Broadcast Flag

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learn more about the flag:

Today, you can use any device you like with your television: VCR, TiVo, DVD recorder, home theater receiver, or a PC combining these functions and more. But if the broadcast flag mandate is passed, Hollywood and federal bureaucrats will get a veto over innovative devices and legitimate uses of recorded programming.

The mandate forces all future digital television (DTV) tuners to include "content protection" (aka DRM) technologies. All makers of HDTV receivers will be required to build their devices to watch for a "flag" embedded in programs by copyright holders.

When it comes to digital recording, it would be Hollywood's DRM way or the highway. Want to burn that recording digitally to a DVD to save hard drive space? Sorry, the DRM lock-box won't allow it. How about sending it over your home network to another TV? Not unless you rip out your existing network and replace it with DRMd routers. And forget about using open source TV tools. Kind of defeats the purpose of getting a high definition digital signal, doesn't it?

Responding to pressure from Hollywood, the FCC had originally mandated the flag, but thanks to our court challenge, ALA v. FCC, it was thrown out. But that doesn't mean the danger is behind us. Hollywood has headed to Congress to ask for the flag again. Take action to stop the flag now!

• ALA v. FCC: A lawsuit challenging the FCC's Broadcast Flag mandate.

The FCC's November 2003 Broadcast Flag ruling left several issues open and solicited additional comments. EFF in response urged the FCC to (1) exclude software-defined tuners (like GNU Radio) from the broadcast flag mandate, (2) keep broadcast television unscrambled when retransmitted on cable basic tier, and (3) avoid unifying the procedures for approving broadcast flag and plug and play content protection technologies.

• EFF Comments to the FCC [PDF]. Dec. 6, 2002
• EFF Reply Comments to the FCC [PDF]. Feb. 18, 2003
• The FCC's ruling [PDF] adopting the Broadcast Flag mandate. Nov. 4, 2003
• EFF Broadcast Flag FNPRM Comments. February 13, 2004
• EFF Broadcast Flag FNPRM Reply Comments. March 15, 2004
• The TiVo Flap: As part of its consideration of which DRM technologies will be "approved" for use under the broadcast flag regime, the FCC has been asked by the MPAA to refuse to allow TiVo to make HDTV programs recorded off-the-air available for remote viewing. Even if TiVo encrypts it all! The Washington Post's Rob Pegoraro does the best job explaining exactly why this is a terrible precedent for HDTV consumers.

• EFF Overview of the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (BPDG)
• Consensus at Lawyerpoint: EFF's blog covering the inter-industry BPDG meetings that drafted the Broadcast Flag scheme, as well as related developments. While BPDG was meeting, the EFF blog was the leading source of public information about its deliberations.
• "The Final Report of BPDG: That Which We Call the CBDTPA, By Any Other Name Would Smell as Foul...": Summary of EFF's objections to the BPDG Report (June 4, 2002)
• The Final Report of the BPDG: This report became the starting point for what ultimately became the FCC’s Broadcast Flag mandate (June 3, 2002)
• EFF's Dissenting Report Accompanying the BPDG Final Report (June 3, 2002)

• Plug and Play Archive
• Digital Radio Flag Archive
• DefCon12 slides
• EFF's Annotations to the MPAA Broadcast Flag FAQ