For those of you living under a rock, or not caring about the future of high definition television, the DC court of appeals ruled that the FCC overstepped its bounds when it mandated support of the broadcast flag in any high definition equipment sold after 1 July 2005.
This is great news for the people of the United States as well as the hardware equipment manufacturers. It will allow the hardware to remain less expensive as the hardware manufacturers don't need to spend dollars researching how to implement this technology, and it will spur competition in the hardware as approval is no longer required before legally distributing a piece of equipment.
Bear in mind, that you can be guaranteed the MPAA will either go to congress and use it's significant pool of money to lobby that the power be congressionally given to the FCC, and/or the MPAA will attempt to try this in the supreme court. Fortunately for us, it is currently written into law that the FCC can only regulate the devices that broadcast, and once it is a part of the public spectrum, the public can do what it wishes.
The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) has some good information on digital television and the broadcast flag.
