IP Notes

EFF Releases HD PVR Cookbook and Build-In Kit

San Francisco - Today the Electronic Frontier Foundation
(EFF) announced the next stage in its challenge to the
Federal Communications Commission's "Broadcast Flag"
technology mandate. The organization released a
step-by-step guide, the "HD PVR Cookbook," that teaches
people how to build a high-definition digital television
(HDTV) recorder unaffected by the technological constraints
of the Broadcast Flag. In addition, EFF is encouraging
people to protest the FCC rule by holding Build-Ins --
gatherings around the country to build unfettered HDTV
recorders and experience first-hand the kind of innovation
stifled by the government mandate.

The Broadcast Flag, which places copy controls on DTV
signals, is aimed at stopping people from making digitally
perfect copies of television shows and redistributing them.
Yet it also stops people from making perfectly legitimate
personal copies of broadcasts. More disturbing, the
Broadcast Flag will outlaw the manufacture and import of a
whole host of TiVo-like devices that send DTV signals into
a computer for backup, editing, and playback. After the
Broadcast Flag regulations go into effect, all personal
video recorder (PVR) technologies must be Broadcast
Flag-compliant and "robust" against user modification --
and that means, once again, that the entertainment industry
is trying to tell you what you can do with your own
machines.

Now individuals can fight back by hosting a Build-In before
the Broadcast Flag goes into effect on July 1, 2005. EFF
held the first Build-In at its offices in late January,
inviting a number of local programmers, TV fans, and
bloggers to try out the Cookbook and test-bake their own
HDTV recorders using standard computers equipped with HD
tuner cards. The results were smashing: the dozen attendees
created five working PVRs over the course of the day, using
the KnoppMyth distribution of the open-source MythTV
software package. Groups who want to host their own
Build-Ins can contact EFF for a "Throw Your Own Build-In"
kit, which includes a hard copy of the HD PVR Cookbook, a
KnoppMyth CD-ROM, and (of course!) free EFF t-shirts and
stickers.

EFF releases its technological challenge to the Broadcast
Flag on the same day that the organization and other civil
liberties groups challenge the FCC in the courtroom. In ALA
v. FCC, the groups -- including the American Library
Association and Public Knowledge -- argue that the FCC has
overstepped its authority in mandating the Broadcast Flag
and that the rule should be struck down.

"Even as we're suing the FCC to stop this interference with
technological innovation, we're also helping television
watchers to get off the couch and build their own fully
capable PVRs," said EFF Special Projects Coordinator Wendy
Seltzer, who organized the Build-In. "Every MythTV built
helps demonstrate the creative development that may be cut
off by bad regulation."

HD PVR Cookbook:
http://www.eff.org/broadcastflag/cookbook/

Pictures of the EFF Build-In:
http://wendy.seltzer.org/photos/mythtv/build-in/

Throw Your Own Build-In:
http://www.eff.org/broadcastflag/cookbook/buildin.php

More about the Broadcast Flag:
http://www.eff.org/broadcastflag

For this release:
http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_02.php#003356

About EFF

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil
liberties organization working to protect rights in the
digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and
challenges industry and government to support free
expression and privacy online. EFF is a member-supported
organization and maintains one of the most linked-to
websites in the world at http://www.eff.org/

-end-

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# posted by John @ 1:32 PM