Saw this on J.D Lasica’s Darknet blog. This is totally bogus and taking away rights from the consumers. This will likely get passed by the US Congress as Hollywood will just keep throwing money at the politicians until it passes. people need to stand up and let their representatives know that rights are more important than money.

Pro-Hollywood bill aims to end fair use in digital television:
Missed this the other day by Declan McCullagh in CNET’s News.com: Pro-Hollywood bill aims to restrict digital tuners.

A new proposal in Congress could please Hollywood studios, which are increasingly worried about Internet piracy, by embedding anticopying technology into the next generation of digital video products.

If the legislation were enacted, one year later it would outlaw the manufacture or sale of electronic devices that convert analog video signals into digital ones–unless those encoders honor an anticopying plan designed to curb redistribution. Affected devices would include PC-based tuners and digital video recorders.

“This legislation is designed to secure analog content from theft that has been made easier as a result of the transition to digital technologies,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner Jr., a Wisconsin Republican, said late Friday. Criminals “obtain copyrighted content and then redistribute for profit at the copyright owner’s expense,” he added.

Bullshit. This will outlaw fair use in the video/television realm.

Digital video recorders with analog tuners or inputs would only be allowed to record “copy-prohibited” shows for 90 minutes. After that, the digital recording must be “destroyed or otherwise rendered unusable.”

Analog video output of “copy-prohibited” recordings would be permitted as long as it was to a VGA output with a resolution of no more than 720 pixels by 480 pixels.

Violations would be punished by civil penalties between $200 and $2,500 per product. Commercial offenders would be imprisoned for up to five years and fined not more than $500,000.

The two copy-protection systems that must be supported are Video Encoded Invisible Light–used in a Batmobile toy–and Content Generation Management System-Analog.

Whedon Calls Death Knell For Firefly:
Ant writes “Entertainment Weekly is reporting on the end of Firefly.” From the article: “Alas, Whedon’s fond memories are also tainted by Serenity’s status as a franchise nonstarter; despite Universal’s best marketing efforts, the film only mustered $25 million. ‘In the end, it was what it was: a tough sell,’ says Whedon, adding that it appears the Firefly saga has reached its conclusion. He has no regrets — and he’s moving on.”
A sad day. Firefly was not given a chance by the networks or Serenity by the movie production company. I think DVD sales will be very good though and know I will be buying it for my collection as soon as I can.

Serenity coming out on DVD on December 20:

Universal Studios Home Video have announced the Region 1 DVD release of Serenity for 20th December 2005 priced at $29.98 SRP.

Not much else to say. If you have seen it you know you want it, and if you haven’t seen it you should get it.

Answer a few questions and find out which of your favourite sci-fi characters you really are!

I am Leonard “Bones” McCoy the doctor from the original Star Trek.

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