Broadcast Flag All But Approved

Are We Afraid writes "The FCC is about to approve the broadcast flag for HDTV, according to Reuters. The EFF has been vocal in its disapproval, but the suits appear to be pushing ahead anyway. We may soon need an updated dystopian parable: The Right to Watch."

Comments

That's just semantics...

[WIAKywbfatw]

The last Slashdot article on this topic had a post that contained the various lengths of time within which you could view a HDTV recording. After "forever" the next longest length of time was "one week".

One measly week.

Well, one week might be fine if you record something becasue you know you're going out for the night, but what the hell do you do if you're going away on a two-week vacation? What choice do you have except to miss out?

Can you imagine missing the last two weeks of 24, The West Wing, ER or whatever you're hooked on because some silly timestamped restriction is set to one week (or less)?

How do you tell your young kids that the show that you promised they could watch when they got back home from a long car journey to visit the grandparents can't be watched anymore because you exceeded the time limit? Ever tried explaining silly things like that to a screaming three year old?

Let's face it, for a lot of people, life is more hectic now than it was ten years ago. Ten years from now, it'll probably be more hectic still. What good is a timeshifting device like a VCR or a PVR if you can't timeshift with it?

Re:Remember the copyright bit in SPDIF?

[captaineo]

The more I think about it the more I agree this is [i]exactly[/i] what the broadcast flag is about. It's not about stopping piracy*. It's about stopping low-budget Mac-wielding filmmakers from threatening Hollywood... Amazing consumer-level media tools do no good if they can't record anything. *I love how the article positions the broadcast flag as a "magic bullet" against internet piracy. As if one bit is going to stop anyone from doing anything...

Re:Remember the copyright bit in SPDIF?

[aborchers]

So basically what you're telling me is not that I'm missing something about the broadcast flag but the slippery slope argument that it's a foot in the door for those evil thought control media corporations that own the Congress. I see.

Dang, and I thought my tinfoil hat was tight... :-)

How do you reconcile the fact that hardware/software vendors and consumer groups with an interest in innovating technologies are also large contributors to political campaigns? This is a big complicated issue, and the fact that it's taken this long to get this "mandate" tells me that it's a long way from over. There are just too many diverse interests in the mix.

I'm very worried about technological mandates, and I don't like the broadcast flag because I think it puts unnecessary inhibitions in the path of users, but I think your conclusion here is a little tenuous and contrary to pretty much all of recent consumer, technological, legislative, and judicial history.

For myself, if I can't get the use I want out of a device or content, then it's irrelevant because I just won't buy the shit. DVX comes to mind as a perfect example of how consumers voted with their wallets to give a big FU to an overly restrictive technology.