[BPDG Drafts]
Is there a consensus?
This week's BPDG testimony in DC has spawned a slew of articles that would have you believe that the BPDG is on the verge of reaching a consensus.

Indeed, many of BPDG's representatives did testify that they would have reached an agreement on their restrictive, legally mandated Digital TV standard by May 17. But those of us on the BPDG's mailing-list saw a different story.

On April 24th, Philips released a stirring proposal for the inclusion of new technologies on Table A, the master list of approved outputs and recording methods. The Philips proposal goes farther than any of its previous assays, moving away from Hollywood's stated plan to only approve those technologies that they license ("We don't know what we'll approve, but we'll know it when we see it."

MORE...

[News]
Philips loses "all confidence" in BPDG consensus

A new Philips press release says Philips has "lost all confidence" in the BPDG consensus.

In essence, through their private contractual relationships, this small group of studios and companies would control digital TV technology and how people use their TVs, DVDs, and other devices in the privacy of their homes.

"The current direction," Blanford said, "is not in the interest of sound public policy, is not in the interest of the affected industries, and is certainly not in the interest of the consumer."

Philips has expressed concerns (not explained in detail in the press release) including the risk that the BPDG's rules would forbid home recording of digital TV broadcasts onto recordable DVD media.

The Philips press release is included below in its entirety. This statement makes Philips the first BPDG participant from within the consumer electronics industry to dissent broadly from the process. Who's next?

MORE...

[News]
Valenti redoubles rhetoric

Jack Valenti of the MPAA has delivered some very impressive testimony with a tremendous amount of Valenti's trademark (or should we say copyright?) rhetoric: "thieves", "pirates", "pilfering", etc.

We'll soon post Valenti's 1982 testimony on the VCR menace -- nowhere available on-line, it uses astonishingly similar tactics and arguments! There, as here, Valenti paints the copyright industries as having a paramount importance to the American economy; there, as now, he claims they're besieged by technically-savvy criminals, against whose threat a Congress which failed to act promptly would be not only economically foolish but also morally weak. There, as now, he holds new technology itself responsible for infringement; there, as now, he makes apocalyptic forecasts about what unregulated innovation might do to his industry.

One of Mr. Valenti's considerable talents is making assertions and assumptions the refutation of which would exceed his audiences' attention spans. His recent testimony expertly deploys this approach: Valenti appears as the straightforward, direct, plain-speaking industry leader. Someone who took the time to analyze Valenti's claims in depth, however, would appear tedious, dull, and lawerly.

For instance, if the testimony should contain an inaccurate characterization of how copyright law works, it would nonetheless be a plausible-sounding mischaracterization. The would-be Valenti critic would then begin to explain carefully how Valenti had gotten the law wrong -- and would seem pedantic and tiresome by contrast.

What's the relevance of this testimony to BPDG? Only that Valenti again mentions the "broadcast flag" as a major long-term legislative goal:

In testimony before the Judiciary and Commerce Committees I have outlined a number of specific goals relative to the development and adoption of technology standards by the Information Technology (IT), consumer electronics (CE) and copyright communities. These include the adoption of a "broadcast flag" to prevent unencrypted over-the-air digital television broadcasts from being redistributed on the Internet; adoption and implementation of technology to plug the "analog hole" whereby protected content is stripped of its protection through the digital to analog, or analog to digital, conversion process, and the adoption and implementation of technology to limit the rising tide of unauthorized peer-to-peer file distribution of copyrighted works, of which I have spoken. The attainment of these goals is key to the viability of a legitimate marketplace for the online digital distribution of motion pictures, and we look forward to continuing to work with the IT and CE industries, as well as your colleagues on the Judiciary and Commerce Committees, to achieve a successful outcome on this front.

What does the broadcast flag have to do with "the viability of a legitimate marketplace for the online digital distribution of [Hollywood] motion pictures"? Is there a suggestion that legal sales aren't "viable" when they have to compete with some illegal distribution?

Look closely at this suggestion: Valenti doesn't say that we have to enforce copyright law in order to make legitimate sales viable. He says that, in order to make Hollywood feel comfortable with the Internet, we have to have not one, not two, but three government mandates on major categories of technology (digital TV receivers, video digitizers, and Internet software).

