 | This articlemay containoriginal research. Pleaseimprove it byverifying the claims made and addinginline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed.(October 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Abroadcast flag is abit field sent in the data stream of adigital television program that indicates whether or not the data stream can be recorded, or if there are any restrictions on recorded content.[1] Possible restrictions include the inability to save an unencrypted digital program to ahard disk or othernon-volatile storage, inability to make secondary copies of recorded content (in order to share or archive), forceful reduction of quality when recording (such as reducinghigh-definition video to the resolution ofstandard TVs), and inability toskip over commercials.
In theUnited States, new televisionreceivers using theATSC standard were supposed to incorporate this functionality by July 1, 2005.[citation needed] The requirement was successfully contested in 2005 and rescinded in 2011.
Officially called "Digital Broadcast Television Redistribution Control", theFCC's rule is in 47 CFR 73.9002(b) and the following sections, stating in part: "No party shall sell or distribute in interstate commerce a CoveredDemodulator Product that does not comply with the Demodulator Compliance Requirements and Demodulator Robustness Requirements." According to the rule, hardware must "actively thwart"piracy.
The rule's Demodulator Compliance Requirements insists that all HDTV demodulators must "listen" for the flag (or assume it to be present in all signals). Flagged content must be output only to "protected outputs" (such asDVI andHDMI ports withHDCP encryption), or in degraded form throughanalog outputs ordigital outputs with visual resolution of 720x480 pixels (EDTV) or less. Flagged content may be recorded only by "authorized" methods, which may include tethering of recordings to a single device.
Since broadcast flags could be activated at any time, a viewer who often records a program might suddenly find that it is no longer possible to save their favorite show. This and other reasons lead many[who?] to see the flags as a direct affront toconsumer rights.
The Demodulator Robustness Requirements are difficult to implement inopen source systems. Devices must be "robust" against user access or modifications so that someone could not easily alter it to ignore the broadcast flags that permit access to the full digital stream. Since open-sourcedevice drivers are by design user-modifiable, a PCTV tuner card with open-source drivers would not be "robust".
TheGNU Radio project already successfully demonstrated that purely software-based demodulators can exist and the hardware rule is not fully enforceable.
InAmerican Library Association v. FCC, 406 F.3d 689 (D.C. Cir. 2005),[2] theUnited States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the FCC had exceeded its authority in creating this rule. The court stated that the Commission could not prohibit the manufacture of computer or video hardware without copy-protection technology because the FCC only has authority to regulate transmissions, not devices that receive communications. While it is always possible that the Supreme Court could overturn this ruling, the more likely reemergence of the broadcast flag is in legislation granting such authority to the FCC.
On May 1, 2006, Sen.Ted Stevens inserted a version of the Broadcast Flag into the Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006.[3] On June 22, 2006 Sen.John E. Sununu offered an amendment to strike the broadcast and radio flag,[4] but this failed and the broadcast-flag amendment was approved by theCommerce committee. Nonetheless, the overall bill was never passed, and thus died upon adjournment of the 109th Congress in December 2006.
On May 18, 2008,News.com reported thatMicrosoft had confirmed that current versions ofWindows Media Center shipping with theWindows family of operating systems adhered to the use of the broadcast flag, following reports of users being blocked from taping specific airings ofNBC programs, mainlyAmerican Gladiators andMedium. A Microsoft spokesperson said that Windows Media Center adheres to the "rules set forth by the FCC".[5]
On August 22, 2011, the FCC officially eliminated the broadcast flag regulations.[6]
 | This sectiondoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this section byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved.(June 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
With the coming of digital radio, the recording industry is attempting to change the ground rules for copyright of songs played on radio. Currently, over the air (i.e. broadcast but not Internet) radio stations may play songs freely butRIAA wants Congress to insert a radio broadcast flag. On April 26, 2006, Congress held a hearing over the radio broadcast flag. Among the witnesses were musiciansAnita Baker andTodd Rundgren.
At present no equivalent signal is typically used in EuropeanDVB transmissions, althoughDVB-CPCM would provide such a set of signal as defined by DVB-SI, usable on clear-to-air television broadcasts. How adherence to such a system would be enforced in a receiver is not yet clear.
In the UK, theBBC introduced content protection restrictions in 2010 on Free to Air content by licensing data necessary to receive the service information for the Freeview HD broadcasts.[citation needed] However the BBC have stated the highest protection applied will be to allow only one copy to be made.[citation needed]
ISDB broadcasts are protected as to allow the broadcast to be digitally recorded once, but to not allow digital copies of the recording to be made. Analog recordings can be copied freely. It is possible to disallow the use of analog outputs, although this has yet to be implemented. The protection can be circumvented with the correct hardware and software.
The Digital Video Broadcasting organization is developingDVB-CPCM which allows broadcasters (especially PayTV broadcaster) far more control over the use of content on (and beyond) home networks.[citation needed] The DVB standards are commonly used in Europe and around the world (for satellite, terrestrial, and cable distribution), but are also employed in the United States byDish Network.[citation needed] In Europe, some entertainment companies were lobbying to legally mandate the use of DVB-CPCM.[citation needed] Opponents[who?] fear that mandating DVB-CPCM will kill independent receiver manufacturers that use open source operating systems (e.g., Linux-based set-top boxes.)
In the US, since April 15, 2008,pay-per-viewmovies oncable andsatellite television now are flagged to prevent a recording of a pay-per-view channel to adigital video recorder or other related devices from being retained after 24 hours from the ordered time of the film. This is the standard film industry practice, including for digital rentals from theiTunes Store andGoogle Play. Movies recorded before that point would still be available without flagging and could be copied freely, though as of 2015 those pre-2008 DVR units are well out-of-date or probably non-functional, and the pay-per-view concern is moot for all but special events, as nearly all satellite providers and cable providers have moved to more easily restrictedvideo on demand platforms; pay-per-view films have been drawn down to non-notable content.[citation needed]