Apparently, the US-FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has been unaware about the cruelty and danger carried by DRM encryption in ATSC 3.0. I have covered DRM (Digital Rights Management) in past articles although with audiobooks and ebooks, both from the producer and consumer perspective. Thankfully, two well known and highly respected technology activists —Lon Seidman of Connecticut (where I was born and raised) and the AntennaMan (Tyler Kleinle of Pennsylvania)— had a meeting last week at the US-FCC’s headquarters in Washington, DC to educate them out the situation and hopefully prevent the proposed shutting down of ATSC 1.0, since this DRM cruelly and dangerously limits availability and functionality. Both Lon Seidman and the AntennaMan have very popular YouTube channels and have both been covering this topic for over two years so far. Ahead, you’ll see their two consecutive presentations to the FCC.

Since they were not allowed to record while in the US-FCC office, these recordings were made outside, either before or after.

At the end of their presentation, they requested that DRM be prohibited on local broadcasts for public safety and to speed up consumer adoption of ATSC 3.0. They requested that ATSC 3.0 devices should be open and not regulated by A3SA. Finally, they requested that the FCC require all ATSC 3.0 be simulcast on ATSC 1.0, the current standard.