Digital Rights Management for the Printed Page?
"I was somewhat shocked when I looked recently at the statistics regarding the volume of digital content being posted to newsgroups. As one would assume -- since these are newsgroups -- pornographic content (alt.binaries.pictures.erotica) still leads the list in newsgroup topics, and the most active posting of conventional content is in the alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.complete_cd group. But right behind music CDs is alt.binaries.pictures.comics, in which ad hoc groups of individuals are working together to digitize the entire output of the comic book industry. And I'm not talking about teenagers scanning last week's issues of Marvel comics, but rather complete volumes of material being dilligently scanned by people who know what they're doing. For example, there's a massive project underway to digitize every issue of every title published by DC Comics (then the industry leader) during the 1950s.... The group has scanned the complete content of almost 400 superhero comics, including covers, at what appears to be 400% of actual size -- in other words, good enough for reproduction. Almost every one of the scans I looked at was exceptional. Each page is posted as a JPG in the newsgroup, which also carries the output of similar projects devoted to virtually every genre and most publishers in every decade of comics history. This says, to me, that a digital archive of the history of comics will exist at some point in (nearer rather than more distant) future, accomplished entirely by readers, not the comic book business itself.
Now, consider that virtually the entire output of the last several decades of recorded music has been digitized by listeners and fans, not by the recording industry, and you'll soon understand how content archives (sounds, images, motion pictures) are, almost by themselves, being rendered in digital format. This is a remarkable cultural fact, and, indicative of just how content owners no longer control their own holdings. As I was fond of reminding at the Studios, if you can see it or hear it, you can copy it. Add 'read it,' I guess, after hearing about the comic book projects. Now, how long do you think it will be before someone proposes digital rights management for the printed page?" [The Wednesday Morning Quarterback]
PVRs are the topic of the day, with a posting at Slashdot and an article at Salon.
Cable Companies Despise PVRs covers the Broadband Plus show put on by the cable industry. While the various write-ups and links are interesting, what I find most fascinating is that the original post quotes Gary Lauder, "a venture capitalist who has funded many cable related companies" on his views on PVRs. He then wrote in to Slashdot to correct what he viewed as inaccuracies and misinterpretations of his speech. Here's the kicker, though - he himself proposes the following:
"I suggested that consumers pay 1 cent per commercial skipped (which is about the same as what advertisers pay). That would be equivalent to $10/thousand commercials skipped. I think that's reasonable. I also suggested that targeted advertising could be a win-win for all involved by delivering ads in areas that are of greater interest to the viewer so that there would be less incentive to skip and fewer ads would have to be delivered due to the higher prices paid for the targeted group. I also predicted that this dynamic combined with competition between satellite and cable would ultimately make both services free." [Slashdot]
Uh-huh. Does that mean that I don't have to pay for cable service anymore since I'm watching commercials now? Because I'm already paying to watch cable television, and my rates just went up yet again. Better yet, how about if they pay me 1 cent per commercial I do watch (retroactive, of course). Of course, Lauder confines this proposal to cable television. He doesn't advocate this price structure for every ad you skip over in magazines or newspapers, let alone flipping around radio stations in between songs or banner ads you ignore on web sites. Do you think he reads every ad in his morning paper? Do you think he skips commercials or channel surfs during breaks in a TV show? If he's got three ReplayTVs and his industry gets their way, I guess we'll find out, eh, Mr. Pot?
Salon, on the other hand, examines Microsoft's efforts to cut into the PVR market in Replay It Again, Sam.
"But thanks to Microsoft, the TV-show trade may now be poised to explode. In October, the company unveiled Windows XP Media Center Edition, a new version of its Windows operating system that is installed in only a handful of "media" PCs being manufactured by a half-dozen computer makers. XP Media Center is billed as an all-in-one home entertainment system. The PCs come with CD and DVD writers and lots of disk space and processor power, and the operating system has a large-format interface and remote control functionality to control all media applications. The system also has PVR capabilities; just as with TiVo and ReplayTV, users can select a lineup of television shows to record and watch later.
There's one big difference between the Windows PVR and stand-alone devices like ReplayTV: On a PC, you can do a lot more of the things Hollywood hates. Microsoft's PVR software records TV shows into a format that will soon be playable virtually anywhere....
Microsoft has inserted some content-protection methods into the Media Center, but very few -- or, perhaps, none -- of today's TV shows are broadcast in such a way as to render them protected. This means that at least for the foreseeable future, everything consumers record on XP Media Center will be tradable. Since it takes at least 600 MBs of hard drive space to store a half-hour show, it's unlikely the trade will be as widespread as that of MP3s.... All of which add up to this: The possible 'Napsterization' of TV is at hand....
Specifically, Microsoft now 'respects' a protection scheme called CGMS-A, which is essentially a code that can be inserted into a television broadcast -- much like closed captioning is now embedded -- that explains how that content can be used. If copy protection is turned on in a TV show, the Windows PVR would play back the show only on the computer on which it was recorded. Otherwise, the show could be transferred to any other device.
But here's the rub: 'We haven't seen any content that's actually protected,' Narayan says. 'There may be some instances where people protected maybe a particular pay-per-view show, but we haven't seen it -- though I would hardly say we've done any exhaustive research or testing.' The upshot for Microsoft, in choosing the CGMS-A, then, is that it gets to say Windows protects content without actually protecting much content.
Will media companies start protecting their content using CGMS-A? That's hard to say. (All of the companies suing Sonicblue over its PVR features, as well as their lawyers and the Motion Picture Association of America, an industry trade group, either declined to comment or did not respond to inquires regarding PVRs.)...
Craig Newmark keeps his ReplayTV's Commercial Advance feature turned on, and he doesn't think there's anything wrong with it. 'The people in this country gave the networks radio spectrum,' he says, 'and they were to do something for the public good. Unfortunately, a lot of them have forgotten that....' "
So basically, the media companies are waiting for Congress to enact legislation protecting their business model rather than proactively protecting their content themselves using CGMS-A. And we're supposed to feel sorry for them that their customers are off using their content in new and innovative ways.
Of course, the problem with the Windows XP Media Center concept is that the Windows XP license states they can change that copyright protection on your PC at any time without even telling you, thereby locking down all of your existing and future content back to the state Microsoft originally proposed - signed, sealed, and not delivered.
I'll keep my ReplayTV, thank you very much.
Monday, December 09, 2002
