Even though the court struck down the FCC's Broadcast Flag rules, it's unlikely the technology is completely dead.
The Broadcast Flag rules were mandated by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and largely promoted and written by the Motion Picture of Association of America.
But critics of the Broadcast Flag say it would have torpedoed innovation and would hurt consumers by limiting the ways they could make lawful copies of digital content.
Without a broadcast flag in place, content providers might decide not to release new programming in digital format, thus reducing consumer demand for Thomsons' digital set-top boxes, according to Arland.
The Broadcast Flag is supposed to prevent people from sharing shows or transferring them from their DVR to their PC, which is why TiVo needed a waiver of sorts to add TiVoToGo.
The ITAA and its member companies contend that the Broadcast Flag would hurt their business by closing out new markets and limiting the kinds of appliances and software they can sell to consumers.
But the electronics industry--which was fairly quiet when the broadcast flag was initially devised--might be more vocal the next time around, says Cindy Cohn, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online civil liberties group.
Mainstream manufacturers supported the broadcast flag because it required new devices to be reviewed by the FCC, putting new competitors like TiVo (nasdaq: TIVO - news - people ) at a disadvantage, according to Cohn.
The Broadcast Flag technology would have been mandatory on all digital television devices sold in the United States beginning in July, and it was intended to keep consumers from copying broadcast TV signals and transmitting them over the Internet.
If the Broadcast Flag cannot be used, program providers will have to weigh whether the risk of theft is too great over free, off-air broadcasting and could limit such high-quality programming to only cable, satellite and other more secure delivery systems.
So we're totally not surprised to see that the MPAA has moved quickly to draft up some legislation to shop around to Congress to help them implement the Broadcast Flag that was struck down last week by a U.S. Court of Appeals.
ENGADGET: Night of the living Broadcast flag: Hollywood shops asinine legislation on the Hill
We lucked out when a federal appeals court struck down the lameness that is the Broadcast Flag earlier this month, but that sort of setback doesn't faze the alliance of broadcasters and movie studios which pushed the rule on the FCC in the first place.
If broadcast flag rules and technology were in place, it could keep a university from playing part of a news program for a distance-learning course taken over the Internet, or even impose restrictions on a teacher who records a documentary to show in class, she says.
Remember that the court overturned the rule because the FCC had overstepped its authority, not because the Broadcast Flag was inherently unconstitutional, so now the industry has decided to stop messing around and are leaning on their pals in Congress to enshrine the Broadcast Flag as law.
Yeah, we know that most of you probably won't be affected by this either way, since the Broadcast Flag only governs digital over-the-air broadcasts and the vast majority of Americans homes get their TV via cable or satellite (which have copy control mechanisms of their own), but the Broadcast Flag establishes a very dangerous precedent.
He is one of the country's biggest stars and is credited with boosting China's interest in the NBA. During his nine seasons with the Houston Rockets, his games were broadcast on national television in China, and he was selected to carry China's flag during the opening ceremonies at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
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