Court dumps FCC ‘TV’ rules
p2pnet.net News:- US Federal Communications Commission rules calling for anti-piracy technology to control how people record and watch their favorite TV shows have been thrown out by the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Broadcast Flag, “would have required certain video devices to have technology to prevent copying digital television programs,” says the Associated Press.
“The court said the FCC overstepped the authority given it by Congress.”
Hollywood, with its enormous international political, media and financial clout, has entire orchestras of schemes under way to gain complete control what people do on and offline, invading even the sanctity of private homes.
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See:-
Associated Press – Court blocks TV anti-piracy tech rules, May 6, 2005
private homes – FCC loses on Broadcast Flag, p2pnet, February 23, 2005
May 6th, 2005 at 6:36 pm
yeah! no broadcast flags! excellent!
i knew this would happen when the courts first said – a couple of months ago – that the FCC (FKKK) “had gone too far” in requiring that all new tv’s and tuner cards and recorders have this technology.
blow it out your MPA-Asses!
May 6th, 2005 at 6:57 pm
on the other hand, it might also give dickheadbush the desire to write it into law. he likes taking freedoms away.
better not get too happy just yet. :/
May 6th, 2005 at 7:24 pm
Yep, george and the GOP (greedy old poops) may just have to give the FCC that power. I can see where that would look like a very big shiny object to george. Oooh…! Give the FCC as much power over the media (both suppliers and consumers) as possible. Yeah, that might come in real handy!
May 6th, 2005 at 10:52 pm
OMFG YAY!!! I thought I would have to buy a big screen HDTV before the deadline! now we can relax… and record all we want!
May 6th, 2005 at 11:57 pm
posted originally on,
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2005050613105074
Keep in mind that manufacturers who wanted to sell anything after June 2005 had to switch their manufacturing over last year. They’re not about to change back now. They can’t afford to.
The reason is that the money is spent. There’s no immediate competitive advantage to be had selling non-BF gear since the broadcasters aren’t slapping the BF on everything they send out (and they won’t for quite a while precisely for purposes of boiling the frog slowly.) They might as well continue on the current roadmap, especially since there’s a very real legal risk to doing anything else.
The risk comes in two parts:
* Congress may do with legislation what the FCC couldn’t with regulation
* The DMCA is all the MPAA needs.
To that last point: the MPAA needed the FCC to change the default assumptions and make the BF the standard. Prior to that, they would have had a hard time suing manufacturers for producing gear that ignored the BF when that was the only kind of gear around.
However, now that all new gear is BF-compliant, they don’t need the regulation any more because the DMCA works just fine. The first manufacturer to disable the BF will be the target of a DMCA lawsuit, and one of the first things that the MPAA will do is move for a preliminary injunction to lock up the “circumvention devices” in the meantime. Keep in mind that they have already fought this battle and won with regard to DVD player chips.
Consumer electronics is a low-margin business. Having all of your new models locked up in a warehouse under seal for years while you bleed legal fees is not a winning business strategy for a low-margin business.
May 7th, 2005 at 12:03 am
…when you take my mouse from my cold dead fingers.
–wfsd.net
May 7th, 2005 at 3:34 am
Globalization is not just a means for corporations to screw the working man.
Thanks to all that lovely port activity and open trade you can easily order a non-bf tv card from abroad.
Worried about standards not matching? no need.. theyre already developing open source firmware for many cards and drives because of RPC region locking.. what’s one more thing?
May 7th, 2005 at 3:35 am
in addition… they don’t need to change their tooling or even their hardware, they can simply update firmware on their BF capable devices to disable BF recognition.
May 8th, 2005 at 4:23 pm
where do you think tvs in canada are made? Why the same plants as the american tv’s… Wallymart probably just places 1 order for both countries…. so don’t count on it