We've had quite a few dicussions in the space about Hollywood's attempts to rob you of your fair use rights in order to sell them back to you (see here, here, and here). Today Fred von Lohmann has published a review of Elgato's EyeTV -- a Mac product that allows people to make fair uses of high-definition digital television broadcasts. One such fair use might be recording a clip of a movie like "The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring" to use in the context of discussion/review -- and that's precisely what Fred has done [500 MB+ Bit Torrent download].

In only seven months, the FCC's "broadcast flag" regulatory regime will go into effect -- and the regime does not recognize the right to fair uses like this one. But if you make like Fred and purchase devices that aren't hobbled now, you'll be able to keep making perfectly legal uses of recorded broadcasts despite the flag.

For more about EyeTV and the issues surrounding the flag, check out this post @ Deep Links.