[mythtv-users] Not quite OT, but close. A letter to congress.

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Fri Sep 18 15:12:11 UTC 2009


On Friday 18 September 2009 09:09:18 Michael Cook wrote:
> Eric Ladner <eric.ladner at gmail.com> writes:
> > The FCC passed regulations stating that cable boxes should have a
> > functional FireWire port to allow consumers to record cable TV
> > programs.  That is not a viable policy at this point because
> > there's no statement in the regulation that says the transmitted
> > programs be unencrypted, only that the FireWire port be active.
> > If the port is active and they are transmitting encrypted signals,
> > it renders the port useless.
>
> FWIW, I would expect a lawyer could argue successfully that if the
> programs are encrypted, then the port is not functional.  If you
> can't view the content coming from the port, how could that be
> considered functional?

If you can use it to change channels it might be called "functional".

Just depends on what the "function" of the port is taken to be.



-- 
Brian Wood
beww at beww.org


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