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[News]
BusinessWeek: "Little by little, Hollywood is calling the shots"
BusinessWeek On-line has an excellent article on the CBDTPA and related issues by Heather Green.
Green's article takes a broad view of Hollywood's control over the development of technology, and it even includes a mention of the CPTWG/BPDG activity:
Little by little, Hollywood is calling the shots when it comes to the Digital Age. Standardization and legislative work is going on in bits and pieces, making it difficult to fully understand how much traditional consumer rights could ultimately be infringed upon. For instance, an organization called the Copy Protection Technical Working Group currently is hard at work hammering out plans for preventing piracy with digital TV.
Remember, though, Hollywood's notion of piracy has traditionally differed from consumers'. Studios want to prevent widespread digital distribution of TV shows, as happened with music à la Napster. However, they could actually end up barring viewers altogether from recording TV programs off the air.
Some very high-stake issues are on the table right now. The problem is that between the fear mongering and the sheer technical impenetrability, it's hard to predict how much decisions made today would eventually hamper the potential of digital devices and distribution.
And that's the crux of the matter. "Hollywood's notion of piracy has traditionally differed from consumers'" -- and from of view of the courts, as well. (For instance, Hollywood maintained two decades ago that the "VCR avalanche" would make it "bleed and bleed and hemorrhage, unless ... Congress at least protects [our] industry ... from the savagery and the ravages of [the VCR]".)
So we hear a great deal of rhetoric about restricting technology "in order to keep honest people honest". But there's nothing dishonest about fair use. There's nothing dishonest about home recording. Consumers are being asked to give up their rights "to keep honest people honest". Don't believe the hype.