Buyers of digital home-entertainment devices will almost certainly see some limits on their ability to copy movies and albums in the wake of a recent proposal by five major electronics companies to create a new protective system. But the effort will have to run the gantlet of legal and political challenges before it’s clear how severe the limits will be.
The companies–anxious to encourage the entertainment industry to digitize its wares–officially offered a system that would block attempts to make illicit copies of digitized movies, music and books. The proposal comes as technological advances are posing the biggest threat to copyrights the industry has ever known.
Over the next few years, the lines between television, radio, telephones and the Internet will blur; essentially everything will be connected to everything else through a gigantic worldwide network. Users could theoretically take any of the digitized material available through such a system, make unlimited numbers of perfect copies and distribute them at no cost.
Current law allows consumers to make copies of material for their own use. But the entertainment industry has argued for years, and more urgently of late, that this capability is just a license to steal, encouraging people to copy the latest Madonna album and give it to friends, eating into profits.
The issue is not a new one, but there remains vigorous debate over how far the restrictions should go.
“Hollywood tried to make VCRs illegal, and it went up to the Supreme Court twice and lost,” said Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association and chairman of the Home Recording Rights Coalition. “The issues here are the same. Unfortunately, Hollywood has never learned its lesson.”
“We’ve been having this debate with the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association for many years,” countered Cary Sherman, senior executive vice president and general counsel of the Recording Industry Association of America. “They see nothing wrong with making a living off selling the ability to copy other people’s works. We don’t think it’s fair for unlimited copying to be the rule. But, more important, you can’t equate the old world of tape recorders with the new world of convergent technologies.”
Pressure for this latest digital fix has its roots in the development of DVD, or digital video disc, which is being touted as a way for consumers to see movies with higher quality image and sound. Concerns over copyright–and some technical problems–delayed introduction of the CD-size platters for over a year.
Put simply, some of Hollywood’s top studios were reluctant to put perfect copies of their crown jewels on store shelves–unless there was some way to prevent consumers from making unlimited numbers of perfect copies with the digital recording devices that will surely arrive eventually.
Without the “software” controlled by the entertainment industry, manufacturers couldn’t sell the hardware, so they quickly developed ways, using techniques like encryption, to limit copying.
The current proposal uses similar technologies and traces its roots back to that debate. But it would affect products ranging from computers to VCRs to stereos to televisions.
“This came initially from the DVD discussions,” said Mack Araki, a spokesman for Sony Corp. The other four members of the coalition are Intel Corp., Toshiba Corp., Hitachi Ltd. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., better known by one its flagship brands, Panasonic.
The reason for the effort is simple. “We understand that content creators need copy protection for their products,” said Jim Reilly, a spokesman for Panasonic. “We also understand that copy protection is an essential element in the success of any format.”
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The entertainment industry agrees.
“Developing the ability to protect digital content in transit is a very important step in delivering the highest quality in picture and sound to the consumer,” said Chris Cookson, executive vice president of Warner Bros. “We welcome the progress the computer and consumer electronics industries have made in bringing this proposal and look forward to its rapid review.”
The five companies made a presentation on the proposed framework to the Copy Protection Technical Working Group on Feb. 18. The group is an ad hoc cross-industry body chartered to evaluate content protection technologies. The group is expected to review this as well as other proposals. This proposal is likely to have an edge on the competition for the simple reason that its backers are the folks who would actually make the hardware.
But its implementation is by no means a done deal. The battle over digital audio tape, DAT, took the better part of a decade and is widely thought to be responsible for the stillbirth of the format. The legislation that brought DAT machines to America was signed into law by President Bush in 1992. The deal required a system in any DAT recorder that can allow a consumer to make a copy, but prevents the user from making a copy of that copy.
While the manufacturers who are backing the latest proposal may appear to be in conflict with their own trade association, in fact they’re not far apart. A system that would allow a limited amount of copying, like the DAT proposal, stands the best chance of satisfying everyone involved.
“As the technology gets better . . . the creative community does have legitimate concerns,” said Shapiro, of the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association. “But we want to protect the consumer rights that exist today.”