FCC wades into digital TV, piracy debate



After MP3 piracy, there is movie piracy, but the entertainment industry of the USA already fears a new way of piracy, digital television piracy. This because digital distrubition of TV-shows is expect to become very populair.

And to be ahead of these pirates, in contrary of music and movies pirates, the industry wants to mark transmissions with a "broadcast flag" to designate shows that should not be copied freely.



Under the BPDG plan, a digital television receiver would recognize flagged digital content and allow consumers to record it only in lower-quality analog form or encrypted digital form. The encrypted digital version would be intentionally disabled so, for instance, it would only be viewable on the recorder that was used to create it. Digital content can also be flagged, according to the BPDG, as permitting open copying.

But because consumers might not buy impaired receivers if given a choice, action by the FCC or Congress would be necessary to compel software and hardware manufacturers to recognize and abide by the "broadcast flag." Sen. Hollings has introduced a related bill that would restrict hardware and software that doesn't adhere to government-approved "standard security technologies."

What could also help to prevent this kind of piracy is to sell TV shows to the whole world and not in the US first. The same goes for movies and videogames. Read the entire story here.

Source: Cnet.com

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