Consensus at Lawyerpoint: What's next?

June 10, 2002

[News]
What's next?

We're still waiting to hear about the work of the "parallel group" -- a mysterious entity which is supposedly "not part of CPTWG" and "not a sub-group of CPTWG" but which is meant to address "policy issues" and "enforcement issues" related to the broadcast flag proposal.

We understand that some members of BPDG were invited by Rep. Billy Tauzin to talk about digital TV issues; EFF was not invited to that meeting, but we hope to have substantive information about it available soon.

In the meantime, those who follow digital copyright and television broadcast might be interested in a new EFF court case, Newmark v. Turner, in which five users of the ReplayTV personal video recorder are seeking declaratory judgment that their use of that product (including commercial-skipping) is legal. The Newmark case doesn't have a direct connection with the broadcast flag, but readers may find a number of common themes.

Posted by Seth Schoen at 11:35 AM

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What is the BPDG?

In the year 2006 all over-the-air television will be digital. This is pretty hot stuff: crystal-clear pictures, ear-popping audio and interactive features for days. But as the technologists give, the studios take away.

The Broadcast Protection Discussion Group is an obscure group of Hollywood studios and technology companies that are negotiating a "consensus" for any gadget or code that can touch the studios' product. Once they're done, they want to go to Washington and ask Congress and/or the FCC to give their "standard" the force of law.

So what? Well, this is a radical departure from the way it's usually done. Usually, bright nerds invent something cool and the entertainment industry has a nervous breakdown and runs around telling everyone that the sky is falling (Marconi got sued over the radio, Sony got sued over the VCR, and it took a near miracle to get movies out of the studios' vaults and onto television). People pick up on the tech and all the interesting ways that it can be used as a creative tool, and gradually the entertainment industry realizes that a new day has dawned and gets its act together, starts shipping product for the new media, and takes home yet another squillion dollars.

This time around, the entertainment industry wants to take away all that sloppy, inefficient fooling around where technology companies try out lots of different approaches, where garage inventors go from obscurity to posterity under a hail of customers, where you and I get to invent amazing new uses for our stuff that a bunch of engineers in a board-room never would've thought of in a million years. This time around, everything not forbidden is mandatory. MORE...