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the mp3 way: The Cop-Chip - just around the corner, if Hollywood has its way
Q:
What do the tobacco and entertainment industries have in common, apart from
their frightening power?
A:
You can't trust anything they say.
But there's also a big difference between them.
Tobacco industry credibility is in tatters and, now under constant and still
growing public scrutiny, it's being forced to radically modify just about
every aspect of the operational philosophy which made it wealthy beyond its
shareholders' wildest dreams.
The chances of it becoming a genuine 'good corporate citizen' aren't high.
But these days, to an extent, it's accountable and hopefully the same
accountability will eventually be thrust upon Hollywood and the Record
Labels, not to speak of some of the larger international hardware
manufacturers.
But this isn't likely to happen any time soon and, in the meanwhile, they are
virtual laws unto themselves (as the tobacco industry used to be) and
they've zeroed in on digital media as the means through which to boost their
already enormous revenues and exert direct control over their separate and
shared customer bases.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sums it up thus: "... the movie and
recording studios are trying to dumb down technology to serve their 'bottom
lines' and manipulate copyright laws to tip the delicate balance toward
intellectual property ownership and away from the right to think and speak
freely."
The Big Picture
Founded in 1990, the EFF is one of the very few organizations, on- or offline,
able to make the entertainment industry pay attention and, like MusicDish
and a fast-growing number of others, has zoomed in on the efforts of the
so-called Broadcast Protection Discussion Group [to be more accurate, a
small set within it dubbed '5C'] to force a 'standard' designed to regulate
digital media technology.
As the EFF says pithily in an analysis on its web page at
www.eff.com, "The people who tried to take away your VCR are at it
again."
Hollywood has always dreamed of a 'well-mannered marketplace' where the only
technologies you'd be able to buy would be those that don't disrupt its
business, says the EFF study. "Acting through legislators who dance to
Hollywood's tune, the movie studios are racing to lock away the flexible,
general-purpose technology that has given us a century of unparalleled
prosperity and innovation," it observes.
How?
A few weeks back, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) filed the
Content Protection Status Report with the Senate Judiciary Committee
and, in it, called for regulation of the lowly analog-to-digital converters
(ADCs) found in all kinds of electronic devices.
This is like demanding that the cap on your gas tank is regulated so it'll
only accept gasoline sold by the MPAA and/or the RIAA (Recording Industry
Association of America). If the MPAA (and indirectly, the record labels and
system makers) gets its way, every ADC will have a 'cop-chip' that'll shut
it down if it's asked to assist in converting copyrighted material.
And if you think the MPAA and RIAA could never get away with such obvious
bottom-line-inspired self-interest, think again.
The record labels and movie companies already regularly use their trade
associations to enveigle police agencies around the world into letting them
not only initiate, but actually be part of, raids.
Couldn't possibly be, you say?
Here's a line from a very recent press release from the music industry on an
incident in Spain: "Spanish Guardia Civil carried out the operation in
collaboration with IFPI and the Spanish recording industry association and
IFPI national group AFYVE. The action was warmly welcomed by the recording
industry ..."
I'll bet.
Needless to say, government enforcement agencies around the world would
instantly recognize any such newly configured ADC as a heaven-sent
opportunity.
'Persuading' the already morally bankrupt entertainment industry into
allowing said agencies to piggy-back (and load in) hidden surveillance and
feed-back systems would be no task at all. In return, law enforcers would
increasingly act for, and on behalf of, the entertainment industry and a
cop-chip could, and probably would, become hardly more than a souped-up
version of the infamous Clipper Chip of the Clinton administration.
In the meanwhile, back to the EFF's analysis: "The report shows that this
ADC regulation is part of a larger agenda ... controlling digital media
devices, controlling analog converters, controlling the Internet ... a
frightening peek at Hollywood's vision of the future," the EFF goes on,
continuing that the Content Protection Status Report points to a
future where innovation and fair use rights are "sacrificed on copyright's
altar, where entertainment companies become de facto regulators of new
technologies, deciding which mathematical instructions are mandatory and
which are forbidden".
It says the first part details the efforts of the BPDG. They're truly
alarming and you can read about them in recent editions of MusicDish.
But the most worrying aspect of the Status Report comes in Part II. Called
'Plugging the Analog Hole,' it reveals Hollywood's plan to turn a generic
ADC into a device that's subject to the kind of regulation, "heretofore
reserved for Schedule A narcotics".
ADCs sample the strength of an analog signal (light, sound, motion,
temperature) at some interval (frequency) and convert the results to a
numerical value.
They're embedded in digital scanners, samplers, thermometers, seismographs,
mice and other pointer devices, camcorders, cameras, microscopes,
telescopes, modems, radios, televisions, cellular phones, walkie-talkies,
light-meters and a multitude of other devices and, says the EFF, "In
general, ADCs are generic and interchangeable - that is, a high-frequency
ADC from a sound-card is potentially the same ADC that you'll find in a
sensitive graphics tablet.
"Hollywood perceives ADCs as the linchpin of unauthorized duplication. No
matter how much copy-control technology is integrated into DVDs and
satellite broadcasts, there is always the possibility that some Internet
user will aim a camcorder at the screen, always the shadowy fan at the
concert wielding a smuggled digital recorder, always the audiophile jacking
a low-impedance cable into a high-end stereo. These bogeymen plague
Hollywood, and each one uses an ADC to produce unauthorized copies."
