Digital Content and Security

I'd be the last person to encourage anyone to trample the rights of people who own content. Heck, this is content, and I created it, and I don't really like it when someone else misuses it, or uses it with malicious intent, or for ill-gotten gains. Sure, it happens, but outside of casual use, I wouldn't be too happy if I found this article being used on someone else's site as if they had rights to post it, particularly if that site profited from the action.

Having said that, I am not exactly worried about it, and it isn't as if this column is going to shake up the Billboard charts. What's my point? Today, Tuesday 3 April, 2001 a Senate Judiciary Committee is investigating issues that are going to have a profound effect on the way you, me, everyone uses and manipulates their digital audio and video. Or, is it?

This is taken verbatim from the Senate Judiciary Committee Web site agenda for the 107th Congress

Copyright and Fair Use: Consumers and Creators in the Digital Age: Building on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act, and other landmark legislation developed in the committee to promote the availability of popular entertainment in digital form, the committee will examine the roles, rights, and responsibilities of the artists, the audience, and the entities, which serve to bring them together. As new technical issues and business models develop, basic questions need to be asked anew about the relationships between the artists and the media companies that market and distribute their product; about the rights of consumers and fans to use works in new ways; about the ability of technology companies and other mediators to deploy new products and services to facilitate those uses; and about the accessibility of works to scholars, teachers, students, or others for legitimate purposes. Additionally, the committee will continue to encourage an open and competitive environment for the production and distribution of digital content on the Internet and other media.

Interestingly enough, it appears that the National Committee on Information Technology Standards (NCITS) struck down the proposal for Copy Protection in Recordable Media (CPRM) for the ATA standard yesterday. Judging by some of the mail I received in the last two weeks not many of you will be shedding a tear for the organization behind CPRM, 4C Entity LLC. I can't say that I was too worried about the situation, but then I can live in blissful ignorance most of the time.

Anyhow, CPRM was only one battle that was won, or lost, depending on your view of the matter, but the war is far from over. There's a lot at stake, and there are a lot of people who hope to make money from the mere act of stopping you from using copyright stuff in any way but the way deemed by its distributor. When it comes to greed and avarice among corporations, and the desire of the public to get stuff without filling said corporations' coffers any more than is absolutely necessary, no one can agree on anything. I mean, the consumer electronics industry, the computer industry, and the recording industry, the movie business, all of these guys can't agree to agree. They'll be fighting over standards, or putting out competing ones for many years to come, and CDs, and MP3s are not going to go away for several years. See, every cloud has a silver lining.

So, let me take a different tack, and look at a technology that should be making its appearance in stores by the end of this year, and which I think is a harbinger of digital content security more than any number of attempts at copy protection through monopolistic standards. Warning. Don't berate me about this. Take it up in the Forums on the Community pages, and I'll dive in there at some point. I am still trying to catch up on all your feedback and suggestions from the last Second Hand Smoke .