Tag: DRM

If you were following the DMCA Section 1201 anticircumvention rulemaking proceedings last week, you likely saw Tim Vollmer's video of the MPAA's demonstration on how to create a film clip by pointing a camcorder at a TV set (embedded above). This demonstration was the MPAA's response to an exemption request filed by educators, who are seeking to exercise their fair use rights by breaking the CSS encryption on DVDs in order to make short clips for classroom use.

As you'll recall, a group of media studies professors led by Peter DeCherney successfully filed for just such an exemption in 2006 (for more on that, see our video interview with DeCherney, embedded after the break). Three years later, the educators have returned, in an attempt to renew the exemption and to expand it to include students in media studies classes as well as educators outside of the media studies field. Despite having three years to regroup, the studios returned with the same tired, apocryphal argument: despite the fact that DVD-ripping is already widespread, if educators are allowed to legally rip, demand for DVDs will plummet and the industry will collapse. As an alternative, they suggest camcording, a cumbersome process that produces low-quality clips while requiring a significant investment in video recording equipment. Practical matters aside, the MPAA's argument for camcording also happens to contradict a number of the organization's other arguments against fair use--a fact that was not lost on many of the witnesses at last Wednesday's hearing.

Public Knowledge has asked the U.S. Copyright Office to recommend a global policy that allows blind or visually handicapped people to use technology to read electronic material that is otherwise protected by digital rights management (DRM).

What does access to information mean to you?: the ability to read your newspaper – physical or online – every day?; the ability to go to a book store and buy your favorite author’s book?; the ability to read professional publications to advance your career? Most of us rely on these sources and more to keep ourselves informed and participate in society. But for the blind and the visually impaired access to information is not easy. Works have to be converted to special formats to enable access. Because copyrights are implicated during the process, copyright law provides certain exceptions enabling the creation of accessible formats.

Are these laws sufficient to allow the blind to read anything they want to? Is the market responding to their needs? The Copyright Office is asking for public comments on these and other questions.

We at Public Knowledge along with many others in the public interest community have always said that content owners have abused DRM to harm consumers. So when the FTC announced its decision to hold a hearing on the issue, we expected that at least some consumer protection measures would finally emerge. Our expectations might have been too high, because towards the end of the hearing it seemed like the agency might not do much in this area. The hearing was held in Seattle, went from 8:30 in the morning till about 5 in the evening, and the FTC heard from a number of experts about both the benefit and the harm from DRM, as well as what could be done to address the harm. A consensus seemed to emerge that a notice of DRM to consumers would be a way to address some consumer harm. Before I talk about how a notice might solve these concerns, let me discuss what was said about the benefit or harm from DRM.

Technology is never inherently bad, it may have bad uses. So we must encourage the good uses and steer from the bad. When hobbyists at mobileread.com wrote a guide for reading legally purchased third-party books on a Kindle, Amazon lawyers demanded the guide’s removal. Instead of encouraging the good uses, Amazon feared the bad and made it worse.

The Copyright Office of the Library of Congress will be holding public hearings on the possible exemptions to the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. In accordance with the Copyright Act, as amended by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Office is conducting its triennial rulemaking proceeding to determine whether there are particular “classes of works” as to which users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make noninfringing uses if they are prohibited from circumventing such technological measures. Hearings will start begin at 10:00am on each day.

For additional information and to request to testify, please visit:
http://www.copyright.gov/1201/comment-forms/index.html

The Copyright Office of the Library of Congress will be holding public hearings on the possible exemptions to the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. In accordance with the Copyright Act, as amended by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Office is conducting its triennial rulemaking proceeding to determine whether there are particular “classes of works” as to which users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make noninfringing uses if they are prohibited from circumventing such technological measures.

For additional information and to request to testify, please visit:
http://www.copyright.gov/1201/comment-forms/index.html

Although the public has known for nearly two months that former FCC staffer and Interactive Corp General Counsel Julius Genachowski would be the nominee for FCC Chairman, the President made it official yesterday. If you listen to NPR or read the tech press, you’ll know that I’ve made no secret of our delight with the pick.

Public Knowledge recently filed comments with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) highlighting the adverse impact of the use of DRM technologies on consumers. Our comment focused on three areas: frustration of consumer expectations, constraining consumer’s rights under copyright law, and the use of DRM for anti-competitive purposes.

In view of incidents such as the Sony Rootkit scandal and the Spore incident where DRM was installed on consumers’ computer without their knowledge and used to subvert their control, we are suggesting that the FTC put in place a standardized labeling scheme.

We are also hopeful that the agency will recommend further changes to the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA so that its harmful effects on consumers will be mitigated. The FTC plans to hold hearings on the issue in Seattle on March 25, 2009. The event is free to the public and will be webcast.

Today, at the annual MacWorld conference in San Francisco, Apple Inc. senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, Phil Shiller, announced that by the end of this quarter, the iTunes Store's entire catalog of digital music will be sold without Digital Rights Management (DRM). As of today, 8 million of the 10 million songs sold by the iTunes Store are available sans DRM, with the remaining 2 million to follow suit during the coming months. This announcement has been a long time coming from Apple; the company's CEO, Steve Jobs, penned an open letter to the music industry in February of 2007, calling for an end to DRM mandates for online music retailers, though only one of the "Big Four" record labels, EMI, answered his call in the weeks that followed. This time around, it seems that Apple was forced to make a concession in order to cast off the record industry's DRM requirements. As followers of Apple's negotiations with the recording industry will note, variable pricing for songs--an item that has long topped record executive's wish lists--was also announced today at MacWorld and will be implemented in April. Though it remains to be seen whether labels will seek to fully exploit this new variable pricing model, Apple's DRM announcement marks a turning point in the battle against DRM. But the war is far from over.