Broadcast flag
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A broadcast flag is a
bit field A bit field is a data structure that consists of one or more adjacent bits which have been allocated for specific purposes, so that any single bit or group of bits within the structure can be set or inspected. A bit field is most commonly used to r ...
sent in the data stream of a
digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative advanc ...
program that indicates whether or not the data stream can be recorded, or if there are any restrictions on recorded content. Possible restrictions include the inability to save an unencrypted digital program to a
hard disk A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnet ...
or other non-volatile storage, inability to make secondary copies of recorded content (in order to share or archive), forceful reduction of quality when recording (such as reducing high-definition video to the resolution of standard TVs), and inability to skip over
commercials A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...
. In the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, new television receivers using the
ATSC standard Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) standards are an American set of standards for digital television transmission over terrestrial, cable and satellite networks. It is largely a replacement for the analog NTSC standard and, like that ...
were supposed to incorporate this functionality by July 1, 2005. The requirement was successfully contested in 2005 and rescinded in 2011.


FCC ruling

Officially called "Digital Broadcast Television Redistribution Control," the FCC'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 Covered
Demodulator Demodulation is extracting the original information-bearing signal from a carrier wave. A demodulator is an electronic circuit (or computer program in a software-defined radio) that is used to recover the information content from the modulated ...
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 as
DVI Digital Visual Interface (DVI) is a video display interface developed by the Digital Display Working Group (DDWG). The digital interface is used to connect a video source, such as a video display controller, to a display device, such as a comp ...
and
HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controller, ...
ports with
HDCP High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) is a form of digital copy protection developed by Intel Corporation to prevent copying of digital audio and video content as it travels across connections. Types of connections include DisplayPort ...
encryption), or in degraded form through
analog outputs Analog or analogue may refer to: Computing and electronics * Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable ** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals *** Analog electronics, circuits which use analog ...
or digital outputs with visual resolution of 720x480 pixels (
EDTV ''EDtv'' is a 1999 American satirical comedy film directed by Ron Howard. An adaptation of the Quebecois film ''Louis 19, King of the Airwaves (Louis 19, le roi des ondes)'' (1994), it stars Matthew McConaughey, Jenna Elfman, Woody Harrelson, ...
) 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 to see the flags as a direct affront to
consumer rights Consumer protection is the practice of safeguarding buyers of goods and services, and the public, against unfair practices in the marketplace. Consumer protection measures are often established by law. Such laws are intended to prevent business ...
. The Demodulator Robustness Requirements are difficult to implement in
open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
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-source
device driver In computing, a device driver is a computer program that operates or controls a particular type of device that is attached to a computer or automaton. A driver provides a software interface to hardware devices, enabling operating systems and ot ...
s are by design user-modifiable, a PC
TV tuner card A TV tuner card is a kind of television tuner that allows television signals to be received by a computer. Most TV tuners also function as video capture cards, allowing them to record television programs onto a hard disk much like the digital vi ...
with open-source drivers would not be "robust". The
GNU Radio GNU Radio is a free software development toolkit that provides signal processing blocks to implement software-defined radios and signal processing, signal-processing systems. It can be used with external Radio frequency, RF hardware to create soft ...
project already successfully demonstrated that purely software-based demodulators can exist and the hardware rule is not fully enforceable.


Current status

In ''American Library Association v. FCC'', 406 F.3d 689 (D.C. Cir. 2005), the
United States Court of Appeals United may refer to: Places * United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Arts and entertainment Films * ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film * ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two fi ...
for the
D.C. Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (in case citations, D.C. Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. It has the smallest geographical jurisdiction of any of the U.S. federal appellate cou ...
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 A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...
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 of the
United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
granting such authority to the FCC. On May 1, 2006, Sen.
Ted Stevens Theodore Fulton Stevens Sr. (November 18, 1923 – August 9, 2010) was an American politician and lawyer who served as a U.S. Senator from Alaska from 1968 to 2009. He was the longest-serving Republican Senator in history at the time he left ...
inserted a version of the Broadcast Flag into the Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006. On June 22, 2006 Sen. John E. Sununu offered an amendment to strike the broadcast and radio flag, but this failed and the broadcast-flag amendment was approved by the Commerce 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 that
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
had confirmed that current versions of
Windows Media Center Windows Media Center (WMC) is a defunct digital video recorder and media player created by Microsoft. Media Center was first introduced to Windows in 2002 on Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE). It was included in Home Premium and Ultimate e ...
shipping with the
Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
family of operating systems adhered to the use of the broadcast flag, following reports of users being blocked from taping specific airings of
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...
programs, mainly '' American Gladiators'' and ''
Medium Medium may refer to: Science and technology Aviation *Medium bomber, a class of war plane *Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Communication * Media (communication), tools used to store and deliver information or data * Medium of ...
''. A Microsoft spokesperson said that Windows Media Center adheres to the "rules set forth by the FCC." On August 22, 2011, the FCC officially eliminated the broadcast flag regulations.


