[mythtv-users] Time Warner & Firewire

Lane Schwartz dowobeha at gmail.com
Thu May 19 22:19:21 UTC 2005


On 5/19/05, Brad Templeton <brad+myth at templetons.com> wrote:
> > Which brings me back to option 3 and my question from many posts back.
> > Are there legal options we could pursue? Obviously there is always the
> > political path - trying to get Congress to change things for the
> > better. But I also think that's somewhat unlikely to happen.
>
> Yes, several have asked if having industry cartels define DRM standards
> and blocking anybody else from making media players unless they sign on
> to the cartels rules might violate antitrust.  Quite possibly, though this
> is expensive to follow through on.

Well, the good news and the bad news is the same on this one: the U.S.
Attorney General's  Office is the one entity which can file antitrust
suits under the Sherman Act. This is good because the U.S. Federal
Government would shoulder the cost of the suit, but bad because the
USDOJ must be convinced of the merits of the suit, or it won't get
filed in the first place.

There are also other federal and state antitrust statutes that may be
worth exploring.
See http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/div_stats/9142.htm for starters.

So, it's possible that if we got all our ducks in a row we could
report an antitrust violation to the USDOJ. They do accept reports of
violations by phone or via their website.

I'd be a bit surprised if the same DOJ that caved in to Microsoft at
the end of their monopoly battle would be willing to take on
Hollywood, but you never know...

If any of various state attorneys general could be convinced of
possible state antitrust violations, that's another avenue.


Lane


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