[mythtv-users] Unlocking Technologies Act

[R. G. Newbury]

On 05/09/2013 09:29 PM, Raymond Wagner wrote:
> On 5/9/2013 8:53 PM, Joseph Fry wrote:
>> Which leads to my favorite line from the congresswoman's summary is "In
>> addition, the bill would permit the use and sale of tools – like
>> software apps – that enable unlocking for uses that do not infringe on
>> copyright. "  I hope it's just a firmware update for the HDHR Prime to
>> ignore the copy protection flags on cable channels!
>
> You could, but in all likelihood the firmware itself is copyrighted, and
> thus you would not be able to distribute your modified versions of it.
> You could (in theory) write your own clean room firmware from scratch,
> but then you would still have to crack the CC handshake to authorize
> your new firmware. If you have to deal with the handshake, you may as
> well do that from their open source library, rather than trying to write
> a whole firmware.

The point is not that the firmware is copyrighted but that, at present, 
you are not allowed to *touch* that particular firmware. If this Bill is 
passed in the form which is advertised, you, or anyone would be able to 
write a tool to poke the correct spot in the loaded firmware image (or 
even re-write the firmware eeprom) to, for example, remove the carrier 
lock-in, or strip the 'do not copy flag' or remove the HDCP restrictions.

At present, even doing those things is a criminal act, although none of 
them actually effect copyright. If you own a book, you can cut pages out 
or burn it if you don't like it. But you are presently not allowed to 
change one byte of the code in your phone.

I suspect that the Bill will have greater support than you expect. 
SCOTUS upheld, rather strongly, the concept that you DO own your own 
books in Kirtsaeng v Wiley and that case has a lot of philospohical 
'reach' into this arena.

As to Silicon Dust, the new Bill would allow {someone} to sell a tool 
which amends the 'as-sold' code/firmware image and replaces it with one 
which disables the DoNotCopy flag.

Of course, Canada is only just getting around to moving the WRONG way...


-- 
             R. Geoffrey Newbury