Related technologies


Radio broadcast flag and RIAA

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 but
RIAA The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
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 musicians
Anita Baker Anita Denise Baker (born January 26, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter. She is one of the most popular singers of soulful ballads, especially renowned for her work during the height of the quiet storm period in the 1980s. Starting her career ...
and
Todd Rundgren Todd Harry Rundgren (born June 22, 1948) is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, multimedia artist, sound engineer and record producer who has performed a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of the band Ut ...
.


European Broadcast Flag

At present no equivalent signal is typically used in European
DVB Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) is a set of international open standards for digital television. DVB standards are maintained by the DVB Project, an international industry consortium, and are published by a Joint Technical Committee (JTC) o ...
transmissions, although
DVB-CPCM DVB Content Protection & Copy Management often abbreviated to DVB-CPCM or CPCM is a digital rights management standard being developed by the DVB Project. Its main application is interoperable rights management of European digital television, th ...
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, the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
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. However the BBC have stated the highest protection applied will be to allow only one copy to be made.


ISDB

ISDB Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting (ISDB; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Tōgō dejitaru hōsō sābisu'') is a Japanese broadcasting standard for digital television (DTV) and digital radio. ISDB supersedes both the NTSC-J analog telev ...
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.


DVB-CPCM

The Digital Video Broadcasting organization is developing
DVB-CPCM DVB Content Protection & Copy Management often abbreviated to DVB-CPCM or CPCM is a digital rights management standard being developed by the DVB Project. Its main application is interoperable rights management of European digital television, th ...
which allows broadcasters (especially PayTV broadcaster) far more control over the use of content on (and beyond) home networks. 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 by
Dish Network DISH Network Corporation (DISH, an acronym for DIgital Sky Highway) is an American television provider and the owner of the direct-broadcast satellite provider Dish, commonly known as Dish Network, and the over-the-top IPTV service, Sling TV. A ...
. In Europe, some entertainment companies were lobbying to legally mandate the use of DVB-CPCM. Opponents fear that mandating DVB-CPCM will kill independent receiver manufacturers that use open source operating systems (e.g., Linux-based set-top boxes.)


Pay-per-view use of broadcast flag

In the US, since April 15, 2008,
pay-per-view Pay-per-view (PPV) is a type of pay television or webcast service that enables a viewer to pay to watch individual events via private telecast. Events can be purchased through a multichannel television platform using their electronic program guid ...
movie A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
s on
cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...
and
satellite television Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna comm ...
now are flagged to prevent a recording off a pay-per-view channel to a
digital video recorder A digital video recorder (DVR) is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes with direct to d ...
s 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 the
iTunes Store The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,00 ...
and
Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android (operating sys ...
. 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 restricted
video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of o ...
platforms; pay-per-view films have been drawn down to non-notable content.


See also

* Copy Control Information *
Digital Millennium Copyright Act The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or s ...
*
Digital Rights Management Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures (TPM) such as access control technologies can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. ...
*
Digital Transition Content Security Act The United States The Digital Transition Content Security Act (DTCSA, ) was a bill introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner Jr., a Wisconsin Republican, on December 16, 2005. The bill was backed by Democratic Rep. John ...
*
Family Entertainment and Copyright Act The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, Pub. L. 109-9, 119 Stat. 218 (April 27, 2005), is a federal legislative act regarding copyright that became law in the United States in 2005. The Act consists of two titles or subparts: Title I is calle ...


References

* , October 1, 2005.


External links


Copyright Protection of Digital Television: The “Broadcast Flag”

Electronic Frontier Foundation's Broadcast Flag page

The Broadcast Flag and "Plug & Play": The FCC's Lockdown of Digital Television




- June 2005
MP3 Newswire Founded in 1998, the same year as MP3.com, MP3 Newswire is the oldest active news site devoted to digital media technology. Notable for its series of essays that chronicled the rise of digital music and the Internet’s acrimonious relationship with ...
article
Circuit Court ruling striking down (PDF format)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Broadcast Flag ATSC Digital television High-definition television Digital rights management standards Federal Communications Commission Television terminology History of television