TV still sucks, but now you cant watch it unless we say so..

Ever hear about the “Broadcast Flag?” Basically Hollywood wants to add a law that makes every new technology pertainig to digital TV have to go through them to be approved. This means that once the standard is decided you can change anything and they own it all, Movies, TV, anything. If it is on your PVR (Tivo) they can delete it if they want, they can prevent you from recording what you want, and it doesn’t stop there.

You know that cool Car stereo you just bought? The one with the built in Satellite radio, can play MP3 CD’s, displays the song title, maybe even the lyrics of the song? Yea, all that is made possible by the open standard in CD’s and CD Players. As long as you adhere to basic standards you can do whatever you want with them. That will not happen with TV or movies if Hollywood gets its way, they want complete control over the format, distribution, and devices that contain and play Digital video.

Oh yea, and you will have to buy a new TV to watch any of it.

Here is a list of the congressmen that have come forward with their support of this law.

This law has been attempted before, but with the overwhelming response against it they dropped it.

BTW: this little fact and link was brought to you by This Week in Tech: Episode 25, Have a listen, they explain a bit more than I know.