20 Lawmakers Want to Kill Your Television

[Dominus Atheos]

All right, seeing as how DEATH/.303 bookworm is gone for the week, I guess I will post the important stuff covered by /. (Slashdot, for all you non-nerds)

As previously mentioned, the Broadcast Flag is back before congress. There are 20 law makers currently supporting the bill. The insane thing about it is the fact that no one supports the bill except a handful of entertainment companies. Probably not even the employees of the entertainment companies. It's bad enough they want to break our televisions, but the way that they are subverting democracy is just astounding. Danny O'Brien at the EFF has done a spectacular jobdeconstructing the MPAA/RIAA's efforts to ramrod this through, and more importantly, the motivations of the members of congress who are helping them.

[Dominus Atheos]

I am going to be a little nicer then /., and post the articles the post linked to.

Not long ago we updated you on the MPAA and RIAA's shenanigans to smuggle the Broadcast Flag through the United States Senate. Those who paid attention during "Schoolhouse Rock" will realize that's only half of the duo's burden. To make the Flag law, they must march it past the House of Representatives, too.

Now the second shoe has dropped: 20 members of the House sent an open letter to Congressman Fred Upton, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet (part of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce), and its ranking member, Edward J. Markey. All 20 pledged their allegianceto the Broadcast Flag.

The letter is short, with a single substantive talking point. If Congress doesn't deliver a Broadcast Flag pronto, warns the letter, content producers will abandon free, over-the-air broadcast TV.

To pound home this dire threat, the phrase "free, over-the-air television" is repeated no fewer than eight times - with four repetitions in four consecutive sentences. It's a little like the local racketeer rustling up extra protection money by emphasizing over and over how beautiful your precious Ming vase is, and what a tragedy it would be if anything were to happen to it.

But no matter how many times this threat is repeated, it's not even close to credible. The corporations that make up the MPAA have been threatening to boycott digital TV for years, without ever actually managing to stop broadcasting. Of course, Mr. Upton doesn't really need convincing, anyway. He's alreadygone on recordas supporting the Broadcast Flag.

So why are 20 House representatives writing him a public letter? Because Mr. Upton is the one who needs a show of support.

You see, it appears that the MPAA and RIAA may have a problem with the House of Representatives.

The driver of digital TV legislation in the House is Joe Barton, Chairman of the Commerce Committee. And if what we hear through beltway back channels is true, Barton wants a deal. He believes that if the MPAA wants the Broadcast Flag in his bill so badly, it should be willing to compromise.

But the MPAA is in no mood for discussion. It wants to ram this bill through as quickly as possible, and it's leaning on Upton to stay the course. The letter is a way of saying that Upton isn't alone.

Fortunately for us, the fact that 20 out of 57 committee members support the Flag sends a message the MPAA doesn't want anyone to hear: the Broadcast Flag is controversial. If it wasn't, no one would be writing open letters to anyone else. And that means this committee has a duty to engage in serious, careful, comprehensive discussion and debate before the Flag legislation goes anywhere.

The Hollywood lobbyists are tallying their support, but they don't have the majority of the committee convinced. Do your part: tell your representative that you and your fellow constituentswon't stand for the Broadcast Flag, especially without a hearing showing evidence that anyone but the MPAA and RIAA supports it.

The public knowledge.com one is just a list of senators on the US Senate Commerce Committee, and intructions to contact your senators about this issue

[CDiehl]

Before I run around yelling how the sky is falling, what is this and why should I care? The EFF article sounds like it's part of a continuing story I don't know the beginning of.

[Dominus Atheos]

Copy-protected TV broadcasts?

Posted 01/17/2002 @ 8:44 PM
by Peter "Yaz" Yang

American media companies are pressing ahead with their efforts to prevent individuals from copying and distributing copyrighted television content. What I don't see, however, is how the latest initiative will achieve anything and why it's targeted an almost non-existent problem.

As broadcast TV turns digital this year, studios are looking for ways to control how shows are recorded and traded, and they are proposing technologies that could ultimately bar consumers from freely recording TV programs from the airwaves.
...
Studios are worried that broadcast TV signals, which are not scrambled the same way that cable or satellite feeds are, could become a source of piracy as people copy and swap TV shows and broadcast movies.
...
Copyright owners say they are loath to release their best movies or TV shows into the digital TV world, knowing they can be almost instantly copied and traded online.

Studios are worried about TV rips that are created from broadcast TV? Granted that digital broadcasts will enable people to make higher quality copies from broadcast television shows, but a large majority of US television viewers, almost 73 million households, already subscribe to cable TV. Many others get their television signals via digital satellite services. Most of the quality television captures that are being shared on the internet originate from cable or digital satellite signals, not the presently inferior broadcast signals. It's also ridiculous to think that people are recording and sharing broadcast movies, which have station IDs and often edited content, when cable, digital satellite, DVD, and even VHS are all superior sources.

The newest plan, which has not been streamlined into actual selection of technology, revolves around inserting an invisible, inaudible "flag" into a digital broadcast. Information contained inside this marker would indicate whether the broadcast could be copied, stored or shared.

