May 6, 2005, should be a holiday. It´s When a U.S. circuit court of appeals saved your TV by stopping the â€broadcast flag,†an innovation-killing regulation Hollywood had essentially blackmailed the FCC into enacting.In 2002 the major studios threatened to withhold shows and movies for broadcast on digital TV (DTV) unless the government gave them control over the design of DTV devices.

In the MGM v. Grokster case, several major record labels successfully sued a group of peer-to-peer (P2P) software companies for producing software that permitted copyright infringement (that is, online trading of commercial music) when the court believed that a different, less-efficient design might have prevented it. The justices ruled against P2P companies Grokster and Streamcast because they believed that the companies intended for their users to infringe copyright with their service.