Little To Fear From Broadcast Flags

[Gregg Lengling]

Arik Hesseldahl, 10.31.03, 10:00 AM ET

NEW YORK - Like recording what you see on TV? Enjoy the rights you have now, for within the next few years they may be restricted.

That's the message coming from consumer rights advocates who are railing against the possibility that new government rules expected any day now may curb how we watch and record TV.

The Federal Communications Commission, the agency charged with overseeing the airwaves, is soon to decide on the relatively arcane issue of "broadcast flags." These flags are a few bits of data that might soon be inserted into digital TV programming in order to control your ability to record them. And consumer rights advocates are up in arms about how they'll ruin the experience we now take for granted of watching and recording TV shows we like. Those fears aren't completely without merit, but they also portray an unlikely worst-case scenario.

Some shows would be open to recording much like they are now, with little or no restriction. Some might be limited in the number of copies you can make. It may be OK to make one copy for personal use--that much was guaranteed by U.S. courts after a series of lawsuits by broadcasters against the makers of VCRs in the 1980s. But making a copy that you then distribute to a few friends may not be. Some shows--the most valuable ones, presumably--would be ineligible for copying altogether. TVs, recorders and other equipment, including PCs, might be mandated to support it.

For broadcasters like The Walt Disney Co. (nyse: DIS - news - people ), Viacom (nyse: VIA - news - people ) and General Electric (nyse: GE - news - people ), their worries aren't so much about garden-variety TV viewers. Their fears are rooted in the experience the music industry has had with digital piracy. Digital and high-definition TV programs and movies could be openly traded on the Internet a la Napster, creating a costly nightmare of intellectual property protection. The basic business model of free advertising-supported TV would fall apart.

The problem with that argument is that it fails to take into account that there are significant barriers to the copying they fear. File sizes, particularly for HDTV programs, which are showing up in increasing numbers on the major networks, are simply enormous. No matter how big hard drives ultimately become and how fast home broadband Internet connections get, files containing HDTV programs will be impractical for constant trading the way music files are now.

But broadcasters are going against the grain of what manufacturers and consumers say they want. Manufacturers like Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people ) and many others are already building new generations of TVs and other entertainment gear that is both network- and Internet-ready. A show recorded to a Tivo (nasdaq: TIVO - news - people ) box or even a PC in one room ought to be readily available for viewing over a home network in another.

That portability of recorded content is part of what gives consumers the flexibility they have come to expect. Record a TV show in the living room and you can watch it in the den the next day. Or share it with a friend at the office who missed it. One study by GartnerG2, part of Gartner Group (nyse: IT - news - people ), found that 90% of consumers approve of copying TV shows for personal use, and more than 60% thought it OK to share them with a friend. Broadcasters are well aware of this, and unless they've taken leave of their senses, they won't want to alienate their audiences so badly as to be overly restrictive in their copying rules.

It further seems reasonable that if TV broadcasters have caught their fears from the music business, they should pay close attention to the solutions the music business has sought. Try using the pirate download services and you'll generally find more false copies of popular songs intentionally circulated with the music industry's blessing on the piracy services than real copies. It's a tactic that frustrates would-be music pirates.

And legal music download services like Apple Computer's (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) iTunes and Roxio's (nasdaq: ROXI - news - people ) reanimated Napster service, if successful, could prove that it is possible to sell legal digital downloads of media content to consumers--consumers who are more importantly willing to abide by basic restrictions on the copies they can make.

In the case of iTunes, those restrictions include something not terribly different from the broadcast flag. Songs can only be copied to a limited number of iPod portable music players and certified for no more than three computers. It's loose enough a regime as to be reasonable for personal use, but restrictive enough to do its bit to curb piracy. If TV viewers were required to follow similar rules, why shouldn't they be able to live with that?