[opendtv] Re: Microsoft's Masters: Whose Rules Does Your Media Center Play By?

No.
The BF was never meant to prevent copying. Whatever MSFT is doing, it isn't related to trying to respect the flag. 

Adam
adam_g@xxxxxxxxx
On May 23, 2008, at 11:56 AM, John Willkie <johnwillkie@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
this posting is specious and foolish. NBC -- and CBS o&o's by the way -- asserts the broadcast flag. The former appears to not know that they are doing do. That's their bad.
Microsoft's Media Center/Vista simply follow the language of the ATSC A/65 spec in the presence of the broadcast flag, which means -- simply that "“technological control of consumer redistribution is si gnaled."
The court's decision was that the FCC could not make this language a mandate against receiver manufacturers. (Sorry, but I ACTUALLY read and UNDERSTAND [for the most part] court decisions.)
The decision didn't say that manufacturers couldn't respect the flag (it said the opposite), just that the FCC didn't have the jurisdiction to force them do so so.
MS is an ATSC member. They are simply following the instructons that NBC puts in their transport stream.
We had a "somewhat higher level" discussion of this on my PSIP list earlier in the week, and used the CNET posting.
There is a pending question as to whether ignoring the flag is a violation of the Copyright Act. That is too complicated for a CNET article, of course. 

John Willkie
EtherGuide Systems

-----Original Message-----

From: Monty Solomon <monty@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: May 23, 2008 4:47 AM
To: undisclosed-recipient@null, null@null
Subject: [opendtv] Microsoft's Masters: Whose Rules Does Your Media Center Play By? 


May 19th, 2008
Microsoft's Masters: Whose Rules Does Your Media Center Play By?
Posted by Danny O'Brien

While its customers are still puzzling over why Vista Media Center is
suddenly refusing to record over-the-air NBC digital TV, Microsoft
has come out with an astounding admission, courtesy of Greg Sandoval
at CNet News:

   "Microsoft included technologies in Windows based on rules set
forth by the (Federal Communications Commission)," a Microsoft
spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail to CNET News.com. "As part of these
regulations, Windows Media Center fully adheres to the flags used by
broadcasters and content owners to determine how their content is
distributed and consumed."

Microsoft's statement shines light on how Microsoft expects Media
Center to behave. If this is the company's explanation for what users
are seeing when attempting to record digital NBC broadcasts
over-the-air, then Microsoft is saying Vista obeys the broadcast
flag: a requirement rejected by courts and Congress.

...

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/05/microsofts-masters-whose-rules-does-your-media-cen
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