The Broadcast Flag
More steady off-the-record hints that an FCC regulation is on the way. My article, “The Biology of the Broadcast Flag,” will be coming out in Hastings COMM/ENT in a few (weeks?) (months?). When you read it, you'll understand why the FCC shouldn't act.
In a nutshell, the FCC doesn't have jurisdiction to do this, there isn't a problem now (because of bandwidth issues), this wouldn't fix the problem (because of the analog hole), and this will cause lots of other problems — including freezing innovation, putting studio gatekeepers in charge of consumer electronics and IT products, and generally contributing to a monoculture of access and law. The studios believe that the continuing existence of analog is “unnatural,” and that we need to protect evolution towards a secure, digital world. But they haven't listened to the importance of chance in evolution — in fact, they'd like to make sure that they can keep new creatures from appearing (unauthorized machines) and keep their own creature (their business model) from becoming extinct.
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