Hollywood Asks FCC For Permission To Break Your DVR Again
Found on Techdirt on Wednesday, 02 September 2009
Every few months for the past year and a half or so, the MPAA has basically begged the FCC to let it make use of "selectable output control" on televisions to block DVRs from recording stuff shown on TV.
Matthew Lasar notes that the MPAA is finally admitting that if it gets its way, it may actually require some people to buy new equipment. So, not only will the plan functionally break lots of DVRs by not letting them do the one thing they're designed to do (record what's on TV), but they may break other parts of the process as well, such that people will need to buy new equipment.
That will be completely useless, since TV shows will appear online just like they do now. It needs one single source, and it is a pretty safe bet that someone out there finds a way around the block-flag. Just like Jon had beaten CSS. Just like muslix64 had beaten AACS. Oh, and just like the Shift key had beaten MediaMax.