MORE CE MAKERS URGE FCC NOT TO MANDATE JULY 2004 FLAG DEADLINE
Philips, Sony and Thomson joined the growing chorus of consumer electronics (CE) makers urging the FCC to reject the MPAA’s call for a mandatory July 1, 2004, deadline for making CE devices broadcast flag-compliant. Zenith, like other CE makers, said its typical new product design cycle averaged about 18 months from the FCC’s final adoption of any new rules, but Zenith didn’t say it would be precluded from meeting the July 2004 deadline.
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Most fascinating was a joint ex parte filing at the Commission by Sony Electronics and its related movie subsidiary Sony Pictures in which both said they supported the FCC’s rulemaking on broadcast flag, but only Sony Pictures said it “does not believe the rulemaking should be delayed.” However, the Sony studio, unlike MPAA of which it’s a key member, softpedaled its call for July 2004 compliance, although it was “concerned that any other ruling will create legacy products in the market” that wouldn’t have broadcast flag protections.
Sony Electronics said it opposed any proposal to require broadcast flag compliance by July 2004. Even if Sony’s CE product developers “could know today with certainty” what the FCC’s broadcast flag rules would look like, it said, “it is impossible for Sony Electronics to assure the Commission” that any compliant products could be released by July 2004. Sony Electronics, like other CE companies, told the Commission it opposed a “waiver” provision supported by the MPAA for manufacturers that could demonstrate they were so committed to a production process that the process couldn’t be altered to meet a broadcast flag implementation deadline.
Thomson also said it opposed the waiver, fearing it “would interject the FCC into the most minute aspects of the design and production of consumer electronics equipment” and that such a role would be “wholly inappropriate.” Anticipating FCC approval of broadcast flag rules, Thomson said it “can and will” add that functionality voluntarily to its digital cable-ready HDTV sets scheduled for introduction next summer. However, it urged the FCC not to require such compliance until July 1, 2005.
That Thomson had indicated in an earlier ex parte filing at the Commission that it was prepared to market broadcast flag-compliant products by July 2004 was used heavily by the MPAA to support its claim that the deadline was a practical one. Philips said it agreed with those who had raised “substantial questions” about the FCC’s legal authority to impose a mandatory deadline on broadcast flag compliance. To the extent that an individual manufacturer such as Thomson had indicated it could meet the July 2004 deadline, Philips said, “that is a function of its individual product plans but cannot be used as a basis to justify a government mandate applicable to all covered consumer electronics equipment.” Philips also was less restrained than Sony or Thomson in criticizing the waiver proposal as “extraordinary for its intrusiveness into the manufacturing process. It insinuates the Commission into every detail of manufacturing.”