Posted on 01/12/2007 6:16:23 AM PST by PissAndVinegar
Senator John Sununu (R-NH) has just announced that his office is working on legislation that would prevent the FCC from creating specific technology mandates that have to be followed by consumer electronics manufacturers. What's his target? The broadcast flag.
Television and movie studios have wanted a broadcast flag for years. The flag is a short analog or digital signal embedded into broadcasts that specifies what users can do with the content. It would most often be used to prevent any copying of broadcast material, but there's an obvious problem with the plan: it requires recording devices to pay attention to the flag. Because no consumers wander the aisles at Best Buy thinking, "You know, I would definitely buy this DVD recorder, but only if it supported broadcast flag technology," the industry has asked the federal government to step in and simply require manufacturers to respect the flag.
At first they approached the FCC, and the FCC complied by dutifully trotting out some new broadcast flag regulations. Unfortunately for the content industry, the FCC doesn't generally have the right to tell manufacturers how to build their products. The rules were thrown out by an appeals court in 2005.
Undaunted, the industry tried again in Congress. Last year, when a rewrite to the 1996 Telecommunications Act was being considered, broadcast flag legislation was in fact attached to the bill and even made it through committee before bogging down.
Sununu's bill will attempt to rein in the FCC and prevent it from reviving the broadcast flag without Congressional authorization to do so. "The FCC seems to be under the belief that it should occasionally impose technology mandates," Sununu said in a statement. "These misguided requirements distort the marketplace by forcing industry to adopt agency-blessed solutions rather than allow innovative and competitive approaches to develop. We have seen this happen with the proposed video flag, and interest groups are pushing for an audio flag mandate as well. Whether well-intentioned or not, the FCC has no business interfering in private industry to satisfy select special interests or to impose its own views."
Wouldn't that be the broacasters that want this. So they can charge royalties every time you watch a show you taped?
I had to look up what a broadcast flag was.
Wikipedia:
A broadcast flag is a set of status bits (or "flags") sent in the data stream of a digital television program that indicates whether or not it can be recorded, or if there are any restrictions on recorded content. Possible restrictions include inability to save an unencrypted digital program to a hard disk or other non-volatile storage, inability to make secondary copies of recorded content (in order to share or archive), forceful reduction of quality when recording (such as reducing high-definition video to the resolution of standard TVs), and inability to skip over commercials. In the United States, new television receivers using the ATSC standard were supposed to incorporate this functionality by July 1, 2005, but a federal court struck down the Federal Communications Commission's rule to this effect on May 6. The stated intention of the broadcast flag was to prevent copyright infringement, but many have asserted that broadcast flags interfere with the fair use rights of the viewing public.
I understand people wanting to protect their work product, but when you broadcast something to Millions of people, you kind of let the cat out of the bag, don't you?
So, MSNBC can implement broadcast flags?
Hmmm. As if some enterprising person won't invent an in-line filter that strips the flags or impedes their implementation at the recording device. Flags are just another obstacle to be overcome - and they would be.
Yes, I don't want that sort of control over what I pay for.
I think this is even something most of the free speech lib-labs will get behind.
The MSNBC broadcast flag should be set to 'diarrhea ahead, proceed with hip boots'
Broadcasters and nannystaters....it's more that digital rights manangment (DRM) / dictating where you can 'play' said media.
Yes broadcasters want it for royalties - charge you for watching it on TV, then charge you if you want to watch the same content on your phone - which I cannot really argue with. The content is their IP and they have the right to dictate how it's reproduced.
The nannystaters however want this because besides dictating where you can play content, this can also dictate WHAT content you can play.
If set up as they want, one day the Gov't could ask broadcasters to essentially flip a switch and no more R rated programs for anyone, no more "24" cause it offends someone...
Having the FCC involved wreaks of communist china where they control the content of what the people can see. The broadcast flag is a step in that direction.
These jerks just will NOT recognize that anybody who wants to copy something will find a way to do so. For video, it's called a "camera", and for audio, it's called a "recorder". Any video or audio product HAS to be converted into "analog" form for human use (vision, hearing). And at that point, it can be re-converted to digital--WITHOUT the "broadcast flag", or any other method of copy protection.
HAHHAAHA!
The visual with chrissy!
I'm impressed with Sununu. The industry should not be able to force the equipment makers to put restrictions in the devices they sell to us.
Katie Couric, too!
"Sununu also wants the government to open up to Congress what they are doing in regards to data mining of American citizens."
I bet Sununu just loves this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1765833/posts?page=26
I believe this is the flag that'll cause older HDTVs to downrez 1080i content to 420 on the component inputs.
like macrovision?
In the case of true broadcasting...yes. But these days, cable content is sort of lumped into that category...but is not truly a 'broadcast'.
LOL, what a buncha goobers.
Has the VHS tape caused Armageddon yet?
Mess with my TiVo and I will be royally pissed.
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