FCC Mulls Digital 'Flag' to Sink TV Pirates

"U.S. regulators in coming weeks will adopt strict limits on sending digital television programs over the Internet to avoid the problems now plaguing the music industry, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

The Federal Communications Commission will likely adopt rules that will allow programmers to attach a code to digital broadcasts that will in most cases bar consumers from sending copies of popular shows around the world, said the officials, who declined to be identified....

Consumer advocates have warned that consumers will have to buy new DVD players if they want to play programs that have been recorded on machines that recognize the digital 'flag.' But agency officials stressed that that always happens when new technology hits the market....

Consumers will still be able to make unlimited copies of their favorite shows and watch them in various rooms of their homes, but they will not be able to send them over unsecured networks until protections are established, the officials said....

But consumer advocates warn that it would make obsolete 50 million DVD players already in Americans' homes.

'If a consumer records a program on a new Broadcast Flag equipped machine and then tries to take that program and play it on Grandma's older DVD player, it's just not going to work,' said Chris Murray, legislative counsel for Consumers Union." [ZDNet, via Furdlog]

Today I was part of a panel about audiovisual materials in libraries, including new formats. I covered MP3 audiobooks, but we also talked a little bit about digital rights management and the effect of potential government regulations (like the broadcast flag) and legislation (like the DMCA) could have on libraries over the next decade. For libraries that are investing in DVDs now, these kinds of shenanigans will hurt our already decreasing budgets.

For example, today I learned that the Schaumburg Township District Library (a very large library in the Chicagoland area), has built up a collection of 25,000 videocassettes during the last 20 years, and 4,000 DVDs during the last five years. That's a lot of video material!

That's a big investment, and a very popular one, I might add. Audiovisual materials at STDL account for 50% of the Library's circulations. So re-read that sentence, "Consumer advocates have warned that consumers will have to buy new DVD players if they want to play programs that have been recorded on machines that recognize the digital 'flag.' "

So just how backwards-compatible are these new FCC-mandated-the-broadcast-flag-so-you-have-to-buy-a-new-machine-to-lose-the-rights-you-have-now-machines really going to be? What guarantees do we have that the DVD you buy tomorrow will work on the DVD player you buy next year? Who's looking out for consumers? Because it sure isn't the FCC or our government officials. How viable are our library video collections going to be in this new environment? Will libraries even be able to circulate physical or digital videos when the locks are embedded in the hardware? Sure, the FCC and industry assurances sound harmless enough now, but then, these are the same people that told us the DMCA would never be used inappropriately and would not cause problems for consumers, manufacturers, researchers, etc.

Do you believe them?