News

Remember that whole "broadcast flag" kerfluffle? Well, it ain't over yet—not if the Home Recording Rights Coalition (HRRC) and the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) have anything to say about it. If you don't remember the broadcast flag imbroglio, or if you thought it had been vanquished by the DC Circuit Court in May 2005, here's an update.

The broadcast flag was "content protection" (aka digital rights management or DRM) that would insert a "do not record" signal into copyrighted broadcast material that all commercially available recording devices would have to honor. In other words, broadcasters would determine what constituted "fair use." The FCC mandated the broadcast flag be introduced in July 2005, but the EFF sued, and in May 2005, the DC Circuit Court ruled that the FCC lacked the authority to regulate what a consumer's computer, recording device, television, or radio could do once it had received a signal.

However, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) are now requesting that Congress—more specifically, the Senate Commerce Committee—include use of the flag in an amendment to a budget reconciliation bill that will be voted upon on October 26. (The whole issue of how the reconciliation process works is complicated, but there's an excellent explanation of it here .)

Some of the regulations proposed for the broadcast flag include how long recorded content can be stored. If the consumer takes too long to watch that time-shifted broadcast, it will be deleted from the recording device. Or, to cite another potential problem, content in the public domain could be claimed as the property of the broadcaster—at least as far as the flag was concerned.

Many groups—including Public Knowledge, Consumers' Union, Consumer Federation of America, the EFF, and the HRRC—have charged that the restrictions are too far-reaching. In filings before the FCC, HRRC has argued that free terrestrial broadcasts have never been subjected to prior approval from the recording industry. The RIAA proposes, the HRRC claims, to set terms and conditions under which home recordings can take place, even to the extent of employing encryption technologies to disable listening over devices other than the recording device. (Translation: You can't transfer that show to your iPod to listen to on your way to work.)

Gary Shapiro, chairman of the HRRC, said, "The concerns over RIAA's proposals have never been addressed. At a minimum, the Congress should consider them in a public hearing before writing a blank check to the FCC and the RIAA."

We concur. We think there are already legal procedures in place that protect content owners from predatory misappropriation of their property, but—and this is a big "but"—if there must be more, let that be brought about after a full and public hearing of the issues, not from furtive backroom stratagems.

If you agree, you might want to tell that to your Congressman via this handy link, courtesy of the EFF.