Now Hollywood Wants Analog To Digital Converters As Well

from the oh,-come-on dept

Found on Politech is news that not only does the entertainment industry want to take over all digital devices, they also think we need to install copyright protection on every analog to digital converter. The article is quite alarmist, and is certainly written with the idea of stirring people up, but it does make some good points about the ridiculousness of the plan. As the article says, if Hollywood could get this done, you wouldn't be able to talk on your mobile phone if you were too close to a radio playing music, because the analog to digital converter would notice the song was copyrighted and would shut down. Whether or not such technology would ever really work well enough is certainly questionable. I would also imagine that the added expense on just about every device imaginable would be ridiculous.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Ed, 24 May 2002 @ 9:34am

    Fantasy Land

    Whoever came up with this has been watching too much Star Trek. In cheesy science fiction, you can reprogram your communicator (with a screwdriver) to turn it into a tractor beam, but in the real world, it just doesn't make sense to burden every 49-cent ADC chip with the added size, expense, and power consumption of a processor that would detect watermarks. And on top of that, perfect invisible watermarks are impossible anyway, though that doesn't stop the content owners from looking for them.

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.