Copy-protection detour in House

New bill would allow users to make legal copies

By Paul Sweeting -- Video Business, 11/17/2005

NOV. 17 | WASHINGTON—One week after Sony BMG Music was caught placing hidden copy-protection software on the computers of unsuspecting CD buyers, a House subcommittee opened hearings on a bill that would allow consumers to make a limited number of personal or fair use copies of CDs and DVDs.

Introduced by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), the Digital Media Consumer Rights Act would allow users to circumvent encryption codes on CDs and DVDs if the purpose in doing so is to make lawful use of the protected works.

If enacted, the provision would create an exception to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which currently prohibits circumvention regardless of the purpose.

“This bill proceeds from a straightforward assumption,” Boucher said at the hearing on Nov. 16. “When people purchase digital media, they should be able to use it lawfully. Right now, the technical protection measures [in the DMCA] stand in the way of lawful uses.”

The bill comes at an awkward time for content owners.

Music companies have recently increased the use of so-called digital rights management software on CDs in an effort to cut down on unauthorized file sharing.

The studios, meanwhile, are preparing to introduce elaborate new copy-protection schemes on Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD that would allow disc players to be “revoked,” or disabled in the event they’re used to hack the encryption codes.

Should Congress start creating exemptions to the ban on circumventing encryption, some of the studios’ and music companies’ more exotic copy-protection plans could be called into question.

The studios and music companies also are pushing their own bills on Capitol Hill to expand the uses of copy protection in digital media. Having a related but opposing measure kicking around the same committees could slow or even sidetrack the measures favored by copyright owners.

Although Boucher’s bill has languished on Capitol Hill for the past year, it has recently begun to gain momentum.

The measure was given new impetus this month when the details of the Sony BMG system became public and caused an angry backlash from fair use advocates and computer experts.

In addition to placing on computers hidden files that secretly tracked users’ handling of music tracks, the system opened a “back door” in the computer’s operating system that would allow Sony BMG to gain entry in the future.

Computer security experts complained that virus writers and others could exploit the same opening for malicious purposes.

After the uproar, Sony was forced to issue a patch for the security hole and recall the copy-protected discs.

“If [the Boucher bill] were ever important, it became even more so in the last two weeks,” Consumer Electronics Assn. president Gary Shapiro said in testimony to the subcommittee. “It’s clear that some in the content community take the position that any kind of unauthorized copying should be illegal—period.”

Copyright owners at the hearing denounced the proposed measure, however.

“Permitting access controls to be circumvented for some purposes opens the floodgates to piracy,” Entertainment Software Assn. senior VP Ric Hirsch said. “If you allow tools for circumventing, there’s no way you can restrict them only to lawful uses.”

Subcommittee chairman Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) urged the sides to try to find a compromise.

“If we had a uniform [digital rights management] system that was clear to consumers and everybody understood, we could probably resolve a lot of these problems without having to legislate,” he said.