Re: Technology prohibiting copying by VCRs, etc.

On Mon, 26 Oct 1998, Larry Helfer <larry.helfer[_at_]lls.edu> wrote:
>
> Section 1201(k) of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act contains a series
> of complex provisions that require manufacturers and importers of a
> variety of VCRs to install, within 18 months of the Act's passage,
> "automatic gain control copy control technology" or "colorstripe copy
> control technology" which will prevent consumers from making private
> copies of pay-per-view, video on demand, and certain other transmissions
> of audiovisual works (thus effectively overruling in part the Sony
> Betamax case on technological grounds). Does anyone have more
> information on how these technologies operate and whether they can be
> used to prevent consumers from taping "off the air" (something Congress
> apparently does not want to restrict)? The statute merely states in
> section 1201(k)(4)(E) that these terms have "the meanings that are
> commonly understood in the consumer electronics and motion picture
> industries as of the date of the enactment of this chapter."

There are "encoding rules" limiting the use of these technologies to preventing copies (1) from packaged prerecorded media, (2) from pay-per-view or video on demand programs, or (3) from copies a consumer has already made from pay subscription channels (e.g., HBO), as to which the technologies cannot interfere with the making of such a first generation copy. The provision prevents the technology from being applied to other subscription or broadcast programming. The technologies in question are (a) the sort of "Macrovision" encoding that is now used on more than half of all VHS tapes, and (b) the sort of "Macrovision" encoding that is generated now in the analog NTSC-quality outputs of DVD players. The provision in no way reaches any digital interfaces or recorders, either as to response obligations or encoding limitations.

Bob Schwartz
<shebam[_at_]access.digex.net> Received on Tue Oct 27 1998 - 21:26:18 GMT