Comments on: Former top US copyright bureaucrat thinks all communications/entertainment technology should be illegal until Congress approves it

By: elix

elix — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 02:42:00 +0000

I don’t believe it does, as I’m fairly sure I remember seeing my comment count in the loooow double-digits soon after Disqus was put in, and I’d definitely made more pre-Disqus comments than what I remember seeing.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 01:05:00 +0000

Does that include pre-Disqus comments that got dragged into the system? I went from 3K comments to 10K comments overnight at one point. That of course, kills your comment / like ratio.

By: elix

elix — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 23:43:00 +0000

I’m not a lawyer, but the one-antenna-per-customer workaround is due to the requirements on rebroadcasting TV feeds. Recording a local TV channel’s broadcast and DVR’ing it onto the Internet for mass numbers of people stands to make a measurable impact on the station’s ad revenue and such. I don’t know the specifics, but there are bound to be portions of FCC regulations, or state/federal law, that basically make being a pirate repeater station prohibited and you’re going to need lawyers if you try.

Aereo gets around this by just extending the distance between a customer and their antenna to include the Internet (since streaming content you have the right to view is legal), and then they just lease you a TV antenna and entitle you to control the dial on it. It’s for your household only, it’s just not attached to the shingles. That’s the legal tangle and their engineering around it.

Edit: Just marking that this is my 500th comment on BB, and I’ve garnered exactly 1,444 likes. I’m at a lukewarm friendship status with the community, yay! :D

By: oasisob1

oasisob1 — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 12:35:00 +0000

I’m confused, you mean to say he should be sent through a half dozen wood chippers, and then six times through a seventh, or the other way around?

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 11:32:00 +0000

At the time it would perfectly describe the Catholic church…

By: Brad Bell

Brad Bell — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 09:52:00 +0000

It’s not like it’s geeky either: it means buying a USB dongle. Tah Dah! This option has been available for over a decade.

More recently it’s gotten more sophisticated. The DVR software on the iMac extends itself peripherally so the TV is also on your iPhone/iPad, anywhere in the world with a 3G connection. Watch live, change channels, watch recordings, program, etc.

Aereo probably wouldn’t even exist were it not for the cable rebroadcasting companies killing the internet rebroadcasting companies in the mid-90s.

EyeTV would (Mac/PC/Android) probably exist anyway:
http://www.elgato.com

By: AnthonyC

AnthonyC — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 22:15:00 +0000

“So doesn’t that mean that ALL innovation and technology would have to be approved by Congress first”

Then you get Anthem.

By: donovan acree

donovan acree — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 16:16:00 +0000

Ask Congress permission? Bwaaahahahahaha! That’s hilarious. How he things the legislative branch even has that kind of authority is beyond me.

By: Matt Popke

Matt Popke — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 14:11:00 +0000

Does anybody else remember that idiotic Ayn Rand story where the guy invents a new kind of light, but the council of elders (or whatever) tells him it’s evil and won’t allow him to share it? I think Ralph Oman read it too and missed the point. What’s more frightening to me is that the cartoonishly overdone and badly written villains from an Ayn Rand story seem to have come to life.

Is he serious? Or is he being bribed enough that he doesn’t care how stupid he is? In all seriousness, what is going on here? What is going through his head (besides a stiff breeze) that could possibly justify such a clearly idiotic conclusion? And more frighteningly, how could someone so obviously stupid get to such an important position in government? I know we have a lot idiots in government. I know ignorance, greed and general feebleness is pretty common. But this is weaponized stupidity. The flaws in his statements are so obvious as to make your head hurt from realizing that you’re actually expected to refute them (since they should refute themselves, immediately upon their utterance). This is like killing cartoonists for blasphemy. That’s how stupid this is.

Who even gave this person a forum? Who asked this idiot what he thought about anything? What fucking rabbit hole did I fall into this morning where something like this can actually be proposed unironically and not be immediately ignored by the world at large?

By: Walt Smith

Walt Smith — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 13:44:00 +0000

Or, the printing press would have been invented and approved for use only by those vetted by a manipulative, white, millionaire class, homophobic, race and gender biased government, thereby creating Fox News!

By: AttilatheBlond

AttilatheBlond — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 13:44:00 +0000

Flat earth maps to globes? That technology has not been approved by current House of Representatives. Do not disobey or ye will fall off the edge of the earth!

By: AttilatheBlond

AttilatheBlond — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 13:38:00 +0000

Pssst, hey buddy, Wanna buy some carrier pigeons?

By: AttilatheBlond

AttilatheBlond — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 13:37:00 +0000

Fired for not getting paperwork in on time. He was ideologically opposed to the pencil sharpener, thus unable to write since the inkwell went passe.

By: AttilatheBlond

AttilatheBlond — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 13:32:00 +0000

Great plan! Partisan deadlocked Congress not killing economy fast enough /satire type off
Seriously, this would assure that those that have keep and those who invent, innovate weep. Give the Have More’s financial managers a heads up anytime someone comes up with a great idea? Yeah, that’s the way to keep all the money in very few hands.

