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Stop the Broadcast Flag at EFF

Last month I had an idea to create a shop where you could buy Broadcast Flag-free PC products, which are set to be gone by July 1, 2005. I was even going to stockpile equipment so I could continue to sell it after the fact. I never got around to building the site before July 1st of this year (I wanted to start it exactly one year before the deadline), but  the fine folks at the EFF kicked off their one year clock and site on the Broadcast Flag. I helped them craft the message for the page and they'll be bulking it up soon with links to products you can buy, info on why it's a big deal, and steps you can take to enjoy more PVR functionality before July 1, 2005. One of the features of my Broadcast Flagless site idea was to do a countdown clock, which the EFF has, and I'll be adding to this site as well soon.

This gist of it is this: After July 1, 2005, every PC HDTV card, computer PVR software, and home theater based HDTV recorder (like the HD DirecTiVo unit) will be aware of the Broadcast Flag and prevent you from moving recordings off your boxes. They'll be especially harsh on computer based stuff, since pretty much every computer is connected to the internet these days and the Flag is supposed to suppress the ability to trade shows online.

So what will the pirates do? They'll likely do what anyone would do if hit with prohibition at a certain date: they'll simply use equipment created before the date and do what they do, recording programs and releasing them online.

What will typical home users do? They'll likely buy products not knowing that the Broadcast Flag limits what they can do, record programs, then eventually find out they can't use video streaming or sharing features that products like SnapStream and Windows Media Center Edition will have for HDTV signals.

Will it stop the trading of TV shows online? Unlikely. Will it annoy honest folks that pay for top quality entertainment and products? Most likely.

The worst part of all this is that thanks to the DMCA, it'll be illegal to hack your own Broadcast Flag drivers into a system, meaning that Linux-based PVR software like MythTV may not be able to record protected HDTV content after next year. Any software that removes or disables Broadcast Flag limitations will definitely be illegal, but get this, any hardware built before July 1, 2005 that isn't Broadcast Flag aware can be legally sold after the date. So if you stock up on a case of new HDTV cards for your PC, you'll be able to legally enjoy your black market profits next year.

Personally, my biggest worry is that like every other protection the movie industry has created for themselves, the rules will be abused to eventually benefit companies while customers suffer. Look at region encoding thing that all DVDs have. DVDs are set to play only in certain parts of the world and most DVD players can only play discs from their own area. I remember when the idea was first proposed and the movie industry promised that it wasn't going to be used to price fix or prevent material from being available in certain regions, but today we find that most customers in regions with more expensive DVDs use region-free DVD players and just import the cheap DVDs. Also as any fan of British TV in America knows, you can buy a lot of DVDs at Amazon.co.uk you can't purchase at Amazon.com, sometimes including even an Amercian TV series (the Family Guy DVDs were availabe in the UK for almost a year before they were released here). The Digital Millenium Copyright Act was supposed to just prevent cracking of copyright code for software and hardware used by computers and entertainment devices, but today we have printer companies and cell phone companies suing small companies that produce cheaper ink cartridges and replacement batteries, and we have authors that can't write books on hacking movie players into video game systems and even PVRs (there's a reason why there are no books on hacking Series 2 TiVos).

Once the Broadcast Flag is out there in hardware and software, and all HDTV signals are coming down with it enabled, what's going to happen a couple years from now when Hollywood gets nervous about their bottom line? Will the Broadcast Flag only prevent moving a captured show file from one PC to another or will you suddenly be limited on how many times you can play something back or burn it to a DVD? And why are PBS signals being encrypted with the Broadcast Flag after July 1, 2005? Isn't it the public broadcasting system, i.e., the one we give tons of federal money to and is free to all markets? Will a teacher be able to record shows from HDTV PBS signal and bring those into a classrom? I certainly hope so.

As an act of protest, and a way to test the HDTV waters, I'm going to buy an HDTV card soon for my PC at home. I'll get to dip my toe into the complex world of HDTV content, and I'll have something that will likely be valuable after a year goes by.

by Matt Haughey July 8, 2004 in Op-Ed

Comments

Wow, before reading this, I thought that the HDTV card recently mentioned here was useless since it would not be able to work with satellite and digital cable tuners, but now I'm thinking that I might need to buy one, too. Actually, I might even stockpile some myself, as I'm sure they will fetch a hefty premium on eBay in late 2005.

Posted by: Scott Johnson at Jul 9, 2004 11:56:49 AM

great points, matt. I can picture you on late-night TV hawking "HDTV cards free from goverment snoops with prices so low you'll think I've gone CRAAAAA--ZEEEEE!!!"

I also wanted to point out that while PBS may, indeed, be funded in part by our tax dollars, the programing copyrights are owned by their creators. That's why there are few video clips on pbs.org. They don't own the rights.

Posted by: veen at Jul 9, 2004 1:11:42 PM

Is it not possible to couple a software decoder with a general purpose hardware board, and then "stock up" on the software before the deadline? In other words, "buy" a million copies of the software for $100, which could be resold later.

Posted by: Jan at Jul 11, 2004 9:10:10 AM

FYI - at my job I get to play around with things like HDTV tuner cards. IMHO - this is by far the best one for Windows:

http://www.usbhdtv.com/

Others are ok but ocassionaly crash. Also this one works in SD with SageTV and MCE. Tell your EFF buddies to add this link.

