Re: Pact Reached to Stop Pirating Of Digital TV Over the Internet
R. A. Hettinga writes: http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,4287,SB1019779375174781800,00.html April 26, 2002 NEW MEDIA Pact Is Reached to Stop Pirating Of Digital TV Over the Internet By YOCHI J. DREAZEN and STEPHANIE STEITZER Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL WASHINGTON -- Representatives from the entertainment and consumer-electronics industries told lawmakers that they have agreed on a system to keep digital television broadcasts from being pirated over the Internet. The agreement resolves a dispute that has contributed to the slow rollout of digital television. Top executives from content companies, including AOL Time Warner Inc., and TV makers such as Panasonic/Matsushita Electric Corp. of America told a House Energy and Commerce Committee panel that they had agreed on technical standards for a new watermark. The watermark would be embedded in all digital TV broadcasts, and TVs, computers and other devices would be designed to play only materials with the watermark. It's not a watermark. It's a single bit. All the technical people involved in the process know that it isn't a watermark. Perhaps these reporters are just using watermark because they're used to applications of watermarking along these lines, or perhaps someone used watermarking as a metaphor. But there's no watermark here, just a redistribution control bit. This proposal is a government mandate to ban digital TV receivers unless they are robust (non-user-serviceable) and provide only Approved Outputs and Approved Recording Methods for broadcasts in which that bit is present. The executives said they planned to release the technical details of the agreement on May 17, at which time they would ask Congress to pass legislation ratifying the standards. That's still true. We are working with many organizations which oppose this legislation to make it clear that there is no broad consensus here. (The agreement on which this article is reporting is an agreement between the MPAA, two DRM consortia, and several computer manufacturers. That's hardly all the affected industries -- never mind consulting consumers!) You don't have to wait until May 17 to read the technical details, though. The very latest draft of the rules proposed by this group: http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/HDTV/20020510_bpdg_compliance_rules.pdf It doesn't make sense unless you also have an enforcement mechanism which makes it illegal to sell a device which doesn't comply with this standard: http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/HDVT/20020215_bpdg_ce_it_rider.html http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/HDTV/20020215_bpdg_mpaa_rider.html (Software is included too.) Again, the idea here is that digital terrestrial broadcast TV, which uses an open standard called ATSC, is insufficiently secure for Hollywood studios. Therefore, they have proposed that legislation require DRM for the digital outputs of TV receivers, and they have proposed that all existing products which record these broadcasts in open formats, or merely output them in open formats, be banned. So, under these rules, you can't have an ATSC tuner card for your PC unless the card and all its software are robust against your accessing the TV signal itself. This has a great deal in common with SCMS, the copy-control system mandated under the Audio Home Recording Act, but this mandate draws on lessons learned since then and includes computer products and software. The most significant thing about this legislative proposal is that it's the first of three compromises intended to replace the CBDTPA, according to no less an authority than Jack Valenti: But we want to narrow the focus of the bill as the legislative process moves forward. What needs to happen is we all sit down together in good-faith negotiations and come to some conclusions on how we can construct a broadcast flag (for keeping digital TV content off the Internet), on how we plug the analog hole (allowing people to record digital content off older televisions and other devices), and how we deal with the persistent and devilish problem of peer-to-peer. http://news.com.com/2008-1082-875394.html If your organization is interested in helping fight this proposal, please contact us, and quickly. -- Seth Schoen Staff Technologist[EMAIL PROTECTED] Electronic Frontier Foundationhttp://www.eff.org/ 454 Shotwell Street, San Francisco, CA 94110 1 415 436 9333 x107 - The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Pact Reached to Stop Pirating Of Digital TV Over the Internet
bear writes: But you know, I really don't give much of a crap about commercial content anymore. Will this system get in my way if I try to make and distribute (and play and copy on standard hardware) a nice digital-video, digital-audio recording of a family wedding, or an original computer-generated movie, or a demo video for my buddy's band? 'Cause really, that's the problem as far as I'm concerned; if the system prevents people from making and distributing our *own* content with compatible hardware, then it has to be destroyed. Interfering with that use isn't a design feature of the current BPDG proposal. There is an effort to use legislation like this to begin to eradicate open-standards-only equipment from the market (Hollywood executives are calling CE equipment without DRM legacy equipment!), but there is no current clear proposal to ban support for open standards. There is the general risk that hardware could be required to assume by default that input data is copyrighted and being copied without permission (a guilty until proven innocent policy). A rule like that is not part of the current Hollywood-supported mandate, but might be at issue in the next round, which is meant to involve regulating analog-to-digital convertors. -- Seth Schoen Staff Technologist[EMAIL PROTECTED] Electronic Frontier Foundationhttp://www.eff.org/ 454 Shotwell Street, San Francisco, CA 94110 1 415 436 9333 x107 - The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Pact Reached to Stop Pirating Of Digital TV Over the Internet
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,4287,SB1019779375174781800,00.html April 26, 2002 NEW MEDIA Pact Is Reached to Stop Pirating Of Digital TV Over the Internet By YOCHI J. DREAZEN and STEPHANIE STEITZER Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL WASHINGTON -- Representatives from the entertainment and consumer-electronics industries told lawmakers that they have agreed on a system to keep digital television broadcasts from being pirated over the Internet. The agreement resolves a dispute that has contributed to the slow rollout of digital television. Top executives from content companies, including AOL Time Warner Inc., and TV makers such as Panasonic/Matsushita Electric Corp. of America told a House Energy and Commerce Committee panel that they had agreed on technical standards for a new watermark. The watermark would be embedded in all digital TV broadcasts, and TVs, computers and other devices would be designed to play only materials with the watermark. The executives said they planned to release the technical details of the agreement on May 17, at which time they would ask Congress to pass legislation ratifying the standards. There are many issues that are basically solved concerning the watermark, said Paul Liao, chief technology officer for Panasonic's American operations. The executives conceded that they remained far apart on a range of other digital copyright issues, including the nettlesome questions of how to prevent music and movies from being illegally distributed over the Internet and how to stop viewers from making and sharing digital copies of analog TV broadcasts. Still, resolving the digital-TV question is an important milestone that could boost the popularity of the highly touted technology, which has yet to catch on with the public. Broadcasters are supposed to convert all of their signals to digital, but that transition has been slowed by piracy concerns, the high cost of digital equipment and a paucity of digital content. News Corp. President Peter Chernin said that the watermark question was the single biggest issue slowing the spread of digital television, and predicted that the agreement would rapidly speed up this transition. Parts of the agreement remain controversial. Lawrence Blanford, the chief executive of Philips Consumer Electronics North America, said that Congress should set the standards itself to ensure that consumers' rights to record digital television broadcasts and make copies for their own legal use were protected. Most lawmakers, however, said they preferred to ratify agreements developed by the private sector. -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' - The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
