Consumer rights..

Well, it looks like the boys in Hollywood are at it again. Apparently a law will go into effect July 1, 2005 which will make it illegal to sell HDTV equipment which doesn't support a "Broadcast Flag". This basically means that most of the recording/portability functionality of HDTV will be killed in all equipment made after July 1, 2005. Of course, the EFF is pretty nervous about this, and urging people to buy HDTV tuner cards for their home-brew PVR linux systems, and help out with the programming too. Maybe it is time to look into a card.. but at $200 they are a bit pricey. Of course, when everything is broadcast in hdtv a few years from now I'd probably be happy I did. Then again, does anything worth watching ever really show up on TV?