[News]
Devices that would be banned
We're trying to identify some devices already being sold today which would be outlawed by the BPDG proposal -- if it were enacted in law. Some examples:

• Global Telemann's HiPix DTV-200
• Videon Central's Foghorn
• Hauppauge's WinTV-HD

Each of these, as far as we can tell, is a PCI card for an ordinary PC which gives an end-user the ability to record digital TV broadcasts to MPEG. And therefore each one would be banned under the BPDG's rules.

Can you think of other examples?

[FAQs]
What is Table A?
Many of the practical consequences of the BPDG proposal for consumers (and for competition in the marketplace) lie in a yet-to-be-written appendix to the specification. This appendix, called "Table A", enumerates the kinds of digital outputs which are allowed on devices which can receive digital TV signals.

The idea is that a device which receives a TV program with the Broadcast Flag set is not allowed to output the content of that program in digital form, except via a technology specifically mentioned on Table A.

This raises three questions: first, why should this be so? (What's wrong with letting device manufacturers choose for themselves what kinds of outputs their devices will have? If consumers want a particular kind of output, why shouldn't they have it? Why should legislation determine the capabilities of future digital televisions?) Second, what technologies will be permitted? Third, how is that decision going to be made? MORE...

[Meetings]
BPDG in-person meeting, April 3
The next BPDG meeting will take place in Los Angeles, on Wednesday, April 3. The cost is $100, and the meeting will start at 8:00 in the morning at the LAX Renaissance Hotel (where CPTWG meets regularly). If you want to attend, write to Maryann at the MPAA. Tell 'em the EFF sent you.

[Action]
Les Vadasz Stands Up to Senator Hollings
Back in the good old days, we thought that Senator Hollings had backed off on the SSSCA and that Hollywood would merely sneak it in through mini-SSSCAs like the BPDG's "consensus."

We were privileged, then, to watch Intel co-founder Leslie Vadasz stand up and speak the truth in the Hollings Hearings. Never mind that he was pooh-poohed by Hollings and his cronies, he stood up and provided a role-model for other tech execs. The EFFector from that week let Les know how much we appreciated his bravery:

Leslie Vadasz, one of the founders of Intel, had the chips to show up at Senator Fritz Holling's hearings last week and let Congress know that Intel, an Amercian company that pours $13.5 billion dollars into the U.S. economy every year, wants the freedom to independently negotiate the specifications for its equipment with the studios, without Congressional intervention.

This attitude is something we need to encourage! Senator Hollings conducted his hearings as a private discussion between the studios and the gadget companies, without any representation from consumers or even civil liberties organizations. The closest thing we have to an advocate in these critical proceedings are the electronics, computer and software companies.

[Action]
The Hollings Bill and the SSSCA
Last week's EFFector alert on the Senator Hollings' CBDTPA has some tasty bits on where the BPDG fits in to the universe of technology mandates.

The CBDTPA, Hollywood and Holling's bid to strangle the American technology industry, is just the latest salvo. Over the past year, the Copy Protection Technology Working Group has convened the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group, which has been laying down the "consensus" on new digital television devices for a captive audience of representatives from electronics, software and computer companies.

These profoundly undemocratic proceedings sacrifice consumer rights, free speech and innovation on the altar of Hollywood's hysterical technophobia.

The CBDTPA promises a world where useful features would be eliminated if the possibility for their misuse existed, such as:

* limits on "format-shifting," for example, the ability to create mix-CDs of music you've paid for;

* controls built into hard-drives that would allow files to be labelled as "unmovable," so they could not be backed up, or moved to another machine, nor could the drive be effectively optimized;

* restrictions on the manufacture and distribution of devices and programs that can play unrestricted formats, such as MP3 audio and DivX video files.

Senator Hollings, called "The Senator from Disney" for his close ties with Hollywood money, continues to push for technology mandates, federally imposed specifications for technologies that outlaw legitimate functionality in order to control illegitimate uses. It's the technological equivalent of requiring that crowbars be made of foam-rubber on the grounds that metal ones may be used in the commission of burglaries.

[Rants]
What is the BPDG?
In the year 2006 all over-the-air television will be digital. This is pretty hot stuff: crystal-clear pictures, ear-popping audio and interactive features for days. But as the technologists give, the studios take away.

The Broadcast Protection Discussion Group is an obscure group of Hollywood studios and technology companies that are negotiating a "consensus" for any gadget or code that can touch the studios' product. Once they're done, they want to go to Washington and ask Congress and/or the FCC to give their "standard" the force of law.

