Audio Video News

Twenty members of Congress signed a letter sent to House of Representatives Internet and commerce panel chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) requesting that a federal law be drafted to legalize the use of the broadcast flag. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the members of Congress who signed the letter argue the broadcast flag is necessary to safeguard digital content from Internet piracy.

The broadcast flag is a copy protection scheme that is essentially a series of bits embedded in a digital broadcast that the gear receiving and decoding the broadcast signal must detect. The flag can place a variety of restrictions on playback (including the "down-rezzing" of an HD signal) and determine how and if the program can be copied or recorded.

In May of this year a federal court struck down a previous FCC regulation requiring electronics manufacturers to make their DTV tuners compliant with the broadcast flag, asserting that the FCC did not have proper authority to enact such a regulation over manufacturers. Reports abound that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has been lobbying since for Congress to pass a law expressly allowing the flag's implementation. ZDNet reports that the letter sent to Upton enjoyed bipartisan support with the signatures of 12 Republicans and eight Democrats.

The broadcast flag's proponents claim that consumer rights of "fair use" copying and time-shifting of broadcast programs they are authorized to receive won't be adversely affected, that only pirates will be targeted. Consumer groups aren't buying that, and are concerned about both consumers rights as well as the authority the scheme would give the government over electronics manufacturers and digital content. Several concerned groups have written a joint letter to Senate Commerce Committee chairman Ted Stevens indicating the Congress has heard only part of the broadcast flag story, and urging the Senate to hold hearings on the subject before rushing into "authorization for the broadcast-flag scheme without fully considering both the consumer impact of the scheme and the fact that the scheme will require giving the federal government an unprecedented degree of control over digital economy."

The renewed call for the broadcast flag comes at a time when lawmakers are looking at speeding up the transition to Digital TV as UAV reported in September. Looks like it's going to be a busy autumn for DTV news coming out of Capitol Hill!