Broadcast
Flag technology, in order to stem the spread of online piracy, aims to prevent
the unauthorized transmission of data across the Internet by embedding in the
transmission "a sequence of digital bits . . . that signals that the program
must be protected from unauthorized redistribution."
The pure principle argument against the Broadcast Flag is that it would "give
Hollywood unwarranted control over the development of digital television (DTV)
and related technologies to the detriment of creators and consumers of the technologies"
(EFF.org).
A technical counterargument to the Broadcast Flag is the Internet's technological
inability to sustain the kind of piracy envisioned by the entertainment industry.
Downloading an entire DVD via a dial up connection, for instance, would be painfully
slow, and few - if any - individuals would attempt to transmit an entire DVD
through a telephone line. And current broadband transmission speeds, though
faster, are still too slow to facilitate a convenient transmission of, say,
an entire DVD. The relatively slow speed of transmission, in other words, is
a solid argument against the use of the Broadcast Flag - there is no need for
legal or technological devices that protect against unlikely crimes.
Indeed, Professor Felten has registered with the FCC this very objection: "It
is easier and cheaper to record a movie on a VHS tape and send it through the
mail than to record a digital broadcast and transmit it over the Internet, said
Edward Felten, a computer science professor at Princeton University." (Entertainment
and computer industries face off over digital television copy protection).
CNN
has just reported, however, that Stanford Linear Accelerator Center researchers
have managed to send 6.7 gigs of data across 6,800 miles in just 58 seconds.
And the article uses an apropos measuring cup: 6.7 gigs equals approximately
2 DVDs.
However far in the future this technology may be for the Internet proper, the
general spirit of the innovation is, for Internet surfers, great news. Faster
transmission speeds mean more information flow, easier access to data, and so
on.
To Hollywood, however, faster transmission speeds are a threat, for they make
possible the kind of online piracy the Broadcast Flag aims to prevent. Once
a DVD can be delivered via the Internet in 30 seconds, online transmission will
be far easier than sending a VHS tape in the mail.
If courts and legislatures are willing to anticipate a future with blazing
online transmission speeds, then -- particularly given the current legal-political
predisposition to overprotect copyright holders -- they will likely condone
restrictive technologies like the Broadcast Flag. Developments in one medium
will create spill over effects in another (a phenomenon which the Supreme Court
recognized over half a century ago -- "[l]aws which hamper the free use of some
instruments of communication thereby favor competing channels", the Court wrote
in 1949). In this case, progress in one channel of communication -- the Internet
-- might very well lead to the creation of laws that, at least for consumers, hamper a competing channel
-- viz., broadcast.