A Lump of Coal for Consumers: Analog Hole Bill Introduced

Posted by Danny O'Brien

While the Senate was standing up for civil liberties, the House was handing out a Christmas gift to Hollywood. For digital consumers and innovators, however, it looks to be a nasty stocking-filler.

Representatives Sensenbrenner and Conyers have introduced H.R. 4569, the "Digital Transition Content Security Act of 2005," a.k.a. the return of the MPAA's "Plugging the Analog Hole" scheme, which is itself just a variant on the dreaded "Hollings Bill" introduced back in 2002.

The new bill is a rehash of the one we first mentioned on Halloween. It would impose strict legal controls on any video analog to digital (A/D) convertors "manufacture[d], imported or otherwise traffic[ed]" in the United States.

Digitizers and digital media devices that won't jump through the specified outrageous regulatory hoops - automatically deleting protected analog content after ninety minutes; outputting only "down-rezzed" images, and satisfying "robustness criteria" that weld the hood shut against user modification and open source developers - are expected to simply turn off and refuse to convert watermark-protected analog video.

And how is this analog video protected? Using an old broadcast-flag like technology called CGMS-A and a new watermarking system called VEIL.

Mandating the VEIL watermark on all video A/D devices is particularly remarkable, as VEIL has had no independent testing as a copy protection technology. In fact, VEIL's main use until now has been in a series of Warner-licensed Bat-Toys!

Yet, if H.R. 4569 becomes law, technology companies would be bound by law to support this Bat-Toy technology in their products. Anyone who creates a new device that cannot pass on the VEIL watermark, or somehow overrides it, is breaking the law. If he does it for "purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain", he's a bona-fide criminal.

And if VEIL is so widely broken as to be deemed unusable (couldn't happen to a Bat-Toy technology, could it?), the U.S. government, in the form of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), will be expected to devise and enforce a new solution. So the Bat-Toy is only the nose under the technology mandates tent - if VEIL doesn't work out, government bureaucrats get to replace it with whatever strikes them as a good idea at the time.

The Analog Hole law is just the first of the MPAA/RIAA's Horror Triple Feature to be introduced into Congress. The others are the Broadcast Flag and technology mandate for digital radio. Perhaps they think that Congress will "compromise" by passing one of the three. Or perhaps they're hoping for a troika of victories in 2006 in their endless campaign against their own customers.

Whatever the MPAA's plan, however, your representatives need to understand that their constituents are not eager for a world of more DRM, more tech mandates, and less innovation. Write to them now.

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Halloween on the Hill

Posted by Danny O'Brien

If you would like to join our jamboree
There's a simple rule that's compulsory
Mortals pay a token fee
Rest in peace; the haunting's free

- The Crypt, Disney's The Haunted Mansion

Halloween is traditionally the time when the undead walk; preposterous monstrosities that no-one could imagine living stumble and moan through the land.

So guess what the entertainment industry decided to dust off for an extra spooky session with the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday?

Why, yes, they are bringing the broadcast flag. And, certainly, there is talk of their henchmen at the RIAA clumsily re-animating their insane digital radio requirements.

But that's not spooky enough for the MPAA. For their party trick this year, they want to take one of the most basic and ubiquitous components in multimedia, and encase it within a pile of legally-enforced, complex, and patented proprietary technology - forever.

Ladies and gentlemen, the MPAA have chosen Halloween week to resurrect their most misconceived monster ever: the Thing from the Analog Hole.

Feel free to flick through this new Halloween document: it's a legislative draft proposed by the MPAA for a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, on the topic "Content Protection in the Digital Age: The Broadcast Flag, High-Definition Radio, and the Analog Hole," on November 3rd.

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TiVo Owners: Got Macrovision?

Posted by Fred von Lohmann

Have you noticed that when you "update" a product these days, you have to be on your guard lest the vendor slip in a "downgrade"? Like when Apple "updated" iTunes to reduce the number of burns you could make from the music you bought from the iTunes Music Store?

