[ale] Fwd: Federal Court Scraps Broadcast Flag!

Bob Toxen bob at verysecurelinux.com
Fri May 13 18:00:01 EDT 2005


Federal Appeals Court Scraps FCC's Broadcast Flag Mandate
that would have outlawed Linux-based TV reception and which
would have overrided a person's right to record a TV show
without permission of Hollywood -- directly in opposition
to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision known, I think, as the
Betamax Decision years ago.

--Bob

----- Forwarded message from EFFector list <editor at eff.org> -----

Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 15:59:48 -0500
From: EFFector list <editor at eff.org>
To: bob at verysecurelinux.com
Subject: EFFector 18.15: Federal Court Scraps Broadcast Flag!
Organization: EFF
X-Virus-Scanned: http://www.verysecurelinux.com/virus.html

EFFector  Vol. 18, No. 15  May 13, 2005  donna at eff.org

A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
ISSN 1062-9424

In the 331st Issue of EFFector:
 
 * Federal Appeals Court Scraps FCC's Broadcast Flag 
   Mandate
 * Celebrate Victory Over the Broadcast Flag - Liberate 
   Your TV on May 21!
 * EFF Gets Top Marks from Charity Navigator
 * MiniLinks (12): Hilary Rosen Laments Apple's DRM Strategy
 * Administrivia

For more information on EFF activities & alerts:
 <http://www.eff.org/>

Help EFF protect privacy, innovation, and free speech. 
Make a donation and become a member today!
 <http://secure.eff.org/support>

Tell a friend about EFF:
 <http://action.eff.org/site/Ecard?ecard_id=1061>

: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :

* Federal Appeals Court Scraps FCC's Broadcast Flag 
Mandate

Ruling Is a Victory for Innovation, Fair Use

Washington, DC - In a landmark case, the US Court of 
Appeals for the DC Circuit last week struck down the 
"Broadcast Flag," an FCC rule that would have crippled 
digital television receivers beginning on July 1st.

The Broadcast Flag rule would have required all digital 
TV receivers, including televisions, VCRs, and personal 
video recorders like TiVo, to be built to read signals 
embedded in over-the-air broadcast television shows that 
would place certain limitations on how those shows 
could be played, recorded, and saved.  The sale of any 
hardware that was not able to "recognize and give 
effect to" the Broadcast Flag, including currently 
existing digital and high-definition television (HDTV) 
equipment and open source/free software tools, would 
have become illegal.

EFF joined Washington DC-based advocacy group Public 
Knowledge and a coalition of library and consumer
groups in fighting the rule in the courts.  The coalition 
argued that the rule would interfere with the 
legitimate activities of technology innovators, 
librarians, archivists, and academics, and that the 
FCC exceeded its regulatory authority by imposing 
technological restrictions on what consumers can do 
with television shows after they receive them.

The court agreed, ruling unanimously that the FCC 
overstepped its authority when it asserted control 
over the design of any device capable of receiving 
digital TV signals.

"This case is a great win for consumers and for 
technology innovation.  It's about more than simply 
broadcasting.  It is about how far the FCC can go 
in its regulations without permission from Congress," 
said Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn.  "Had the 
flag been implemented, Hollywood, acting through 
the FCC, would have been able to dictate the pace 
of technology in consumer electronics.  Now, 
thankfully, that won't happen.  While we recognize 
that the content industries may ask Congress to 
overturn this ruling, we also recognize that 
Congress will have to think very hard before it 
puts restrictions on how constituents use their 
televisions."

Since the FCC announced the July 1st deadline, EFF 
had been encouraging consumers to beat the Broadcast 
Flag by purchasing HDTV receivers manufactured 
before the restriction, as well as teaching them 
how to use the hardware with free, open-source digital 
video recorder applications such as MythTV.  Part 
of the education campaign was a daily countdown to 
the date when the Broadcast Flag was to take effect.

"The clock will now stop," said EFF Special Projects 
Coordinator Wendy Seltzer, who led the campaign and 
organized nationwide HDTV "build-ins."  "Now we can 
use the build-ins to celebrate the freedom to use 
innovative technology, rather than racing to beat a 
deadline for shutting it down."

For this release:
<http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_05.php#003556>

Ruling:
<http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=466>
(PDF)

EFF campaign: "Join the Digital Television Liberation 
Front":
<http://www.eff.org/broadcastflag/>

: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :

* Celebrate Victory Over the Broadcast Flag - Liberate
Your TV on May 21!

Want to make your television work for you?  Build your own 
high-definition television personal video recorder (PVR)!  
We've beaten the Broadcast Flag - for now.  Help us keep 
it from rising again by showing the potential of open 
hardware and software.

Join EFF and friends for an HD-PVR build-in and victory
celebration on Saturday, May 21, at the EFF offices in 
San Francisco.  You bring a computer and HDTV tuner card, 
and we'll help you get it up and running as a PVR.  We'll 
be installing MythTV, an open-source software package 
that lets your computer function like a TiVo in high-def, 
pause live TV, schedule recordings over the Web, and 
manage your media the way *you* want it.

You're invited even if you're not building a PVR - come  
share some pizza, celebrate the victory, and learn more 
about the project!

