[ale] [Fwd: EFFector 18.15: Federal Court Scraps Broadcast Flag!]
Geoffrey
esoteric at 3times25.net
Sat May 14 09:54:17 EDT 2005
Yes! Now if we could only get the producers of television to produce
quality programming.... :(
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: EFFector 18.15: Federal Court Scraps Broadcast Flag!
Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 15:59:46 -0500
From: EFFector list <editor at eff.org>
Reply-To: EFFector list <editor at eff.org>
Organization: EFF
To: esoteric at 3times25.net
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/>
: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :
* 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>
: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :
* Administrivia
EFFector is published by:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation
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+1 415 436 9333 (voice)
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http://www.eff.org/
Editor:
Donna Wentworth, Web Writer/Activist
donna at eff.org
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--
Until later, Geoffrey
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