I was glad to see that ‘Merica did some housecleaning while we were out of the country. A federal appeals court threw out the FCCs plans to implement the broadcast flag. This would severely limit innovation in the personal-video-recorder (PVR) and PC-TV convergence field by prohibiting hobbyists and open-source developers from playing. Thus, the MythTV box I am building – for use in my own home – would have become illegal to sell. Using existing boxes would still be legal.
The rule will not take effect on its scheduled June 1st implementation, but don’t think for a minute the greedy, evil bastards in the entertainment industry who are pushing this will accept defeat. Take a moment to visit EFFs action page and let your representative know that the broadcast flag is a bad idea.