Well, here's another reminder of how "updates" can hurt you. As reported in the PVRBlog, the latest TiVo OS "update" causes some TiVos to start popping up red copyright warning flags on certain saved programs (including the Simpsons), threatening to automatically erase programs after a certain number of days. These restrictions are part of TiVo's move, as reported last year, to lockdown and auto-erase content that is marked by broadcasters with Macrovision (a technology originally intended to befuddle analog VCRs, but now also being used as a flag to mark analog video for copy restrictions).

It looks like it was a glitch on TiVo's end this time. Only pay-per-view and "premium channel" (i.e., HBO) programs were supposed to be Macrovisioned. (In fact, section 1201(k)(2) of the Copyright Act forbids broadcasters from putting Macrovision on any other programs.)

Of course, the fact that it was a glitch this time is should be no comfort to TiVo owners. When you bought your TiVo, you could record and keep the Sopranos, or Six Feet Under, or that exclusive boxing match. Thanks to the "updates" to your TiVo, now that capability can be taken away from you at the broadcaster's whim.

It's a good reminder that, in an age when Hollywood is calling the DRM shots and technology companies acquiesce, "updates" may no longer be your friend.

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Microsoft Sells Out the Public on CGMS-A

Posted by Derek Slater

Staff Technologist Seth Schoen, EFF's resident expert on trusted computing, recently attended this year's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC). This is the final post in a four-part series in which Schoen provides detailed updates on the status of Microsoft's security and lockware strategies for Windows. The outcome of these strategies will affect to what degree people using the platform and "trusted" PCs can maintain a desirable level of control over their own computers. Previous posts can be found here, here, and here.

*****

Although the Digital Millennium Copyright Act gave the public a raw deal, its reach is not unlimited. The DMCA's scope is expressly limited by the so-called "no mandate" clause, which establishes that technologies that deal with unencrypted, open standard media formats are not restricted by the DMCA. These technologies are unregulated even if the entertainment industries dislike them and even if they do not obey those industries' preferences for restricting users. Absent additional legislation, the copyright holders have no right to control general-purpose technologies -- like computers, sound cards, or software -- that deal only with open standards. That's why the Motion Picture Association of America has long sought new "technology mandate" legislation to go beyond the DMCA: to impose the broadcast flag, to "close the analog hole," and to regulate file-sharing software. Without such legislation, MPAA argues, the public will continue to have access to at least some avenues for making unauthorized uses.

Or will it? What if technology companies collaborate with Hollywood in locking up open standards, even without any legal obligation to do so? This prospect is looking increasingly plausible as Microsoft moves closer to supporting the Copy Generation Management System for Analog (CGMS-A). CGMS-A is an industry standard for marking video programming with metadata about the copyright holder's or broadcaster's preferences for whether and how a work may be recorded. The DMCA expressly provides that devices do not have to act upon or enforce such preferences; complying with CGMS-A metadata is a favor to Hollywood, not the law.

(Read on for more after the jump.)

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Protected Media Path, Component Revocation, Windows Driver Lockdown

Posted by Derek Slater

Staff Technologist Seth Schoen, EFF's resident expert on trusted computing, recently attended this year's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC). This is the third of a four-part series in which Schoen provides detailed updates on the status of Microsoft's security and lockware strategies for Windows. The outcome of these strategies will affect to what degree people using the platform and "trusted" PCs can maintain a desirable level of control over their own computers. The first two posts can be found here and here.

*****

In the near future, when you try to install software to time-shift your favorite Real Audio webcast, your PC might disable all media player applications. Until you remove the software, your PC will remain crippled. Or perhaps you want to watch a downloaded movie on a wide-screen TV, but your PC might turn off its video card's analog output.

Welcome to the world of Windows Longhorn (now known as Vista) and the Protected Media Path, where Microsoft, copyright holders, and DRM licensors may grant or revoke permission to use your own computer and digital media.

(Read on after the jump.)

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