[Meetings]
Next in-person meeting: April 29

A meeting announcement was just sent to the BPDG mailing list. The next meeting is at the LAX Renaissance Hotel on Monday, April 29. It runs from noon to 8:00p, with lunch and dinner included; the fee for the meeting will be $120 instead of $100, "on account of the extra meal". Prospective attendees were encouraged to write to Maryann_Nicoletti@mpaa.org to advise her that they plan to attend.

The topics for discussion at this meeting were listed as follows:

• Authorization of protection technologies on Table A (i.e. what are criteria, and processes)
• How requirements regarding OTA content retransmitted in scrambled (possibly non-VSB/QAM modulated) form will be addressed
• Output of Unscreened/Marked content via consumer VSB/QAM modulation
• In-the-clear recording of Unscreened/Marked content for certain formats
• Resolution of bracketed alternatives in the requirements draft

A rough paraphrase of these:

• Which outputs and which recording methods will digital television receivers be (legally) permitted to use? How should we determine which methods will be illegal? (Since all digital output and digital removable-media recording technologies will be presumed illegal by default, what process will someone have to use to cause a technology to be certified legal?)
• What happens when a device remodulates a signal (turns it back into a radio signal)? Should this practice be allowed, and what effects will it have?
• In what circumstances should it be legal to record this content without encrypting the recording (to "protect" it from the consumer who owns the recording)?
• Can we reach an inter-industry consensus on certain language in the current BPDG draft on which we have not yet agreed?

[Rants]
Piracy: The Big Lie

Why is a content protection system necessary for digital over-the-air television?

Hollywood representatives have, from the beginning, given one answer: a protection system is needed to prevent "Internet piracy," or even "Napster-ization."

There's one problem with this rationale: it's not true.

Don't be fooled. The BPDG standard is not about stopping "piracy." It's about Hollywood regaining some measure of control over what you can and can't do with television. It's about cramming the VCR genie back in the bottle, and giving Hollywood the power to bring new technologies to heel before they can deliver new capabilities to consumers.

The proposed BPDG standard will have no meaningful impact on unauthorized copying or distribution of televised content. Here's why.

Right now, there's a plentitude of unauthorized video content sloshing around the Internet. Virtually all of it has been digitized from DVDs and analog television broadcasts. What's more, almost all of it has been compressed in order to cram it into the relatively skimpy "broadband" connections used by most DSL and cable modem subscribers (if you're using a 56k modem, video is probably beyond your patience). This means that the quality has already been compromised.

Now consider DTV broadcasts. Compared to analog broadcasts, receiving a DTV signal is like drinking from a firehose of data (2.2 Gb/sec 19.4Mb/sec (thanks Wes!)). Consumers (at least outside of the high-speed university setting) don't have the bandwidth to swap uncompressed DV files, and they won't be getting it any time soon. Of course, enterprising members of the public could compress DTV signals in order shrink them for Internet distribution. If they did so, however, the resulting files would be no better than those currently culled from DVD and analog broadcasts.

So locking down DTV devices with BPDG's content protections will do nothing to stem unauthorized Internet distribution, at least not so long as there are DVDs and unprotected analog television broadcasts anywhere in the world. But it will finally give Hollywood some control over the development of new technologies, a power that copyright law alone has never afforded them.

But claiming it's about piracy is an easier sell than admitting it's about installing a panel of movies studio executives to reign over our nation's technology innovators.

[News]
USA Today covers BPDG

Major U.S. daily USA Today has picked up the BPDG story with a piece called "A debate on the rules of digital recording". (Thanks to Ernest Miller from LawMeme for the link.)

The article is general and addresses process issues more than technical details.

We should note that the BPDG proposal is only about terrestrial broadcasts. References to cable, satellite, and video on demand may be confusing here -- sure, major studios are attacking your fair use rights in every flavor of digital video, but BPDG's work in particular is directed only at terrestrial broadcasts (what most people call "over the air").

[News]
Mark Cuban: Ignore Hollywood!

