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LAS VEGAS -- Consumers have a right to share music, videos, and other digital content that they have purchased between their computing devices, and a commercial model needs to be developed that allows them to do so, Intel Chief Executive Officer Craig Barrett said at the Consumer Electronics Show Thursday.

As a company that spends billions of dollars on research and development, and files for thousands of technology patents a year, Intel understands the value of intellectual property, he said. But consumers have an "expectation" that they'll be able to use legally acquired content however they want to.

"There's no simple solution to this," he said. "Law enforcement has a role to play, and anyone who grossly violates anybody's content should be severely dealt with," he said.

Equipment makers can also help by using technology that limits the "retransmission" of content. "There also has to be an acceptable commercial model to let people send content over the Internet," Barrett said.

Popular Topic

His remarks reflect an issue on the minds of many here at CES this week. Vendors who sell computers and consumer electronics equipment have made a small fortune selling gear that allows consumers to record and share their digital media, but they are battling entertainment executives who fear that mass piracy will destroy their businesses.

The issue will be addressed by a panel of experts here Saturday in a discussion titled: "Digital Downloads: What's mine is mine, what's yours is mine."

Barrett also used his speech to promote the wonders of wireless technology, calling it "one of the major advances in the last few years."

"Unwiring the PC and allowing it to access the Internet, having it interact with other devices, and the convergence of computing with consumer electronics is going to be one of the main themes to come out of this CES," he said.

PC Versus TV

He seemed to skirt around the issue of whether the PC or the television will serve as the hub of the digital home, but in the end Barrett came down, predictably, on the side of the PC.

"We could argue about what's at the center of the network. I don't think anything is at the center of the network. We have TVs, we have PCs, and we have content coming into the home. The real issue is: What can we do with that technology? You want to manipulate it, you want to store it, and that's where the PC really comes into its own," Barrett said.

"The PC, in my mind, is the most versatile piece of equipment in the house, it is the most interactive piece of equipment in the house," Barrett said.

Earlier Thursday, Sony's President and Chief Operating Officer Kunitake Ando put the TV at the heart of the digital home, while Dell Computer Chair and CEO Michael Dell asserted it would continue to be the PC.

Around the World

Either way, Barrett predicted that digital technology would quickly envelop the world.

"The thing to realize is that the interest in this technology extends far beyond the U.S.," he said. "Almost wherever you go in the world, you see this preoccupation with digital technologies."

Streets in Amman, Jordan, are packed with Internet cafes, he said. In Russia computers are being used to make railways more efficient, in Spain a small town recently declared that it is going "completely wireless," and in the Middle East oil companies are using technology to save millions of dollars a year recovering oil.

The digitization of the world will be led by young people, Barrett said.

"This is the generation that grew up thinking airport security and personal computers have always been here," he joked. "This is the group who can not only type out a message on a cell phone keyboard, but can do it while it's still in their pocket."

"I may not be able to convince you to go out and buy our next generation of computing technology, but I have no trouble selling it to these young people," Barrett told the CES audience. "They never ask, 'What am I going to do with this extra processing power--do I really need more memory?' The answer for them is always 'Yes.'"

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