Posted by: Jake_friz at Jul 12, 2004 10:51:45 PM

As much as the DMCA and the Broadcast Flag aggrivate us tech-nerds the average consumer you speak of won't really care that much.
Joe Consumer doesn't really want to move his show from his HDTivo to his computer (though, if Tivo2Go is all it's cracked up to be, that will probably be possible and perfectly legal).

And the "third leg" of the home entertainment industry (content, consumer, hardware) isn't going to let this get too much in our way. The hardware manufacturers want us to copy a show we recorded on our PVR to DVD because they sell both devices.

Despite the DMCA someone will come up with ways to circumvent the flag (see deCSS). And just like deCSS it may get shut down, but once it's out it's out.

Posted by: Jeff at Jul 13, 2004 12:56:21 PM

As much as the DMCA and the Broadcast Flag aggravate us tech-nerds the average consumer you speak of won't really care that much.
Joe Consumer doesn't really want to move his show from his HDTivo to his computer (though, if Tivo2Go is all it's cracked up to be, that will probably be possible and perfectly legal).

And the "third leg" of the home entertainment industry (content, consumer, hardware) isn't going to let this get too much in our way. The hardware manufacturers want us to copy a show we recorded on our PVR to DVD because they sell both devices.

Despite the DMCA someone will come up with ways to circumvent the flag (see deCSS). And just like deCSS it may get shut down, but once it's out it's out.

Posted by: Jeff at Jul 13, 2004 12:56:43 PM

AFAIK, the current iteration of the HDTiVo *is already* Broadcast Flag compliant: http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/9577
(This blog entry seems to imply otherwise.)

Secondly, here's a dirty little secret I've read about and am trying to learn more. (Paraphrased from info gleaned at Macintouch.com) Once the Broadcast Flag is in full effect, many content providers will (and have already started to) prevent you from watching an HDTV signal (1080i or 720p formats) on a DVI display without HDCP (High Definition Content Protection) support. The viewer will get a message on the screen that says the "display does not support copy protection" and to "switch to analog inputs." In that case, the viewer can only watch the content over component cable connections (analog.)

Apparently the media companies are afraid of outputting perfect digital copies of their broadcasts over DVI without some form of copy protection.

In other words, the HDCP requirement is currently (and will end up) forcing the owners of televisions and/or receivers without HDCP support to downgrade from DVI to analog component video connections.

So simply buying non-broadcast-flag-compliant hardware won't necessarily give you the best of all worlds... there will be sacrifices in terms of video quality and compatibility. I suppose the consumer will have to weigh the benefits of superior video quality, to the convenience of being able to tinker (with non-compliant gear.)

Posted by: Josh at Jul 20, 2004 12:37:00 AM

Josh is correct (sorry if I wasn't clear in my original post), the HD DirecTiVo unit is *already* broadcast flag compliant, so it won't matter if you buy one before next year's cutoff.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Jul 20, 2004 9:55:54 AM

As far as my comments above, here's an enlightening article:
http://www.emedialive.com/Articles/PrintArticle.aspx?ArticleID=8498

I'm torn. On the one hand, I'd like to have the flexibility of archiving and moving recordings across platforms (as I do now with a modified DTiVo.) On the other, I don't want to sacrifice the inherent picture quality and compatibility of a purely digital DVI connection linking a HDTV receiver to a HDTV set.

Oh well. I'm leaning towards the HDTiVo and will probably wait for prices to drop a bit.

Posted by: Josh at Jul 22, 2004 9:42:54 AM

While Joe Six Pack may not want to transfer material from his TIVO to his computer, he definitely does want to move a recording of an HBO movie from TIVO to D-VHS or possibly to upcoming HD-disc for an archival copy. He doesn't mind if that copy is copy never. Hollywood doesn't want him to do this because they figure if he has a collection of copy never archived movies that he will buy less new pre-recorded copy never tapes or discs. It isn't about what is legal or about copyright protection it is about Hollywood stopping archival never copy copies via Firewire so they can make more money. It's that simple.

Posted by: Jerry Champion at Sep 20, 2004 9:25:58 AM

It appears that going for the AccessDTV for a pre-Broadcast Flag solution is out.

From the AccessDTV website FAQ:

"Only the digital media receiver that made the recordings can play them back at this point. Depending on what happens with future MPAA regulations, this could change. We'll keep you posted."

"As you know, digital rights management has been an enormously controversial issue, as evidenced by many recent court injunctions and cases. Some content owners and producers are actually reluctant to produce high quality digital material due to fears of unauthorized content distribution.

Given the current climate of digital rights enforcement in the marketplace, we believe we protect your best interest as a consumer by making products that conform to the spirit and letter of law that strikes optimum balance of rights between content owner and consumer rights. (Example: NFL Films charges $2,000 per 60 seconds of content for non-personal use.) Hence, we have made considerable, proactive efforts to protect both our customers and the content owners by limiting playback functionality to the consumer who made the recording."

Oh well...

Posted by: Panther at Sep 28, 2004 3:16:36 PM

The AccessDTV has beta software that does not encode the stream, developed by people at avsforum.com. Search their forums for AccessDTV to find it.

Posted by: Gabe at Nov 18, 2004 12:26:44 PM