EFF And MPAA On Broadcast Flags

mpawlo writes: "Greplaw reports that a broadcast flag is a digital tagging technique used for television programs distributed through digital TV stations. The broadcast flag is used as information stating that the program may not be redistributed. It is not your everyday digital watermarking technique. The idea is to mandate a standard for a broadcast flag. The content providers, through The Motion Picture Association ('MPAA'), will most likely aim for the standard to be lobbied into a law through The Broadcast Protection Discussion Group. Hence, the law would require all hardware able to play the digital TV content to carry broadcast flag equipment (not playing unmarked content). The Electronic Frontier Foundation ('EFF') fears that a law stipulating the standard would threaten creativity. The MPAA has published a list of frequently asked questions ('FAQ') regarding broadcast flags. The EFF has commented the MPAA FAQ."

Comments

From MPAA's FAQ

[dattaway]

...protecting content, broadcast or otherwise, will spur the availability of high definition content and thus spur innovation for the systems, devices and services needed to deliver and support them in a broadband environment.

They sure love the word spur, which is derived from the term used to kick the shit out of a horse to get it going. A spur is a sharp instrument worn on the ankle of an abusive cowboy to beat a tired horse into submission.

Is this what the MPAA has in store for consumers? Wouldn't you love to have the MPAA spur your living room technology?

A Few Choice Quotes

[ShoeHead]

from the FAQ:

Implementation of this broadcast flag will permit digital TV stations to obtain high value content and assure consumers a continued source of attractive, free, over-the-air programming without limiting the consumer's ability to make personal copies

Sounds good. But, do we trust them?

...of some 70 organizations that participated in the BPDG, only some 14 submitted dissenting comments on one or more issues. Of these 14 dissenters, six were self-styled "consumer" groups that appear to be opposed in principle to any restraints whatsoever on the reproduction and redistribution of content.

I like how they cast a little doubt on whether or not these guys are actually representing consumers. Who else would they be for? Who else might there be but the artists/actors?

They go on to say what seems like... aw who cares. There's so much in that FAQ that just makes me want to grab one of their execs, throw em in a chair, and grill them about what they actually believe. Crazy stuff.

The whole thing smells like (is) propaganda, but that's the age we live in.

Re:Obligatory "Right to Read" Link

[1010011010]

From the notes at the end of "Right to Read":

[...] the idea that the FBI and Microsoft will keep the root passwords for personal computers, and not let you have them, has not been proposed. This is an extrapolation from the Clipper chip and similar US government key-escrow proposals, together with a long-term trend: computer systems are increasingly set up to give absentee operators control over the people actually using the computer system.

But we are coming steadily closer to that point. In 2001, Disney-funded Senator Hollings proposed a bill called the SSSCA that would require every new computer to have mandatory copy-restriction facilities that the user cannot bypass.

Well, it's been proposed now. It's called "Palladium." What's a good non-computer career that pays well?