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April 23, 2002

[Meetings]
Next in-person meeting: April 29

A meeting announcement was just sent to the BPDG mailing list. The next meeting is at the LAX Renaissance Hotel on Monday, April 29. It runs from noon to 8:00p, with lunch and dinner included; the fee for the meeting will be $120 instead of $100, "on account of the extra meal". Prospective attendees were encouraged to write to Maryann_Nicoletti@mpaa.org to advise her that they plan to attend.

The topics for discussion at this meeting were listed as follows:

  • Authorization of protection technologies on Table A (i.e. what are criteria, and processes)
  • How requirements regarding OTA content retransmitted in scrambled (possibly non-VSB/QAM modulated) form will be addressed
  • Output of Unscreened/Marked content via consumer VSB/QAM modulation
  • In-the-clear recording of Unscreened/Marked content for certain formats
  • Resolution of bracketed alternatives in the requirements draft

A rough paraphrase of these:

  • Which outputs and which recording methods will digital television receivers be (legally) permitted to use? How should we determine which methods will be illegal? (Since all digital output and digital removable-media recording technologies will be presumed illegal by default, what process will someone have to use to cause a technology to be certified legal?)
  • What happens when a device remodulates a signal (turns it back into a radio signal)? Should this practice be allowed, and what effects will it have?
  • In what circumstances should it be legal to record this content without encrypting the recording (to "protect" it from the consumer who owns the recording)?
  • Can we reach an inter-industry consensus on certain language in the current BPDG draft on which we have not yet agreed?

Posted by Seth Schoen at 07:33 PM