Saving Your Set

摘要

May 6,2005, should be a holiday. it's when a u.s. circuit court of appeals saved your TV by stopping the "broadcast flag," an innovation-killing regulation Hollywood had essentially blackmailed the FCC into enacting. In 2002 the major studios threatened to withhold shows and movies for broadcast on digital TV (DTV) unless the government gave them control over the design of DTV devices. Then they formed the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (BPDG)—a cabal of tech companies, broadcasters and Hollywood studios—to work on the broadcast flag, a single bit that was to be embedded in every DTV signal and function like an on-off switch. Flag-compliant devices, such as TVs and receivers, would have to look for the flag and respond to it by limiting the output and recording abilities to those approved by Hollywood. Manufacturing a device that didn't comply with the flag would be illegal.