A few days ago, I stopped by Valenti's office in Washington, armed with a (digital) voice recorder, following through a promise to present his industry's side of things in this column, which has not been friendly to the MPAA's members and other big media companies. I made that offer after I heard from a colleague that Valenti, meeting recently with journalists in Los Angeles, had complained about what I'd been writing.

So while I don't agree with much of what he said -- and I'll respond in a subsequent column -- it's only fair to give you his side of the argument.

MS-NBC - Tauzin sets new digital TV deadline. Proposal would mandate end to analog by end of 2006

U.S. lawmakers are working on an effort that would render standard televisions and VCRs obsolete within five years by requiring broadcasters to switch to digital, copy-protected signals. A proposal released Thursday by Rep. Billy Tauzin, chairman of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, would require broadcasters to transmit digital signals by the beginning of 2006, and require them to cease standard, analog broadcasts by the end of that year.

[ ... ]

A consumer group blasted the proposal, saying it would hurt innovation and curtail the "fair use" rights of consumers to make limited copies of programming for personal use.

"This bill draft would give an unelected, unaccountable federal bureaucracy the authority to dictate the use of and regulate the devices in a consumer's family room," said DigitalConsumer.org in a statement.

Slashdot | "Ask Slashdot" - HDTV and Its Impending Problems?.

NeuroManson asks: "With the growing hype surrounding HDTV and copy protection, and as further corporate control of the FCC becomes more commonplace with the inevitable arrival of the technology thanks to Hollywood, you will have no choice in the future of watching anything else, since your TV, VCR, etc, will be forced into obsolescence. There are two things that this brings to mind that should be addressed: who will be paying for the retrofit to the thousands of CRT and TV manufacturing plants around the world to make this possible; and assuming that this is going to be a US only problem in the short term (approx 3 years), how do they propose to safely dispose of all those outmoded TVs?" --- About the only way that this can happen by the recently proposed deadline of July 1st, 2007, without trashing and replacing the majority of our current televisions, American television owners would have to have their TVs "serviced" by a qualified technician to continue to receive broadcast signals. Having a secondary tuner would not work as that would break the "trusted" display chain that Hollywood is seeking to establish.

Bad title ... The problem is not just HDTV but all Digital TV. HDTV is just one of the many broadcast options.

New York Times Week In Review - free registration required A Nation of Informers.

It is not difficult to identify in hindsight tips that should have been made before Sept. 11, 2001, that were not. Is it possible to be too vigilant?

[ ... ]

James McMahon, the superintendent of the New York State Police, said people should err on the side of passing along information, even if it is based only on "instincts and intuition."

But is it possible to be too vigilant? Does the flood of resulting tips obscure or even reduce, as the boy who cried wolf learned, the truly valuable information?

Even Gov. George E. Pataki sounded a little wary about the hotline when he announced it, asking people to use it "responsibly and with common sense."

Civil libertarians said that may be asking too much of the public.

"We will find ourselves falling into anarchy if we ask ordinary people to play the role that only law enforcement officials can play properly," said Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

But others say such comments exaggerate and overreach.

OpenFlows.org - Privacy Lecture Series.

The Privacy Series as such has ended, so this site functions mainly as an archive, documenting the history of a project that went on for two years (2000-2002) and was a great forum for privacy related discussions.

The Series has evolved into the Information Rights Salon, which maintains a strong emphasis on privacy issues, but broadens its scope to include speakers on other information rights issues. Go to the website to find out more.

If anyone knows where we can find the 'Information Rights Salon' let me know.

EE Times - Bill would add copy protection to DTV receivers .

Draft legislation released this week by the House Commerce Committee would add copy protection technology to all digital TV receivers by 2006 and relieve cable operators of obligations to carry DTV signals on their systems.

Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin, R-La., chief backer of the DTV transition legislation, said it "represents the committee's starting legislative point to solve the DTV problem." Tauzin has been meeting for nearly a year with key stakeholders in the DTV debate to speed up the transition.

[ ... ]

Consumer groups opposed the copy protection proposal. "The broadcast flag is fundamentally anti-consumer," Digitalconsumer.org said in a statement. "The bill asserts that fair-use will be protected at the same time as providing content providers with bulletproof piracy protection. But no such technology exists to meet both of these goals."