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Another Fair Use Victory: Broadcast Flag Mandate Halted

A Washington, D.C. Circuit Court has rejected the mandate for a “broadcast flag”

Motion picture and various other interests have been pressuring the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to require that all receivers (including PC tuner cards) capable of receiving television broadcasts recognize and respond to instructions contained in a “broadcast flag” embedded in the broadcast signal.

The industry wants the broadcast flag so they can restrict the ability to make recordings of off-the-air programs, especially high-definition (digital) television broadcasts. The industry claims this is to thwart “piracy”.

The FCC had made a ruling that required television receiving equipment sold after July 1, 2005 comply with the broadcast flag requirement. This ruling has been very controversial.

I’m sure there will be an appeal, but at least for now there is another ruling in favor of consumer fair use rights.

From ComputerUser Newsletter May 9, 2005

Article Source:
http://www.webpronews.com/news/ebusi...eRejected.html

EFF has a more in-depth article:
http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_05.php#003556

Edit: typo

no chit, drak :W:

John Dvorak in PC Mag has a good take on the real issue here:

Quote:

The value of the broadcast flag is apparent. It was to create a new conduit for distributing of movies and special-events programming that would defeat any time-switching or other legitimate consumer desires. It's really not about the Internet and piracy, as everyone claims. Piracy and Internet distribution will not be stopped by this technology. This is a red herring.

the rest is here and well worth reading:tu: