Group Targets Digital TV Piracy

In the name of fighting piracy, a group of Hollywood studios, technology companies and consumer-electronics manufacturers wants to slap electronic locks on free, over-the-air television programs that viewers record digitally.

The proposal is just one of a bundle of restrictions on digital TV signals that the group is considering for digital TV sets, computers and other devices. The restrictions, which are being fought by a few companies and consumer advocates, could spell trouble for viewers as they upgrade from analog TVs and VCRs to their digital successors, such as DVD recorders.

For instance, a viewer who digitally records “The West Wing” on his or her living room DVD recorder may be unable to play the disc on one of today’s DVD players.

Stopping digital TV piracy is part of a broad effort by the studios, record companies and other copyright holders to limit what viewers can do with media in the digital age. These companies argue that piracy poses an extraordinary threat, but critics say the studios, labels and publishers are trying to stifle innovation and roll back consumers’ rights.

The main goal of the studios, TV manufacturers and computer companies in the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group is to prevent programs aired on digital TV stations from being transmitted over the Internet. Online file-trading networks already make a substantial number of TV shows available for free, but the studios fear that digital TV will make it even easier for pirates to record, copy and share programs on the Net.

That’s why the studios say they’re reluctant to let broadcasters air their most valuable movies in high-definition TV, the richest form of digital signal. Set manufacturers, in turn, blame the shortage of compelling HDTV programming for the sluggish sales of digital TV receivers, which are in fewer than 1million homes today.

The Broadcast Protection Discussion Group’s latest draft proposal, released Saturday, would require devices that receive digital TV broadcasts to protect them with an approved anti-piracy technology before sending them over a digital connector to be displayed, recorded or stored. The proposal is still being debated within the group, with a final version expected this month.

After that work is finished, a separate group will try to come up with a way to make sure that manufacturers equip their new sets, recorders, cable TV boxes, satellite receivers, computers and related devices with the technology.

That effort is likely to involve lobbying Congress for a mandate affecting all devices capable of receiving, displaying or recording digital TV signals.

The only anti-piracy technologies on the initial approved list are ones that scramble the digital TV signal electronically. And the only digital TV programs that would not have to be scrambled after they’re received are those that aren’t marked by the broadcaster for protection or that aren’t moved digitally from device to device.

A likely result, critics say, is that DVD recorders will automatically scramble the programs they record from local digital channels. And a scrambled disc won’t play on any of the tens of millions of DVD players that consumers already have purchased, including the growing number in cars.

Instead, those discs will play only on a new generation of DVD players and recorders that include one of the approved protection technologies.

Michael Epstein, a senior researcher at Philips Research Labs, acknowledged that consumers could avoid the scrambling problem by using an analog connection between their recorder and their digital set. But most consumers would connect their recorders to the digital output on a cable TV receiver, unwittingly triggering the scrambling function.

“More than likely, people wouldn’t understand what they would have to do” to rewire their entertainment centers and solve the problem, Epstein said.

Joe Kraus, founder of advocacy group DigitalConsumer.org and of Excite.com, said a more fundamental problem is the assumption that all retransmissions online have to be stopped, rather than just the ones that violate copyright law. His privately funded group wants to exempt fair uses, such as including excerpts from a digital TV broadcast in a homework assignment submitted by e-mail.

The problem is that it’s next to impossible to design a protection technology that can tell the difference between fair use and piracy. But, Kraus countered, “we don’t prevent anybody from driving because some people drive drunk.”

He added: “Technical measures like this rarely prevent piracy, but burden consumers, stifle innovation and generally are bad ideas.”

Chairmen of the discussion group and the Motion Picture Assn.’s representative on the panel could not be reached Monday for comment.