The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Public Knowledge, and five library associations filed a lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seeking to block the government agency’s overly broad regulation of digital television. The suit, filed last week in the Washington, DC Court of Appeals, charges, among other things, that the FCC failed to point to substantial evidence in adopting its “broadcast flag” ruling.
Last November the FCC issued the broadcast flag ruling, which mandated that consumer digital televisions incorporate digital rights management and content control technologies demanded by the entertainment industry. These rights management technologies restrict consumer use of digital television in order to preemptively prevent any whiff of piracy. The ruling, if not successfully challenged, will go into effect by July 2005.
Saying that it had overstepped its bounds when it issued its broadcast flag ruling, EFF intellectual property attorney Fred von Lohmann said today, “The FCC’s digital broadcast television mandate is a step in the wrong direction because it would make digital television cost more and do less, undermining innovation, fair use, and competition.”
The broadcast flag is a binary signal embedded within the digital television signal. When set to “on,” the receiving device is required to restrict the distribution of the signal.
In June 2002, the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (BPDG), a trade association representing the entertainment industry and consumer electronics manufacturers, issued a report that took a decidedly draconian position with regard to consumer use of digital television. The trade association’s report recommended that all devices capable of interacting with digital television—including computers—be required to implement methods designed to “frustrate end-user modification.” Furthermore, according to the report, any digital television recording device would have to come from a list of approved technologies, putting control over what devices could or could not be built solely in the hands of the entertainment industry.
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