An iPod as a legislative force

By Scott Bradner, Network World, 02/13/06

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The Senate's Commerce committee last month heard proposals that would enable the FCC to require recording and playback equipment to obey copying and reproduction restrictions indicated by a "broadcast flag" imbedded in audio or video content.

These proposals were before Congress because the courts kicked out the FCC's previous attempt to impose such a requirement (see Broadcast flag: Protecting the past).

Although the recording industry maintains that its proposals will not get in the way of consumers continuing to do what they and current law say is fine, testimony by the industry's representative indicated that this is not quite the case. The overturned FCC action dealt only with a broadcast flag for video content. But since that action was overturned, the recording industry has seen an opportunity to go much further and has proposed a similar function for audio broadcasts. The industry's argument is that such a thing is made necessary by the advent of digital-over-the-air broadcast radio stations and digital satellite radio.

In this proposal, the broadcast flag (a pattern of bits buried in the data stream) would tell the electronic device what limits the broadcaster has placed on the recording or playback of the audio material. Mitch Bainwol, speaking for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), said that, under its proposal, a user could record something while listening to it in order to play it back at another time. When questioned, he said that automatic (for example, time-based) recording would not be permitted, nor would playing back parts of the recording at different times. That's more than a little change from what people can legally do today.

Some of the senators expressed skepticism about parts of this, and others wondered about the whole idea. One of the doubters was Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the committee chair, who personalized the discussion by noting that he had just received an iPod as a gift and wondered at limits the RIAA would put on the device playing back material he had recorded over the air.

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