MPAA Giving Up on Broadcast Flag... For Now?

YetAnotherName writes "The MPAA, which has worked hard to get a broadcast flag into US digital television, is unlikely to push for it, according to the EFF. Previously, the US Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC didn't have the authority to mandate the flag, and the MPAA began to strike back. Naturally, the fight isn't over yet."

So which is it?

[Enigma_Man]

Are they "unlikely to push" or "striking back"? The summary is confusing.

-Jesse

The EFF is the authority here?

[plover]

Sorry, but I don't see where the EFF would be the definitive authority on what the MPAA is up to. They're going to see what they want to see, and how they want to see it. Yes, a certain representative may currently be opposed to the provision, but that won't take away any incentive from the MPAA to continue to push Congress for whatever they can get.

Don't get too excited

[jimicus]

This doesn't mean that they're going to stop trying to develop a means of making copying HDTV using impossible/impractical. It just means that the measures they take won't be based on legislating the broadcast flag.

Speaking theoretically, some sort of encryption together with a smartcard supplied to the cable customer which enables decryption would neatly sidestep the issue for cable subscribers. Don't know how feasible it would be to apply similar technology to over the air broadcasts.

I think the answer is clear

[Anonymous Coward]

The dilemma as I see it: 1. Content owners/producers deserve to be able to make money by selling their content 2. Consumers deserve fair use rights Content providers have taken the position that the only solution is DRM - which, while it protects their rights, screws over the general public. I say that they should introduce watermarking - so that the pirates can be traced. This would keep honest people honest (I doubt the casual user would want to take the risk of being caught if they knew they were leaving an invisible trail), and permit liberal fair-use rights for the consumer. Of course they don't want to go this route because it doesn't give them the stranglehold they would have with DRM.

FCC clearly can't read minds

[shogarth]

The goal of the flag was not to impede a consumer's ability to copy or use content lawfully in the home, nor was the policy intended to 'foreclose use of the Internet to send digital broadcast content where it can be adequately protected from indiscriminate redistribution,'

Considering that the FCC heard testimony indicating the flag would do exactly this, it's amazing they would claim it wasn't their intent. It certainly was the intent of the content distributors. The flag's protection wasn't going to stop commercial piracy rings; they were going to 'aquire' digital masters and stamp disks anyway. All it would do is make handling digital content a pain for end-users.

Re:Your darn right it ain't over!

[supabeast!]

"It'll happen sooner or later..."

My thoughts exactly. Right now Washington is a mess of power struggles, attacks on the media, and attacks on the court. Buying the broadcast flag right now will cost a lot and create a lot of press, and there's a good chance any right-wing politicians that have to be bought off will go down along with Tom Delay and George Bush's approval ratings. The RIAA/MPAA are much better off to wait until 2006, buy their way in with the new blood, and get the law passed in 2007 when everyone is focusing on the 2008 presidential election.

Re:HAHAHAAHAHAH

[dgatwood]

And as you might recall from about a year ago, Congress doesn't actually READ the bills they pass, so odds are, no one will notice, including most members of Congress.

oh no, talkies, I'm out of a job!

[Thud457]

"I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." [wikiquote.org]

(Testimony to the House of Representatives, 1982)

That's typical Hollywood forward thinking and embracing enormous new markets for ya!

Prove it

[SuperKendall]

The RIAA/MPAA are HUGE contributors to Orrin Hatch (R-UT)

Really? Then where are they on the contributors list [opensecrets.org].

When the total combined contributions from media companies is a figure *I* could give if I scraped together some money from the sale of a house, I have a tough time calling it "huge".
Compare and contrast with someone like Barbra Boxer [opensecrets.org]. Time Warner is number two with Viacom close behind. If she were calling the shots do you REALLY think the broadcast flag would be "of no interest"?

Yes the entertainment industry does throw some money to the Republicans. But by and large they throw the bulk of thesupport to the Democrats, who in turn do them favors.

Why?

[interstellar_donkey]

I have admit that when I hear about the broadcast flag, it irks me. I have a single HDTV receiver (integrated radio and satellite), but it's likely I won't really get into digital TV until it's much cheaper and there's more content, meaning I won't start converting the entire house over to HDTV until after this broadcast flag is mandated (if they MPAA and others get their way).

Rather then lambasting the FCC and the MPAA, I have one question I'd like to see someone give an acceptable answer to: Why? Why do they need to stop people from being able to record a high quality digital signal from a broadcast? The easy answer is, they don't want people to be able to copy and distribute the programming they own.

