[olug] congressman Terry needs more attention

[Neal Rauhauser]

  I've never owned a TV in my life, but I have lived with people who 
have them. The last time I watched television with any regularity there 
were new Three's Company episodes on the air.

  I will occasionally rent or purchase a DVD which usually gets watched 
at my girlfriend's house. I've recently started doing some consulting 
for a high end video conferencing company. Adding those two items 
together I think I am fairly close to my first television purchase - a 
27" flat panel so I can mount it, a small DVD player, a video 
conferencing terminal, and not clutter up my space.

  I could afford to go and get the flat panel today ... but if its going 
to somehow get devalued on 15 January 2006 do I really want to shell out 
the $900 for the machine and its mount? I think not ...



Daniel Linder wrote:

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>jman at neonramp.com wrote:
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>>One solution would be to stop watching so much TV
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>[...snip - Dan]
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>>It is like a drug. We all want to get another fix
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>>without the pushers control. If it wasn't money for
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>>them they wouldn't pursue it. If it isn't a fix for
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>>us we would not fight it.
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>I too try to limit myself to a core set of shows or aproximately 4 hours
>of TV (less using my ReplayTV to skip commercials), but those of us who do
>that are in the minority.  My neighbor is one of the vast majority --
>she easily has 1-2 hours per night that she _must_ watch (her words), and
>will sit and channel surf to find something...anything... when her other
>shows aren't on.  It's is these people that we are going to have to
>convince that DRM (Digital Restriction Managment) is a bad thing.
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>On Mon, November 7, 2005 07:43, Eric Lusk wrote:
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>>Unfortunately, some of the mosre extreme measures the
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>>MPAA and RIAA are advocating apply to MUCH more than
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>>just TV.
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>I agree 100%.
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>>If some of these measures went through, you'd be
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>>paying huge fees just to copy your home movies from
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>>your hard drive, or VHS tape, to DVD.
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>>Not to mention that we'd be dealing with proprietary
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>>hardware, which would mean software developers would
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>>have to pay fees to write any programs that would run
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>>on "secure" hardware.  That would bring the cost of
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>>both hardware and software up, and could lead to the
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>>end of free software altogether.
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>And remember, this proprietary hardware will become obsolete once their
>current encarnation of encryption is broken.  Right now, the first
>DVD players from the mid 1990s will play the vast majority of the DVDs on
>the market.  When the new "DRM impared" DVD players are on
>the market and some 16 year old kid finds a way around their security, do
>you think the MPAA and RIAA will be content to stay with their broken
>standard?  No, they'll go back to congress and ask for a
>"Version 2" of their security measures.  How long until all
>of the components in your stereo rack (DVR, VCR, TV, Stereo, etc) will not
>only have to have "DRM impared" digital connections, but *ALSO*
>be running the same revision of the latest security software.  The
>first time I see "Sorry, your TV is running an old version of DRM --
>please upgrade."  I'll be surfing the web for Russian and Korean
>hardware vendors who will sell me working hardware.
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>It is issues like this that will help us convince my neighbor (and the
>majority of Americans like her) that DRM is not necessary for the new
>digital age, and our government officials who support it are not going to
>receive our vote during the next election.
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>Dan
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>- - - - -
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>"Wait for that wisest of all counselors, time." -- Pericles
>
>"I do not fear computer, I fear the lack of them." -- Isaac
>Asimov
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