So, after reading the newpost directly below this one, perhaps you’re thinking, "OMG OMG I love the government!. I love the FCC." Or maybe not. If the FCC is pushing HDTV, they’re also planning on mandating that all HDTV tuners haveanti-copy protection built in. Broadcasters apparently would be able to "flag" certain shows in order to keep compliant recorders from recording them.
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.
The details of the plan won’t be available until next week, so perhaps we’ll all be pleasantly surprised when such ridiculous measures aren’t enacted. Or maybe not. Incidentally, all this TV-oriented news comes as PBSpublishes a storyon the last nation in the world to legalize TV (in 1999), the Kingdom of Bhutan.
