Some are built into personal computers, while others are stand-alone machines usually hooked up to televisions.
Under the new rules, such devices must be broadcast-flag compliant by July 2005. Consumers who want to record shows using VCRs will not be affected, and they will be able to watch flagged programming on any television.
"The FCC scored a big victory for consumers and the preservation of high value over-the-air free broadcasting with its decision on the Broadcast Flag," Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America, said in a prepared statement. "This puts digital TV on the same level playing field as cable and satellite delivery."
But one network executive said the industry was disappointed that the rule won't take effect next year and that the FCC did not accept industry's plan for which technologies would be acceptable for the broadcast-flag system.
Those changes were pushed by consumer and privacy groups, who nonetheless remained critical of the plan. Some noted that the decision came from the same agency that recently relaxed media ownership rules to allow media companies to grow larger.
"Having just given big media companies more control over what consumers can see on their TV sets by lifting media ownership limits, the FCC has now given these same companies more control over what users can do with that content, leaving consumers as two-time losers," said Gigi B. Sohn, president of Public Knowledge.
Sohn and others say the plan will not stop Internet distribution, because programs copied onto video cassettes can easily be re-copied in digital form and sent online. Blocking that, they said, would require wholesale equipment changes.
Moreover, said Christopher Murray, legislative counsel for Consumers Union, consumers will not have the freedom they now have to view copied material on machines in different rooms or locations unless they buy new equipment.
Even if consumers have a flag-enabled recorder, Murray said, they could not view that DVD elsewhere without another compliant device.
In his partial dissent, Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein said the new rules raise unanswered copyright and privacy issues.
He said the order allows programming to be flagged even if its copyright protection has expired, creating a conflict with intellectual property law.
He also said that not enough attention was paid to whether the flag scheme would enable the entertainment industry to track how and when its content is viewed, a potential invasion of privacy.
Commissioner Michael J. Copps dissented on similar grounds, though he praised the plan as "better balanced" than original versions put forth by the Motion Picture Association of America.
Copps criticized the agency's decision to allow the flag to be used with news and other public-affairs programming.
"This means that even broadcasts of government meetings could be locked behind the flag," he said in a statement.
The FCC set up an interim system for reviewing flag-technology proposals, with an eye toward allowing competing versions as long as they meet certain common standards.
The agency will conduct further hearings for a permanent system.
