by Kimmie
April, 2002

Considering one of my favorite things in life is technology, it should come as no surprise to anyone that I spend many hours behind the tele watching Tech TV. Beyond that, in addition to receiving daily newsletters from various sources such as Slashdot and the like, I’m a frequent visitor to techie websites. Naturally, the latest news with regard to file sharing found its way into my email box, and was later introduced via my favorite geekshow, “The Screensavers”. This information is so unbelievable, so ridiculous, that I felt compelled to further investigate and bring this issue to the attention of our tech savvy Score! Music readers.

At first blush, and not far from the mark, it appeared that the government, by way of South Carolina Democratic Senator, Ernest “Fritz” Hollings, and backed by (shock and surprise) the recording and motion picture industries (along with support from the Walt Disney Company), has stepped into the ring regarding the file sharing issue and introduced a bill that, if passed, would make computer and other electronic manufacturers responsible for building a copyright protection system into their products to prevent copyright infringement, rendering the equipment incapable of playing unauthorized music, movies and software. I’ll pause a moment whilst you digest this information…

The initial concerns over forcing manufacturers to create and implement copyright protection on their products is, 1) it will inevitably hike up the prices of electronic components and 2) in the area of computer manufacturing, these companies will lose money to those that would rather build their own PC than to be forced to play by the government’s rules. Unfortunately, in effect, these companies are being punished for something that is not originally their responsibility and have been given a timeline in which this goal must be met, otherwise the government, through the FCC, will accomplish the objective for them. While the solution should be in the hands of the recording and motion picture industries, making it easier for the public to purchase legal copies of media files on-line, Hollywood is instead using its clout to influence our elected officials and passing the buck as opposed to coming up with a plausible resolution to what is largely their own quandary.

The recording and motion picture industries have caused such a stink about the “possible” lost future profits that the government doesn’t appear to be backing down on this issue. The question now becomes whether we want the government to be the one to implement the solution. Forgive me if I have a much higher level of trust in the IT industry (even with Bill Gates as a forerunner), than I do of government officials trying to solve a problem in an industry that they know little to nothing about. Thus it appears, should the issue be forced, the most equipped folks to handle the problem are the IT professionals, not necessarily the manufacturers who, according to the bill, are being required to come up with the solution.

Would we expect automobile manufacturer’s to create cars that do not exceed the speed limit to effectuate an abolishment of speeding tickets? Should motel owners run the risk of prosecution because a lady of the evening decided to rent out one of their rooms for the night? Why then should we hold Dell, Gateway or Mac responsible for what consumers do with their PCs after they’ve purchased them? Another example would be that of television and VCR manufactures being held accountable for consumers recording copies of Pay-Per-View events and movies. That is precisely what this bill proposes. It will essentially affect every avenue of the technological industry. A bill that will require copy-protection in just about every electronic device on the market.

(Gateway has voiced its response by means of a commercial regarding downloading -- staring the loveable cow of course.)

So why is it that you’ve heard little or nothing about this bill? Why, in its introduction to the Senate, does Hollings’ fail to mention the copy-protection issue, cloaking the bill as a means to “…promote broadband and the digital television transition by securing content on the internet and over the nation’s airwaves.”? [See Senate Congressional Record, March 21, 2002, Page S2269]. Because not unlike any other bill that politicians attempt to slip through quietly, they don’t want you to know about it!

FYI: Senate Bill 2048 - the “Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act”, formerly known as the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA) was introduced into Senate and referred to the Senate Committee on March 21, 2002. It is co-sponsored by Louisiana Democratic Senator John Breaux, California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, Hawaii Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye, Florida Democratic Senator Bill Nelson and Alaskan Republican Senator Ted Stevens.

Wavering faith in Senator Hollings and S2048 is most certainly not assuaged when inconsistencies are found in his statements. “I want to emphasize that this legislation does not alter existing copyright law”, says Hollings in his introduction of S2048 to the Senate. [See Senate Congressional Record, March 21, 2002, Page S2270]. Yet in 1999, a federal appeals court determined that computers were not considered a digital audio recording device when it ruled that Diamond Multimedia Systems could sell their Rio MP3 player in that it did not violate copyright law. S2048 rewrites copyright law in order to bypass that court case by requiring copyright protection on any device that “retrieves or accesses copyrighted works in digital form.”

In addition, S2048 contains little mention of music recordings and the entire bill is vague, talking mostly about security and instructing on how to implement a phantom process that has yet to be created. We’re being asked to allow the passage of a bill that, for all intents and purposes, is incomplete, will limit our viewing on high definition television with “down-resolution”, will prevent the recording of a television show on our VCR to then be played on another device within our homes, and will more than likely abolish our ability to play copyrighted CDs or DVDs on our computer or play our converted CDs on our MP3 players.

Which brings us to one of the biggest flaws of this bill -- It doesn’t explain how it proposes to handle “Fair Use”. Yes, that’s right folks, there is such a thing as fair use of various copyright items that you have in your possession. Its a little legal issue that the bill writers would just as soon you forget about, that involves your legal right to burn your old LPs onto your computer and create CDs or MP3s for your own use, create compilations of various tracks of your CDs to be burned on a CDR for your next road trip, or create a copy of your old VHS movies into DVDs so that they take up less space on your movie rack. All of these processes should fall under the Fair Use Doctrine. However, nothing in this bill explains how a system can be implemented that would prevent pirated copies of media but still allow for fair use. Will this be “magic equipment” that will be able to discern whether someone is going to make illegal copies?

Finally, I take offense to statements by Senator Hollings where he assumes that having illegal copies of digital quality music and movies more readily available will turn the common citizen into a media pirate. In addition, I’m fairly certain that any “losses” the recording and motion picture industries might face over the pirating of digital media is safely padded within the income received through the high cost of CDs and DVDs. While I have no dispute that something must be done to protect the copyrights of artists, once again, there is nothing presented in the bill, short of proposed fines, that is going to stop the criminals from pirating music and movies illegally, which is the entire point of the bill in the first place, no?

Want more information on just how profoundly this bill could affect the technology industry from advanced computer science education, writing basic operating system software, the medical field, air traffic control and even the U.S.’s own security against terrorism? Read this letter, written to Senator Hollings from the U.S. Association for Computing Machinery Public Policy Committee which can be found at www.acm.org.

If you would like to know what you could do to help prevent this bill from becoming a law, first get informed on the issue. Then, write to your legislator! A complete list of legislators can be found at the following web site: www.eff.org

Go over and sign the on-line petition at www.petitiononline.com

Digitalconsumer.org will fax your letter to Congress!

Download the Congressional Record containing
Senator Hollings' statement and the bill S2048 in PDF format (1 page each):

S2269

S2270

S2271

S2272