As digital technology transforms TV, it may also put a crimp in one of the most cherished rights of consumers: the ability to record programs for personal use.
Hollywood
studios and TV broadcasters have been pushing for the aggressive use of new
digital scrambling tools to prevent some types of programs--particularly
high-definition TV shows and pay-per-view channels--from being taped or even
stored overnight.
One proposal
could even block high-definition TV shows from being viewed on many of the
high-definition sets on the market today.
The studios
say that if they had these protections, they might consider offering new
services to consumers, such as earlier broadcasts of first-run movies. But
opponents in the consumer electronics industry say Hollywood just wants people
to pay more for what they watch in their living rooms.
The impact of
the controls, which are still being negotiated, won't really be felt until
digital TV sets, recorders and cable boxes take the place of today's analog
versions. That's because they apply to digital connections not in use today
that ultimately will link devices throughout the home.
The controls
will take effect only if cable and satellite TV companies agree to transmit
them to their subscribers' equipment. They may have little choice, however,
given that Hollywood can play one against the other to obtain the strongest
limits on copying.
"We
don't want to be at a disadvantage," said William Check, vice president
for science and technology at the National Cable Television Assn. Unless the
cable operators agree to the same restrictions as their rivals in the satellite
industry, he said, "we can't get early-release movies when our competitors
can."
The proposed
recording rules came in response to piracy fears by the motion picture
industry, which has been reluctant to release programs in digital form. Unlike
today's analog broadcasts, digital programs can be copied an unlimited number
of times with no loss of quality.
Five
equipment companies--Sony, Matsushita, Intel, Toshiba and Hitachi--tried to
address those concerns with a new technology, dubbed "5C," that could
secure digital audio and video signals against unauthorized copying.
Although
there's wide agreement that copyrights need to be protected, the 5C companies
have been negotiating with the seven major Hollywood studios over how
extensively to apply the controls. Key questions include which programs will be
eligible for protection, what rules will apply to digital recording and display
devices, and what rights the studios will have if their programs get pirated.
Seth
Greenstein, chairman of the 5C policy group, said one of his group's
fundamental principles has been that the studios and TV networks can't place
recording restrictions on programs that are broadcast unscrambled over the air.
And it would limit the most draconian rules--a total ban on copying--to
video-on-demand and pay-per-view programs, as well as prerecorded tapes and
discs.
For
everything in between, including basic cable networks and premium services such
as HBO, the 5C companies propose to let viewers make one digital recording, but
not multiple copies of it, Greenstein said. And like pay-per-view and
video-on-demand programs, those copy-once programs would have to be scrambled
if they passed over a digital connection to a TV set or recorder. That
scrambling would prevent unencrypted digital copies from being distributed over
the Internet.
That's what
the 5C companies have proposed. But there are signs that the broadcast networks
and studios want to push the restrictions even further. The National Assn. of
Broadcasters, for example, sent a letter to Greenstein on Dec. 15 asking for
scrambling and limits on copying.
Some consumer
electronics companies and retailers, meanwhile, warn that Hollywood will try to
bar televised movies from being recorded for free, forcing consumers to pay for
the right to copy. Although federal law and a landmark Supreme Court ruling
protect that right for analog programs, there's no such guarantee in the
digital arena.
Brad Hunt,
chief technical officer for the Motion Picture Assn. of America, said the
studios can't afford to make their best products available in digital format
without greater protections against piracy. "It's pretty clear that
content owners are waiting for a more secure environment to deliver
high-definition [programs]," Hunt said.
But the
MPAA's insistence on greater protection could spell bad news for anyone who's
already spent several thousand dollars on a digital TV set.
The studios
are insisting that high-definition programs be transmitted digitally, in a
scrambled format, from the cable box to the TV set. And today's sets and
so-called HDTV ready or HDTV upgradable monitors can't connect digitally to a
cable converter box.
Another
product likely to be affected by the proposed recording rules is the personal
video recorder, which records programs temporarily on high-capacity computer
discs instead of permanently on tapes.
Under the
studios' current proposal, programs that are designated for no copying would be
erased from any personal video recorder after as little as 90 minutes unless
the viewer paid for a longer viewing window.
Photo credit: http://www.freshdv.com/
This post was originally published here: Digital
Technologies Could Limit Recording
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