raised or change the point of this post. The fact that YouTube restricts set tops from accessing the content still does not make sense.

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Court Says Telenor Doesn't Need To Block The Pirate Bay

from the onwards dept

I'm heading over to Norway in the next few days to give a talk at the Nordic Music Week event, and it's nice to see that the courts in that country seem to recognize how silly the IFPI's demands that major ISP Telenor block access to The Pirate Bay are. Telenor was smart enough to fight back, and the courts have now said that Telenor is not liable for what its users do, and should not have to block access to a site like The Pirate Bay. From TorrentFreak on the ruling:

The court ruled that Telenor is not contributing to any infringements of copyright law when its subscribers use The Pirate Bay, and therefore there is no legal basis for forcing the ISP to block access to the site.... In making its decision, the court also had to examine the repercussions if it ruled that Telenor and other ISPs had to block access to certain websites. This, it said, is usually the responsibility of the authorities and handing this task to private companies would be "unnatural."

Good to see a court recognize that the entertainment industry doesn't own the internet, and shouldn't be the one to determine what is and what is not legal online.

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Dutch Court Orders Pirate Bay To Delete Torrents

from the yet-again dept

Earlier this year, a Dutch court issued a default judgment against The Pirate Bay, ordering it to delete certain torrents and block Dutch web surfers from reaching the site. The Pirate Bay's founders protested the ruling, noting that they had not been properly informed of the case in the first place, and that other items in the lawsuit were highly questionable -- including what appeared to be falsified documents submitted by BREIN, the Dutch anti-piracy agency.

The court has now annulled the original default judgment, but the new ruling is basically the same thing. The founders were told to delete torrents and block Dutch surfers from at least part of the site. The court also rejected the claim that the founders do not still own the site, saying they presented no evidence that the site had actually been sold to another entity, or any evidence of who now owned the site. While I still think it's questionable to force the site to block results of what is really a search engine, there is a point about who owns the site. I recognize why The Pirate Bay has done what it's done, but it almost feels like they're trying to be too cute about the ownership issue.

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On The Uselessness Of Blocking Social Networks At Work

from the did-you-block-the-telephone? dept

When this new-fangled invention called "the telephone" first became popular, there were some offices that refused to allow them on office workers' desks, for fear that they would be a waste of time and a distraction that took away from work. I sort of feel the same way when I hear about companies banning Facebook or Twitter, these days. As we've said before, it's obvious that there are people who abuse such tools, and you deal with that by recognizing that they're not being productive and either telling them to shape up or firing them. Blocking a very useful communications tool just because some people might abuse it doesn't seem particularly smart. And yet... it's happening more and more. Yet another study shows how common it is for IT staff to block access to such sites.

However, an article at The Globe & Mail points out how silly this is. The people who are really obsessed with using such sites will simply find ways around such blocks, whether its via some sort of proxy site -- or just by accessing the sites via a smartphone, outside the control of the corporate IT staff. On top of that -- especially with younger staff -- it sets up a workplace where management says, right upfront: we don't trust you. Why not hire more trustworthy staff and deal individually with those who abuse the system, rather than putting forth an outright ban that throws out the potential good uses along with the misuses?

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Content Owners Force Hulu To Block Mobile Browsers As Well

from the seriously? dept

I still can't figure out the reasons why content owners allowed Hulu to offer up TV shows in a browser... but then absolutely flipped out when they realized that the very same content can be seen on browsers on other devices as well. In the past, we've noted that Hulu was pressured to block the Boxee browser (which lets you view content on your TV) and the PS3's browser (also for TVs). Now, via hamill8152, we learn that Hulu is also blocking content on Skyfire, a mobile browser for Windows Mobile phones. The reasoning is the same as always (and, at the very least, kudos to Hulu for being upfront about the idiotic pressure it comes under from clueless content owners). Hulu explains the whole "windowing" thought process of the folks in Hollywood, and suggests that these windows will eventually go away. Of course, it's worth pointing out that Hollywood so disagrees with this that the MPAA has been pushing for ways to add more windows. Either way, the whole thing is silly. If you're putting your content on the internet, you're putting it on the internet. Pretending that televisions or mobile phones can't also view content on the internet makes no sense. One day, people in charge will understand this. Until then...