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 12:40:00 +0000

Yep, you could basically build the same at home. One antenna, one PC with a tv tuner card, some software to channel hop and digitize, and a web server to provide access from outside the home.

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 12:38:00 +0000

As best i can tell, it is not specifically a law, but an application of a judicial settlement within a slightly new sphere. The settlement was about “cloud” based DVR services, where the service provider agreed to keep cryptographically separate copies for each customer even when they all record the exact same program for the exact same length for time. Meaning that for 100 customers there needs to be 100 copies that once decrypted will produce the exact same checksum, meaning they are in essence the same file, rather than a single file and a list of pr customer time stamps. It is the “color of bits” issue gone absurd.

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 12:33:00 +0000

For some of them their offices likely look just like said set, and they consider it the height of a now degenerate world.

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 12:31:00 +0000

Totally new way? It is basically what cable has done since forever, except now the cable is the internet rather than a physically distinct cable. Packet switched networks, what TCP/IP is, basically acts as a common carrier for anything that can be turned into digital information. This in much the same way that if you could turn anything into audio, you could have it delivered anywhere with a phone connection.

By: howaboutthisdangit

howaboutthisdangit — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 12:26:00 +0000

That’s a coincidence, I don’t think people should be appointed to high government positions until the public approves it, unless of course they actually earned that position through hard work and talent.

By: Kimmo

Kimmo — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 12:25:00 +0000

When are we gonna get our pitchfork on and get around to bloody well eviscerating these fucking racketeers?

I for one would vastly prefer to go down swinging than spend the rest of my life fellating the Man.

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 12:25:00 +0000

And in languages other than Latin no less!

Heh, i ran into a claim once that the first print runs were seen as the work of the devil as the individual bibles were too similar. Until then each group of scribes put their personal flurish on the part they worked on, meaning that each bible was visually distinct.

By: Kimmo

Kimmo — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 12:20:00 +0000

I save my vehement disagreement for the irrational; I find arguments with intelligent people to be relatively dry, hair-splitting affairs.

Vehement disagreement and face-rearranging urges tend to be peas in a pod with me… IMO the biggest problem with the world is the number of utter fuckwits on it.

By: Kimmo

Kimmo — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 12:10:00 +0000

How about, fuck bureaucrats, and fuck congress.

It’s about time we designed a nice, simple, bottom-up way of organising our shit. Pretty sure we have the means, these days…

By: David Wright

David Wright — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 12:08:00 +0000

There was a LOT of opposition to the printing press at the time. Especially once they started printing bibles cheap enough that any reasonably well off person could buy one, even if they weren’t a priest.

By: Rob Wheeler

Rob Wheeler — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 07:20:00 +0000

I assumed Mr. Oman had some lobbyist ties and I found a few things: http://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=12879. http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ralph-oman/8/763/445 The Washington D.C. Branch of Dechert Llp, mentioned on this page was once held by a famous felon by the name of Scooter Libby (Remember Him?), so you know they’re all about the ethics.

By: Wade Sims

Wade Sims — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 05:21:00 +0000

You know, I often feel like I am an enlightened individual capable of rational, intelligent conversations with people with whom I vehemently disagree, and that I can prevent knee-jerk reactions to obtain positive discussion and innovation. And then guys like this open their mouths and I’m back to fantasizing about punching them in the face.

By: Roy Trumbull

Roy Trumbull — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 02:11:00 +0000

There is a gotcha to federal rules. It doesn’t much matter what you think the rules say. I once filed for some microwave links because a rule making permitted me to use some frequencies formerly unavailable. The application was bounced back at me. The reason was that it wasn’t the intent of the new rules that I should use those frequencies. The rules themselves didn’t forbid my usage. Reading the rules was thus a waste of time. To determine intent I needed to read all the document(s) of the entire rule making procedure. How’s that for a fence to jump over?

By: pjcamp

pjcamp — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 01:56:00 +0000

This is the same Congress that the GOP won’t allow to take a vote even on things which they all agree on? Yeah, that’ll work.

As near as I can see, if Aereo is illegal, so are all antennas since it isn’t conceptually any different than putting on on my roof. Which then implies, of course, that all spectrum allocated to broadcast television is being deliberately wasted and should be repossessed immediately. They are, after all, only allowed to use it in the public interest, not own it.

By: Florian Bösch

Florian Bösch — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 01:47:00 +0000

Wait, what? Aereo builds data centers that host tons of tiny TV antennas, each of which belongs to a single customer, so they can rip the signal for that customer from that antenna and put it on a pipe so you can tune into the feed at home with your iPad?

That must be the singlehandedly most stupid rube goldberg claptration in IT I’ve heard of in a long time. Whichever law requires this should be scrapped immediately.

By: James Agenbroad

James Agenbroad — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 01:08:00 +0000

The real crazy IMHO isn’t that he thinks this SHOULD be the law, it’s that he thinks that this IS the law.