MPAA looks to bolster its dominance by plugging the analog hole

Introduction

In all of our recent coverage of the oncoming High Definition revolution in entertainment, we’ve not talked too much about the infamous analog hole. The analog hole is the bane of Hollywood’s attempt to control your life; put succinctly, if you can hear it or see it on today’s consumer electronics devices, you can copy it, with rare exception.

The EFF has managed to get an advance copy of proposed legislation (PDF) that is scheduled to be introduced this Thursday. Entitled the "Analog Content Security Preservation Act of 2005," this bit of MPAA-drafted work will have a hearing in the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property. For the most part, it’s the same fear-mongering song and dance we’re used to seeing (some of you may remember that just over three years ago the MPAA was asking Congress to force analog recording devices to obey DRM, and this is more or less doing this exact same thing).

If the MPAA has their way, all new devices capable of receiving video input must obey two DRM technologies, VEIL and CGMS-A (Video Encoded Invisible Light technology and Content Generation Management System—Analog, respectively). Such devices, be they DVRs, VCRs, analog input cards for a PC, etc., will have to listen for DRM markers in analog content and obey any restrictions on display or management (e.g., copying). Contrary to what I’ve read elsewhere, this is not limited to devices manufactured in the United States. It applies to all devices available through legal channels, including importation. Furthermore, I’d like to note that CGMS-A is the bandit behind the various copy control snafus that have been witnessed on the likes of TiVo and Microsoft’s Windows Media Center Edition.

Or, to simplify, any device that can record video will be illegal to import or purchase in a year, if it doesn’t obey DRM. Not only does this affect consumer electronics, but it would also have severe affects on computer hardware as well, which will have to provide secure pathways for all analog content. And operating systems based on open-source software would be in double trouble, because the DRM is closed source.

If you’ve been waiting for the Broadcast Flag to meet, fall in love, and reproduce with Genghis Khan, then wait no more. This bill does what the Broadcast Flag does for over-the-air (OTA) TV, but it extends it to every new device in the country for every kind of video, and adds even more control granularity for the content industry.

The Act would essentially create three classes of content: (i) Copy Unlimited No Redistribution Content, which as you might guess would allow for unlimited copies, but would require that the DRM specify that distribution is not allowed. (ii) Copy One Generation Content would allow for one copy to be made, but that copy would then need to be marked as uncopiable, and then finally, (iii) Copy Prohibited Content. With regards to the latter, they mean business. Get this (emphasis mine):

An Analog Video Input Device shall not record or cause the recording of Copy Prohibited Content in digital form except for retention for a period not to exceed 90 minutes from initial receipt of each unit of such content, including retention and deletion on a frame-by-frame, minute-by-minute or megabyte-by-megabyte basis, using a Bound Recording Method, and provided that such content shall be destroyed or otherwise rendered unusable prior to or upon expiration of such period. (emphasis added.)

In plain English, this means that your recorded program, should you start watching it an hour after it’s done recording, will start to delete itself 30 minutes later. Think of the fun you and your family can have trying to keep ahead of the deletion queue!

Now, you may have picked up on "Bound Recording Method" in that excerpt. This method, in short, ties the recording to the recorder. Your DVR, for example, records content but then stamps that content with a cryptographic cipher which renders it playable only on that device. As you can see, this could make things like TiVoToGo utterly pointless.

Why is this needed?

Here comes plenty of opinion.

The entire thing is a giant excuse to try and control how users interface with content, down to the nitty gritty. And for what? Analog content is, relatively speaking, poorer than digital content. Is the fear that someone would pirate and distribute down-sampled, lower-quality versions of content enough to legislate yet another assault on Fair Use? And to what end? Are we really supposed to believe that after making electronics more complex and less-user-friendly, the organized crime folks aren’t going to find a way around this anyway? I’m sure consumers will love to deal with finicky, random restrictions on what they can do with content, just so an industry’s fascist fantasies can come true. And just where in that proposed legislation is the part about when the controls expired? Oh, it’s not there. Huh. It’s almost like they expect neverending copyrights.

OK, but this isn’t just about the MPAA playing fascist. There’s an end in mind to all of this, and while you can’t see it all through this legislation, I’m convinced of their true agenda. Once all video content is laden with DRM (even boring old analog video), and once that DRM can dictate everything you can do with the content, they’re going to monetize everything they can. I’ve been watching this develop for years. Allow me to quote myself:

Fair Use has always been a thorn in the side of content producers. Long before there was digital content flowing through he veins of the ‘Net, there were battles over what was and was not permissible with content. The advent of tape recorders caused a shockwave. VHS and Betamax exacerbated the arguments, but the courts for the most part defended the rights of consumers. Now it’s 2004, and most of the media is ignoring the real drive behind DRM. It’s not piracy. It’s our old pal, Fair Use.

For the first time in history, we can copy content and distribute it over massive global networks. We can put copies on every device we own, and we can even modify the content to suit our own needs.  But more important, and don’t miss this now, for the first time in history, the content producers and distributors have a technological way of shutting off Fair Use through contract language, DRM technology, and anti-circumvention laws. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: DRM is not about piracy, it’s about shutting down fair use. It makes a lot of sense when you start thinking about DRM being Sonny Bono’s twin brother. It’s one of the key pieces of that horrid affront to the progress of civilization: the perpetual copyright.

These laws aren’t about piracy, and anyone who thinks they are needs to stop, look, and listen. Once the MPAA and pals have their way, you’re going to pay through the nose for even the most basic of Fair Use rights. You’re going to pay for the right to rewind and "re-experience" content. The Copy Prohibited Content class, complete with its asinine insta-delete feature is nothing but a back door into attacking what the content industry hates most: your ability to timeshift content. Yes, Jack Valenti said the VCR would destroy Hollywood, and while these moonbats no longer believe that, they do know that the rhetoric works.

Someday, if the MPAA gets its way, you are going to pay for the right to timeshift (or for the right to placeshift). You are going to pay for the right to move videos to your iPod or to your PSP. No one cares if you spent US$20 on that Blu-ray disc. In 5 years, you’ll be lucky if you can even play stuff you’ve purchased without relicensing it. Look at ringtones. Here we’re talking about a related industry that wants to scare people into paying for ringtones, even if they already have an album with the song they want on it. Ringtones! Are you kidding me?

And one final thing. This legislation is flat-out antitechnology, and we should all be up in arms that some pathetic industry group is literally trying to dictate our technological future, for no good reason whatsoever. Think this is hyperbole? Think again. The proposed law, for instance, has special provisions for "professional devices." You know what qualifies as a professional device? Literally: things that don’t sell very well. If an item sells too well, that must mean Joe Public is on to it, and this makes the manufacturer party to contributory infringement.

What kind of inanity is that? And while I’m asking questions, can someone identify which Congressional district elected the MPAA? They are writing legislation, after all.

Cleaning up

As I put the finishing touches on this story, I am compelled to comment on a couple of responses that I anticipate. The first is the "who cares it will be cracked anyway" argument, which I’ll simply dismiss by saying that a society and its laws are meant to apply to everyone equally. While any cynic worthy of the fifth grade knows that justice is hardly blind, welcoming a law that will punish the technically unsavvy is sadism, at best. Count me out.