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April 11, 2002

[News]
BPDG press coverage expands

A new PC World article by Tom Spring gives some background on contemporary digital copyright issues and also discusses BPDG's work. It includes a quote from EFF's and Consensus At Lawyerpoint's own Fred von Lohmann.

The article also mentions the concerns of Jim Burger of the Computer Industry Group: "What happens when this technology gets hacked, as it will? Then do we spend millions more dollars coming up with another solution?"

Unfortunately, the issues seem to be so complex that journalists have to spend many column-inches just to bring their readers up to speed on background information. Then there's little space left to delve into the specifics of BPDG, what devices would be affected, how consumers and manufacturers might be harmed, etc. This is tricky material, and most readers simply haven't seen it before. And the acronyms aren't helping, either. (We're not sure about Spring's suggestion that the BPDG mandate restricts video outputs "over a TCP/IP network" yet not "via IEEE 1394" -- as far as we can tell, the distinction is phrased in more general terms and doesn't list specific technologies at that level. But since the BPDG draft is still incomplete, it's hard to be certain.)

We welcome the increased press attention to copyright issues and technology mandate controversies. Members of the press who write relevant materials are encouraged to let us know; we'll be happy to link to your work. In general, if you come across something relevant, please drop us a line.

Posted by Seth Schoen at 04:26 PM