MPAA and Broadcast Flags
The EFF discusses the MPAA's href="http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/archives/000148.html" title="MPAA FAQ on Broadcast Flag">FAQ on Broadcast Flag and thier distortion [and obfusation] of the truth. The MPAA wants to include "Broadcast Flags", a type of watermark, in thier bid to institute copy- and rights-restriction into media. Why this is good: tracking of media would be, generally benifitial. Why is this bad: the type of control being discussed would make Hollywood the govorning body, and would make any third-party innovation impossible because the MPAA would have the keys to the "gate" and regulate which method of watermarking is legal. Scary, huh? Weel, your DVD player and all of your DVD's [not to mention your CD's] would become illegal. Scared now, well do something about it.
Excerpts:
Q: Does the broadcast flag stifle innovation in technologies like
broadband?MPAA answer: On the contrary, 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.
EFF comment: A government mandate requiring a certain technology tends to spur investment in that particular technology, at the expense of other technologies which are forbidden. There is no doubt that the BPDG rules would result in the development of certain technologies, but other technologies would be "off-limits". The threats to innovation posed by controlling technologies which someone might use to infringe copyrights are real and well-known. (History is full of examples of useful new technology which would have been stymied if anxious copyright holders had had their way.)
One example of innovation threatened by the BPDG rules is GNU Radio, an open source software defined radio implementation which allows digital TV signals to be interpreted by software. Because this software can receive digital TV signals, it might qualify as a "Covered Product", but because it's designed to be modified by users, it isn't "Compliant".
To take another example, the components a hobbyist or experimenter would need to develop his or her own PVR or other video-recording device are sold openly today, but would probably be restricted from public sale by the BPDG's rules.
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This is the permanent home of MPAA and Broadcast Flags. I wrote this post at 20:15 on July 7, 2002. This post is part of grubbykid.com, a weblog. If you liked this entry, why don't you read some other posts such as One for the Bulls or Edward Scissorhands? Or you could go to the site archives or return home. All are good choices.
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Some descriptive tags for this entry are: rights law media music.
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Some descriptive tags for this entry are: law, media, music, rights.
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