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Mininova Told To Remove Infringing Material

from the good-thing-there's-none-on-the-site? dept

Earlier this year, we noted that torrent search engine Mininova was being sued, with Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN asking the court to force Mininova to block certain content. It's difficult to see how or why this should be Mininova's responsibility. As a search engine, it has no way of knowing which content is authorized and which is infringing. Yet, a court has sided with BREIN and told Mininova it needs to remove all infringing torrents from its site. The court is giving the site 3 months to implement a filter system, or face a fine of 1,000 euros per infringing torrent. Of course, Mininova already takes down torrents when alerted to the fact that they're infringing. Demanding that the company pre-determine which torrents are considered "infringing" doesn't make much sense (especially since the torrents themselves are not the "infringing" content). This seems to be yet another ruling with a court finding that assisting with potential copyright infringement somehow needs to be stopped.

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Dutch Court Sides With Anti-Piracy Group; Says Pirate Bay Must Block Dutch Web Surfers

from the or-else-what? dept

We've seen more than enough stories already about questionable court rulings around the globe saying that certain ISPs must block access to The Pirate Bay or other sites. Historically, such blocks have been a disaster. They don't work (people find an easy way around them) and the announcement of the ban itself almost always generates a lot more traffic to the banned site. It's like free advertising. However, the anti-piracy group BREIN appears to have taken a different strategy in the Netherlands. Rather than asking the court to have ISPs block The Pirate Bay, it asked the court to tell The Pirate Bay to block Dutch web surfers. BREIN, of course, has a history of overreaching, including demanding names of file sharers against local privacy laws and declaring that a usenet group, by itself was illegal.

And yet again, a court has ruled in the entertainment industry's favor, going against basic civil rights. The court has said that The Pirate Bay must start blocking Dutch web surfers from reaching the site. Somehow, I doubt the folks at The Pirate Bay will comply. They've already complained about the process, noting that they were never summoned to the court to defend themselves, while the ruling itself actually spends a fair amount of time claiming that the folks from The Pirate Bay were fairly summoned through a variety of means. The court basically concludes that they should have known about the case, and their failure to show up will not stop the case from moving forward.

Not surprisingly, the Pirate Bay folks find the whole thing to be a farce. They're already suing BREIN's lawyers for falsely claiming that The Pirate Bay had launched a DDoS attack on BREIN's website. Also, amazingly, the court wouldn't even give them a copy of the ruling against them. Of course, as brokep notes, The Pirate Bay doesn't have any operations in the Netherlands anyway, so what can the court do?

In the meantime, is it worth mentioning that it was a Dutch study that recently said that file sharing had a positive impact on the economy?

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AT&T Blocks 4chan Over DDoS... But May Not Like What Happens Next...

from the that-would-not-be-a-good-thing... dept

A few folks have submitted the news that, apparently, AT&T is blocking access to a certain subdomain of 4chan. I just checked on my own AT&T DSL account and it's true that I can't get there (I can get there if I don't go via AT&T). That doesn't mean that AT&T definitely is blocking it, but there are reports that folks at AT&T have admitted that it's true. If you don't know what 4chan is, the 4chan Wikipedia page is probably the best way to understand it. Even if the site is controversial for some, it does seem quite extreme for AT&T to do an outright block, without any official warning or immediate explanation. Outright blocking of websites, without recourse and without a clear explanation of why, is extremely questionable and the sort of "net neutrality" violation that the FCC would likely come down hard against. If it's true that there's a block, perhaps AT&T is assuming that no one serious (such as the FCC) would come to the defense of 4chan, but that might be a mistake (in part because AT&T probably won't like what happens when 4chan decides to come to its own defense). Hopefully this will be explained away as a mistake. So far, the best explanation I've seen is (via 4chan) the claim that the subdomain was involved in some sort of DDoS attack, but you would think that, if that were the case, AT&T would have just made that clear from the beginning. Not coming out with a clear and concise explanation just looks bad, and seems to be stirring up 4chan folks to make a statement -- something AT&T almost certainly does not want. AT&T may be able to tap your phones, but getting on the wrong side of 4chan seems like a bad, bad idea.

Update: As expected, AT&T has confirmed (as we believed) that this was over a DDoS attack:

Beginning Friday, an AT&T customer was impacted by a denial-of-service attack stemming from IP addresses connected to img.4chan.org. To prevent this attack from disrupting service for the impacted AT&T customer, and to prevent the attack from spreading to impact our other customers, AT&T temporarily blocked access to the IP addresses in question for our customers. This action was in no way related to the content at img.4chan.org; our focus was on protecting our customers from malicious traffic.

