IP: Lawmakers Seek Rules to Stop Redistribution of Digital TV

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

July 23, 2002

Lawmakers Seek Rules to Stop Redistribution of Digital TV
By AMY HARMON

eading members of Congress are urging the Federal Communications Commission
to intervene in a dispute between the entertainment and technology
industries over how to prevent television viewers from redistributing
digital broadcasts over the Internet.

In a letter Friday to Michael K. Powell, the chairman of the F.C.C.,
Representative Billy Tauzin, a Lousiana Republican who is chairman of the
House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Representative John D. Dingell, a
Michigan Democrat, wrote that the agency should move quickly to require
computer and consumer electronics manufacturers to include anti-piracy
technology that would prevent a program from being redistributed.

"While we had hoped that the industry players would achieve a meeting of the
minds on these critical issues voluntarily, unfortunately no comprehensive
agreement has been obtained to date," the letter read. In a separate letter,
Senator Ernest F. Hollings, the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee,
also encouraged the F.C.C. to act.

"Absent robust protection, copyright owners may increasingly restrict their
best television programming to cable and satellite networks," Senator
Hollings, Democrat of South Carolina, wrote. Earlier this year, he
introduced legislation that would have required electronics manufacturers to
build copy-protection technologies into their machines, but it has not been
acted upon. The Hollywood studios have maintained that they will not send
digital copies of movies and other programming over the airwaves unless
safeguards are in place to prevent perfect copies from being redistributed
online. That, in turn, is seen as holding back the market for digital
televisions and the on-demand services that might come with them.

But several consumer groups have argued that any regulatory body acting on
the copy-protection issue should first examine its impact on consumers.
Under the system proposed by the studios, it is not clear, for instance, if
someone would be able to record a show in the living room and watch it over
a wireless home network in the bedroom, or retrieve it over the Internet to
watch at a second home or a friend's house.

Some technology companies have argued that the entertainment companies
should protect their broadcasts before they go over the air, by encrypting
them at the source.

And several technology executives have questioned the necessity of the
expense involved in carrying out the copy-protection effort, given the
likelihood that it would be cracked.

"We would support implementation provided it was focused on functional
requirements and the process for choosing technologies was fair, open and
transparent," said Andrew Moss, the Microsoft director of technical policy
for the new media platforms division.

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