Unless it is written into law, it is unlikely that electronics companies will universally comply to enable support for the watermark in their devices, and there is no mention of why people could not simply get the signal from a compliant device such as their digital receiver and connect that to their capture card.

The Technology Working Group has a better record of achievement, however. Formed in 1996 to come up with standards for protecting DVDs from piracy, the group has consistently agreed on standards such as the Content Scrambling System, which is built into DVDs and DVD players.

And of course we all know how successful CSS was, with DVDs being a leading source of pirated movies distributed on the internet.

Although I think this effort is woefully misdirected at an almost non-existent problem, this reflects the ever-growing concern in the US entertainment industry about digital video distribution and indicates that other safeguards are probably in the works.

[Dominus Atheos]

Federal government wants to mandate hardware-level DRM

Posted 10/16/2003 @ 12:00 PM
by Ken "Caesar" Fisher

The US Federal government is ramping up a series of new rules that would require both PC and other electronics manufacturers to build-in hardware level technologies to prevent copyright violations. Back in the beginning of 2002 we reported on the Television's industry's interest in so-called broadcast flags. The idea is that digital content could be marked with flags that are detectable by playback and recording hardware. Such flags would dictate copying, recording, and other usage matters. At that time it was clear to us that such a move would be irrelevant if electronics makers were not forced to respect broadcast flags. Still, the industry pushed on, even going so far as to ask the government to require similar DRM-protecting technologies into analog-to-digital converters. This move was aimed squarely at those people who would simply circumvent broadcast flags by playing content on non-digital devices.

Now the FCC is looking to legislate the broadcast flag technology into existence, at least for the "public airwaves" broadcasters. For now they are taking a hands-off approach to selecting the actual tech standard, but the direction is clear: the FCC is in favor of technologies that can control how viewers can manipulate broadcast TV. Whether or not this will result in users being forced to buy new electronics just to view new content remains to be seen, but the risks are great. If the idea of broadcast DRM is already bad enough, imagine the circus that will follow once that broadcast DRM is broken. Could this result in a running street battle of technologies that require constant upgrades, or will this result in a DMCA "break-it-go-to-jail" policy of enforcement? It's not clear, but both the MPAA and the FCC seem to think that some DRM is better than none. Thanks to wandergeist for the heads-up.

[Dominus Atheos]

Court yanks down FCC's broadcast flag

By Declan McCullagh
Story last modified Fri May 06 09:52:00 PDT 2005

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In a stunning victory for hardware makers and television buffs, a federal appeals court has tossed out government rules that would have outlawed many digital TV receivers and tuner cards starting July 1.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Friday that the Federal Communications Commission did not have the authority to prohibit the manufacture of computer and video hardware that doesn't have copy protection technology known as the "broadcast flag." The regulations, which the FCC created in November 2003, had been intended to limit unauthorized Internet redistribution of over-the-air TV broadcasts.
News.context

What's new:
A federal appeals court has squelched an FCC rule that would have required TV gear to use copy protection technology known as a "broadcast flag."

Bottom line:
The ruling is a big setback for Hollywood studios, which sought to limit unauthorized Internet redistribution of over-the-air TV broadcasts. But it's a reprieve for makers of HDTV sets, PC tuner cards, and USB and Firewire tuners.

More stories on this topic

"The broadcast flag regulations exceed the agency's delegated authority under the statute," a three-judge panel unanimously concluded. "The FCC has no authority to regulate consumer electronic devices that can be used for receipt of wire or radio communication when those devices are not engaged in the process of radio or wire transmission." (Click here for a PDF of the decision.)

One result of Friday's ruling is that, unless it's eventually overturned by a higher court, the fight over digital TV piracy will return to Capitol Hill. The D.C. appeals court noted that the FCC "has no power to act" until "Congress confers power on it" by enacting a law explicitly authorizing the broadcast flag.

Under the FCC rules, starting in July digital TV tuner manufacturers would have had to include the broadcast flag. The flag limits a person's ability to redistribute video clips made from the recorded over-the-air broadcasts.

But in January, a coalition of librarians and public interest groups filed suit against the regulations, arguing that they would sharply curtail the ability of librarians and consumers to make "fair use" of copyrighted works and would curb interoperability between devices.

Friday's ruling represents a sizable setback for the Motion Picture Association of America, which had lobbied for the broadcast flag rules and had intervened in the lawsuit to defend them. But it's a reprieve for makers of HDTV sets, PC tuner cards, and USB and Firewire tuners--which will no longer have to redesign their products to comply with FCC rules.
special coverage
Finally, you are in control
Broadcast and cable networks are losing the ability to dictate programming. Also: What TVs to buy, and when.

James Burger, a lawyer at Dow, Lohnes and Albertson who opposed the broadcast flag on behalf of tech companies, said the FCC's legal theory was deeply worrying for computer makers.

"It would have turned the Federal Communications Commission into the Federal Computer Commission," Burger said. "Do you know of a computer now that doesn't touch the telecommunications infrastructure? The FCC was asserting jurisdiction over all information technology."

