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Saturday, July 10, 2004 |
OT: Blinding Us With Science, And A Little Help From The FCC
I recently came across this NYT article proclaiming that Fox was about to expand their broadcast selection "to transmit at least 50 percent of its prime-time schedule in HDTV by the season that begins in the fall of 2004". Of course, it wasn't without some grousing, and in particular, the media giant whined that
Fox, owned by the News Corporation, tempered its pledge by stating that it was unhappy about introducing HDTV, however, before the adoption of a "broadcast flag" agreement aimed at protecting those programs from piracy [emphasis mine].This, of course, is the baldest lie imaginable; the fact is that the broadcasters have toiled diligently behind the scenes to do two things:Under a proposal being considered by the Federal Communications Commission, digitally transmitted programs, which would include HDTV, would be embedded with a broadcast flag which could be used to prevent retransmission over the Internet. Consumers, however, would still be able to make copies for personal use.
- Overturn, through legislation and regulations, Sony v. Universal.. Sony v. Universal, in case you didn't know or had forgotten, was the case decision that decided VCRs were legal, though it was by the hair of the Court's chinny chin chin: the court split 5-4. Fortunately for all of us, the Court maintained that private use of the VCR at home amounted to "fair use" -- two words that, in Hollywood's limited and fiduciary comprehension, amount to fighting words.
- Deeply embed "Digital Rights Management" into new technology. Hollywood's suits have managed to get enacted into FCC regulations the idea that they can disable your VCR or DVR at their whim. It's called the "broadcast flag", and it was done without legislation, using the power of widely ignored regulatory back channels. Given Hollywood's vehement -- and wrong -- attempts to relabel "fair use" into "piracy", you can bet there won't be any such thing as a broadcast without the "broadcast flag". Remember, this is the same industry that hired Jack Valenti in 1982 to tell Congress "the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." That is, they completely failed to comprehend the machine's possibilities.
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