So what? Well, this is a radical departure from the way it's usually done. Usually, bright nerds invent something cool and the entertainment industry has a nervous breakdown and runs around telling everyone that the sky is falling (Marconi got sued over the radio, Sony got sued over the VCR, and it took a near miracle to get movies out of the studios' vaults and onto television). People pick up on the tech and all the interesting ways that it can be used as a creative tool, and gradually the entertainment industry realizes that a new day has dawned and gets its act together, starts shipping product for the new media, and takes home yet another squillion dollars.

This time around, the entertainment industry wants to take away all that sloppy, inefficient fooling around where technology companies try out lots of different approaches, where garage inventors go from obscurity to posterity under a hail of customers, where you and I get to invent amazing new uses for our stuff that a bunch of engineers in a board-room never would've thought of in a million years. This time around, everything not forbidden is mandatory. MORE...

[BPDG Drafts]
March 26 discussion draft
We've now published the March 26 discussion draft of BPDG Compliance and Robustness Rules. Hot off the presses! Featuring such customer-friendly gems as:

A Covered Product shall not record or cause the recording of Marked Content in digital form unless such recording is made using one of the following methods: [a method that uses an encryption protocol, or other means at least as effective, to uniquely associate such recording with a single Covered Product so that such recording cannot be accessed in usable form by another product except where such recording (or a copy thereof) is passed to another product as permitted under this Section [a method that uses an Authorized Recording Method for Removable Media technology, or other means at least as effective, to uniquely associate such recording with a single Covered Product so that such recording cannot be played on another product and that no further usable copies may be made thereof except by such Covered Product] or an Authorized Recording Method, in accordance with any obligations set out in Table A applicable to such Authorized Recording Method [(provided that for recordings made on removable media, only Authorized Recording Methods expressly identified on Table A...

[News]
MPAA attorney outlines enforcement options
Fritz Attaway of the MPAA has distributed a list of policy alternatives for the enforcement of the BPDG's standard.

His alternatives include a "marketplace license." This may refer to a policy change in which terrestrial broadcasts are encrypted and then TV equipment manufacturers obtain a license to the encryption technology -- which includes licensee obligations, of course.

Most alternatives rely upon a statute or regulation. If the above is corrent, then the "marketplace license" alternative relies on existing legislation, like the DMCA, and need not include any new technology mandates. Encrypting terrestrial broadcasts has been an extremely unpopular idea, and it's clear from the meetings and conference calls that the MPAA members in BPDG assume that the enforcement mechanism of choice is either an FCC regulation or legislation passed by Congress.

[Action]
How to join the BPDG e-mail lists
The BPDG mailing lists, called bpdg-tech and policyg are run by License Management Incorporated of Morgan Hill, CA. (LMI is run by John Hoy, who also runs the DVD CCA. Their business seems to lie in administering, under contract, license agreements for copy control technologies.)

The main BPDG list, bpdg-tech, is intended for technical discussions. There is also a "parallel enforcement group," (policyg) which discusses how BPDG's recommendations can acquire the force of law. The two groups are notionally distinct but have strongly overlapping membership and work extremely closely together. On March 27, they shared a single telephone conference call, with the BPDG co-chairs handing the call over to Fritz Attaway of the MPAA (who's been leading the "enforcement" efforts).

To be added to either e-mail list, simply write to reflector@lmicp.com (which is a human being). In your message, indicate whether you want to subscribe to bpdg-tech, policyg, or both.

[Meetings]
Future BPDG meetings schedule

• April 1: BPDG conference call, 3:00pm PST / 6:00pm EST.
• April 3: possible in-person BPDG meeting in Washington, D.C.
• April 17: Copy Protection Technical Working Group, Los Angeles.

If you've got $100 and a yen to participate in the "consensus," come on down to sunny Los Angeles or frosty DC and sit through a CPTWG meeting -- there's a good chance we'll be there too.

[BPDG Drafts]
March 14 discussion draft

We've added the March 14 discussion draft of BPDG Compliance and Robustness Rules. Don't let the dry prose throw you off, this is gripping stuff -- and it may be your future:

Covered Products shall be manufactured in a manner that is clearly designed to effectively frustrate attempts to discover or reveal any secret keys or secret algorithms used to meet the requirements set forth...

Robustness: Data Paths. Within a Covered Product, neither Unscreened Content nor Marked Content shall be present on any User Accessible Bus in unencrypted, compressed form.

[Note to reader: The instrument promulgating these requirements could also address the issues raised in Section 2.2 of the Robustness Rules for DTCP (alerting manufacturers that the robustness requirements may be modified in the future to require the protection of uncompressed data on a User Accessible Bus, when it is technically feasible and commercially reasonable to do so.)]