The EFF already defeated the Broadcast Flag once, but it's one of those things that Hollywood is not going to let go of. I noticed on Dave's site that DRM support was added to TiVO last year . This DRM allows content owners to specify how and whether TiVO users can record a flagged show: they either...
There's been a bit of discussion on two patent applications filed by Philips on what the author of this NYT article refers to as "pay to surf" technology. Part of me hopes that they patented this simply to prevent others from using the invention, but somehow I don't think that's the case. ( Aside: Why...
The MPAA has launched a massive attack on P2P sites, but one of the sites is fighting back . TorrentSpy is a search engine for torrent files - it doesn't host the torrent files or the underlying protected material. In their response, they said that the MPAA might have just as well sued Google . Fred...
Last year, Fred raised the issue of commercial skipping under FECA. One of the provisions of that act was to legalize the skipping of "limited portions" of a work in the context of profanity filters. The Copyright Office reasoned that this exemption didn't apply to commercial skipping, however, because...
Neowin points to another piece of software that allows you to "convert" protected AACs and WMAs to unprotected MP3s. Like other programs, they've taken an intersting approach to bypassing DCMA concerns: instead of decrypting the underlying media, they capture the (unprotected) output from the sound card...