Intellectual rights and the 'analog hole'
The big media owners have pushed another piece of legislation onto the agenda aimed at closing the 'analog hole'. The 'analog hole' is described as the process of converting digital content (such as CD-based music) into an analog format for recording. 'Analog hole' is how all VHS copying was done after the VCR was released. And I should note that the big media companies predicted that the VCR would kill movie sales et. al. due to the ease of copying things.
Clearly, it took digital copying methods (ripping a CD to MP3, coupled with access to high speed internet links) for the barrier to entry to be low enough to actually threaten sales measurably.
Rights Management software in the Digital realm is a lot easier, since technology controls how the information moves from where it is stored to the point it drives a speaker magnet to produce the sound your ears hear. The DVD 'Region' encoding was a rights-management ploy to restrict sales of DVD's to certain broad markets (point of trivia: the International Space Station shares a DVD region with a very select few markets, it can't use North America or Russian encoded media).
Exploiting the 'analog hole' requires much more work than doing it digitally, but the results can be just as good. Most often the results are 'lossy' in that the reproduction isn't as good as the original, but it can be quite good enough. Using a cam-corder to record 'Narnia' on release-night is a form of 'analog hole' exploit. So is piping your 'speaker-out' output on your sound card into your 'line-in' input and making a .WAV of whatever you are playing.
The method I've used to get media I have on cassette tape, purchased legitimately umpteen years ago, onto CD uses 'analog hole' methods. I have a WalkMan that I know to play tapes at the right speed. I connect the headphone-out to the line-in on my computer. I then spend a few minutes getting the levels set right so it doesn't spike things too much or sound too quiet. Then I play each song on the walkman while simultaneously recording a .WAV file. Once done, I then burn the .WAV to the CD.
Legislation to close the 'analog hole' requires Government input simply because that's the only way it is going to work. Your ears are analog signal processors that by definition can't include 'rights-management' software, so at SOME point the media will be transmitted in a format that is not encumbered. The recent legislation works sort of like the v-chip in that it requires all recording devices devices sold in the US after a certain date to include technology that handles rights signaling. The signal indicating that this is a rights-restricted work is done 'in band', in that the tone or light pattern or whatever is in with the media stream, and something in the recording device senses this and prevents the recording from actually working.
This is why it has to come from the Feds. If it was just an industry cabal mandating this, there would be knock-offs that don't support the cabal's standards on the market and the cabal would have no recourse. But by getting a Federal law against the sale of such devices that do not support the cabal's standards, they have the right to sue or prosecute the knock-off vendors.
One of the interesting side-effects of this is that the rights-management tone/video is kept in-band. If a device that predates the ban-date records an encumbered bit of media, any devices after that time will still see the rights-management tone/video and treat it as such (presuming, of course, that the reproduction quality is high enough that the tone/video isn't degraded). This is something that digital reproductions don't generally have right now, but I expect that to go away at some point.
If this does pass, it'll raise the bar pirates have to cross to get media copied. Such reproductions will have to use technically illegal "Analog Rights Management" (ARM) disabled devices, or find some way to filter out the in-band signals. There is hope. A LOT of DVD players have ways to remove or temporarily disable the 'region encoding' restrictions, and came that way from the factory.
I'm not so sure this'll get past Congress. True, the RIAA has a lot of money behind it. Also true is that there are non-infringing uses that this will either prevent or greatly inhibit. The V-Chip got passed on a 'save the children' wave. Analog Hole legislation amounts to a government-sanctioned monopoly, and with the exception of Baseball we got rid of that kind of thing years ago.
Clearly, it took digital copying methods (ripping a CD to MP3, coupled with access to high speed internet links) for the barrier to entry to be low enough to actually threaten sales measurably.
Rights Management software in the Digital realm is a lot easier, since technology controls how the information moves from where it is stored to the point it drives a speaker magnet to produce the sound your ears hear. The DVD 'Region' encoding was a rights-management ploy to restrict sales of DVD's to certain broad markets (point of trivia: the International Space Station shares a DVD region with a very select few markets, it can't use North America or Russian encoded media).
Exploiting the 'analog hole' requires much more work than doing it digitally, but the results can be just as good. Most often the results are 'lossy' in that the reproduction isn't as good as the original, but it can be quite good enough. Using a cam-corder to record 'Narnia' on release-night is a form of 'analog hole' exploit. So is piping your 'speaker-out' output on your sound card into your 'line-in' input and making a .WAV of whatever you are playing.
The method I've used to get media I have on cassette tape, purchased legitimately umpteen years ago, onto CD uses 'analog hole' methods. I have a WalkMan that I know to play tapes at the right speed. I connect the headphone-out to the line-in on my computer. I then spend a few minutes getting the levels set right so it doesn't spike things too much or sound too quiet. Then I play each song on the walkman while simultaneously recording a .WAV file. Once done, I then burn the .WAV to the CD.
Legislation to close the 'analog hole' requires Government input simply because that's the only way it is going to work. Your ears are analog signal processors that by definition can't include 'rights-management' software, so at SOME point the media will be transmitted in a format that is not encumbered. The recent legislation works sort of like the v-chip in that it requires all recording devices devices sold in the US after a certain date to include technology that handles rights signaling. The signal indicating that this is a rights-restricted work is done 'in band', in that the tone or light pattern or whatever is in with the media stream, and something in the recording device senses this and prevents the recording from actually working.
This is why it has to come from the Feds. If it was just an industry cabal mandating this, there would be knock-offs that don't support the cabal's standards on the market and the cabal would have no recourse. But by getting a Federal law against the sale of such devices that do not support the cabal's standards, they have the right to sue or prosecute the knock-off vendors.
One of the interesting side-effects of this is that the rights-management tone/video is kept in-band. If a device that predates the ban-date records an encumbered bit of media, any devices after that time will still see the rights-management tone/video and treat it as such (presuming, of course, that the reproduction quality is high enough that the tone/video isn't degraded). This is something that digital reproductions don't generally have right now, but I expect that to go away at some point.
If this does pass, it'll raise the bar pirates have to cross to get media copied. Such reproductions will have to use technically illegal "Analog Rights Management" (ARM) disabled devices, or find some way to filter out the in-band signals. There is hope. A LOT of DVD players have ways to remove or temporarily disable the 'region encoding' restrictions, and came that way from the factory.
I'm not so sure this'll get past Congress. True, the RIAA has a lot of money behind it. Also true is that there are non-infringing uses that this will either prevent or greatly inhibit. The V-Chip got passed on a 'save the children' wave. Analog Hole legislation amounts to a government-sanctioned monopoly, and with the exception of Baseball we got rid of that kind of thing years ago.
posted by Corwin at 12:22 PM
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