[Ecommerce] funny opinion piece on Broadcastcast flag

[Manon Ress]

"When you hear "content owners" (COWs, for short)" ...from a COW
himself, a funny piece about broadcast flag:

Opinion: Media Companies, Not Pirates, Are The Real Threat Sept. 15,
2005

http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=3D170703863

Proposals for a "broadcast flag" to protect video intellectual
property harm legitimate consumers, while doing little or nothing to
stop outright piracy.
By David Benjamin
EE Times

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands =97 When you hear "content owners" (COWs, for
short) from the Video Entertainment Vortex =97 mainly Hollywood studios
and their spokespeople in the Motion Picture Association of America
(MPAA) =97 talk apocalyptically about the rape of intellectual property
by "pirates," the world does truly appear to be coming to an end. The
fear factor in these warnings is so palpable that one looks for the
hand of Stephen King =97 perhaps an Internet/ABC/Viacom simulcast
entitled, "The Night of the Mind Cannibals!"
Video piracy, in the standard scenario presented by big-time COWs, is
the profoundest threat to mankind =97 or at least mankind=92s potential
profit margin on re-releases of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" =97 since
the Black Death, the H-Bomb or killer hurricances.

The latest weapon promoted by the world's COWs against the threat of
video piracy =97 which rips off Hollywood at something like .0175
percent of its (admitted) annual revenue =97 is something called the
"broadcast flag." The Federal Communications Commission was planning
to insinuate this copy-protection software into all new broadcast
content until a federal court this year said they lacked
jurisdiction. This ruling has only redoubled COW efforts to enlist
regulatory agencies in its sacred mission of squeezing every quarter
'til the eagle grins.

Waxing passionate on this issue at this year's International
Broadcast Conference here, Jim Williams, the MPAA's vice president
for television and video standards, insisted that every consumer has
a God-given right to a "mobile electronic lifestyle." The only
assurance of this way of life, he said, is a "government mandate" for
a broadcast flag on TV transmissions. He lamented that neither the
market nor the various COW industries possess the muscle to hinder
rampant peer-to-peer "hyperdistribution" of cultural treasures like
"Baywatch=94 and "Gilligan=92s Island."

Williams estimated that a single lawless sitcom addict now has the
storage capacity to ferret away some 22,000 half-hour episodes of
defunct TV comedies. The mind boggles. The gorge rises.

"Every country needs a way to protect free-to-air television," said
Williams. He added that a failure, by regulators, to raise broadcast
flags from Frankfurt to Fukuoka "would really tear this model of
delivery down to the ground."

Picture, the carnage. No more Donald Trump in prime-time. The eclipse
of "Law & Order." No hope for the premier of "CSI: Sheboygan."

Seriously, though, this broadcast flag is a measure that seems to me
both benign and overkill, both prudent and paranoid. It will work
beautifully to keep bad guys from stealing stuff they probably don't
want to steal.

By raising the "flag," broadcasters will allow viewers to copy and
disseminate as many as ten copies of, say, the latest (tired) episode
of "The West Wing," but no more than that.

Here's the rub. In order for a video pirate to "hyperdistribute" a
"West Wing" episode over the Internet, and hope to make money on it,
wouldn't the pirate also need to invest in the same multimillion-
dollar marketing campaign that NBC rolled out to promote that episode
when it airs, then re-airs, then re-runs again before going into
syndication (which usually prompts another multimillion-dollar
marketing campaign)?

And with a hundred "West Wings" airing simultaneously on various
channels every hour of the day all over the world, what "pirate" in
his right mind could even conceive of plucking any individual episode
from this torrent and imagining that he could reap his personal
fortune by sneaking it into "massive Internet distribution?" I mean,
how do you oversaturate oversaturation?

Well, maybe "The West Wing" is a poor example. Or "Friends," or "24,"
or any popular series. Maybe a one-time event is a more tempting
target for Internet pirates stealing TV shows. OK, but who really
wants to see last year=92s Miss USA Pageant over again, on their 12-
inch computer screen? Or maybe last week's Bears-Skins game in micro-
video via DVB-H?