The Broadcast Flag has been lowered, but that makes the 
build-ins even more important.  The motion picture 
industry and friends are rushing to Congress for 
similar "protection" (read, control).  The more we can 
demonstrate the value of open hardware and software, 
the better we can help Congress to resist those 
demands and save our DTV!

WHAT: EFF HD-PVR Build-in and Victory Celebration
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, May 21.  Pizza 
around noon (NY-style!)
WHERE: EFF offices, 454 Shotwell Street, San Francisco
(16th and Mission BART)

RSVP to BuildYourTV at eff.org to give us a head count!

Full invitation and details:
<http://www.eff.org/broadcastflag/cookbook/buildin_20050521.php>

San Francisco Bay Guardian: "Build Your TV":
<http://www.sfbg.com/39/22/cover_fcc.html>

: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :

* EFF Gets Top Marks from Charity Navigator

EFF is pleased to announce that we have received four stars 
- the highest rating, based on overall efficiency and 
organizational capacity - from Charity Navigator, the 
pre-eminent charity watchdog.  We are proud to be recognized 
for serving our donors well. 

And there's also good news for our supporters in the UK: we 
are now registered via the Charities Aid Foundation.

Support EFF today - you can be sure that your donation will 
make a difference in the fight for digital freedom!
<http://secure.eff.org/support>

EFF's profile @ Charity Navigator:
<http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=467/>

Charities Aid Foundation:
<http://www.cafonline.org/>

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* miniLinks
miniLinks features noteworthy news items from around the
Internet.

~ Zappster
Frank Zappa's "proposal" for a music download service - 
from 1983:
<http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=471>
(Zappa.com)

~ Hilary Rosen Laments Apple's DRM Strategy
The former president of the RIAA is mad that she can't 
play non-iTunes music on her iPod and can't convert 
other online music stores' files to work correctly 
on it.  As Ernest Miller explains, that's the world 
Rosen helped create when she lobbied for the DMCA -
an environment of restricted markets and outlawed 
interoperability tools:
<http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=473>
(Copyfight)

~ Tell It, Brother
USA Today's Andrew Kantor explains why striking down the 
Broadcast Flag was important: "[The] entertainment 
industry is trying to swing the notion of copyright 
entirely in their favor: to eliminate the idea of fair 
use entirely and substitute 'whatever we say you can 
do with it.'  And that's why problems arise.":
<http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=469>

~ Big Brands Fund Spyware
Not deliberately, perhaps - but the LA Times says ads for 
Mercedes and Travelocity are being spat out by some of 
the most pernicious adware:
<http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=470>

~ Baby Steps for Fighting Trolls
Brenda Sandburg analyzes the latest modest legislative 
proposals to defend patent law against patent "trolls." 
She also reveals that Peter Detkin, who coined the term, 
now works for Nathan Myrhvold's Intellectual Ventures -
a company that has itself been accused of trollishness:
<http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1115370308794>

~ Good Patriot, Bad Patriot
The American Bar Association is hosting a blog 
containing arguments for and against allowing 
the PATRIOT Act "sunset" provisions to expire.  It's
under a Creative Commons license, so you can re-use
pieces for discussion and debate:
<http://www.patriotdebates.com/>

~ REAL ID Passes
Proponents tacked the REAL ID Act onto an Iraq 
military spending bill, guaranteeing passage.  Now 
the US has a federal standard for identity cards 
- the de facto national ID system Americans have 
always rejected, for good reason.  Noah Leavitt 
breaks it down at FindLaw:
<http://writ.news.findlaw.com/leavitt/20050509.html>

~ Observe WIPO Close-Up
The deadline for public interest organizations to apply 
for "permanent observer" status with WIPO is this 
Sunday, May 15th.  Earlier this year, WIPO tried to 
bar groups that hadn't obtained permanent observer 
status from discussions about the organization's 
future.  Don't let administrative shenanigans tip 
the scales toward the intellectual property maximalists 
- make sure your group has the paperwork in on time:
<http://www.wipo.int/directory/en/admission.html>

~ Thoughts on Fair Use for Australia
Kim Weatherall with a great summary of the issues to 
consider if you're submitting comments to the 
Australian government on whether and how Australia
should codify fair use:
<http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=472>
(Weatherall's Law)

~ Meanwhile, Back at the Jihad
The MPAA is filing lawsuits against people who provide
BitTorrrent trackers that include metadata files on 
TV shows:
<http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=468>
(CNET)

~ Licensing Complexities Kill Podcast
According to this article, under ASCAP rules podcasting 
can't be classified as time-shifted streaming.  That 
means that radio stations can't just switch to 
podcasting their broadcast shows, as podcast pioneer 
Infinity Radio belatedly discovered:
<http://www.dahl.com/podcast/hiatus.asp>

~ What's Good for the Goose...
Roger Dannenberg responds to RIAA President Cary Sherman's 
op-ed tarring universities for "irresponsible" use of 
Internet2 with a rebuttal calling the recording 
industry's own history of "monopolistic suppression 
of innovation" an irresponsible use of networks:
<http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05123/497993.stm>

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* Administrivia

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