Group Warns DVRs Endangered

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: July 28, 2004 2:37:50 PM PDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Group Warns DVRs Endangered
Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com

Group Warns DVRs Endangered

By Katie Dean
Story location: 
<http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,64309,00.html>

02:00 AM Jul. 28, 2004 PT

Editor's note: This story has been updated to include comments from the 
MPAA.

Television fans who like to choose when and where they watch their 
favorite programs are in for a rude awakening next year when new copy 
controls encoded in digital television streams will limit such 
freedoms.


Broadcasters have been steadily moving from broadcasting content in 
analog to digital format over the past several years, as required by 
the Telecommunications Act of 1996. To protect this digital content 
from piracy, the Federal Communications Commission adopted a rule that 
digital television tuners recognize copy controls, called the broadcast 
flag (PDF), encoded in content streams. Digital video-recording devices 
would detect the broadcast flag, and the flag would prevent users from 
making multiple high-quality copies of the programs for illegal 
distribution. As of July 1, 2005, it would be illegal to manufacture or 
import devices that can receive digital programming without responding 
to the broadcast flag.

To fight the impending rule and to stoke backlash from TV viewers, the 
Electronic Frontier Foundation earlier this month launched the Digital 
Television Liberation Project to guide people on how to make their own 
personal video recorders from off-the-shelf parts. The digital-rights 
group is encouraging people to buy digital TV, or DTV, tuner cards for 
their PCs, and is distributing instructions on how to build TiVo-like 
digital video recorders. The idea is to get people hooked on the charms 
of time-shifting -- recording a program and then watching it at a later 
time -- and to help them understand what they would be missing once the 
broadcast flag rule goes into effect.

"A tuner that is built today sees the whole stream but just ignores the 
flag," said Wendy Seltzer, EFF attorney and leader of the Digital 
Television Liberation Project. "A tuner that is built after the flag 
goes into effect must recognize and respond to the flag."

Representatives from the EFF will demonstrate a homemade DTV personal 
video recorder at Defcon this week in Las Vegas. Seltzer said the EFF 
hopes to have a stable of devices to demonstrate what people get when 
they construct their own DTV personal video recorder, and what wouldn't 
be available when Hollywood dictates what the machines can do.

"The FCC has required that manufacturers make their devices less 
capable, and that's all at the urging of Hollywood and the 
entertainment companies," Seltzer said. "We think this is a ridiculous 
way to advance digital television."

She said the broadcast flag would prevent a lot of actions that aren't 
violations of copyright law. For instance, copying a clip from Fox News 
might not be possible with the broadcast flag -- even though it's 
legal. Or time-shifting might become cumbersome with the broadcast flag 
restrictions, even though it's also perfectly legal.

"There are a lot of things that are still going to be allowed under the 
broadcast flag. It's not panic time," countered Brad Hunt, chief 
technology officer for the Motion Picture Association of America. 
"Consumers will be able to buy devices that will allow them to make 
secure copies on to DVD and that secure media can be shared with other 
people." He said that consumers will also retain the right to time 
shift and send secure digital media over a home network, but not 
electronically re-distribute the content.

The broadcast flag protection is an important step in preserving free, 
over-the-air programming, he said.

"There is a process going on within the FCC that is evaluating content 
protection technologies," he said. "Hollywood is not the one certifying 
the technologies."

To build a DTV PVR, users need a tuner card capable of reading the DTV 
signal. Once installed, the tuner card can record programs to the hard 
drive of a PC. Users would then hook their PC to a television or a 
high-definition monitor for viewing. The PCs also could burn the 
programming to a DVD and perform TiVo tricks like pausing, replaying 
and fast-forwarding.

The EFF uses a software platform called MythTV, written for the Linux 
operating system, to manage content on its demo machine, but other 
projects like Freevo and eBox are also available.

The broadcast flag only applies to over-the-air broadcasts. Cable and 
satellite companies already have their own digital-rights management in 
place.

Raffi Krikorian, a Ph.D. candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology Media Lab and author of TiVo Hacks, has already built his 
own high-definition PVR. His computer is outfitted with an HDTV tuner 
card, MythTV software and an HDTV antenna. He watches programs on a 
high-resolution computer monitor.

"It's exactly like having a TiVo for HDTV," Krikorian said. "I can 
record the HDTV broadcast of West Wing and watch it some other time."

The EFF is also fighting the flag in court. Along with the American 
Library Association and Public Knowledge, it has challenged the FCC in 
a lawsuit, arguing that the commission has no right to impose such 
controls on technology manufacturers or to restrict copying.

If the broadcast flag proceeds as planned, "We'll be able to (do) less 
with DTV than we've been able to do with analog television," Seltzer 
said. "Most disturbing (is) that the new capabilities that could exist 
will never get the chance to be tested."


Archives at: <http://Wireless.Com/Dewayne-Net>
Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>

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