Audio Video News

Plans by the entertainment industry to control the distribution of digital programming could have dire consequences for consumers, a Philips Electronics executive told US congressmen in late April.

Speaking before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, Philips Consumer Electronics North America president and CEO Lawrence J. Blanford said, "[If] Hollywood studios get their way, millions of consumers will have to replace their DVD players to watch digital TV programs that they have recorded." Blanford said that some studios, working with a small group of hardware companies known as the 5C, are "devising a plan for controlling the content of digital broadcast TV that raises serious issues of cost, complexity, reliability, and confusion for consumers."

The proposal "threatens the fair use rights of the consumer and introduces unnecessary levels of complexity and costs in consumer devices," Blanford warned, stating that in the future, consumers may have less control over what they see and record. Technology being developed by 5C is "inherently powerful," he said, with the ability to remotely disable a device that is recording a movie or other program in a consumer's home. Studios working with 5C could control "how people use their TVs, DVDs, and other devices in the privacy of their homes," he emphasized.

The 5C group "is pressing an approach through which all manufacturers of TVs, DVDs, and other devices will have to sign up for an overly broad and burdensome private license, which will govern the encryption technologies that must be in these devices and the process to enforce copyright protection," stated an official Philips press release on the issue, dated April 25. "This small group of companies will mandate the technologies, control the rules that govern the technologies, and change those rules whenever they desire."

"The current direction," Blanford told lawmakers, "is not in the interest of sound public policy, is not in the interest of the affected industries, and is certainly not in the interest of the consumer." His company, long an active member of the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (BPDG) industry working group, has "lost all confidence" that the group will achieve consensus, "or that it will allow for serious consideration or adoption of technology solutions of equal merit presented by other interested parties."

Similar circumstances neutralized efforts by the Secure Digital Music Initiative to find a workable solution to the problem of digital copy protection, and efforts by the DVD Forum to agree on a standard format for multichannel DVD-Audio.

Blanford said Philips welcomes government intervention in such processes. "Private industry should be given a chance to reach a consensus," he said, "but the process should be cleansed by the sunlight of government. Further discussion should be held in an open forum, with the involvement of those who are entrusted with the development of public policy." Blanford asked Congress "to reassert its role in this critical public-private partnership by providing an appropriate public forum to continue these industry discussions and to foster workable solutions on a timely basis."

Philips completely supports such an effort, Blanford said. "Private interests are taking control of the balance among consumer rights and commercial interests and, as a result, establishing public policy. We need an approach that will be fair to everyone."