Cable-TV, Consumer-Electronics Firms Set Guides to Prevent Piracy

Jun. 10–CHICAGO–Cable TV and consumer-electronics companies have agreed on rules to limit how much viewers could copy or distribute digital TV programs on a new generation of recording devices.

Viewers using sophisticated new digital recorders that would make nearly perfect copies would be able to make unlimited duplicates of programs on broadcast TV channels but not distribute them over the Internet. From cable channels, viewers could make one copy, and from video-on-demand services, they could not make any copies.

Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable senior vice president for strategy, described the new copying rules that the cable industry, in agreement with the consumer electronics industry, wants the Federal Communications Commission to oversee, starting July 1, 2004.

“We’ve tried to strike a balance,” Leddy said yesterday in an interview.

“We’re not trying to shut down copying altogether.”

The effort is one of many to avoid plunging the movie, programming and cable TV industries into the world of Internet piracy that has plagued the music industry.

“We could all be losers if we don’t solve this security issue,” AOL Time Warner chairman Richard Parsons said yesterday at the cable industry annual convention here, adding that if the problem is not solved, “eventually it’s going to choke off creation.”

Although the theme at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association get-together is supposed to be the opportunities presented by new technology — ranging from video-on-demand to high-definition pictures to Internet-based phone service — many industry executives also are talking about the perils, such as piracy. The executives are pushing for copyright and intellectual property protections that they say would require some government intervention.

But they also are trying not to go so far that they frustrate and anger consumers or limit flexibility too much.

“I don’t feel very secure” about anti-piracy efforts, Mel Karmazin, chief operating officer of CBS parent Viacom, which also owns the Blockbuster video rental chain and Paramount Pictures, said as part of the same panel as Parsons. He said such security concerns are among the reasons Viacom has been hesitant to provide content, such as movies, for video-on-demand, although analysts say the fact that VOD competes with Blockbuster is another reason.

“It’s still an issue that the content industry and the technology industry are going to have to face together,” added Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, another panel member, who also unveiled the company’s new software for helping cable companies create on-screen TV guides and interactive advertisements.

Another executive warned that if companies are too hesitant, they will suffer the same fate as music companies, which tried to resolve security concerns before offering their own versions of Internet music distribution, only to lose out to free services.

“If you wait too long, it’s going to be too late,” said Brian Roberts, chief executive of Comcast Corp., the nation’s biggest cable operator.

Gates, meanwhile, said that Microsoft’s new software for digital set-top cable boxes comes after a futile effort the company pursued for years to provide software for a future generation of set-top boxes that did not materialize. Instead, Microsoft decided to focus on the existing hardware and provide software that makes on-screen guides faster and simpler.

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