The (Movie) Empire Strikes Back

Hollywood has embarked on another antipiracy campaign. Spooked by powerful PCs and broadband pipes that make it ever easier to copy and share films, the movie industry is expanding its legal and legislative offensive against perceived threats.

That effort has led to 200 lawsuits against users for allegedly trading movies over peer-to-peer networks. But it also threatens to restrict further what you can do with content you purchase and what products get developed at all.

The war has already prompted vendors to strip features from products like DVD burners, personal video recorders, and other devices that can record or stream video. It has also forced software vendors such as 321 Studios, makers of controversial DVD copying software, to close shop. A hundred operators of servers supporting BitTorrent file-sharing software may share 321 Studios' fate: In December, movie studios represented by the Motion Picture Association of America also sued them.

Limits on You

"We do have concerns that Hollywood, in an effort to protect its intellectual property, is going to stifle what a consumer can do with content that is lawfully acquired," says Jeff Joseph, Consumer Electronics Association spokesperson.

Fair use--a legal doctrine that recognizes your right to, say, mix a CD for your use--is under attack as copyright owners redraw lines defining what constitutes fair use in the digital age. Copyright concerns have already led to restrictions on new products. Entertainment servers--a new class of devices intended to enable users to store and distribute their movies, music, and photos throughout their home--typically can't archive your DVD collection, because practically all current means to do so violate 1998's Digital Millennium Copyright Act. DVD streaming via a home network is another casualty of the battle over copyright and piracy.

This past year, the Federal Communications Commission granted the MPAA further copyright protection. The FCC approved the broadcast flag, which is meant to prevent digital broadcast signals from being endlessly copied, whether for personal use or for commercial purposes. Under the FCC's ruling, new digital video recorders, TVs, PCs, and the like must, by July 2005, recognize the flag. The flag, which is sent along with the digital stream, tells compliant devices whether and how often a show may be copied, and whether copies can be transferred to other devices.

"Consumers are losing their choices of what they want to record and how they want to watch it," says Art Brodsky, communications director of Public Knowledge, a fair-use advocacy group. The group is challenging the FCC's ruling on the broadcast flag in court.

Next on the MPAA list of objectionable technology is TiVo. The MPAA opposes the new TiVoToGo feature, which lets users transfer saved programs or movies to a laptop or PC on a home network. Fritz Attaway, the MPAA's executive vice president and legal counsel, said in a statement, "We don't have a problem if you want to move the content to your summer home or to your boat, but the TiVo application does not require any kind of relationship with the sender. It could be [sent] to a nightclub in Singapore."

Limits on New Tech

Efforts to protect copyright may restrict product development, too. Some of this threat stems from last year's proposed Induce Act, a bill primarily aimed at P-to-P software vendors. The bill would make it a violation of copyright to entice, trick, or otherwise facilitate others into violating copyright. But the bill was written so broadly that critics feared it would discourage any technical innovations that could conceivably be used for copyright violation. Some observers argued that if the bill had been law 20 years ago, we would not have VCRs today. The bill died in Congress, but proponents are likely to reintroduce it this year.

Whether any of these measures will slow piracy--the MPAA puts industry losses at about $3.5 billion per year--remains an open question. Either way, law-abiding users are likely to lose some choices.