The Onerous "Broadcast Flag"
In a blockbuster announcement May 6, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said that the FCC, acting as a stooge for the MPAA and Hollywood interests, overstepped its bounds by requiring that "broadcast flag" circuitry be included as a mandate in all new digital receivers as of July. Apparently the court realized (in a unanimous decision, by the way) that the FCC was not representing the people or protecting anyone except a few vested Hollywood insiders.
To me, this is a huge rebuke to the direction the FCC has gone in on matters concerning the public interest. Unfortunately, the National Association of Broadcasters is planning to push Congress to enact a law mandating the broadcast-flag circuitry.
The value of the broadcast flag is apparent. It was to create a new conduit for distributing of movies and special-events programming that would defeat any time-switching or other legitimate consumer desires. It's really not about the Internet and piracy, as everyone claims. Piracy and Internet distribution will not be stopped by this technology. This is a red herring.
Above all, the broadcast flag would probably kill much of the functionality of the TiVO-like DVR devices that are becoming more and more popular. Both the Hollywood and TV folks are getting concerned about the commercial-skipping features of these devices...
pcmag.com
FCC's broadcast flag: It's back?
The broadcast flag could be raised again.
Less than a week after a federal appeals court nixed the Federal Communications Commission's plan to forcibly implant anti-copying technology into digital TV tuners, Hollywood appears to be turning to Congress for some legislative aid.
Advocacy group Public Knowledge, which sued to challenge the FCC's broadcast flag, says it has obtained a copy of the Motion Picture Association of America's draft legislation.
The draft bill says, simply, that the FCC will "have authority to adopt regulations governing digital television apparatus necessary to control the indiscriminate redistribution of digital television broadcast content over digital networks." The District of Columbia Circuit nixed the flag on the grounds that the FCC didn't have the authority. This language would clear that up.
There's no word yet on what the MPAA has to say, but it's fair to say that this kind of legislative response was inevitable.
The main thing holding Congress back right now is that everyone's waiting for what the U.S. Supreme Court will decide in the Grokster case. The loser in that lawsuit will ask politicians for help, and that legislation (the thinking goes) would be a good opportunity to address digital TV copy-prevention techniques as well.
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