[Infowarrior] - Senator to FCC: Don't even think about a broadcast flag

[Richard Forno]

 Senator to FCC: Don't even think about a broadcast flag
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070111-8596.html

1/11/2007 10:08:30 AM, by Nate Anderson

Senator John Sununu (R-NH) has just announced that his office is working on
legislation that would prevent the FCC from creating specific technology
mandates that have to be followed by consumer electronics manufacturers.
What's his target? The broadcast flag.

Television and movie studios have wanted a broadcast flag for years. The
flag is a short analog or digital signal embedded into broadcasts that
specifies what users can do with the content. It would most often be used to
prevent any copying of broadcast material, but there's an obvious problem
with the plan: it requires recording devices to pay attention to the flag.
Because no consumers wander the aisles at Best Buy thinking, "You know, I
would definitely buy this DVD recorder, but only if it supported broadcast
flag technology," the industry has asked the federal government to step in
and simply require manufacturers to respect the flag.

At first they approached the FCC, and the FCC complied by dutifully trotting
out some new broadcast flag regulations. Unfortunately for the content
industry, the FCC doesn't generally have the right to tell manufacturers how
to build their products. The rules were thrown out by an appeals court in
2005.

Undaunted, the industry tried again in Congress. Last year, when a rewrite
to the 1996 Telecommunications Act was being considered, broadcast flag
legislation was in fact attached to the bill and even made it through
committee before bogging down.

Sununu's bill will attempt to rein in the FCC and prevent it from reviving
the broadcast flag without Congressional authorization to do so. "The FCC
seems to be under the belief that it should occasionally impose technology
mandates," Sununu said in a statement. "These misguided requirements distort
the marketplace by forcing industry to adopt agency-blessed solutions rather
than allow innovative and competitive approaches to develop. We have seen
this happen with the proposed video flag, and interest groups are pushing
for an audio flag mandate as well. Whether well-intentioned or not, the FCC
has no business interfering in private industry to satisfy select special
interests or to impose its own views."