A digital game of capture the flag
Under the proposed rule, it would have become illegal to "sell or distribute" any product capable of receiving broadcast-flagged shows unless the product complies with the FCC's regulations.

Such products could handle flagged broadcasts only in specific ways set by the government. Those essentially include delivering analog output without copy protection, digital output to a few low-end displays, or high-quality digital output to devices that also adhere to the broadcast flag specification.

In general, consumers would have been able to record broadcast-flagged shows and movies, but would only be able to play them back on the same device. The FCC rules specify that all devices must uniquely link "such recording with a single covered demodulator product, using a cryptographic protocol or other effective means, so that such recording cannot be accessed in usable form by another product."

Broadcasters are not required to tag their shows and movies with the flag. It's up to each local station and network.

During oral arguments in February, the three judges on the appellate panel foreshadowed this week's decision by suggesting that the FCC had overstepped what the law permits.

"You're out there in the whole world, regulating. Are washing machines next?" asked Judge Harry Edwards. Quipped Judge David Sentelle: "You can't regulate washing machines. You can't rule the world."

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Some manufacturers of HDTV tuner cards had planned to discontinue their current products because they did not recognize the broadcast flag.

"We don't support the flag in our current hardware, meaning that if there is flagged content, we'll ignore the flag," Nicholas Freeman of Elgato Systems said in an interview last month. "After July of this year, we wouldn't be able to manufacture it anymore."

Elgato sells the EyeTV line of products, which includes the EyeTV 500 HDTV tuner for the Macintosh. The EyeTV 500 does not abide by the broadcast flag restrictions.

[Dominus Atheos]

FCC's broadcast flag: It's back?
May 13, 2005 6:21 AM PDT

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.

[Dominus Atheos]

MPAA tries to get sneaky (again) with broadcast flag legislation

9/27/2005 10:38:00 AM, by Eric Bangeman

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the MPAA is trying to ram broadcast flag legislation through Congress again, this time as an amendment to a budget reconciliation bill. Ever since the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the Federal Communications Commission overstepped its authority in mandating that all consumer electronic devices capable of receiving digital television signals incorporate support for the flag, the media industry has been working on getting Congress to enact the flag.

This latest attempt involves tacking on an amendment to a budget reconciliation bill. Reconciliation bills are an optional part of the government spending cycle, where Congress attempts to cut some mandatory spending in order to bring expenditures closer in line with the budget for the fiscal year. Since reconciliation is about cutting spending—something that always sounds good—such legislation cannot be substantially changed by the Budget Committee once it is presented, nor can it be filibustered.

With those limitations, reconciliation bills are a great way to get "stealth" legislation through Congress. Get it tacked on before it goes before the Budget Committee where it will get a straight "yea" or "nay" vote as part of the larger package, have it sped down to the floor of the House and Senate for another quick up or down vote, out to a joint conference to work out differences between the House and Senate versions, and on to the president's desk for signing. Once Congress passes complementary legislation mandated in the reconciliation bill, in a figurative blink of an eye the broadcast flag goes from a gleam in the MPAA's eye into your living room.

When the MPAA tried a similar move in June—tacking the broadcast flag on to appropriations legislation—they failed once the word got out about what it was they were trying to accomplish. When the flag was first mandated by the FCC in 2003, the reasoning behind it was speeding the adoption of digital TV. However, digital TV adoption has been just dandy without the flag. What is truly at the heart of the broadcast flag is broadcasters' ability to control content after it has left the airwaves and entered your living room. In short, it's another face of DRM.

Some TiVo users got an unwelcome preview at what a broadcast flagged future will look like when their TiVos forced them to delete content. While you and I may not like it, being able to mandate how long a recorded program can be retained or even whether it can be recorded at all sounds mighty fine to the MPAA. When the original flag was killed in court, I noted that the fight was going to move out of the courts and into Congress. The MPAA lost round one in June. Contact your congressional representatives if you want them to go 0 for 2.

[CDiehl]

So basically, this is part of the TV industry's vendetta against TiVo. Why is the MPAA involved, if this is the same MPAA that rates movies?

[SirNitram]

So basically, this is part of the TV industry's vendetta against TiVo. Why is the MPAA involved, if this is the same MPAA that rates movies?

The MPAA is the RIAA's video twin: A conglomerate of the movie studios, for the purpose of functioning as a monopoly when they want to gain the benefits of such. They hate TiVo because it means they might not get all the profits they would otherwise get.

[Dominus Atheos]

MPAA stands for Motion Picture Association of America, and they are concerned that people will record their movies that play on T.V. on to their DVRs or PVRs, and keep them on there, never buying the actual movie.(which they have been able to do for 20 years, with VCRs)

[Dominus Atheos]

Also, almost every company that makes television shows tends to make movies also,(E.G. Fox, Warner Brothers, and so on) and be part of the MPAA.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

So basically the MPAA is trying to do with DVRs what they tried to do with VCRs about twenty-five years ago...

[Faram]

I was close to locking this thread, I thought you quoted a bunch of stuff from /. comments, but I was wrong and those are good news sources so this thread gets a new life.