Fine, but they said the same thing in the 1980s when the VCR became popular. "If people are able to make video tapes of movies and programs using a set top box and an inexpensive cassette tape, it will ruin us and take our profits away!" they cried.

Of course, that didn't happen. Yes, there were people with giant video cassette libraries of pirated movies dubbed from rentals or recorded off HBO (I had a neighbor with several hundred of these movies). In the end, we discovered that the ability to easily record programs actually ended up helping the movie and television industry far more then it hurt them.

So why is this different? Because it's a higher quality broadcast? In the 80s the quality of a VHS recording, if done right, was not too much different then the quality you'd find in broadcast or in tapes rented or purchased from the video shop. Today, a digital recording, if done right, is not much different the quality you'd find on an HD broadcast or next generation video discs you'll soon find for sale or rent at the video shop. Considering the quality of VHS recordings back in the 80s were not too much different then the commercially available media, and today's digital recordings aren't too much different then commercially available media, I just don't see that as a valid argument.

The folks at the FCC and MPAA aren't stupid people, and I can't for the life of me understand why they would spend time and resources trying to put in a broadcast flag when history has shown that when end users have versatility available to them, it ultimately helps the MPAA and others. There has to be a good reason, right?

I've been racking my brain trying to figure out what that reason is. The only argument I could come up with is that they don't want people to be able to record high quality television programs which *might* end up hurting the growing DVD market for TV boxed sets where an entire season of a particular program can be purchased. But we're still not sure if that would happen. Heck, on my computer and burned to VCDs I have the entire collection of every episode of a particular TV show, and each of those episodes I downloaded off the Internet. I also purchased the DVD box sets for the entire series. It was not because I wanted better quality, but because I wanted to own something physical, I wanted the liner notes, I wanted the "special features". The recordings I found "illegally" lacked those things.

In light of all this, does anyone know why they're putting up such a fight?

Re:So which is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

you forgot, the first trillogy...
The Napster Menance..
Attack of the P2P Clones..
Revenge of the RIAA...

Re:So which is it?

[suitepotato]

Are they "unlikely to push" or "striking back"? The summary is confusing.

I thought the same thing. If past history is any guide, they'll publicly do the former and quitely behind the scenes do the latter. In the cameras, they will lay lower on this issue. In the offices of senators and representatives in Washington, they will jawbone to get their way.

The fat lady ain't sung yet. The RIAA lawyers threatened her and the MPAA anti-piracy thugs bound and gagged her and tossed her into a closet. We need to hear her belt one out so on goes the fight to make her sing on this issue and lay it to rest.

Re:Your darn right it ain't over!

[DeVilla]

It'll happen sooner or later, trust me.

Well, normally, I'd hold out, but since it's you, I guess I'll believe it. :-)

Seriously though I think we are just seeing what could be a little bit of finess. Where with the RIAA, we would be ready to see a executive level tantrum follow such a situation, the MPAA has a tendency to be much more subtle about what they do. I'm not sure if it the people involve or that fact that modern bandwidth and storage capacities are a more immediate threat to the RIAA where as the MPAA still has some time to act before the average machine can hold hundreds of movies and the average network connection can transfer a movie in under 5 minutes.

Needless to say, I don't believe they are giving either. They are just trying to get this back under the table "where it belongs".

Re:So which is it?

[BlogPope]

The fat lady ain't sung yet.

But the longer the opera goes on, the less likely any of these "Burden the consumer" options will succeed. The MPAA and TV industries have delayed the whole HDTV thing by making everyone afraid the early solution woul dbe incompatible with the "final" solution, but the failure to resolve the issue means that the existing tech has gained a foothold. Soon it will be like trying to get a broadcast flag added to the VCR...

Re:Prooves my point

[FooWho]

Thats an apples to oranges comparison. Orrin Hatch's total campaign contributions were only $6,118,584. So thats what it "costs" to win a senate seat in Utah. Barbra Boxer's total campaign contributions were $16,658,496. So thats what it "costs" to win a senate seat in California. So the entertainment industry paid for 4% of Boxer's campaign and paid for 3% of Hatch's campaing. To me, that would imply they value the two politicians similarly. It just happens that Hatch has a lower pricetag.

Re:Not Forever

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the fact that color TV's were what people actually wanted -- whereas the broadcast flag doesn't give consumers any advantages whatsoever.