Feds urged to resist copy-protection mandates

[Gregg Lengling]

Bill McConnell
Broadcasting & Cable
1/24/2003 8:00:00 AM
   An alliance of technology firms, consumer groups, think tanks and taxpayer-rights organizations called on the government to resist Hollywood's fight for federal copy-protection mandates for TV broadcasts, CDs and movies.

"A mandate will raise the price of everything from CD players and DVD players to personal computers," said Fred McClure, president of the Alliance for Digital Progress. "It will make the devices consumers own today obsolete. And it will stifle the innovation at the heart of digital progress."

Copy protection is essential to ensure that content creators don't lose their rightful profits because of pirated copying of their works, McClure said, but the technologies must be developed and implemented through private negotiations.

McClure said ADP does not oppose the broadcast industry's preferred solution, the broadcast flag, nor any other technology.

"Piracy of digital content is a serious, complex problem that concerns all of us," he added. "But government-designed and mandated technology that swaps the diversity of marketplace solutions for a 'one-size-fits-all' approach is not the answer."

Members of the alliance include Apple Computer Inc., Microsoft Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Citizens for a Sound Economy, Washington Legal Foundation and 20 others.

Jack Valenti, Hollywood's top lobbyist, said he was baffled by the campaign, which is being launched as the technology and movie industries negotiate over possible copy protections.

"I am shaking my head in wonderment at this million-dollar campaign to deride us," said Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America. "It's a bit strange that the IT [information technology] community launches a million-dollar campaign against the movie industry, and their spokesman at a press conference charges us as the 'enemy.' The MPAA is trying to reach a mutually agreeable conclusion whose aim is to stop the thievery of films so that a legitimate digital marketplace can thrive."