Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Advisory

Electronic Frontier Foundation Opposes "Broadcast Flag"

Proposed Technology Mandate Will Harm Consumers

For Immediate Release: Tuesday, June 11, 2002

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today sent a letter to Representative Billy Tauzin (R-LA) exposing how the studios' "broadcast flag" proposal for digital television (DTV) will harm consumers and slow DTV roll-out.

Representative Tauzin, a key Congressional player in the DTV debate, today held a meeting of his DTV Roundtable, an invitation-only event comprised of industry representatives. Although Representative Tauzin neglected to invite EFF or other groups representing consumer interests, EFF hopes that today's EFF letter will highlight consumer concerns and assist Rep. Tauzin in his effort to protect the public interest in the DTV transition.

In its letter, EFF points out the ways in which the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (BPDG), the group developing the technical standards for the "broadcast flag," has excluded consumer groups. The BPDG made its recommendations as part of a Final Report published on June 4, 2002. The exclusion of consumer-interest voices from the process has resulted in recommendations that will undermine fair use and endorse proprietary standards that will harm competition and innovation. If adopted, these recommendations will hinder, rather than help, DTV roll-out by making DTV a complex and expensive alternative to traditional analog television.

"Consumer voices have been excluded from these inter-industry negotiations about the 'broadcast flag' and the future of DTV," said EFF Senior Intellectual Property Attorney Fred von Lohmann. "We hope Rep. Tauzin will see the BPDG report for what it is -- a self-interested document generated by a small number of large corporations without soliciting the concerns of consumers."

The BPDG is an inter-industry group that includes large companies from the consumer electronics, information technology, and entertainment industries. The group has been tasked with developing a copy-prevention standard based on a "broadcast flag" to be added to all DTV broadcasts. The EFF has participated in the BPDG process and has been critical of its procedures and recommendations.

Links:

For this release:
http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/HDTV/20020611_eff_bpdg_pr.html

EFF letter and attachment:
http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/HDTV/20020611_eff_tauzin.html

For more about the BPDG and "broadcast flag":
http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/

Contact:

About EFF:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil liberties organization working to protect rights in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and challenges industry and government to support free expression and privacy online. EFF is a member-supported organization and maintains one of the most-linked-to websites in the world at http://www.eff.org/

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