OPINION: Time to copy
By Paul Sweeting -- Video Business, 5/25/2007
MAY 25 | I’M FRIENDLY WITH some of the folks involved in the AACS negotiations, so I’m reluctant to be too harsh. But when I saw the reports rocketing across the Internet this morning that a deal on managed copy is close to being done, my first reaction was, I’ll believe it when I see it.
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda
Negotiations to set the rules for the managed copying of Blu-ray Discs and HD DVDs within the AACS framework have been going on for more than three years, and a deal has reportedly been close more times than I can count.
It’s possible a deal truly is close this time, because, really, how much longer can this go on? But if it turns out not to be true, it wouldn’t be the first time hope and good intentions were thwarted.
The studios certainly have every incentive to get a deal done on managed copy, now that hackers have found ways to poke holes in AACS. If the industry can’t come up with a way to offer consumers managed copy soon, unmanaged copying could quickly get out of control.
Unfortunately, some studios are likely to draw the opposite lesson from the recent compromise of AACS. They’ll see managed copy as potentially opening the door into AACS and will want to impose stricter controls on the managed copy. That could complicate the negotiations further.
Another issue that apparently continues to bedevil is the long controversial question of mandatory managed copy.
As envisioned by the IT companies involved in AACS, mandatory managed copy means the studios would have to allow at least one copy to be made from every disc.
That requirement was always problematic because there will be cases where the distributor of a movie does not have the rights to authorize another copy. But some studios have been opposed from the start, preferring to preserve the option of authorizing managed copy on a title by title basis.
There are indications in the latest reports that a compromise may have been reached on the question, opening the way to a final deal. Managed copy would be mandatory for HD DVD, but optional for Blu-ray studios, which include Fox, the studio that has set the bar highest for approving a managed copy regime.
Another thorny issue has been studios’ insistence on charging consumers for their managed copy.
As envisioned by the studios, consumers would have to contact an online “clearing house” that would authorize a managed copy and keep track of how many are made.
In most cases, that authorization would come at a price.
The latest reports indicate some studios may seek to simplify that process by baking the cost of the managed copy into the retail price of the disc.
FOR ALL THE HARD work that has gone into the negotiations, however, the industry may simply have been digging itself a deeper hole.
That’s because the real enemy is time. The longer it takes to offer consumers what they want, the more time consumers spend figuring out how to get it themselves, as we’ve already seen with the early AACS hacks.
The longer it takes the industry to reach a deal on managed copy, and the more complex it makes the process for consumers, the less value managed copy will have in the marketplace, making any scheme to try charging for it moot.
Let’s hope the reports are right and a deal really is imminent. Because as it stands, the industry is in danger of talking managed copy to death.
