Good news for Silicon Valley and consumers: The infamous “Broadcast Flag” — digital restrictions on playback of broadcast video — is still dead, it seems, at least for the moment.
When it looked several days ago as though Hollywood would try to sneak the flag into a big appropriations bill, several alert organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge rallied citizens to the cause — to tell senators that they shouldn’t do this. Apparently, they didn’t slip this into the bill, and that’s cause for celebration.
Evidently, quite a few people contacted their Senators on this matter, which is wonderful. This is a great example of the last minute special interest schemes that go on all the time.