Mark Cuban is the Chairman of HDNet, the first all-HD, national TV network. In a speech at the NAB conference, he called on broadcasters to "just completely ignore" Hollywood in the fight over digital rights management," calling the studios' fears a "chicken little environment."

Warren's Washington Internet Daily reported on the speech, where Cuban recommended that manufacturers simply continue to ship product, and allow Hollywood to make its own decision to provde content -- "if they don't, there are thousands of content producers who would be happy to take their place."

We sent Mr. Cuban a supportive note, and he elaborated for us:

Hardware and software don't steal content, people steal content. As a copyright owner of TV shows, movies, music, and a sports team, and the co-founder of HDNet, the only all HD TV network, and probably the only individual who has personally invested in accelerating the return of billions of dollars of spectrum to the U.S. government, I think the Hollings bill is probably the biggest single mistake that our government can make.

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[BPDG Drafts]
April 14 discussion draft

The (current) April 14 discussion draft of the BPDG's Compliance and Robustness Rules is now available.

We've published it in PDF format; the original is a Microsoft Word document. Section X.2, which identifies which devices are "Covered Products" and required to comply with the BPDG's rules, is still undefined. We've even heard the peculiar claim that the BPDG rules are still a "voluntary standard" because the mandate language hasn't been written yet!

[Meetings]
How to attend CPTWG

It's possible that we have readers who've never been to CPTWG or an in-person BPDG meeting, but would like to attend. (The next CPTWG meeting is Tuesday, April 17, and will include a BPDG meeting.)

All you'll need is $100 and transportation to the Renaissance Hotel at Los Angeles Airport (9620 Airport Blvd., Los Angeles). The hotel offers free shuttle service to and from airport terminals. Once you arrive at the hotel, simply walk up to the conference room, hand $100 to the MPAA representative, and make out a name tag for yourself. Lunch is included. Most participants dress formally.

We're told that members of the press are not welcome and are turned away; there's never been a public statement to that effect by CPTWG, and its web site has no mention of such a policy, but a few regulars have conveyed this impression to us.

Public scrutiny of CPTWG's work is sorely needed; please join us if you can.

The cheapest hotel nearby the Renaissance is probably the Four Points LAX right next door.

[Meetings]
Updated meeting schedule

According to Michael Ripley, there will be only two meetings next week:

4/15: BPDG conference call, 4-6pm PDT (8-10am 4/16 Japan)

4/17: BPDG in-person meeting in L.A., to begin directly following the CPTWG session and end by 2:00pm (with a working lunch)

[News]
Associated Press: BPDG slows digital TV transition?

The party line at the BPDG is that the mandate it's devising will accelerate and facilitate the adoption of digital television. (Art Allison of the National Association of Broadcasters uses "Yours for enabling a rapid DTV transition" as his customary sign-off in his e-mail.) Why would a government-imposed mandate help the transition? The theory is:

1. DTV will be popular when Hollywood provides Hollywood movies;
2. Hollywood won't provide movies until there is "broadcast protection";
3. BPDG will provide broadcast protection;
4. Therefore, BPDG is helping make DTV popular.

Of course, there's another perspective --

1. TV stations are ready and willing to begin DTV broadcasts;
2. Hollywood is withholding movies from the TV industry in order to try to control the development of the technology;
3. This decision by Hollywood is harming the popularity of DTV;
4. BPDG's work to try to appease Hollywood is increasing the cost of DTV equipment, creating uncertainty about the future of DTV, and diminishing the capabilities of DTV hardware sold to consumers.

Presumably everyone agrees that the DTV transition is delayed or made less sure and rapid "because of copyright concerns". A basic disagreement is whether this is the fault of large copyright holders (who deliberately withhold content even as the technology and infrastructure are deployed) or whether, on the other hand, technologists are to blame for not having done what some copyright holders wanted.

An Associated Press article found by reader Alex Rose discusses the possibility that restricting customers' recording abilities could hurt the transition to DTV. We've heard that suggestion frequently. The article goes on to discuss FCC Chairman Michael Powell's plans for DTV transition, and the new HDTV advocacy group created by Dale Cripps and colleagues. It also mentions the work of the Digital Consumer project for protection of the public's fair use rights.

