The July 1, 2005 deadline for digital television makers to include anti-online piracy "broadcast flags" in their products may not be limited to just television sets. The Federal Communications Commission's order applies to personal computers and handheld devices, just about any device over which digital television programming including films can be delivered, CNET reported November 6.
"As convergence between media types accelerates and traditional divisions become more porous," the tech news Website said, "the FCC's regulations will expand to sweep in far more than just the television sets in America's living rooms. Media center PCs, handheld devices with television receivers and other gadgets will also be affected and will likely have higher price tags."
CNET said there are those in or watching Silicon Valley who fear the order could, at worst extreme, "kill the computer," while at least one key Capitol Hill lawmaker continued to warn about the inadvisability of governmental "technology mandates" superceding industry self-governance.
The Motion Picture Association of America has said the FCC order means a big victory for consumers and "the preservation of high value over-the-air free broadcasting," but some consumer and privacy groups fear it really means more expensive television receivers and a prospect that viewers' watching habits can be tracked more easily.
And there is another concern, according to Computer and Communications Industry Association director of public policy Will Rodger: whether the FCC order encroaches on a technological sector which shines without regulation. "The immediate effect isn't so huge," he told CNET. "What it really affects is the tuner cards that go into your computer. But there's a real slippery slope here. This is going to draw the FCC into the Internet, unless it makes a conscious decision not to go there...It's difficult to see how the FCC and the government won't get more directly involved in designing hardware, routers and other devices."
CNET believes the FCC order reignites a "cold war" between Hollywood and Silicon Valley with Washington in the middle. Last year, U.S. Sen. Ernest (Fritz) Hollings (D-South Carolina) and the MPAA pushed to force copy-protection technology into any device with a microprocessor, CNET said, including digital watches and handhelds as well as the big multimedia personal computers. But Silicon Valley opposed that idea angrily enough, "reminding Congress and anyone else who would listen that technology companies flourish in a market without government-mandated protocols and designs, the measure stalled," CNET said.
Computer hardware makers told CNET the FCC order will force them to redesign if not stop selling their current products. "This was designed to absolutely kill the computer," said Digital Connection senior engineer Cliff Watson to CNET. "It will kill the computer because the actual implementation of the ruling is so bloody restrictive."
The FCC order makes setmakers put the broadcast flag into their products but does not require broadcasters to flag their content. Private consumers will be able to record broadcast-flagged television shows and films but play them back only on the same device, CNET said, meaning you can't make a copy for a friend or relative.
The FCC order may be seen as a big win for Hollywood, which has been fighting online trading of broadcasts and films for several years, but Congress may not necessarily let the victory set in without a fight. CNET said some on Capitol Hill think the FCC has gone beyond its charter into lawmaking.
"(The FCC) may issue rules that impact the Copyright Act and involve my Subcommittee’s jurisdiction," said a statement from Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who chairs the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, a subcommittee whose purview includes copyright law. But Smith also said his subcommittee would withhold full judgment until it reviews the complete FCC order in tandem with the Copyright Act.
Smith is already on record opposing technology mandates as the way to stop online piracy. "No one can deny that piracy and intellectual property theft cost American businesses billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs each year," he said after his subcommittee conducted early summer hearings on issues including the broadcast flag. "But…technology mandates are not the answer – the answer on many of these issues can be found within the private sector, not through government mandates."
