Does the broadcast flag stifle innovation in technologies like broadband?
MPAA answer: On the contrary, protecting content, broadcast or otherwise, will spur the availability of high definition content and thus spur innovation for the systems, devices and services needed to deliver and support them in a broadband environment. EFF comment: A government mandate requiring a certain technology tends to spur investment in that particular technology, at the expense of other technologies which are forbidden. There is no doubt that the BPDG rules would result in the development of certain technologies, but other technologies would be “off-limits”. The threats to innovation posed by controlling technologies which someone might use to infringe copyrights are real and well-known. (History is full of examples of useful new technology which would have been stymied if anxious copyright holders had had their way.) One example of innovation threatened by the BPDG rules is GNU Radio, an open source software defined radio implementation which allows digital TV signals to be i
