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LOS ANGELES -- Technology is outpacing laws, the entertainment industry insists: As consumers take advantage of the capability to record broadcasts, the industry fears it cannot afford to generate new material--so it stops.

Didn't hear about this lockdown? Don't worry, it's not imminent--it happened in the 1930s, when consumers first exploited the capability to tape radio broadcasts. The entertainment industry's simple but flawed answer was to briefly stop producing new shows.

Today Hollywood is facing an update of the same problem: the opportunity of digital distribution and the threat of digital piracy. Could we see the same result?

"How do we go backwards and lock things down today?" asked Douglas Olin, an intellectual property rights protection lawyer with Lerwick Partners. "I don't think you can do that."

This issue and many others regarding digital rights were debated at the recent Digital Studio Summit here. Plenty of questions--but few answers--were raised at the two-day conference focusing on the impact of digital technology on filmmaking and TV production.

Balancing Act

Hollywood is struggling to straddle a line: After spending gobs of cash to make and market blockbusters, it wants moviegoers to fill theaters and then buy DVDs for home entertainment--but it doesn't want them to siphon its profits by making copies.

Moviemakers point to the music world as an act they fear that they'll follow. The number of pirated audio recordings has grown, due to global file-sharing networks like Napster that operate right under the noses of the recording industry. The Recording Industry Association of America is striking back, with its recent suit against four college students who set up their own peer-to-peer sites. Such efforts may have slowed the bleeding, but the industry still blames illegal recordings for a steep decline in new music sales.

One potential solution is the creation of new laws, but relying on lawmakers to solve the problem raises several concerns--one being the long delay in turning a bill into law.

"I also worry about preferences for particular companies and particular vendors," Olin said. "I don't want the government picking winners and losers."

Meanwhile, the pace of technological change moves furiously ahead. Technology bottlenecks--such as limited storage space on hard drives, and dial-up modems that make it impractical to download songs, let alone movies--have a way of disappearing, entertainment industry representatives noted. Though downloading feature-length movies, even with broadband connections, is a serious time commitment, that speed bump won't stand forever.

"We tend to very frequently look at what happened to the music industry and say that this is what is going to happen to the movie industry, but it's not necessarily so," Olin said.

Creative Solutions

"I don't think we want to criminalize everyone who made a copy of their DVD," said William Marks, director of business development for Disney Worldwide Services, who was on the panel with Olin.

Should the industry simply accept an unavoidable piracy rate by individual consumers, and concentrate solely on large-scale rip-off artists who make large numbers of copies for commercial purposes?

The Motion Picture Association of America estimates that the industry has lost $2.5 billion to piracy, but it's hard to substantiate that figure. Just about every business has write-offs for uncollected debts and other losses, so why not chalk up personal piracy as a minor loss for the studios as well?

"This has been going on for ages, but [Disney is] still in business," Olin noted.

The industry is exploring other business models to keep consumers buying. For example, sales of movies on DVD routinely include bonus content that wasn't part of the theatrical release of the films.

Marks said those new services, plus enforcement of the rights of the copyright holders, must be teamed with emerging technology controls so that content owners can control what is done with their work.

"New business models and breakthrough technology for digital rights management can go hand-in-hand," Marks said.

In Control for Too Long?

But even the copyright laws that give content owners those rights might bear another look, Olin suggested.

The length of copyright protection adds to the dilemma. Originally, artists received a 14-year copyright, which could be renewed for another 14 years by the copyright holder. Under current law, copyright protection stretches out much further--for the lifetime of the artist plus 70 years.

"What is being protected here?" Olin asked. For example, did A.A. Milne, author of Winnie the Pooh, create the classic children's book so a big entertainment company like Disney could earn a substantial return on investment more than a century after the author's death?

If copyright length deserves a second look, so do the current business models that support it, according to Olin.

"Whatever the solution is has to strike a balance between the rights of artists that create this property and seek remuneration for it, and the public," Olin said.