Digital TV Faces Copy Controls

Industry report recognizes problem of piracy, but proposed remedies meet with dissent.

PCWorld.com Staff and Wire Reports

The fiery debate over protecting content online is moving from the well-charred subject of music to digital TV, with the release of a cross-industry report that denounces digital piracy but lacks consensus on how to keep illegal video recordings off the Internet.

The Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (BPDG) is drawing fire from civil liberties groups who charge that it wants to restrict consumers from making and distributing legal copies of programs broadcast on digital TV. In fact, one BPDG suggestion says digital TV manufacturers should be required by law to include technology that encrypts the TV signal, preventing it from being recorded for distribution on the Internet. The encryption would allow the signal to be recorded on other home entertainment devices such as DVD recorders and set-top boxes, however.

But BPDG's report, released Tuesday after six months of research, does not present a unified plan for proceeding. In fact, some participants indicate they welcome a government forum on the topic. That could come up as early as next week, at a scheduled House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing about digital television.

Voluntary Plan Urged

The concept of built-in copy protection is similar to an approach threatened by members of Congress. Lawmakers dispatched the representatives of the entertainment and technology industries to come up with a solution to the growing problem of protecting copyright in digital media.

In February, members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation warned bickering representatives of both industries that they should come up with their own solution, or risk a less palatable regulatory approach. Senators emphasized that broadband Internet and digital TV content is being stalled because content providers are not certain their works won't be widely pirated.

Most discussion has hit a standoff: Opponents of built-in copy protection say such a standard would stifle technological innovation. But representatives of the entertainment industry say they are reluctant to explore broadband distribution of movies or enter other digital markets because they fear profits will be siphoned by pirates.

Meanwhile, any proposed restrictions draw fire from civil liberties groups, who say consumers would be hampered from making and distributing legal copies of programs broadcast on digital TV. BPDG has said digital TV recordings must be protected from piracy, lest they go the way of the oft-swapped MP3.

BPDG "would create 'big brother TV'," said Joe Kraus, cofounder of the consumer advocacy group DigitalConsumer.org, in a statement after the release of BPDG's plan. "The report gives movie studios and content companies significant control over how a consumer watches, records, and enjoys digital television and dramatically erodes consumers' fair use rights." He called the recommendations "little more than a litany of industry demands that protect the interests and profits of a powerful few at the expense of long-standing consumer rights."

Is Fair Use Forgotten?

BPDG is part of the larger Copy Protection Technical Working Group (CPTWG), the organization that established the standard for the encryption of DVD movies. Its members include representatives of both the computer industry and consumer electronics firms as well as content providers from the entertainment industry. CPTWG earlier offered essentially the same recommendation as BPDG's recent proposal to combat video piracy.

But opponents say that blocking digital TV signals' access to the Internet unnecessary limits consumers' fair use rights. What's more, they fear the ramifications consumers could face if the proposal is adopted. Under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, anyone caught circumventing a copyright protection measure could face jail time.

"Our legislators decided long ago that, despite all the misery they cause, ordinary people can be trusted with handguns, knives, alcohol, and explosives," Ed Black, president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), said in a statement. "But Hollywood says people should go to jail if they use a simple consumer device that lets them decide what they should do with the TV recordings they make."

CCIA, DigitalConsumer.org, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and other organizations hope BPDG's proposal will be shot down by concerns that consumers' rights will be violated. They are gearing up to continue their lobbying effort if Congress considers legislation on the matter this year.

Scarlet Pruitt of the IDG News Service and Anne Ju of the Medill News Service contributed to this report.