Public Knowledge have issued a statement to be submitted for the record of the Senate Commerce Committee hearing on the broadcast flag. They have been campaigning against it for some time and the 13 page statement outlines why in some detail.
Sample:
"he market for delivering content digitally over new technologies is working. Consumers can watch and listen to the content they purchase anytime and anywhere they want. Some of that content will be protected, and consumers can decide whether that protection is flexible enough. All of these great developments happened without government intervention.
The public appetite for buying individual TV shows and songs online is growing by leaps and bounds. There are more ways than ever to watch TV and movies and listen to the radio. Sales of HDTV sets are skyrocketing.
Yet even as innovators in the content industry promote these alternative distribution technologies, the very same content industry wants Congress to step in and give it protection from the vague threat of massive copyright infringement the industry says these new technologies could facilitate. Let us be clear. The content industry has not shown that any infringement has resulted from these technologies. And they certainly have not shown that government technology mandates will work to stop actual copyright pirates rather than prevent ordinary consumers from engaging in lawful activities.
The content industry is asking Congress to impose three technology mandates: the broadcast flag, radio content protection and an end to the analog hole. Each mandate 1) injects government into technological design; 2) places limits on lawful consumer activities; and 3) increases consumer costs by making obsolete millions of digital devices. Once consumers start to purchase devices that are compliant with these technology mandates, the costs will be enormous. For example:
A consumer would not be able to record over-the-air local news on her broadcast-flag compliant digital video recorder in her living room and play it back on a non-compliant player in her bedroom (broadcast flag).
A member of Congress could not email a clip of his appearance on the national news to his home office (broadcast flag).
A consumer would not be able to record analog home movies using a digital camcorder and transfer them to a computer in order to make a DVD (analog hole).
A student would be prohibited from recording excerpts from a DVD for a college Powerpoint presentation (analog hole).
A consumer would be unable to record individual songs off digital broadcast and satellite radio (radio content protection).
Current versions of TiVos (and other digital video recorders), iPods (and other MP3 players), cellphones and play station portables would not work with analog hole closing compliant devices, rendering them virtually obsolete (analog hole).
A university could not use digital TV video clips for distance learning classes (broadcast flag).
I urge the Committee to think very long and hard about trying to fix what is not broken. Ask yourselves, in light of recent marketplace developments, is it good policy to turn the Federal Communications Commission into the Federal Computer Commission or the Federal Copyright Commission? Is it good policy to impose limits on a new technology like HD Radio (that unlike digital television, consumers need not adopt) that may well kill it? Is it good policy to impose a technological mandate (like the broadcast flag and closing the analog hole) that would result in consumers having to replace most of the new devices that they just purchased?
There are better alternatives for protecting digital content than heavy-handed technology mandates. Those alternatives are a multi-pronged approach of consumer education, enforcement of copyright laws, new business models for content distribution and the use of technological tools developed in the marketplace, not mandated by government. The recent Grokster decision and the passage of the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act are just two of several new tools that the content industry has at its disposal to protect its content."
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