Overnight Sunday, after we determined the denial-of-service threat no longer existed, AT&T removed the block on the IP addresses in question. We will continue to monitor for denial-of-service activity and any malicious traffic to protect our customers.

That said, I still think AT&T failed here, in that they did not make this clear from the outset. If they had stated upfront what the situation was, in conjunction with the temporary block, they would have been much better off. But by silently blocking, they kicked off a firestorm that had to have been expected by anyone aware of 4chan.

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Now BREIN Says The Pirate Bay Should Block Dutch ISPs

from the either-way dept

Various entertainment industry lobbying groups have pushed for courts to force ISPs to block access to sites like The Pirate Bay, but now it looks like BREIN, the Dutch anti-piracy group, is trying to hit this from a variety of angles. If it can't get ISPs to block access to The Pirate Bay, it's demanding that The Pirate Bay block access from Dutch surfers. Even more bizarre, it's already dragged representatives from the proposed buyers of the The Pirate Bay, GGF, into court, despite the fact that the deal hasn't concluded (and may never actually happen). When do judges recognize that these organizations don't have any logical basis for what they claim, but that they'll simply throw everything at the wall to see what sticks in a mad dash to protect an obsolete business model from innovation?

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China Says Its Okay For Users To Delete Its New Censorware

from the wasn't-expecting-that dept

Well, this is certainly something of a surprise. Earlier this month, China required new censorware be installed on all computers sold there. Of course, this upset a bunch of people and also raised serious security concerns. Still, we didn't expect the Chinese gov't to back down. However, a variety of lawsuits and public protests in China has resulted in at least some backing down by the government. The gov't is now saying that while the software will come installed on all new PCs, there's no requirement that it be used. Of course, it's not at all clear how easy it is to disable the software. The software is apparently uninstallable (or so the makers claim), but this new statement from the government makes it clear that there shouldn't be sanctions against those who do go through with the uninstall.

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China's New Censorware Software Has Serious Security Flaws

from the is-that-a-surprise? dept

This probably doesn't come as much of a surprise to anyone, but China's new mandated censorware that is required to be installed on all new PCs sold in the country has serious security flaws that put users' computers (and their data) at risk. Of course, censorware/spyware type software almost always does that -- and, it seems likely that the Chinese government isn't all that concerned about the privacy of citizens and their computer usage. Still, the bigger fear is that the security flaws can (and will) be used to basically hijack all those computers and turn them into a botnet. That should certainly be a bigger concern, especially given the Chinese governments' insistence that it wants to crackdown on the widespread use of Chinese servers for spamming operations anyway.

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Is Anyone Actually Surprised That China Has Blocked Social Media Sites For Tiananmen Anniversary?

from the great-firewall-at-work dept

To be honest, stories about China using its "Great Firewall" to block certain sites are hardly new. They've been happening for years. And yet, tons of people have been submitting variations on the news that China appears to have upped the blockade by including sites like Twitter, Flickr, Hotmail and the new Microsoft search engine Bing, recognizing that it's the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown which is (not surprisingly) expected to draw quite an online discussion. I wasn't going to write anything about it, but a few thoughts occurred to me, as more and more people submitted it:

• Is anyone actually surprised that this has happened? China regularly bans and unbans a variety of different sites, often based on what's happening in the news. To think that it wouldn't raise the gates for such an event seems naive.
• Does it really do any good for the Chinese gov't? It pisses off those who use those services who are in China, certainly, but it also serves to call more attention to the heavy hand of gov't censorship in that country. Now, many don't seem to care one way or another -- and so it doesn't impact those people either way. But for those who do care, it reinforces their feelings about it, but hardly stops news from spreading.

So in the end, I'm still left wondering what the gov't thinks it accomplishes in being so heavy handed in censoring such sites, other than thinking that if they stick fingers in their ears, they can pretend no one's talking about this stuff online.

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Minnesota Is The Latest State To Try To Force ISPs To Block Gambling Sites

from the this-will-end-badly-too dept

There have been a few attempts by state governments to force ISPs to block certain sites, and such attempts almost always end badly. Recently, for example, the state of Kentucky has been not just trying to block access to gambling-related websites, but to seize the domains in question. That failed when the courts pointed out how ridiculous it was. Perhaps the most famous such attempt was Pennsylvania's law to try to force ISPs to block "undesirable" sites from a list the gov't would put together. A federal court tossed the law, saying that it was unreasonable. You would think that other states would take notice before trekking down a similar path. But, apparently the news hasn't reached Minnesota.

