Video piracy, in the standard scenario presented by big-time COWs, is the profoundest threat to mankind — or at least mankind’s potential profit margin on re-releases of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" — since the Black Death, the H-Bomb or killer hurricances.

The latest weapon promoted by the world's COWs against the threat of video piracy — which rips off Hollywood at something like .0175 percent of its (admitted) annual revenue — is something called the "broadcast flag." The Federal Communications Commission was planning to insinuate this copy-protection software into all new broadcast content until a federal court this year said they lacked jurisdiction. This ruling has only redoubled COW efforts to enlist regulatory agencies in its sacred mission of squeezing every quarter 'til the eagle grins.

Waxing passionate on this issue at this year's International Broadcast Conference here, Jim Williams, the MPAA's vice president for television and video standards, insisted that every consumer has a God-given right to a "mobile electronic lifestyle." The only assurance of this way of life, he said, is a "government mandate" for a broadcast flag on TV transmissions. He lamented that neither the market nor the various COW industries possess the muscle to hinder rampant peer-to-peer "hyperdistribution" of cultural treasures like "Baywatch” and "Gilligan’s Island."

Williams estimated that a single lawless sitcom addict now has the storage capacity to ferret away some 22,000 half-hour episodes of defunct TV comedies. The mind boggles. The gorge rises.

"Every country needs a way to protect free-to-air television," said Williams. He added that a failure, by regulators, to raise broadcast flags from Frankfurt to Fukuoka "would really tear this model of delivery down to the ground."

Picture, the carnage. No more Donald Trump in prime-time. The eclipse of "Law & Order." No hope for the premier of "CSI: Sheboygan."

Seriously, though, this broadcast flag is a measure that seems to me both benign and overkill, both prudent and paranoid. It will work beautifully to keep bad guys from stealing stuff they probably don't want to steal.

By raising the "flag," broadcasters will allow viewers to copy and disseminate as many as ten copies of, say, the latest (tired) episode of "The West Wing," but no more than that.

Here's the rub. In order for a video pirate to "hyperdistribute" a "West Wing" episode over the Internet, and hope to make money on it, wouldn't the pirate also need to invest in the same multimillion-dollar marketing campaign that NBC rolled out to promote that episode when it airs, then re-airs, then re-runs again before going into syndication (which usually prompts another multimillion-dollar marketing campaign)?

And with a hundred "West Wings" airing simultaneously on various channels every hour of the day all over the world, what "pirate" in his right mind could even conceive of plucking any individual episode from this torrent and imagining that he could reap his personal fortune by sneaking it into "massive Internet distribution?" I mean, how do you oversaturate oversaturation?

Well, maybe "The West Wing" is a poor example. Or "Friends," or "24," or any popular series. Maybe a one-time event is a more tempting target for Internet pirates stealing TV shows. OK, but who really wants to see last year’s Miss USA Pageant over again, on their 12-inch computer screen? Or maybe last week's Bears-Skins game in micro-video via DVB-H?