Appeals Court blocks FCC from imposing "Broadcast Flag" rule (1 Viewer)

[Paul McElligott]

I hope this won't be seen as "political" but this is good news:

Court Blocks TV Anti-Piracy Tech Rules

The court ruled that the FCC exceeded the authority granted it by Congress.

 

[Todd Phillips]

Here are relevant statements from the ruling:


Of course, Congress is free to make whatever laws they see fit in light of this ruling.

More info here

 

[Jason Harbaugh]

Does/will any of this pertain to HDTV's and limiting HD signals to only those sets with HDMI or DVI inputs?

 

[Todd Phillips]

Actaully, it affects whether or not the FCC could require digital tv receivers to "recognize and give effect to the broadcast flag pursuant to certain compliance and robustness rules".

"Compliance" meaning that if the flag is present in the signal, then the device would not allow a digital output of the broadcast without some sort of "content protection" on it. They are trying to prevent high quality copying of a broadcast program (TIVO, DVD-R, etc.).

If your digital receiver and TV are a combined device, then it wouldn't affect the viewing of programs (there is no encryption involved). But if they were separate, I guess it might affect the ways you can connect them.

The implementation would only affect new products, supposedly.

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

I just recieved an e-mail from EFF:


EDIT: Fixed link text

 

[Glenn Overholt]

The way I understood this was that a station could send you the signal, but if they 'flagged' it, you would not be able to make a recording of it.

If you think this is a joke it happened to me about a month ago when I tried to record a DVR from Tivo. I think it was just a test because it only lasted about 5 minutes, but it was there, none the less.

If they are able to 'flag' programs, they could flag everything. Any Tivo, DVR or VHS machine wouldn't work. In effect it brings back the 'prime time hours', as we would be forced to choose to watch 1 program at any given time.

Glenn

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I'm glad that the court sees the correct point-of-view. My only worry is that if the MPAA runs to Congress, we'll end up with something worse that the broadcast flag.

 

[David_Blackwell]

I hope the FCC and MPAA don't win on this. The courts were right to rule as they did.