Slashdot points out that Minnesota is trying to twist a law from half a century ago to mean that ISPs need to block gambling websites. Basically, the law says that common carriers need to comply with government requests to block gambling services. Of course, that assumes that ISPs are, in fact, common carriers -- a point that many would dispute. Also, the law was clearly intended for a very different purpose than someone using a broadband connection to access a gambling site. Still, gambling is another topic that politicians love to grandstand about, so expect this to keep moving forward, even if it makes no sense and has little chance of surviving a legal challenge.

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YouTube Moves On To Blocking All Music Videos In The UK

from the nice-job,-PRS dept

Following in the footsteps of Warner Music's debacle in overplaying its hand and having all its music removed from YouTube -- leading to a ton of fan and artist resentment pointed at Warner Music, it looks like the UK's Performing Right Society (PRS) is going down the same route. After making demands on Google that would make it so that the company was losing significant money every time a video was watched, Google has simply pulled music videos down in the UK. Basically, Google is making the point to PRS: you need us much more than we need you.

I'm not entirely sure if this is in effect already. I'm in the UK right now and a quick search on YouTube found all of the videos I looked for. However, it seems that Google knows that it's the one with the leverage in these negotiations and is finally letting other parties recognize that. The record labels keep demanding more without any actual reason for it, insisting that 100% of the value comes from the music, rather than the service and the promotions. It's about time that some of the service providers proved they were wrong. Yes, the music is part of the value, but it certainly appears that a much bigger part of the value is the community that Google brings at YouTube.

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Hollywood Takes Another Crack At Getting Permission To Break Your DVR

from the they-just-won't-stop dept

The movie studios and the MPAA have been pushing hard over the last year to get the FCC to let them use "selectable output control" to basically block DVRs from recording certain broadcasts of movies. Their somewhat creative (but totally ridiculous) argument is that this would allow more consumer choice. Now, you might ask how limiting what consumers can do with products they already purchased can possibly allow more consumer choice, but this is where the MPAA tries to play a bit of a jedi mind trick. It claims that if it's allowed to block recording of movies, then it would add another window to its windowed release program of movies (i.e., theater -> special locations (airplanes/hotels) -> DVD -> cable TV -> network TV). If they can break your DVR, they claim that they'll also release it to TV before it's even out on DVD.

Now, it doesn't take much thought to see the logical flaw in the MPAA's plan, but since some politicians are a bit slow, we'll spell it out for them. You don't need to block recording to release the movies early. There's absolutely nothing stopping the MPAA from offering this "consumer choice" right now. The MPAA is simply trying to confuse politicians into thinking that they can't possibly add this other way to get paid for the same content without this DVR-breaking DRM. The simple fact is that (a) selectable output control won't stop the movies from being recorded by some and (b) it won't stop the movies from being offered in unauthorized format online. It won't do a damn thing to stop "piracy." But it will annoy an awful lot of people who bought a DVR to record what they see on TV and are seriously pissed off at why they can't actually make the product they bought work legally.

In other words, it's not at all about "expanded consumer choice." It's about giving the MPAA another way to block legitimate watchers from doing perfectly legal time shifting of the content on their TV.

The good news was that when Kevin Martin ran the FCC, he turned down the MPAA. Though we heard mixed reasons on why (one story is that he tried to do some "horse trading" whereby he would give the MPAA what it wanted if they would side with him on things like a la carte cable), it at least kept the MPAA down. Of course, with Martin gone, it hasn't taken long at all for the movie studios to rush right back up to the new FCC yammering on and on about "expanded consumer choices." Hopefully Michael Copps (the temporary FCC boss) and the rest of the FCC are smart enough to recognize that you don't expand consumer choice by breaking their DVRs.

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Danish ISP Blocks The Pirate Bay; But Is It For Legal Reasons... Or Competitive?

from the legal-excuses dept

A year ago, recording industry lobbying group IFPI successfully convinced a Danish court to force ISP Tele2 to block The Pirate Bay. This came after a similar ruling that forced Tele2 to block access to AllofMp3 (which, you'll recall was the big "threat" prior to The Pirate Bay). Of course, these blocks don't work particularly well, and seem incredibly annoying for those content creators who actually want their content distributed through systems like The Pirate Bay.

