Petteri Pyyny
5 Nov 2003 14:28
Federal Communications Commission approved, as expected, the decision to introduce so-called "broadcast flag" to American digital TV broadcasts. The flag can be used to restrict recording and further distribution of recorded digital TV shows.
American TV companies and content owners have been reluctant to move to digital TV for various reasons -- one of the biggest reasons has been the fear of piracy that perfect-quality TV recordings would possibly spark. This is somewhat different route than that introduced in countries like Germany; city of Berlin switched off the analog TV signals totally in beginning of August this year and further German cities are expected to follow soon.
All American digital TV equipment have to comply with the broadcast flag rules by 1st of July, 2005. With the flag, content providers can decide what programs they wish to "protect" from recording and further distribution -- when the DTV equipment identifies a broadcast flag, it refuses to either play or record it, depending on the source and the flag type.
Source: EE Times