1 | 2 | Next Page > >


The FCC=92s once-and-future broadcast flag is allegedly tailored to
allow innocent home use of digital video copying. But it might cause
problems in that regard, while doing nothing to defeat the boundless
ingenuity of hackers who are serious about breaching security
measures. Moreover, if the hackers, or even the organized Asian
armies of IP theft, are the target, then the broadcast flag is a
sledgehammer aimed at a mosquito.
Why direct so much alarm, energy, money and technology at a problem
that would be called =97 in most other businesses =97 pilferage?

Certainly, none of the security innovations discussed by COWs offer
much solace to the unmentioned victims in this global struggle. I
refer to the lowly legion of "content providers" (COPs?).

I think about this because I'm sort of a COP. I write books,
otherwise known as "non-rewritable analog text." I produce
"intellectual property" just like Hollywood, but not really like
Hollywood at all. Hollywood studios, you see, don't write anything.
They don't actually devise, or direct, or score or film any movies or
shows. Hollywood creates nothing. Hollywood buys stuff. Hollywood
owns "intellectual property." The words "Hollywood" and
"intellectual" don=92t even belong together in the same sentence.

So, when I ponder Hollywood=92s IP rights crisis, I don't think
"pirates" and "buried treasure." I picture a movie, whose
protagonists are "lions" and "zebras."

In my treatment for this flick, the "zebra" herd consists of authors,
screenwriters, scenarists, composers, even most directors and actors.

As the film starts, one zebra is already dead and the rest are
hightailing for their lives. The dead zebra=92s entrails (or content)
have been ripped from his body and they=92re stretched, torn and
bloody, across the veldt.

The lions, who ganged up on the zebra and killed it, are now feasting
on its flesh. These are the Hollywood studios.

They've got the whole zebra and they=92re too big and vicious for
anyone else to venture a nibble. A throng of scavengers lurks
patiently nearby, waiting to snatch a mouthful of writer. Among the
carrion-eaters are vultures (distributors), powerful hyenas
(broadcast networks) with jaws strong enough to break bones, jackals
and hunting dogs (DVD and video manufacturers) and vermin (Hollywood
agents).

The content-providing zebra will inevitably be reduced to little more
than a stain on the grass. The zebra's original content will be
mangled beyond recognition and, in the Hollywood tradition, will
eventually be released to the general public in the form of crap.

Where do IP pirates fit into this metaphor. Well, at maybe one
percent of the entire zebra-consumption crew, they're not significant
enough to qualify as jackals, or maribou storks, or even the mice and
shrews who gnaw the bones. IP pirates are more like bugs =97 ants,
mites, cockroaches and flies =97 who nourish themselves on the random
gore and copious bloodshed that Hollywood, as a by-product of its
limitless voracity, spreads throughout the worldwide market.

Thinking about IP piracy from a COP point of view, I admit that I
don't worry much about whether some Chinese gang burning DVDs on a
boat in the Sea of Japan is going to steal my best work and mangle it
into a grainy travesty that never earns me a penny. As a content
provider, I'm ripped off in advance by the real pirates in this
equation, the content "owners" who might =97 if I'm lucky =97 pay me a
pittance, resent me for that, and bid me adieu without further ado.

I know I should lose sleep worrying about video pirates snatching
content off the airwaves but I don't because, well, when I'm out
there in the media jungle, the stalking beasts that scare me aren't
the flies.

It's the lions.

=97 David Benjamin, novelist and journalist, lives and works in Paris.
He writes occasionally on technology issues, usually from the Luddite
point of view.




************************************************
Manon Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org
www.cptech.org

Consumer Project on Technology in Washington, DC USA
Tel.:  +1.202.332.2670, Ext 16 Fax: +1.202.332.2673

Consumer Project on Technology in Geneva, 1 Route des  Morillons, CP
2100, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland. Tel: +41 22 791 6727

Consumer Project on Technology in London, 24 Highbury Crescent,
London, N5 1RX, UK. Tel:+44(0)207 226 6663 ex 252. Mob:+44(0)790 386
4642. Fax: +44(0)207 354 0607