Tele2 appealed the ruling, and another court found that, indeed, ISPs should be forced to block access to The Pirate Bay. While that case is being appealed to the country's Supreme Court, it appears that other ISPs are being pressured to start blocking as well. Denmark's largest ISP, TDC, is now blocking access to The Pirate Bay.

Torrentfreak suggests that TDC is worried about a similar lawsuit, and did this as a preventative measure, but I have to wonder if some of the thinking is competitive. Last April, TDC announced a deal whereby its customers could download unlimited music... though it was really more of a subscription rental service that included DRM. So, basically, here's a way that TDC gets to block out a "competitor" to its own service, and then blame the legal rulings for being able to do so...

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MPAA Tries Out Its New 'Up Is Down, Day Is Night' Strategy

from the how's-that-working-for-ya? dept

The MPAA has been pushing the FCC to allow it to basically add a kind of DRM to broadcasts. As it stands, the FCC blocks broadcasters from using "selectable output control" (SOC) to stop people from recording shows broadcast on television. They do this realizing that recording for the purposes of time or place shifting is perfectly legal, and allowing broadcasters to block consumer rights would be tremendously undesirable.

The movie studios, however, are trying to figure out yet another way to get money, and they want to rejigger release windows for movies. The way they're done now, movies are released to theaters, then special locations (airplanes, hotels), then DVD, then cable and finally network TV. What the studios would like to do is charge cable companies a lot of money to show movies on cable after they're in theaters but before they're released on DVD. Their (misguided) fear is that, if they show them on TV, people will record them and make them available via file sharing sites, killing off the DVD business. This is wrong on many levels, especially since high quality versions of the movies are almost always available on file sharing networks long before they are released on DVD, anyway. So, blocking the ability to record the movies on your DVR (which is what loosening SOC restrictions would do) wouldn't actually do anything to stop piracy -- but would piss off an awful lot of DVR owners out there, who want to know why they can't record the latest movies on TV.

The MPAA has been saying a lot of funny things in trying to defend its position, claiming that this form of DRM is necessary to let the studios release the movies early. That's simply wrong. There is nothing stopping the studios from releasing the movies in this manner right now. It's just their own misguided fear of people doing what they're legally allowed to do (record stuff on their TV) that's stopping them.

Yet, now, as a bunch of you have sent in, it seems the MPAA is going even further in this "up is down, black is white" argument in favor of being able to use SOC. It's claiming that it's the movie studios who are being pro-innovation here, and it's the consumer electronics companies (and consumers) who are anti-innovation:

"At its core, the position of CEA is that technology should be frozen in time, and any new services that require advanced technology should be banned," the MPAA told Adelstein on November 25. "This position is quite astonishing, coming from an organization that in the past has advocated in favor of technological innovation."

This is a neat bit of intellectual judo. Take your opponents (accurate) argument, and claim that it's actually your argument. The MPAA is lying, of course. They don't need SOC to innovate and release movies however they want. And, the CEA is quite pro-innovation, in letting consumers actually make use of their rights to record content. It's quite a statement for the MPAA to claim that taking away consumer rights is innovation. But, I guess that's what you get from a dying organization fighting for its life.

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Danish High Court Says ISPs Must Be Internet Policemen; Have To Block The Pirate Bay

from the keep-on-blocking dept

Earlier this year, we noted, with surprise, that a Danish court had ordered Tele2, a large ISP, to block all access to The Pirate Bay website. This followed an earlier ruling requiring Tele2 to block access to AllofMp3.com. It's never been clear why an ISP should take on the responsibility of blocking access to a site, and Tele2 appealed the ruling. Unfortunately, it looks as though the company has lost. The Danish High Court has apparently sided with the IFPI, and says that, indeed, Tele2 must block The Pirate Bay. Of course, this is unlikely to matter. Whenever these blocks are ordered, there are always ways around them, and the attention from the blocks tends to alert more people to the site's existence.

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Andrew Cuomo Threatens To Sue Comcast If It Doesn't Sign Up For His Plan To Pretend To Fight Child Porn

from the grandstanding dept

Last month, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo made some news by pressuring a bunch of ISPs to agree to block certain sites in a totally misguided effort to fight child porn. It will actually do the opposite, because it merely hides the issue, driving it further underground, rather than attacking at the source. At the same time, it opens up a very questionable door: having ISPs blocking any content that they feel is "objectionable" in some manner. It's not hard to predict where this goes, in terms of ISPs blocking other types of content as well.

