Broadcast Protection Discussion Group

The Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (BPDG) is a working group of content providers, television broadcasters, consumer electronics manufacturers, information technology companies, interested individuals and consumer activists. The group was formed specifically for the purpose of evaluating the suitability of the broadcast flag for preventing unauthorized redistribution (including unauthorized redistribution over the Internet of unencrypted digital terrestrial broadcast television (DTV)) and to determine whether there was substantial support for the broadcast flag. The group completed its mission with the release of the BPDG Report. The BPDG has reached a consensus on the use of a technical broadcast flag standard for digital broadcast copy protection. The broadcast flag is an electronic marker embedded in over the air digital broadcast signals that would block or limit the ability of consumer electronics devices to make copies of the programs. The broadcast flag would also prevent the redistribution of such programs over the Internet. Despite reaching a consensus on this standard, the BPDG did not reach any agreement concerning how to implement the use of the flag or enforce it.

The group proposed that digital TV programs be embedded with a "broadcast flag." All digital devices would be required to recognize the flag, which would prevent the protected content from being distributed on the Internet. The report states, "The proposed technical solution does not interfere with the ability of consumers to both make copies of DTV content, and to exchange such content among devices connected within a digital home network."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is a nonprofit group of passionate people —lawyers, technologists, volunteers, and visionaries —working to protect digital rights. Blending the expertise of lawyers, policy analysts, activists, and technologists, EFF achieves significant victories on behalf of consumers and the general public. EFF fights for freedom primarily in the courts, bringing and defending lawsuits even when that means taking on the US government or large corporations. By mobilizing more than 50,000 concerned citizens through our Action Center, EFF beats back bad legislation. In addition to advising policymakers, EFF educates the press and public. Sometimes just defending technologies is not enough, so EFF also supports the development of freedom enhancing inventions.

Several CPTWG (Copy Protection Technical Working Group) participants indicated at CPTWG's June 5 meeting that the "parallel group" or "policy group" is "not a sub group of CPTWG or "not part of CPTWG".

Some recent press coverage of BPDG refers to the BPDG proposal as recommending a watermark in digital TV broadcasts. This is a misperception of the nature of the broadcast flag. (There is a distinct proposal called the broadcast watermark which was not discussed extensively within BPDG and is not part of the BPDG's published recommendations.) A watermark is commingled directly with the signal it marks, and thereby alters the signal (ideally, in an imperceptible way). By contrast, the broadcast flag exists side by side with video content it marks. Terms to describe the broadcast flag, rather than watermark, might include "bit", "indicator", "flag", "descriptor", "tag", "header field", or "notice". But use of "watermark" is sure to generate confusion, especially because watermark proposals distinct from BPDG do exist. Watermarking is likely to be a big issue soon in a public forum—but not as a part of BPDG's proposal.

An article by John Dvorak seems to contain a misconception: that the result of BPDG's work will be the obsolescence of current digital TV receivers. As Dvorak writes:

"it appears that the new copy protection schemes being dreamed up by Hollywood will make every single HDTV set sold to date obsolete. And buyers of new sets are not being told about this situation in a dubious attempt to dump very expensive inventory." What happened was that the Hollywood folks, who are just freaked over the possibility that we'll be copying HDTV movies, have promoted copy protection that requires the decode circuit to be built into the display, not into the set top box. This requires the set top box to send a signal to a connector that new HDTV sets will have. If you're thinking of buying an HDTV, don't, unless it has this connector and circuit whenever they are finalized." One view is that Dvorak has got the situation backwards. Old equipment will continue to work. This is because BPDG is not planning to encrypt broadcasts at all—merely to cause them to include a "broadcast flag", and to obtain legislation forcing all manufacturers to comply with its rules. The result of this would be that old equipment would be better and more useful than new equipment. Not only would it work properly, but it wouldn't have been crippled by having to comply with the Compliance and Robustness Rules. This is to say that old equipment would be more functional, not less functional, than new equipment.