Public Knowledge (PK) and Consumers Union (CU) warned the FCC to ...

Public Knowledge (PK) and Consumers Union (CU) warned the FCC to keep broadcast flag rules as narrow as possible. Comments were due Fri. in the broadcast flag and plug-&-play orders. PK and CU said FCC should restrain itself in extending the flag’s copy protection regime to new technologies, such as software-defined radio. “Because the software and hardware components of software-defined radio are inexpensive, modifiable, widely duplicable and universally available, applying the broadcast flag scheme to software defined radio would leave the Commission in a position of regulating every programmer, personal computer, and antenna because the combination of these elements might result in a non-compliant device,” the groups said. The groups said the FCC should drop the “personal digital network environment” concept, because they questioned how that environment would be defined in light of handheld digital video devices that could work such places as the office or on an airplane. On plug-&-play, PK said the FCC should make certain its rules governing devices that will plug directly into digital TV sets don’t harm consumers by reducing TV picture quality. PK said “downrezzing,” or reducing picture resolution, “is simply part of content companies’ ‘wish list’ to transform the consumer electronics marketplace into something they believe is more controllable.” PK Pres. Gigi Sohn warned of the “real possibility that consumers could be worse off” after this Commission rulemaking. “The FCC has to make certain that even as it tries to advance technology that it doesn’t require the industry to produce inferior products to satisfy content providers,” Sohn said. The NCTA, in plug- &-play comments, said it’s important for the FCC to allow downrezzing of non-broadcast programming such as cable sent over non-protected outputs. Studios, NCTA said, have told cable operators they won’t supply content without that kind of protection. NCTA also supports CableLabs’ role in approving products that meet certain standards. NCTA said the technologies and review used to secure plug-&-play should be more rigorous than those for the flag because broadcast content was free over the air. The CEA urged the Commission to rule on the issue of down-resolution with the early DTV adopter in mind. CEA said the MPAA intended to drive consumer purchases toward secure digital interfaces, “only then to seek selectable-output-control (SOC) authority upon their whim.” CEA said down-resolution wasn’t a viable copy protection scheme or a restriction to Internet redistribution. MPAA didn’t return a call for comment. “Down-resolution’s primary effect will be to punish consumers for making an early investment in HDTV displays when only the ‘wrong’ interface was available,” CEA wrote: “To the extent ‘down-resolution’ is justified as punishment for the sins of the manufacturers who sold them these products misses the mark.” CEA said that by allowing HDTV down-resolution, it wouldn’t be disappointing or conferring a disadvantage on all consumers equally -- “only on those who first responded to the Congress’s and the Commission’s promotion of DTV and HDTV.” CEA also cautioned the FCC on unilateral device revocation rules and encouraged a device-specific certification revocation process rather than model line revocation, which could disenfranchise consumers. Rejecting encryption of the digital basic service tier, CEA argued, would simply allow cable multiple system owners to extend their unique and conditional access systems into a home networking backbone system from which all other technologies were excluded.