Customize your Smart TV

[GURPS]

The Government Just Gave Everyone Permission to Hack Smart TVs


In a decision that looks jaw-droppingly progressive from a technological standpoint, especially by government standards, the U.S. Copyright Office and the Librarian of Congress granted an exemption from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that give Smart TV users the freedom to “jailbreak” their devices. This will allow “interoperability” between different TVs, and the installation of third-party software.

The decision, which can be read in full here, includes language that addresses the main concern of the movement’s opponents, who contended that it would promote the use of piracy programs like Popcorn Time:

The Register also found that the prohibition on circumvention is adversely affecting legitimate noninfringing uses of smart TV firmware, and that the proposed alternatives to circumvention, such as connecting a laptop computer to the TV, are inadequate, because they would not allow installation of software on the smart TV to improve its functioning as a TV, such as facilitating more prominent subtitles. The Register also concluded that no evidence was submitted to illustrate opponents’ claim that jailbreaking of smart TVs will make it easier to gain unauthorized access to copyrighted content, or that it would otherwise undermine smart TVs as a platform for the consumption of expressive works.”​

 

[glhs837]

And more wide ranging implications too, from hacking your car to any other device you bought.

 

[Hodr]

In a decision that looks jaw-droppingly progressive from a technological standpoint[...]

Absolutely Jaw-dropping to allow people to modify things that they buy. You know, like they did throughout human history before the DMCA was put into place.

I could just imagine one caveman telling another, "the tribal elders have decreed that if you take apart the bow I sold you and modify it, I can take all of your belongings and throw you off the volcano as a sacrifice to ensure better bow sales next year".

 

[glhs837]

Absolutely Jaw-dropping to allow people to modify things that they buy. You know, like they did throughout human history before the DMCA was put into place.

I could just imagine one caveman telling another, "the tribal elders have decreed that if you take apart the bow I sold you and modify it, I can take all of your belongings and throw you off the volcano as a sacrifice to ensure better bow sales next year".

No, the jaw dropping part is that some common sense stuff actually got done in DC.

 

[GURPS]

not for long:



Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement


The leaked U.S. IP chapter includes many detailed requirements that are more restrictive than current international standards, and would require significant changes to other countries’ copyright laws. These include obligations for countries to:

• Expand Copyright Terms: Create copyright terms well beyond the internationally agreed period in the 1994 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The TPP could extend copyright term protections from life of the author + 50 years, to Life + 70 years for works created by individuals, and either 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation for corporate owned works (such as Mickey Mouse).
• Escalate Protections for DRM (aka Digital Locks): It will compel signatory nations to enact laws banning circumvention of digital locks (technological protection measures or TPMs) [PDF] that mirror the DMCA and treat violation of the TPM provisions as a separate offense even when no copyright infringement is involved. This would require countries like New Zealand to completely rewrite its innovative 2008 copyright law, as well as override Australia’s carefully-crafted 2007 TPM regime exclusions for region-coding on movies on DVDs, video games, and players, and for embedded software in devices that restrict access to goods and services for the device—a thoughtful effort by Australian policy makers to avoid the pitfalls experienced with the US digital locks provisions. In the U.S., business competitors have used the DMCA to try to block printer cartridge refill services, competing garage door openers, and to lock mobile phones to particular network providers.
• Create New Threats for Journalists and Whistleblowers: Dangerously vague text on the misuse of trade secrets, which could be used to enact harsh criminal punishments against anyone who reveals or even accesses information through a "computer system" that is allegedly confidential.
• Enact a "Three-Step Test" Language That Puts Restrictions on Fair Use: The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) is putting fair use at risk with restrictive language in the TPP's IP chapter. U.S. and Australia have proposed very restrictive text, while other countries such as Chile, New Zealand, and Malaysia, have proposed more flexible, user-friendly terms.
• Place Greater Liability on Internet Intermediaries: The TPP would force the adoption of the U.S. DMCA Internet intermediaries copyright safe harbor regime in its entirety. For example, this would require Chile to rewrite its forward-looking 2010 copyright law that currently establishes a judicial notice-and-takedown regime, which provides greater protection to Internet users’ expression and privacy than the DMCA.
• Adopt Heavy Criminal Sanctions: Adopt criminal sanctions for copyright infringement that is done without a commercial motivation. Users could be jailed or hit with debilitating fines over file sharing, and may have their property or domains seized even without a formal complaint from the copyright holder.