Accordingly, the report wants watermark detectors in all devices that
perform analog to digital conversions.
"The plan is to embed a 'watermark' (a theoretical, invisible mark that can
only be detected by special equipment and that can't be removed without
damaging the media in which it was embedded) in all copyrighted works," the
EFF says. "Thereafter, every ADC would be accompanied by a 'cop chip' that
would sense this watermark's presence and disable certain features depending
on the conditions.
"This is meant to work like so: You point your camcorder at a movie screen.
The magical, theoretical watermark embedded in the film is picked up by the
cop-chip, which disables the camcorder's ADC. Your camcorder records nothing
but dead air. The mic, sensing a watermark in the film's soundtrack, also
shuts itself down.
"The objective of a law like this is to make 'unauthorized' synonymous with
'illegal.' In the world of copyright, there are many uses that are legal,
even - especially -- if they are unauthorized, for example, the fair-use
right to quote a work for critical purposes. Any critic - a professor, a
reporter, even an individual with a personal website - may lawfully copy
parts of copyrighted works in a critical discussion. Such a person may scan
in part of a magazine article, record a snatch of music from a CD or a piece
of a film or television show in the lawful course of making a critical work.
"And you don't need to be a critic to make a lawful, unauthorized copy! You
might be someone who wants to 'format-shift' some personal property - say,
by scanning in a book or transferring an old LP to MP3 so that you might
take it with you while travelling with your computer. This is absolutely
lawful, but under the 'analog hole' proposal, providing the tools to make
such unauthorized uses would be illegal."
"even more bizarre"
In its critique, the EFF says it's outrageous that Hollywood would demand a
law that intentionally breaks technology so that it can't be used in lawful
ways, but the unintended consequences of this regime would be even more
bizarre.
If ADCs are constrained from performing analog-to-digital conversion of all
watermarked copyrighted works, you might end up with a cellphone that
switches itself off when you get within range of the copyrighted music on
your stereo; a camcorder that refuses to store your child's first steps
because he is taking them within eyeshot of a television playing a
copyrighted cartoon; a camera that won't snap your holiday moments if they
take place against the copyrighted backdrop of a chain store such as
Starbucks, which forbids on-premises photography because its fixtures are
proprietary works, it says.
And: "ADCs are fundamental, generic computing components, found in medical
and scientific equipment, computers, and a variety of consumer electronics.
Surely Hollywood doesn't mean to suggest that geologists will have to equip
their seismographs with cop-chips (lest they should accidentally record a
copyrighted earthquake)?
"It seems likely that they do. The primary difference between most ADCs is
the frequency at which they run. Two ADCs of like frequency and bitrate can
be interchanged. If any 'free' ADCs are allowed into the marketplace, they
will surely find themselves repurposed in camcorders, samplers, and scanners
(oh my!)."
Morpheus, Gnutella, et al
The EFF says part III of Hollywood's report to Congress calls for, "Putting
an end to the avalanche of movie theft on so-called 'file-sharing' services,
such as Morpheus, Gnutella, and other peer-to-peer (p2p) networks" and in
the process, is seeking to overturn the Betamax doctrine - the principle
that a technology is legal, provided it can be used to accomplish legal
ends."
For example, VCRs are legal, even though they can be used to make illegal
copies of copyrighted works, because they can also be used to make legal
copies of personal works and copyrighted works (in the case of time- and
format-shifting).
P2P networks - such as the Net - aren't infringing in and of themselves,
opines the EFF. 'P2P' describes a technology where the system's control is
largely or entirely decentralized.
P2P application networks are turned to all manner of ends from sharing
classroom materials and independently produced media to distributing large
scientific problems associated with the search for a cure for AIDS, "to
providing a distributed proxy service that allows Chinese Internet users to
circumvent China's national firewall and read uncensored news," points out
the EFF.
"True, they can also be used to make unauthorized - and even illegal -
copies of copyrighted works, but the Betamax doctrine does not establish as
its standard that no illegal uses be possible with a technology; only that a
technology have some legal use.
The foundation also makes a further, powerful point - that thoroughly
decentralized networks like Gnutella have no control-point. There's no
central server, no standards-body, no, "exploitable point where leverage can
be applied to control what is and is not available on the network. The
Internet is fundamentally constructed to permit any two points to
communicate, and as long as this is true, Gnutella and its brethren will
thrive."
This begs the question: How will Hollywood, "put an end to ... movie theft
on ... p2p networks?" Short of dramatically re-architecting the Internet it
seems inconceivable that P2P will ever controlled or eliminated.
"But dramatic redesigns of the Internet are well within Hollywood's stated
desires," adds the EFF.
"In 1995, Hollywood's representatives in government penned 'The Report of
the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights,' calling for a neutered
Internet whose functionality had been magically constrained to 'permit
[rights-holders] to enforce the terms and conditions under which their works
are made public'.
"We can only guess at where these delusional technological speculations have
wandered in the intervening years, and this 'Content Protection Status
Report' is a good and grim indicator."
Related MusicDish e-Journal Articles:
» 'Make a copy, go to jail' - Broadcast Flag (2002-06-06)
» Content Industries Fight for Congress' Hearts & Minds (& Your PC) (2002-05-03)
» the mp3 way: Broadcast Flag (2002-05-03)
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