IP: Copyright protection bill creates furor in high-tech industry

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

http://www.computerworld.com/storyba/0,4125,NAV47_STO69460,00.html

Copyright protection bill creates furor in high-tech industry


By PATRICK THIBODEAU
(March 22, 2002) 
WASHINGTON -- Legislation introduced this week in Congress to mandate a
technical standard for protecting copyrighted content has set off a
firestorm 
of controversy over its potential impact on the PC and other technologies.
  
The bill, introduced yesterday by Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.), brings to a
head a battle between content providers and the high-tech industry over
responsibility for protecting copyrighted content, such as music and movies,
by 
requiring hardware and software makers to build copyright protection into
their 
products. How this would work is far from resolved.


The Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Act would give the high-tech
industry one year to agree on a technology standard. If the standards aren't
set one year after this bill would become law, it would empower the Federal
Communications Commission to develop this standard.


"I think it's a very, very badly conceived idea," said David J. Farber, a
professor of telecommunication systems at the University of Pennsylvania in
Philadelphia and a former chief technologist at the FCC. "The result of it
would be to essentially emasculate the PC as a useful device."


Without knowing the technical standard, it's difficult for experts to
predict 
how this legislation would affect PC performance, particularly in the
workplace, where many applications might interact with digital rights
management technology.


But the legislation could have a devastating impact on PC sales in the
consumer 
market, said Rob Enderle, a Giga Information Group Inc. analyst in Santa
Clara, 
Calif. 


"It would probably crash the [PC] consumer market, given that being able to
rip 
[copy] songs is one of the reasons that people are buying new machines,"
said 
Enderle. "It would just cripple consumer sales."


Roger Kay, an analyst at IDC in Framingham, Mass., agreed. "It would
certainly 
dampen consumers' enthusiasm for buying high-end machines, given what they
do 
with high-end machines these days," he said.


In a new world where PCs would be loaded with anticopying technology, older
PCs 
would become more valuable then newer machines, the analysts said.


Mandating standards affecting consumer products isn't a new area for
Congress. 
Federal legislation in 1993 banned radio frequency scanners capable of
receiving cellular transmissions. Scanners that can receive these signals,
however, are available in Canada and in many overseas markets, although it's
illegal to import unblocked scanners into the U.S.


Hilary Rosen, president and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of
America in Washington, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on
March 14, said the "recording industry is suffering ... by the rampant
infringing distribution of our works through peer-to-peer systems, other
pirate 
sites and ubiquitous CD ripping and burning technology."


The solution lies in common standards to prevent piracy, she said, but
there's 
no marketplace incentive for the makers of this equipment to develop those
standards. 


The legislation, as it's now written, would require a technical standard
that 
would be incorporated as an embedded system in hardware and software. For
instance, asked one industry source, if digital rights management is
required 
by law in multimedia software or operating systems, how is that accomplished
for open-source systems, such as Linux, that can be downloaded from servers
in 
countries without those restrictions?


There are digital rights management products already on the market, and some
are being used to control distribution of online music. High-tech industry
groups say that if a technical standard is mandated, private-sector
investments 
in digital rights technology may stop.


Eugene Spafford, a computer science professor who heads Purdue University’s
information assurance center in West Lafayette, Ind., said any mandated
digital 
rights management system will require additional hardware on a PC. And
software 
running on those systems will have to recognize the hardware device.


That’s particularly problematic in a corporate, research or academic
environment, where someone may be writing an operating system for a certain
use, and that system “has to be compatible and approved by the people who
are 
managing digital rights,” said Spafford.


“It’s just very messy, it’s unworkable,” he said. “The real solution is that
the entertainment industry has to come up with a better business model."


A group of venture capitalists has formed DigitalConsumer.org, a Palo Alto,
Calif.-based organization intended to fight the measure.



------------------------------------------------------------------
Sanjay Udani                              www.cis.upenn.edu/~udani
DMTS, Verizon Technology Organization                udani () acm org
Adjunct Asst. Professor, University of Pennsylvania   703 351 2966


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