[News]
BPDG press coverage expands

A new PC World article by Tom Spring gives some background on contemporary digital copyright issues and also discusses BPDG's work. It includes a quote from EFF's and Consensus At Lawyerpoint's own Fred von Lohmann.

The article also mentions the concerns of Jim Burger of the Computer Industry Group: "What happens when this technology gets hacked, as it will? Then do we spend millions more dollars coming up with another solution?"

Unfortunately, the issues seem to be so complex that journalists have to spend many column-inches just to bring their readers up to speed on background information. Then there's little space left to delve into the specifics of BPDG, what devices would be affected, how consumers and manufacturers might be harmed, etc. This is tricky material, and most readers simply haven't seen it before. And the acronyms aren't helping, either. (We're not sure about Spring's suggestion that the BPDG mandate restricts video outputs "over a TCP/IP network" yet not "via IEEE 1394" -- as far as we can tell, the distinction is phrased in more general terms and doesn't list specific technologies at that level. But since the BPDG draft is still incomplete, it's hard to be certain.)

We welcome the increased press attention to copyright issues and technology mandate controversies. Members of the press who write relevant materials are encouraged to let us know; we'll be happy to link to your work. In general, if you come across something relevant, please drop us a line.

[News]
News Corp.: Our strategy is working!

A News Corp. press release on the CBDTPA and BPDG just came out on Declan McCullagh's Politech mailing list. The release praises almost everything we've criticized recently, but, more significantly, it lends a great deal of credibility to the idea that the CBDTPA was introduced solely for its effects in terrorem: in other words, to encourage the electronics industries to negotiate about the broadcast flag issue -- at lawyerpoint.

The release refers to the broadcast flag as a "voluntary standard"; I invite Mr. Chernin to commit himself that it should remain so. Otherwise, I encourage him to use a more accurate term like "pending legislative mandate".

The full text of the News Corp. press release is included below.

MORE...

[Meetings]
BPDG meetings for week of April 14

The BPDG is considering having three meetings next week:

1. A telephone meeting in the afternoon (PDT) on Monday, April 15
2. An in-person meeting at the Copy Protection Technical Working Group Meeting in Los Angeles on Tuesday, April 16
3. Another in-person meeting in Los Angeles on Thursday, April 18

If you have comments on the schedule of the first and third of these, you can send them to Michael Ripley at Intel. Considering these proposed times, it doesn't appear that many people from BPDG will be at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference in San Francisco next week. But we will, and we hope to see some of our readers there.

[News]
BusinessWeek: "Little by little, Hollywood is calling the shots"

BusinessWeek On-line has an excellent article on the CBDTPA and related issues by Heather Green.

Green's article takes a broad view of Hollywood's control over the development of technology, and it even includes a mention of the CPTWG/BPDG activity:

Little by little, Hollywood is calling the shots when it comes to the Digital Age. Standardization and legislative work is going on in bits and pieces, making it difficult to fully understand how much traditional consumer rights could ultimately be infringed upon. For instance, an organization called the Copy Protection Technical Working Group currently is hard at work hammering out plans for preventing piracy with digital TV.

Remember, though, Hollywood's notion of piracy has traditionally differed from consumers'. Studios want to prevent widespread digital distribution of TV shows, as happened with music à la Napster. However, they could actually end up barring viewers altogether from recording TV programs off the air.

Some very high-stake issues are on the table right now. The problem is that between the fear mongering and the sheer technical impenetrability, it's hard to predict how much decisions made today would eventually hamper the potential of digital devices and distribution.

And that's the crux of the matter. "Hollywood's notion of piracy has traditionally differed from consumers'" -- and from of view of the courts, as well. (For instance, Hollywood maintained two decades ago that the "VCR avalanche" would make it "bleed and bleed and hemorrhage, unless ... Congress at least protects [our] industry ... from the savagery and the ravages of [the VCR]".)

