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By Jon Newton 3/9/06 Bill HR 4861, the Audio Broadcast Flag Licensing Act Of 2006, boils down as another element in entertainment and software cartel plans to gain complete control over what you see, hear and do both online, and off. It calls on the US FCC (Federal Communications Commission) to impose restrictions on in-home, private, personal, and recording from digital radio services Dressed up as a narrow bill giving the FCC 'limited authority' over new HD radios and satellite radios from XM and Sirius, in reality, it's a, "fundamental attack on traditional home taping practices that consumers have engaged in since the first analog cassette recorder reached the U.S. market in 1964, and the reel-to-reel recorder decades before," says Home Recording Rights Coalition chairman Gary Shapiro. |
 Jon Newton |
Like other proposals supported by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) the bill isn't just a "flag" proposal meant to preventing mass redistribution of music online, he says.
Rather, it gives the FCC remote control over consumers' right to engage in reasonable and customary "unauthorized" recording, even in the privacy of their homes for noncommercial purposes, he says. Virtually all home recording is "unauthorized" by copyright owners but as the Supreme Court held in the Betamax case, that doesn't translate into "unlawful".
"Exercising their 'fair use' rights under the law, consumers have lawfully been making unauthorized tapes of music off the radio for more than 50 years," Shapiro declares, adding:
"In recent Congressional testimony, the head of the RIAA said 'the one-way method of communication [enabled by HD radio] allows individuals to boldly engage in piracy with little fear of detection.' In other words, the RIAA believes that when Members of Congress, their staff, and their constituents tape a song off the radio they have engaged in piracy and ought to be criminally prosecuted."
Jon Newton is the editor of p2pnet.net
and is a regular contributer to MP3 Newswire. Jon's site is devoted to the politics
of digital music and his insights as well as those of his co-writers can be
read there. We urge you to explore it.
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