Tag: Broadcast Flag

Background: FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said earlier today that the Commission will not approve during his tenure a petition by the motion picture industry to engage in “selectable output control,” also known as SOC. The MPAA and the movie studios it represents (Paramount, Sony, Fox, Universal, Disney, and Warner Brothers) asked the FCC for the ability to “turn off” any output plug they choose, like those on the back of consumer electronics devices of an entertainment system, during special video-on-demand movies on cable television.

The following statement is attributed to Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge:

“Consumers won a big victory today with Chairman Martin’s statement that he would not approve Hollywood’s selective output control petition.

Last Friday, Public Knowledge wrapped up a busy week of Presidential transition team meetings. First, as part of the Open Internet Coalition, PK and a number of its industry and public interest allies met with FCC Agency Review team co-chairs Susan Crawford and Kevin Werbach to discuss the Coalition’s priorities and how we would like to see them implemented.

Today PK, along with the Center for Democracy and Technology, Knowledge Ecology International, the Public Patent Foundation and representatives of the library community met with some of the members of transition team for the US Patent and Trademark Office. PK Advisory Board member and Duke University Professor Arti Rai, International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) Executive Vice President for Global Legal Policy Shira Perlmutter and National Inventors Hall of Fame IP Counsel Joyce Ward were the team members who met with us.

Most of the discussion focused on the USPTO’s role in International Copyright policymaking.

It’s gotten so easy to rent movies on the tv that my wife had actually rented one, 27 Dresses, three times. Yes, the money we’ve spent to rent this particular movie has added up to more than the cost of owning the video. No, I’m not bitter about it or anything. Earlier this week, I was helping her put some movies on the ole’ iPod so she could have some in-flight entertainment for a work trip. Of course, she wanted to have 27 Dresses again, so I said, “Can we please buy this movie once and for all?!”

Unfortunately, when I went to the iTunes Store, the movie was no where to be found—for rent or purchase. I wondered if anyone else had experienced this. I swore we rented it from iTunes, and verified it in my purchase history. The closest I could get to the movie was its soundtrack, it didn’t appear to be available on the other movie download services either.

Remember Selectable Output Control? It’s the issue where the MPAA petitioned the FCC for the right to turn off any and all of the outputs on your cable box — especially those pesky high definition analog connections — if they move up the Video-on-Demand (VoD) release date on movies. In our original filing opposing the petition, we cited an article which said that 11 million HDTVs currently in use have only analog inputs, and would surely be cut off by the MPAA. News Corp shot back, saying that according to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), there were only 4 million such TVs out there. Who’s right? Apparently, neither of us. Yesterday, CEA filed a letter with the FCC saying that there are over 20 million HDTVs currently in use which only have analog inputs, and if the petition were granted, would “no longer function as they did when originally purchased by U.S. consumers.”

The 10th anniversary of the DMCA is not the only infamous 10th anniversary that Public Knowledge gets to “celebrate” this week. Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of the enactment of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998. That law extended copyright terms from 50 years after the life of an author and 70 years in the case of corporations, to 70 years beyond the life of an author and 95 years in the case of corporations. Named after Sonny Bono, the late Congressman best known for his musical and personal partnership with the performer Cher, the law has taken countless works out of the public domain, greatly weakening the wellspring of creativity and knowledge from which new creativity emerges.

Here at PK, we’ve been keeping our heads down the past few days, trying to fight against some really bad legislation. Once we finally get word of one, another one popped up. There are three in all (so far) are four (another was introduced during the writing of this post!!!) and we’re going to need your help to put them away.

S. 3325, The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008

First up is the Senate’s version of the House’s PRO-IP bill, S. 3325, “The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008.” Rashmi’s written a good breakdown of the differences between the bills, but that analysis may not hold up for long as we’re hearing that, as you read this, a deal may have been made to nix the differences between the bills so a compromise can be passed with ease.

Seven public-interest and consumer groups, led by Public Knowledge, late yesterday called on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to turn down Hollywood’s request to take control of consumers’ TV sets and other devices.

On May 9, the MPAA filed a petition to waive the FCC’s ruling against selectable output control (SOC) (PDF). The MPAA and its studio constituents seek to allow multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) — that is, cable companies — the power to turn off the digital and analog outputs on your devices, as they choose. This includes not only cable boxes, but also anything connected to your cable signal, such as your Tivo, your Slingbox, or even a TV using CableCARD.

The MPAA and its studio constituents are interested in releasing theatrical releases to home viewers earlier than ever, possibly because box office receipts are growing at a slower rate than in the past decade. Before, release windows for video-on-demand and pay-per-view became available approximately five months after the theatrical release.

Just in time for the House Telecom Subcommittee’s May 6 hearing on Net Neutrality legislation, Public Knowledge achieved a new level of notoriety when we were prominently mentioned in a blog post on the American Spectator, the publication best known for funneling millions of dollars to investigations of Bill and Hillary Clinton.