So we hear a great deal of rhetoric about restricting technology "in order to keep honest people honest". But there's nothing dishonest about fair use. There's nothing dishonest about home recording. Consumers are being asked to give up their rights "to keep honest people honest". Don't believe the hype.

[News]
USA Today: New groups advocate consumer rights (in HDTV)
A USA Today article about HDTV and consumer rights mentions the Digital Consumer folks -- and also a new group specifically working on consumer rights in the HDTV world:

Forming this week at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas: a high-definition-TV advocacy group spearheaded by HDTV Magazine publisher Dale Cripps and editor in chief Howard Barton and communications attorney Tedson Meyers.

The group reflects the concerns of HDTV owners, many of whom are upset about the slow flow of high-definition broadcasts and the threat of new copy protection measures that could erode the usefulness of the more than 2 million expensive sets sold to date.

Early adopters "feel a little bit knifed in the back, and I don't blame them," Cripps says. The group, which expects to announce its name and plans later this week, will lobby Congress and educate consumers about HDTV's benefits.

We'd love to hear more from this group once it announces itself.

Thanks to Phil Agre's Red Rock Eater News Service for the USA Today article -- and a link to Consensus At Lawyerpoint.

[BPDG Drafts]
BPDG interim report issued
Michael Ripley from Intel sent along the BPDG's April 5 draft of its forthcoming April 8 interim report.

Explaining the origin of the problem:

Thus, unlike prerecorded encrypted digital media such as DVD, or premium digital cable and satellite video transmissions delivered via conditional access, there is no technical or legal authorization necessary to receive the signals and no licensing ``hook'' (i.e., no technology license is needed to decrypt content) present to impose conditions for the secure handling of such content. Consequently, this unprotected DTV content can be redistributed (e.g., over the Internet) without authorization from the copyright holders.

The draft also notes that the ATSC standards organization has included the "RC descriptor" (which is the broadcast flag) in the ATSC standard "as of April 2, 2002".

The draft identifies four remaining areas where consensus is missing. These are:

• Table A
• Whether and how compliant devices may output video other than by using methods on Table A
• The Philips proposal on consumer DVD recording of TV broadcasts
• The controversy about whether and how ATSC modulators will be regulated

Of course, EFF has raised objections other than these. Typically, our concerns have either been ignored or categorized as "policy issues" which will only arise when the attempt is made to turn the BPDG rules into actual legislation.

[FAQs]
Misconceptions about BPDG
An article by John Dvorak seems to contain a misconception: that the result of BPDG's work will be the obsolescence of current digital TV receivers. Dvorak writes that

[i]t appears that the new copy-protection schemes being dreamed up by Hollywood will make every single HDTV set sold to date obsolete. And buyers of new sets are not being told about this situation in a dubious attempt to dump very expensive inventory. I'm sure those of you who spent $5,000 to $10,000 for what may become an albatross are going to love reading this.

What happened was that the Hollywood folks, who are just freaked over the possibility that we'll be copying HDTV movies, have promoted copy protection that requires the decode circuit to be built into the display, not into the set-top box. This requires the set-top box to send a signal to a connector that new HDTV sets will have. If you're thinking of buying an HDTV, don't, unless it has this connector and circuit-whenever they are finalized.

Our impression is that Dvorak has got the situation backwards. Old equipment will continue to work. This is because BPDG isn't planning to encrypt broadcasts at all -- merely to cause them to include a "broadcast flag", and to obtain legislation forcing all manufacturers to comply with its rules.

The result of this would be that old equipment would be better and more useful than new equipment. Not only would it work properly, but it wouldn't have been crippled by having to comply with the Compliance and Robustness Rules. This is to say that old equipment would be more functional, not less functional, than new equipment.

[News]
Valenti: broadcast protection a major part of SSSCA war aims
John Borland of CNET has published an interesting interview with Jack Valenti of the MPAA (who said -- before Congress in 1982 -- that "the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone"). Here Valenti, asked about his goals with respect to the Hollings bill (formerly SSSCA, now called CBDPTA), replied

But we want to narrow the focus of the bill as the legislative process moves forward. What needs to happen is we all sit down together in good-faith negotiations and come to some conclusions on how we can construct a broadcast flag (for keeping digital TV content off the Internet), on how we plug the analog hole (allowing people to record digital content off older televisions and other devices), and how we deal with the persistent and devilish problem of peer-to-peer.

