Monday, April 22, 2002

Stick a fork in CBDTPA Doc has pointed us to an excellent article by Attorney Catherine Olanich Raymond that breaksdown the CBDTPA bill being floated in Congress by Senator Hollings. Catherine explains in fairly plain language why the bill would be impossible to enforce and the major thrust of the bill is to "protect HDTV."  She also points out something I've said before, that the bill presupposes that a suitable form of encoding to prevent piracy exists now. Is Hollings talking about the Microsoft Patent? Or something else? Clue me in here folks! [Indulge me a couple minutes, so I can give you the short take-- with the background.] In all my years in the broadcast industry I have never seen the major players (Sony, Panasonic, JVC, Philips and the posse,) in the broadcast/film hardware business ever agree about anything when the words INDUSTRY STANDARDS are used in a sentence.  Even today, all of the current HDTV equiptment (like cameras/decks/switchers and other big ticket equiptment,) does not work (well or at all) with other HDTV equiptment from another company. Each and every company has written their idea of the "standard" and very little equiptment from one company to another "talks to" or "interfaces" with the others. The only way it happens is with a hell of a lot of brunt work and a team of engineers who can physically make them talk to one another with a Swiss Army Knife of translators and drivers. So Fritz Hollings "thinks" they will cooperate in something like encoding to a common source? He is highly mistaken or Sony, Panasonic, JVC and a posse of vendors have decided to all act like Snow White. History tells me it ain't gonna happen. These companies would be playing for a lot of marbles. The other thing is that Hollings and Congress has little understanding on the Convergence Model of content acquisition and delivery systems, as well as seperating the fact from the fiction. I wrote one of the first public papers on it years ago. The problems is there are a considerable amount of the problems that exsist in the formats of the acquisition and editing and final output. (It's also a storage nightmare.) The major problem of the Hollings Bill will be to get interfaces to protect them from piracy. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I keep hearin' Nooo way Jose! It ain't gonna happen! More on this after I get back from an appointment. Later!   1:32:11 PM

More Devilish Details on CARP: It appears CARP of the Library of Congress (LOC) have been hit with a substancial number of Comment Letters on the issue.  The LOC has taken the time to publish a representative number of them on their website. However you should be aware that the Reply Comments period will be open until Friday, April 26, 2002. So your input is still needed. Be sure to follow the rules on how the LOC wants to receive this material. It appears CARP is beginning to get the message, that the reporting necessary to meet CARP's requirements are illegal (existing privacy laws, esp. with minors,) difficult, expensive report without expensive software and impossible to comply because of legal and logical reasons.  (I will try to write more on this later in the week.) The LOC has decided to have a Public Roundtable Meeting regarding the reporting systems proposed by CARP, on Friday, May 10, 2002, from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. at LM620 (Dining Room A), James Madison Memorial Building, First and Independence Avenue, SE, Washington DC. Requests to participate or attend must be made by e-mail to 114roundtable@loc.gov or by fax to (202) 252-3423 by May 6, 2002. (DO NOT MAIL.) Be sure to read the Notice and Record filing from the Federal Register here, in order to completely comply with the rules before requesting admission. For those who can not attend, The International Webcasting Association will provide a webcast of the full proceedings of the Public Roundtable to be held May 10, 2002. The webcast will also be available live and on demand in both Windows Media and RealPlayer at TVWorldwide.com Electronic Frontier Foundation is reporting that RIAA "Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) recently dropped its request to the U.S. Copyright Office that webcasters be required to submit detailed records of user information." Well that's a refreshing change. It appears Hilary Rosen of RIAA is finally getting the message that the small and non-profit webcaster can not afford the cost of reporting.  However my reading is showing that RIAA got the opportunity to nail the Non-Commerical Low  Power FM stations by objecting to these stations being apart of CARP proceedings in this letter of objection.   This isn't over yet folks. If you haven't written do so this week.  Also check with saveinternetradio.org for more information. 3:35:12 AM

Moline High School Class of 1972 - The Class Reunion is scheduled for the weekend of August 9-10, in  Moline.  Out of 890-some classmates we've located everyone except about 140 people.  We're looking for you!  Contact me (by clicking the yellow envelope on the left) or Meg Steel. 12:01:44 AM

© Copyright 2002 Mary Wehmeier. Last update: 4/22/02; 12:01:54 AM.