Hollywood Wants Control of Your HDTV

By Kevin Spidel, Patriot Strategies.

The race to get quality content directly to your HDTV has been building for a few years. TiVo now includes podcast aggregation ability, AppleTV includes the ability to watch movies, independent films are distributed via iTunes directly to your TV, and Boxee now aggregates and scrapes the social web for online video that your social network is watching and allows you to broadcast directly to your home theater.

Consumer electronic devices have gone from component HDTV connections to HDMI and optical inputs for quality HDTV viewing.

Hollywood would like to break your TV and revert your viewing experience back a few years. Never mind the evolution of media distribution created by an open market. The large corporate trade associates want to control distribution abilities directly by breaking your TV.

The MPAA (Motion Pictures Association of America) has been trying to increase movie distribution while maintaining full control of their content. Throughout the years they have joined forces with the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) to take on media related websites, bit torrent technology, and various file sharing programs in an effort to crack down on illegal piracy.

Enter Selectable Output Control (aka The Cable Kill Swith).

“Selectable Output Control” (”SOC”) is the remote signaling of home devices by content providers or distributors, to turn off consumer home interfaces on a program-by-program basis. The interface in question would simply not operate for the particular program. It would mean that a consumer who has purchased an HDTV display, and pays for a set-top box or other device with an HDTV output, still might not receive all of the HDTV programs he or she has paid for — because the interface between the set-top box and the HDTV display has been turned off by remote control. In the long term, imposition of SOC could have the effect of driving from the market any home interface that supports home recording. HRRC has opposed imposition of SOC by law or in any context subject to regulation.

SOC is activated by data “triggers” that ride along with program information when it is sent to the home. FCC Encoding Rules currently ban SOC use, but the FCC has left the door open to its use in the future.  – Home Recording Rights Coalition

Here is a video about this technology: (more…)

FCC Investigates iPhone Applications

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is a powerful body that regulates radio, television, wire, satellite, cable and internet communications.  The FCC rules on all types of communications issues including preventing media conglomerates from exclusive control over particular communications methods.

The FCC’s latest investigation involves Apple and AT&T.  FCC jurisdiction is based upon iPhones running on public networks and its duty to ensure fair competition on wireless networks.  Apple recently rejected the Google Voice application for the new iPhone; AT&T claims that it is not responsible for accepting or denying iPhone applications. On face it seems inappropriate for the FCC to force Apple to allow all applications to be used on Apple’s product.  So what if Apple refuses the Google Voice app to be used on its iPhone; customers who want to use the Google app should buy a Blackberry or other mutlimedia device that allows the application.

So what is the FCC’s beef…why not let the free market dictate how apps are used? (more…)

AP v. AHN Case Settled but “Hot News” Doctrine Still Alive

Traditional and digital media collide once again in the form of news dissemination.  Ever heard of the phrase “history repeats itself?”  This saying is demonstrated in Associated Press v. All Headline News Corp., No. 08-cv-323 (Memorandum and Order, Feb 17, 2009) where the court held that the “hot news” doctrine created by the US Supreme Court in 1918 may be applied to digital news distribution.

In Associated Press v. All Headline News Corp., AP brought a copyright infringement suit against All Headline News Corp., a website that redistributes news articles.  AP alleged AHN was redistributing AP articles in their entirety and passing them off as AHN articles.  In addition to copyright infringement, the AP brought a number of other claims, including misappropriation under the “hot news” doctrine, a New York common law doctrine.  The Supreme Court of the United States upheld the “hot news” doctrine in the famous 1918 case International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918).

On face, this case may appear to simply be a copyright infringement issue…after all we are all taught in grade school that copying another person’s work and passing it off as your own is wrong (in college we find out its illegal).  The impact of this case’s outcome is that IP rights will either be assigned to AP’s reporting when in digital format or they will not.  Digital format can mean any online content distribution from the daily blogger to large websites like AHN.  This does NOT mean that the content can no longer be placed online by third parties, but under AP’s official policy, everyone from bloggers (like me) to Drudge himself will need permission from AP before posting their content.  Permission usually also means that the person posting content must pay AP for the content.

Those of us in the news industry know that AP does not usually enforce their “official policy” but they do require that AP receives credit/acknowledgement when their articles are posted by third parties.

So now that we understand how a case like this can impact our use and consumption of online materials…how was the case decided?  It settled!  However, before the parties settled, the court found in favor of AP on AHN’s motion to dismiss stating that AP had a claim under the “hot news” doctrine following the Second Circuit’s holding in National Basketball Ass’n v. Motorola, Inc., 105 F.3d 841 (2d Cir. 1997), that a valid claim for misappropriation under the “hot news doctrine” lies where a plaintiff pleads the following:  (more…)