(Emphasis added.)

So Valenti doesn't expect to have the Hollings mandate legislation passed as it stands; instead, he expects it to be narrowed to include the BPDG mandate and a few other issues. The connection between the BPDG and the SSSCA is clearer and clearer all the time; Valenti doesn't expect a broad mandate but does want a series of narrow mandates. MORE...

[Rants]
Stunting Our Video Future

So what do we all stand to lose in the digital video future as dictated by BPDG?

Well, here’s one thing on the chopping block: affordable 100-inch high-def video screens in your living room within a year or two. (OK, OK, I mean “affordable” as compared to today’s “big screens”.) This stuff is on the horizon, and will be arriving at stores near you quite soon.

That is, unless BPDG has its way and imposes a whole lot of pointless engineering hurdles in the path of the enterprising video innovators who want to bring it to you.

For a glimpse of the future (ignore the sticker shock for a moment; prices do nothing but fall in the electronics world), check out the video projector built by the American high-end electronics company, Madrigal. MORE...

[Rants]
Fox reps enjoy fair use
A moment of delicious irony from yesterday's BPDG meeting. The Fox reps sitting next to me spent the morning pillorying the suggestion that a standard should reflect technical criteria, not the whim of the studios ("It's our content, we should decide what criteria we use when evaluating new technologies that we may entrust it to!").

When they came back after supper, they were passing around a photocopied printout of the Doonesbury series on Napster, in which Mike Doonesbury and his daughter Alex argue both sides of the file-sharing debate.

They got quite a chuckle out of it, but seemed not to appreciate the irony -- copy-prevention flags at the browser, printer or copier would have given cartoonist Garry Trudeau the ability to restrict the very use they were making of his strips.

[News]
Robert Perry interviewed
Robert Perry of Mitsubishi gave an interview talking about the "broadcast protection" issue, and 5C vs. 4C. Mr. Perry is now one of the three co-chairs of the BPDG.

Perry talked about why consumer electronics industries are supporting "broadcast protection" initiatives...

Basically, the negotiations are working on a broadcast protection system that does not affect current product, but at some point in the future would prevent a recorded digital broadcast from be transmitted or published on the Internet. In general, the CE industry supports such a protection, since Internet rebroadcast is not a consumer "fair use" issue.

(Emphasis added.)

The ability to publish recordings in their entirety on the Internet isn't a consumer fair use issue. However, the collateral damage associated with preventing republication certainly is a consumer fair use issue. In order to prevent movies from being "rebroadcast" after they are transmitted over the air, BPDG is prepared to do some violence to home recording.

In subsequent articles, we'll talk about whether there's really a credible threat addressed by the BPDG proposal, and about why Mr. Perry is mistaken when he says "consumers' 'fair use' home recording rights are very important [and] 1394 [5C/DTCP] preserves them".

[News]
Interim BPDG report to be presented at Congress on Tuesday
The BPDG's member-companies are invited to a Congressional hearing next Tuesday. They're presenting on the Group's "consensus" (which was meant to be in hand by the end of March), but aren't nearly ready. They're rushing to put a "Co-Chairs' Interim Report" together by Friday (tomorrow), including the decisions of the heavy hitters who hijacked yesterday's "public" meeting by retreating to a private room to caucus on Table A rules for six+ hours. Members will have the weekend to respond to the Interim Report. It will be rewritten on Monday, April 8, and presented to a Congressional committee (unnammed, but we can hazard a guess that this will be Senator Hollings' Trade Committee) on Tuesday, April 9. A final draft will be presented to the CPTWG on Wednesday, April 17.

