Seth Schoen from the Electronic Frontier Foundation reminds us that the US digital TV transition that just took place was, for several years, Hollywood's best bet for infecting every device in your home with Digital Rights Management technology, giving itself veto power over the design of everything from video cards to networking protocols. This was the "Broadcast Flag" proposal, and the big studios and broadcasters promised that they would sabotage the DTV transition if they didn't get their way. The FCC rolled over and gave it to them — and then EFF, the American Library Association and Public Knowledge sued them, demonstrated that they didn't have the jurisdiction to regulate hard drives and cable-connectors, and the studios never made good on their threat.
MPAA's Fritz Attaway said that "high-value content will migrate away" from television if the broadcast flag wasn't imposed; he told Congress that fears of infringement without a broadcast flag mandate "will lead content creators to cease making their high-value programming available for distribution over digital broadcast television [and] the DTV transition would be seriously threatened". Most famously, Viacom said that
"[i]f a broadcast flag is not implemented and enforced by Summer 2003, Viacom's CBS Television Network will not provide any programming in high definition for the 2003-2004 television season. "
It's six years later and these threats have all fallen flat. This week, CBS will broadcast dozens of popular programs, like CSI, Without a Trace, Survivor, and The New Adventures of Old Christine, in high definition via over-the-air broadcast. So will all the other major networks. Digital TV also continues to feature popular movies with no DRM.
Into the DTV era, with no broadcast flag mandate
