STUDIOS, PC INDUSTRY SPAR OVER COPY PROTECTION
Warner Bros. is willing to alter significantly its “windowed business” by allowing home viewing of movies very soon after theatrical release, subject only to considering them protected against piracy, said Senior Vp Dean Marks during an Intel Developer Forum panel in San Francisco on digital copy protection. He said the studio would stop short of taking up Intel’s suggestion that such releases could be simultaneous.
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The PC industry supports efforts to make home devices respect technical content protections, through selective access controls -- but not to enlist them in policing use of content acquired through peer-to-peer networks without such protections, said Intel Vp Legal & Govt. Affairs Donald Whiteside. The aim, he said, should be to “keep honest people honest, not enforce the law against people who are already infringing,” he said. Marks and Ron Wheeler, Fox Group content protection senior vp, said they didn’t differ as much as Whiteside thought. Wheeler’s advocacy of selective output controls -- allowing copying of TV programs but not movies -- gave Whiteside pause, he said.
Intel found itself partway between Public Knowledge Pres. Gigi Sohn and the studios on govt. technology mandates. Sohn denounced them, whereas Marks and Wheeler said mandates such as the broadcast flag and controls on analog-to-digital converters were regrettably necessary. Whiteside said copyright owners’ demands for mandates ominously kept piling up, and they should succeed only in the rare case where they're unavoidable, such as the flag. Marks and Wheeler replied they had recourse to govt. intervention only when market answers fell short. Sohn noted she'd parted company with other public interest advocates in supporting record label lawsuits against file-sharing, as preferable to legislative or FCC rules.
Wheeler sparred with Sohn’s contentions copyright owners’ lobbying disregarded consumer preferences and innovation. “Just because a technology permits a consumer doesn’t mean that activity is legal,” he said. Against Sohn’s scenario of darkness had the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling protecting Sony’s Betamax gone the other way, Wheeler said Congress probably would have imposed compulsory licensing and DVDs could have superceded VCRs earlier.