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[Fsfe-france] GNU Radio et les mesures techniques de protection


From: Antoine
Subject: [Fsfe-france] GNU Radio et les mesures techniques de protection
Date: 02 Feb 2003 22:27:17 +0100

"Radio Free Software", sur salon.com
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/12/18/gnu_radio/


« [...]

Renamed GNU Radio, the project's political implications became clear a
few months later. Faced with an FCC-imposed deadline to convert all
television content to digital content by 2007, Hollywood studios,
together with information technology companies and consumer electronics
manufacturers, have been wrangling over how to prevent a widescale,
Napster-style redistribution of digital movies. The tentative solution,
put forward by a joint committee last winter, is to embed an invisible
software signal or "broadcast flag" within the content of every digital
broadcast, making it possible to record but not redistribute digitally
broadcast television programs. 

Such hobbling of recording devices is an old trick, as any person who
has tried to duplicate a Macrovision-protected VHS tape knows. Unlike
past efforts, however, the broadcast flag would be entirely software
based, giving those who know software intimately the ability to develop
a quick workaround. To work effectively, the standard would require new
federal regulations requiring that all consumer devices not only comply
with the standard but also restrict the amount of tinkering an end-user
would be able to do with a legally owned device. 

[...]

No longer content with matching proprietary developers, the Boston-based
organization hopes to use the GNU Radio project as a prime example of
innovation that will be crushed by any congressional legislation or FCC
regulation that seeks to limit device functionality, at least on the
receiving end. Put another way: If the GNU Radio team can develop a
proof of concept before the FCC gets a chance to rule on the "broadcast
flag" proposal, the FSF and its allies in the consumer and
small-business community will have seized the high ground in the
subsequent legal battle over innovative fair use. »






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