The Creative Librarian is a hub for matters important to librarians/information scientists of today. There is a definite lean towards electronic issues, however it isn't restricted to only those. Hopefully this site will also be useful for informing non-librarians on these issues as so many of them affect us all.
Basically, there was a recent decision by the FCC to force all manufacturers of Televisions (and anything capable of receiving a TV signal.. that’s right computers too…) to install technology capable of interpreting a “broadcast flag” that would signify a program was not to be allowed to be recorded. This was scheduled to go into effect with all new entertainment devices capable of receiving such signals manufactured after June 1st of this year. To sum up the judge’s ruling, he basically said that the FCC did not have the authority to impose such a decision.
The American Library Association, Electronic Frontier Foundation and friends just won their joint challenge to the FCCs weird Broadcast Flag regulations… Not only does this mean that the FCC has to back off from trying to require all digital video receivers to have special Digital Rights Management embedded … but the courts also agreed that the ALA, and by extention librarians and educators, had standing to file this case in the first place.
