New Shackles on Your CD, Video Copying

Video

The video industry is making its own moves, but consumers may be less resistant here because DVD movies have always carried copy protection and there's great familiarity with--and acceptance of--the pay-per-view model.

Copy protections appear in everything from VHS analog tapes to set-top boxes, and more. A pay-per-view movie can already be scrambled so it plays properly but won't allow a clean copy. Such technology is so widespread that further restrictions could be applied easily--and they likely will be--once video-on-demand services launch.

Carol Flaherty, video technology vice president at Macrovision, a major player in this market, points out the company's technology will also accommodate DRM, so content providers can choose to allow one or more copies. Some movie studios are sensitive to users' arguments that under certain conditions, fair-use copying may be legitimate, she says.

As DVD recorders replace VCRs in coming years and as more cable systems go digital, even some cable TV may have DRM rules. Andy Parsons, senior vice president at Pioneer Electronics, speculates that once a purely digital connection exists between your TV and your recorder, the signal--say, an HBO movie--may have a code that lets you record to DVD once, but prevents copies from that disc.

And in 2002, five major studios will enter the downloadable video market with MovieFly, a service that will use a video rental model. At first, you won't be able to transfer the movie out of the PC you've downloaded it to; later versions may let you do so.

Killing Free Stuff

Companies know protection schemes aren't foolproof--numerous high-profile hacks underscore the point. However, that problem will not cause content owners to withhold content, Flaherty says.

But that content will be restricted. Whether users will want it with such strings attached is a separate question.