--- Andy Long <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > What about the case of > broadcast television or OTA-HD content. No one pays a nickel for > that, and never have, yet I haven't seen NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS or any > others go belly up.
The networks make their money by selling you (the audience) to advertisers. If your recording contains the commercials, and you don't have a mechanism for skipping or excising the commercials, then watching or sharing your recording has not done any harm to the networks. You are just helping them with additional distribution of the advertisements. As to the larger debate: U.S. copyright is a very sensible and workable law (except for the "extensions" that media companies have won). The problem with the broadcast flag is that it is far more restrictive than copyright law. The broadcast flag prevents "fair use" of media, which is legal according to copyright law. As to the "cracking" of HDTV receivers that adhere to the broadcast flag: This is where the DMCA comes into play. It is illegal to circumvent a copyright protection mechanism. The protection mechanism can be pathetically "weak" (such as the DVD CSS protection), but that does not matter. While this does not prevent the underground from distributing the information about cracking, it does stop manufacturers and importers from selling a pre-cracked plug 'n' play device to the masses, in the U.S. The FCC broadcast flag proposal does mandate that devices be reasonably secure against cracking, which probably means the protection mechanism must be stronger than DVD CSS. It also stops an HDTV card maker from adding a weak mechanism, and then "leaking" the simple crack to the web.
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