Video Idiocy 4 - Copy protection of Digital TV

My rant about digital TV and copy protection of it.

Last updated 1/8/01

The entertainment industry has fallen off the clue train and does not seem likely to get back up any time soon.

The newest instance of Video Idiocy is forcing copy protection into digital TV standards. This is an Extremely Bad Idea. It will hobble acceptance of digital TV, as people will not put up with restrictions on thier video habits. People have gotten used to being able to tape something, watch it later, and loan it out to friends. Even (horrors) making a copy for a friend who missed it is expected to be possible.

Digital TV is being tinkered with to make this difficult/impossible without permission of people who can be counted on not to give it unless money changes hands.

News Flash: I make an effort to be careful with my money, and the entertainment industry is making every effort to be too expensive to bother with.

The circumstances where I buy anything that cannot be used repeatedly are rather specialized. Physical comsumables like food, fuel, paper goods (assorted soft papers, printer paper, paper plates & cups) cleaning agents and the like are one. Communications services are another, and then I require a value for money balance that providers are not keen on, but put up with. Making certain calls with my cell phone costs less than on the land line, to the point where getting a cell phone actually reduced my aggregate phone costs. I only see movies in theaters with groups of friends as a social point, on my own I will pay very little to no money for something I can only see once. I use a few specialized services because the time they save me outweighs the money spent. Most of the rest of what I spend money on I expect to be able to use until sheer physical deterioration requires its disposal. In the case of information-based materials I expect to be able to use the information indefinitely (in the case of entertainments, forwarding to new storage media as needed) or until the information ceases to be relevant (news information). Before I had cable TV removed, its value was in a flat-rate for use and the ability to record for re-viewing or time-shifting. (The good stuff is never on when you're home.)

As for any devices I may purchase, I expect them to operate with maximum flexibility within thier function space. This means that all functions must be under my control. I will sometimes purchase devices that fail some of this criteria, but only when the inaccessible functions are of little consequence.

I was not an early adopter of DVD. Region controls and copy protection kept me off the format until they were defeated.

In general, I am unlikely to watch programs that I will not want to store for later re-viewing. If broadcast/cable copy protection becomes popular, I will have no reason to watch to begin with. This assumes that the logos that drove me from TV are not part of the digital TV landscape.

This also has impact for home video. Because of the above-mentioned logo issue, I am limited to tape and DVD on my TVs at home. If digital TVs and related gear have copy protection included, they will be of no value to me (and I suspect, many others) and will not be purchased until the impediments imposed by the entertainment industry are bypassed. And make no mistake, they WILL be bypassed.

The entertainment industry has forgotten something in thier rush to copyrght the universe. The original purpose of copyright was to insure a rich public domain by giving producers an incentive to produce for a limited time. It ws never intended that copyrights last eternally.

Also, it is a blatant falsehood that content providers will not make thier content available without content protection. If there is NO content protection the materials will still be available. Why? If they do not make the materials available they make NO money off of it. And as most corporate copyright holders have stockholders to answer to, who will not take non-release for ANY non-litigation related reason lightly.

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