[Infowarrior] - MPAA to FCC: critics of video blocking proposals are lying

[Richard Forno]

MPAA to FCC: critics of video blocking proposals are lying
Hollywood is now resorting to calling critics of its analog stream- 
blocking proposal liars, while talking out of both sides of its mouth  
about DVD encryption and piracy. But the brunt of this accusation,  
Public Knowledge, still insists that shutting down the output to  
millions of HDTVs won't benefit consumers.

By Matthew Lasar | Last updated November 25, 2009 12:43 PM

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/11/mpaa-to-fcc-critics-of-video-blocking-proposals-are-lying.ars
The movie studios have a new Holy Grail, it seems: Federal  
Communications Commission permission to cable companies to shut down  
the analog streams on video-on-demand movie programming. As Ars  
readers know, we've been covering this issue for a while. But the  
Motion Picture Association of America's latest letter to the FCC pulls  
out all the stops, rhetoric-wise, calling criticisms of this scheme  
"complete and utter nonsense that only can be intended to stir up  
baseless fears among consumers that their equipment will suddenly go  
dark and be unusable for any purpose."

These are "deplorable claims," the MPAA told the FCC on Monday. Plus  
they "distort the truth." They're also "simply and irrefutably  
untrue," the trade association adds (in case you didn't get it yet).

False untruthfulness
The main target of MPAA's outrage is the advocacy group Public  
Knowledge, one of whose spokespersons, Harold Feld, has an ongoing  
video series called "Five Minutes With Harold Feld," in which the  
aforementioned offers his takes on "incredibly boring and wonky  
things" and tries "to make them slightly less boring, because this  
stuff is important." The allegedly offensive five-minute video in  
question deals with what MPAA wants, which is technically called  
"Selectable Output Control"—shutting down the analog stream to HDTVs  
and other devices because it is less secure (copyable) than digital  
streams, which can be scrambled. The FCC currently prohibits the  
practice.

The studios say they want to plug the "analog hole" with SOC because  
it will allow them to offer the public pre-DVD VoD movie releases with  
less threat of piracy. The problem, as Feld's video on this subject  
points out, is that a considerable amount of analog only connected  
equipment won't be able to receive these offerings. "And for this,"  
Feld skeptically declares, "we're going to break 25 million television  
sets, and break your TiVO, and break your Slingbox, and make sure you  
can't use it on VoD anymore, because [Feld looking especially  
skeptical here] it's so important to get these movies to video-on- 
demand earlier."

Feld's "deplorable claims" are "absolutely, 100 percent untrue," MPAA  
counters. "The use of SOC would have no impact whatsoever on the  
ability of existing television sets, Tivos, Slingboxes or any other  
consumer product to work in exactly the same fashion that such devices  
work today. While products with only unprotected outputs and inputs  
would not be able to receive the new early window offerings that would  
be made possible by the SOC waiver, no device would be broken. Nor  
would any consumer be unable to receive traditional VOD in the same  
way that he or she does today."

A considerable amount of time in this debate is being spent rather  
theatrically denouncing words that clearly function as metaphors. As  
we've pointed out, although SOC won't render analog-only HDTVs and  
other home theater equipment "broken," as in "physically damaged with  
wires poking out of the set," it will disable the ability of this gear  
to access what will immediately become the most valuable offering on  
television: pre-DVD release VoD movies.

What's the problem anyway?
The rest of MPAA's filing is a long list of ways that movies are  
copied and illegally distributed on the Internet—further proof  
positive that the studios need SOC. Among other claims, the filing  
insists that real time duplication of HBO per-per-view events on  
various websites represents clear evidence that "thieves steal this  
content through unprotected outputs."

 From this litany, a disinterested reader might conclude that  
Hollywood's efforts to stop this activity have been amazingly  
unsuccessful, and the producers might want to reconsider their  
approach to the problem. MPAA, for example, decries the fact that  
"literally every DVD that MPAA member studios released for rental or  
purchase during the past year has been made available for unlawful  
downloading or streaming online."

If that is the case, why does the MPAA extol the virtues of its DVD  
Content Scramble System (CSS) before the United States Copyright  
Office? CSS and other "protection technologies" have allowed content  
producers to "distribute their valuable content in higher quality,  
more convenient digital formats," MPAA wrote in the office's latest  
proceeding on exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. As a  
result, "DVDs have become one of the most widely adopted consumer  
electronics products in history, and the pace of adoption has been  
unprecedented. Consumers have greater access to movies and TV shows  
than ever before."

It doesn't seem to matter. In Hollywood-think on this issue, the  
solution to each apparent technology/regulation failure is a new tech  
fix that requires new rules and a new explanation of why it won't hurt  
consumers. TV watchers, MPAA notes, are already used to not seeing  
stuff on their cable boxes. So what's the problem?

"A typical subscriber today already encounters numerous instances  
where a particular channel or service is not available. For example, a  
given consumer might not subscribe to a cable company’s high- 
definition service or might not receive premium channels (such as  
HBO). In either case, if consumers were to attempt to access one of  
these channels, they would receive an on-screen message advising them  
that their service does not include access to the requested content."
MPAA goes so far as to suggest that if SOC isn't granted, individual  
movie studios will begin releasing pre-DVD content on non-cable  
distribution alternatives—such as SONY's experiments with encrypted  
Internet streams sent directly to its Bravia HDTVs (Hancock already  
streams and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is coming next). Thus,  
the trade group warns, "it is denial of the waiver that could result  
in a scenario in which millions of consumers would have to buy new  
equipment to receive new content offerings." That is, of course,  
assuming that consumers would bother to do so, given the enormous  
amount of content they can already get over the 'Net.

Not-so-subtle
Needless to say, Public Knowledge is taking strong exception to  
statements that pretty much call the group a pack of liars. MPAA's  
latest commentary "utterly fails to demonstrate that anybody steals  
content through the analog hole," PK's Gigi Sohn declared in a  
commentary published this morning. And "by attacking Public Knowledge  
and specifically Harold's integrity, it is a not-so-subtle effort to  
spin the debate over this waiver as 'copyleft' Public Knowledge versus  
'reasonable' Hollywood, which only wants this itsy bitsy waiver so  
that it can provide the 'pro-consumer' benefit of making movies  
available on video on demand a few weeks earlier than they are now."

Sohn notes that a wide variety of organizations besides PK oppose SOC,  
including the Consumer Electronics Association and the Independent  
Film and Television Alliance. No one knows how much their concerns  
count with the new FCC, which has yet to take a stand on this  
controversial issue.