The Motion Picture Association of America's Copy Protection Technical Working Group — the same people who gave us mandatory DVD use-control systems and proposed the dread broadcast flag mandate — have struck a new working group to "plug the analog hole." This group is working to make it impossible to digitize an analog signal without a copyright-holder's permission, which means that, for example, politicians could transmit campaign-promise speeches that you can't record to hold them to later.
The group, called the Analog Reconversion Discussion Group (ARDG — pronounced "Argh!") is hewing to the secretive principles that kept the Broadcast Flag negotiation out of the public eye. The press may not attend its meetings or sit in on its phone calls. However, anyone not working for the press with $100 and a plane ticket to LAX may attend the meetings and report on their proceedings.
So EFF has started a new blog to chronicle the negotiation, called "Cruelty to Analog." The blog will be updated with reports from each of the ARDG's meetings, its draft documents and position papers — all the news that's fit to blog. These people are engaged in a horse-trading exercise with your fair-use and free-speech rights. If you can't make it to LA for the monthly meeting, shouldn't you at least be keeping track of what they're doing to your rights?
