[Rants]
Were approved technologies determined in advance?

Why are technology companies participating in the BPDG? After all, the studios are using the group to restrict what technologists can do, and create a world where new digital TV technologies have to be approved by Hollywood or a Hollywood-designed procedure.

It appears that many of the technology companies which joined the group did so with the understanding that their technologies would be on the list of approved technologies, right out of the gate.

If the BPDG mandate is enacted into law, it will be illegal (or terribly risky) to manufacture a digital television device with outputs or recording methods making use of other than "Approved" technology. All approved technologies are listed in an appendix to the BPDG rules, called Table A.

Table A has all the Approved Outputs and Recording Methods on it -- all the ways your digital television device will be able to record programming and move it to other devices. Several months ago, the co-chairs circulated a draft standard that had four technologies placed on Table A -- four technologies that were devised and licensed by the 5C and 4C companies, two groups of highly enthusiastic participants in the BPDG process.

Philips immediately objected: How did those four technologies end up on the list, months before the criteria for adding technologies to the list were established or even discussed? No explanation was offered, but the 4C and 5C technologies were (temporarily) removed.

Recently, there were six formal proposals for the inclusion of particular technologies on Table A. Four of these were the technologies which had appeared on Table A in the earlier draft; two were new "outsider" submissions from Philips and Microsoft. The MPAA promptly rejected (asserting that it had authority by itself to reject) the two new submissions, making no comment at all on the four existing technologies.

This history suggests again that the four original technologies were "shoe-ins" -- that, despite the objections of several parties, there was never any question whether they would be permitted. At the same time, both new technologies from outside the original short list have been rejected.

We've posted the MPAA's decisions on the two new technologies, so you can decide for yourself whether the MPAA is applying "technical criteria" or whether the studios decided in advance which products should be legal and which illegal.

(I invite any MPAA attorney or member studio attorney to write a guest editorial about the selection process. We will be happy to post it verbatim, with or without attribution.)