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May 17, 2002

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MPAA: mandates for "all devices that perform analog to digital conversions"

The MPAA's Content Protection Status Report (published by the Senate Judiciary Committee) is a horrifying and important document. If you read nothing else about the future of technology this month, you should read this.

While the entertainment industry is marching toward an all-digital future environment where robust digital content protection measures will enable a viable market, analog connections to conventional televisions, VCRs and the like will remain for a long time to come. This presents a problem in that digital devices can capture and digitize unprotected analog signals (including formerly protected digital signals that are stripped of their protection as they pass through analog outputs) with complete disregard for current analog copy protection mechanisms, thus enabling a major source of unauthorized duplication and/or redistribution. This attribute will keep analog devices and interconnects around well past their natural extinction.

The primary means to address this issue, dubbed the "analog hole", is via embedded watermarks [...] In order to help plug the hole, watermark detectors would be required in all devices that perform analog to digital conversions. In such devices (e.g., PC video capture cards), the role of the watermark detector would be to detect the watermark and ensure that the device responds appropriately.

Posted by Seth Schoen at 05:57 PM