Comcast was one of the companies that agreed last week to a similar proposal with a bunch of state attorneys general, but apparently that's not enough for Andrew Cuomo. He's now threatening to sue Comcast within five days if it doesn't sign the more stringent "code of conduct" that Cuomo wrote up. Apparently Cuomo doesn't think last week's agreement goes far enough.

Of course, what's odd is that nowhere does Cuomo explain how Comcast's actions violate the law. He just threatens to sue over it -- and even makes a veiled threat that the lawsuit alone will be damaging to Comcast, because Cuomo will position it as Comcast protecting child porn:

Comcast's unwillingness to sign the code of conduct and purge its system of child pornography puts Comcast at the back of the pack in the race to fight this scourge, and would likely be surprising to Comcast's millions of customers across the country.

The reason Cuomo doesn't explain what the legal rationale for any lawsuit, is because there isn't one. Comcast as a connectivity provider is not responsible for what content goes across its network. Cuomo (one would hope) knows this -- and is bullying Comcast into signing his "Code of Conduct" by threatening to paint the company as protecting child porn. That's a rather sickening abuse of power -- and the end result will only be to make it more difficult to stop child pornography, while opening the door to widespread content blocking by ISPs.

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MPAA Doubletalk On FCC Request To Block DVR Recordings

from the the-mainstream-press-may-believe-you,-but... dept

You may recall back in June we wrote about the MPAA's petition to the FCC to block DVR recordings of certain movies by removing a restriction on "Selectable Output Control" (SOC), allowing it to set rules that forbid recording. What the MPAA is clearly trying to do here is start releasing movies on TV before they're available on DVD, but wants to do so in a way that users won't be able to record on their DVRs (though, they hardly come out and say that). Matthew Lasar has an absolutely hilarious interview with an MPAA representative where the MPAA guy tries to pretend that this has nothing to do with blocking recordings of movies and everything to do with stopping piracy.

"I can't emphasize this enough," Oster finally exclaimed. "We've hit on this a number of times so you might sense some frustration in my voice. 'Recording'—take it off the table. Put it out of your mind. This has nothing to do with recording at all in any way."

"Ok. I guess I'm confused," I replied. "What is selectable output control about then?"

"It's in large part, first and foremost, about the fact that our industry has a multibillion-dollar theft problem, which is that billions and billions of dollar's worth of film content is stolen every year," Oster replied.

"How is it stolen? What's the mechanics of its being stolen?" I asked. "What happens?"

"It comes in many forms," Dean Garfield interjected. "It comes in camcording."

"Did you just say the word 'recording'?" I asked.

"No!" Oster intervened. "He said 'camcording'!"

"But isn't that just basically recording?" I begged.

"No!" Oster insisted. "What we want is to offer consumers high-definition content earlier than they can today. That's what we want to do! We want our studios to have the flexibility to put in place business models that allow them to offer high definition content on demand to the home, earlier than they do now. Period! Full stop!"

Let's translate this for everyone. Basically, the MPAA falsely believes that it has a problem with camcording. It likes to come out with all sorts of bogus stats that don't add up. The truth is that camcorded versions don't keep people from going to the movies, and most movies online have studio quality versions leaked from insiders.

So what does that have to do with SOC? Not much, really. But the MPAA wants to change the release window pattern it currently uses for movies. Rather than theaters, video, PPV, cable TV, it wants to be able to put some movies on TV before they're released to video, hoping that it can charge cable channels a lot for showing them. But, if it does that, it's worried that it will undercut its own business model in the video rental space. So, it falsely believes that it needs this "exemption" from SOC to effectively enable DRM on those movies to prevent them from being recorded. It's the same old mistake, believing that DRM somehow enables new business models when the truth is that DRM only restricts opportunities. The content will still get recorded and released. The effective DRM will do nothing to stop that -- and once the content is out there, it's out there. However, this will be a pain for plenty of legitimate viewers who start wondering why their DVRs don't work properly.

It's not about stopping any kind of piracy. This won't do that. It's not about enabling any new business models or new content. It's about a misguided MPAA which thinks it needs DRM to add yet another way for it to make money while pissing off legitimate users. For that, the FCC should not grant a special exemption.

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