[Rants]
Choice MPAA member quotes
Some gems from yesterday's BPDG meeting:

"We'll know it when we see it"
(Studio reps, discussing the criteria for adding technologies to the whitelist of permitted digital TV outputs and recording devices)

"Writing abstract compliance rules dampens innovation"
(On why the studios don't want to draft actual technical specifications for permitted technologies. Alternate explanation: Detailed compliance rules would reveal the ridiculousness of the MPAA's technophobic pipe-dream of a world where all customers are treated like criminals)

"Lockpicks and credit-card-swipe capturers are cool but not socially viable. We want a well-mannered marketplace."
(A revealing look into the MPAA's fundamental misunderstandings of: a) capitalism, and b) lock-picking)

[Rants]
"We'll know it when we see it"
The studios say that laying out technical criteria for inclusion on Table A will stifle innovation. They say it with a straight face. What on earth could they mean?

Well, it's a puzzler. The engineer in the Fox entourage at yesterday's BPDG meeting elaborated a little:

It's our content. The criteria for a technology that we entrust it to are a complex matrix, involving pricing, security and ease-of-use. By the time we laid out the requirements for such a technology, we'd have a stack of paper an inch thick. How can we dream up all the criteria for as-yet uninvented technologies? Who could have predicted DES [an encryption alogrithm]? That was a singularity -- how could we lay out terms for inclusion that takes into account things that haven't been thought of yet?

Good question. Just the sort of question that makes the whole BPDG shennanigan so suspect -- how can this semi-secret gang of studio and technology people presume to lay out all the specifications for digital television technologies that have yet to come?

It's pretty revolting to watch the organization that tried to ban the VCR talk about its commitment to innovation. Clearly, it upset Philips, whose reps kept pressing on the issue:

How can a company build a product if it won't know until it's done whether or not it's legal?

The MPAA's response:

We can't tell you what we're looking for, but we'll know it when we see it.

Maybe that's how you run a film-studio, but it sure ain't how you make a law.

[News]
Table A flamewar at BPDG meeting
So what was all the fuss about? Table A. Table A enumerates which technologies are permitted to receive or record digital TV signals. If you're going to produce such a white-list, you need to have some criteria whereby new technologies can be added to it.

You'd think that the criteria would be technical. You'd be wrong. The studios want the criteria to be entirely subjective. They're cooking up formulae for addition to the table that work like this: "If n studios and m broadcasters are willing to use your device, you're in." The studios came for a polite deliberation of the values of n and m, and were outraged when 5C (a consortium of five companies) and Philips had the temerity to venture proposals that contained actual, technical specifications for Table A. MORE...

[News]
An "open" meeting that was anything but
The BPDG likes to describe itself as an "open process" -- this isn't one of your back-room deliberations where the Secret Masters of Entertainment gather to divvy up the spoils of pop, out of the public's eye. No, the BPDG is open (even if the press aren't welcome), as is evidenced by public, $100/plate meetings like yesterday's, held at the LAX Renaissance Hotel.

What an extraordinary definition of "open!" Yesterday's meeting convened at 8, burst into flames over Table A around 11, broke for lunch at noon -- and never reconvened. All the heavyweights in the room -- the Fox people, the Disney people, the Microsoft people, the Philips people, the Sony people, and so on -- caucused in the hallway from lunch until after six p.m.. Theoretically, they were hammering out a proposal for Table A inclusion to present to the whole group, but when they popped their heads back in after dinner, all they had to report was that they would have something to report on Friday.

[FAQs]
Alphabet soup
"BPDG wants the FCC to mandate DRM for ATSC DTB receivers..."

In the body of this article, you'll find expansions for about 80 of the most common acronyms we use in discussions about this issue. (The acronyms expanded include every acronym which appears in the BPDG's Draft Compliance and Robustness Rules, among others.)

Of course, this isn't enough to appreciate the context behind these acronyms. For example, knowing that PCMCIA stands for Personal Computer Memory Card International Association gives no clue that the Association in question published a standard for tiny removable cards used in laptops. Hearing that 8/VSB means "8-level vestigial side band" explains nothing about 8/VSB's role in digital television broadcasting (er, that's "DTB" for the initiated).

We hope to supplement this soon with a fuller glossary giving explanations, not just acronym expansions. In the meantime, here's hoping that the list below will provide some comfort to those swimming in the acronym soup.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments -- or other things you'd like to see defined or expanded.

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