LAS VEGAS -- The battle over who owns digital content and whether it is moral or even legal to download and distribute over the Internet won't be resolved this year, said some high-profile speakers at the Consumer Electronics tradeshow.
When asked to predict the outcome of proposed legislation and litigation brought by recording studios against digital file-sharing websites, Scott Dinsdale of the Motion Picture Association of America, said he hoped that the "progress" made by the studios to protect themselves from piracy wouldn't be hampered.
In the other corner, Steve Griffin, CEO of StreamCast Networks, a company that promotes peer-to-peer systems and has already been sued by "29 of the most powerful" media companies – "you can't get anymore sued than our company has," he joked -- was confident that the recording studios would drop their suit and embrace file-sharing technology to distribute their content.
Receiving more hoots and hollers than anyone else on that panel was Steve Wozniak, an Apple co-founder and perhaps the most prominent speaker. Wozniak said he couldn't comment either way, "I'm really kind of neutral."
But one thing's for sure: Some electronics makers have already made up their minds.
During last week's CES show at the Las Vegas Convention Center, many electronic manufacturers introduced products that would prohibit people from sharing copied or downloaded digital content.
Semiconductor chipmaker Silicon Image, for example, said it was testing silicon for digital television sets and other digital media products that would limit the recording of certain programs.
Meanwhile, TiVo said it added "TiVo Guard" to its digital recording service to prohibit people from sending content from their TiVo recorders to other people's homes. The guard also limits viewing of a program to one machine at a time even within a single home.
Such products caught the eye of George Borkowski, a lead attorney in the prosecution against Napster, who said, "I am happy to see it."
"I think there's been a realization by people putting out these products that the content industry won’t keep putting content out and not get paid for it," Borkowski said.
Or, as in the case made by consumer advocates and other electronics makers, companies like TiVo and Silicon Image may be acting too soon.
Just as litigation, legislation and talks of broadcast flags and other ways to encode and copyright digital material have ensued, consumer advocacy groups like DigitalConsumer.org and the Home Recording Rights Coalition have erected campaigns of their own to educate the public on the right to share digital media. The HRRC came out in favor of legislation proposed last week by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Virginia) and Rep. John Doolittle (R-California) that would require conspicuous labels on copyright-protected CDs that may not work in every media player.
"The Boucher-Doolittle bill's main purpose is to reaffirm the law," said Robert Schwartz, an attorney for the HRRC.
What the outcome of that law will be at the end of the year simply isn't clear.
On the legislative front, the FCC appears poised to pass an agreement struck by the Consumer Electronics Association and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association to speed up the transition from analog to digital TV.
TV broadcasters are required to relinquish their analog airwaves by 2007 or as soon as 85 percent of U.S. households have a DTV. Because 70 percent of the population receives programming through cable, the CEA and NCTA agreement requires a "plug-and-play" system for future HDTVs that would not require cable subscribers to purchase a separate set-top box to receive digital broadcasts.
"We have a lot of energy behind (that proposal)," said FCC Chairman Michael Powell.
However, some significant drawbacks exist. Program providers could restrict the number of times that a program can be recorded. Why? To protect the copyright of the content.
But when pressed on his view on adding so-called broadcast flags, in general, to digital television signals in order to prevent people from recording a TV show or movie and then rebroadcasting it over the Internet, Powell demurred. "The FCC is not the copyright office," he said.
Even though the FCC is collecting public comment on a proposal that would require broadcast flags in DTVs, Powell admitted he wasn't sure "what role, if any the FCC should play" in making such a decision.
Perhaps the FCC will have a better idea on which way it will sway once products such as TiVo Guard are in the market.
In a public stumble last week, Powell said a TiVo recorder was his favorite Christmas present, but that he would like to be able to share content with his sister.
"It's up to you, actually," CEA president Gary Shapiro said.
The crowd roared.
Powell said nothing.
