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November 15, 2004
Broadcast Flag

In November 2003 the Federal Communication Commission issued an order to "protect" Digital TV broadcasts from unauthorized copying and distribution.

The Commission approved this rule mandating hardware vendors implement technology that recognizes a "flag" in digital broadcasts. The flag is intended to prevent the "indiscriminate" transmission over IP networks of copyrighted digital content. The FCC says vendors must comply with the broadcast flag requirements in all equipment by July 1, 2005.
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The flag itself represents a series of bits, several of which define the descriptor tag and length with others reserved for "optional additional redistribution control information that may be defined in the future."

Public Knowledge and the EFF are fighting the order in court. The FCC filed a brief that claims:

Under the Communications Act’s definitions, the terms "radio communication" and "wire communication" are defined broadly to include not merely the transmission of the communication over the air or by wire, but also all incidental "instrumentalities, facilities, apparatus and services" that are used for the "receipt, forwarding and delivery" of such transmissions.

As Susan Crawford explains in her blog

The thing is, this rule doesn’t merely affect TV receiving equipment. It affects everything that RECEIVES digital files from TV receiving equipment as well — every device inside any home network. It affects the open-platform PC.

As your PC may be used as an apparatus to receipt, forwarding and delivery of digital TV the FCC will require all PC manufacturer to implement a bullet proofed copyright protection system that recognizes a Broadcast Flag in any digital data stream.

Given that the FCC also cares for Obscenity, Indecency, & Profanity it is easy to imagine that in future the "digital broadcast" of the content of this blog – without an FCC approved broadcast flag – may not reach your PC or, if it does, may not be displayed.

Meanwhile the economic argument of piracy hurting the sales of digital content can be seriously doubted. The Big Picture even finds some hints that "piracy" via P2P networks is being used as a successful marketing instrument. "Accidental" prereleasing of songs by some in the industry, caring so much about copy protection, seems to help their CD sales.

Posted by b on November 15, 2004 at 11:17 UTC | Permalink
Comments

So when will just having a non-flagged technology become a crime?
And importing non-flagged hardware from europe or japan must soon give hard punishments to deter from any such enterprise…

Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Nov 15 2004 13:24 utc | 1

I have been screaming about this for two years, no one hears you though as the “Laws” yet again are so convoluted you have to be a Lawyer to understand what they are doing it’s just a matter of time before they control your access to sharing any and all information on the internet. Another war…the imformation war. And we are losing: Patriot act extends to blogs critical of government and New Study on Filesharing Effects

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 15 2004 13:41 utc | 2

Bounty-raising for encrypted, private P2P software
This is an important piece of software and it needs to exist.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 15 2004 13:54 utc | 3

It’s time to dust off the history of UUCP and uunet. it’s also time, imho, to refresh one’s set of steg tools, get a recent copy of pgp and learn to use it, etc.
this has been coming a long time, as Uncle says. it must be easily 5 years ago now that all the geeks I know were ROTFL because cryptographic research became ‘illegal’ in the US while the Russians, those poor unfree persons, were still allowed to work freely in that field.
here’s the rub. as I see it, any society that attempts total control of its population has to devote an enormous sector of its economy — a huge State sector, in fact — to nothing but policing that population: controlling communications; surveillance, detention and punishment; “total information” record keeping, endless activity trying to parse an endlessly ramifying set of infinitely complex rules and regs.
when that much ingenuity and effort is diverted into nonproductive makework the society quickly slides into second rate (and lower) ranking in terms of inventiveness, creativity, productivity. it’s one way to implement a full employment program sub rosa, but it cripples the real economy, destroys morale and quality of life, and pretty soon you end up with the shambles that was the end state of Soviet industry, with half the workers too drunk to screw parts on the right way around.
the US is well on its way with its prison industry leaping up the charts to become a leading “market sector”. it’s a self-curing problem in the end, but good heavens, I don’t wish to live through the end stages of the disease.

Posted by: DeAnander | Nov 15 2004 17:10 utc | 4

My own view is less grim: the ‘arms’ race between hackers and the creation of Digital Rights Management (DRM) favors the former. Second, the basic concern is not so much the sub rosa communication of terror plots, but copyright infringement. Importantly, equipment manufacturers love copyright infringement because the availability of free culture drives sales. The interests of the copyright industry and equipment have been inimical.
I’m not claiming that the fuckheads of the world like valenti won’t win. But, the pace of the introduction of disruptive technologies has thusfar overwhelmed a coherent industry response.

Posted by: slothrop | Nov 15 2004 17:28 utc | 5

Gibson speculated that intelprop law could be destroyed overnight if the Chinese simply decide to disregard copyright laws altogether. what sanctions can anyone bring to bear on them? the entire US economy is pathetically dependent on China, whereas I think China’s economy could just about stand without the US in a year or two (not saying it’s a “good” economy or that I like the government of China or anything, just eyeballing the gorillas and guesstimating body weight). all the Chinese have to do is thumb their nose at DMCA and all the rest, and copyright law is history. any takers? I’m not a legal eagle so I may be all wet on this.

Posted by: DeAnander | Nov 15 2004 17:43 utc | 6

China is a signatory of the Berne Convention and officially adheres to Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs Agreement). It wants to join the WTO, so would then sign on to WIPO.

Posted by: slothrop | Nov 15 2004 17:57 utc | 7

Just an errant thought, ever notice the more freedoms they gain over there the more we lose over here? Hummmmmmmm?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 16 2004 0:00 utc | 8

Here’s another for ya : Fox’s 1.2 million dollar indecency fine was caused by three people complaining. Jeff Jarvis does a little investigative journalism that no mainstream outlets bothered to do. All he did was submit a freedom of information act request via this form , and they sent him the 90 complaints they had on record (the original claim was 159 complaints). But it turns out 88 of them were nearly identical. So three people complained in America, and the FCC fined a network over a million dollars for a show that was already cancelled.
Also as noted at metafilter, The FCC has just decided that it has authority over anything that can receive a digital signal. Admittedly, this is not saying that the FCC has already decided it can regulate the content of cable, but it’s not much of a leap.
Finally, what if: The FCC worked as a Republican campaign mechanism to suggest to Middle America that the walls were closing in.
Much in the way that only a handful or Republican operatives were needed to thwart the recount in Florida (by staging a faux demonstration), only a handful were needed to legitimize the FCC’s decision to help Bush get reelected.
I wonder to myself what Sir Karl Popper would have to say about the state of our society today…
“No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude”. -Sir Karl Popper
“Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell”.–Sir Karl Popper

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 16 2004 0:22 utc | 9

tin foil time. am a little concerned that i can’t get thru to http://www.democraticunderground.com/ after reading the letter posted
here on nov 10. the crunchers for bev harris have been posting all the precinct totals there. it’s probably just a glitch. unless the crackdowns already here

Posted by: annie | Nov 16 2004 2:25 utc | 10

Official Website of Shri Srinivasa Ragavaswamy charitable Trust in South India working towards constructing a temple for Sri Srinivasa Perumal (balaji) with Raja Gopuram which is named as Kovai Thiruppathy.

Posted by: Anand Kumar | Jan 6 2007 10:23 utc | 11

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