TVSquad

The title might sound like another movie I should post on Killer Blog from CyberSpace (shameless plug), though it reflects what's really going on behind the scenes in Congress. The EFF is screaming out warnings that higher-ups in Hollywood have somehow obscured the dreaded broadcast flag into an amendment to a wordy appropriations bill. Word is the provision will be introduced before a subcommittee tomorrow and before the full appropriations committee on Thursday.


For any chance at stopping the bill from being signed off with the broadcast flag intact, Senators in several states need to be contacted and made aware of its implications. Only residents of Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, or Wisconsin can sign this, so if you're not residing in one of those states, there's nothing you can really do at this point. Contact your Senator today if you care at all about this.

In case you don't know what the broadcast flag means, in a nutshell we're talking about anything digitally broadcast on television being under the control of status bits which specify the recordability of the content. This means Tivo would be rather useless. No more recording shows at full quality for later viewing. No more commercial skipping.