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Managing without copying - October 24, 2007

The upcoming meeting of the DVD-CCA's Copy Protection Advisory Council promises to be a lively affair, thanks to the studios' insistence on an amendment to the CSS license that would overturn the verdict in the Kaleidescape case.

As discussed in a previous post, neither the CE companies nor the IT companies involved in DVD-CCA are likely to have the stomach for a move that would almost certainly embroil them in litigation. Forcing them to vote on it isn't likely to improve their digestion any.

It could, in fact, ruin the mood for consideration of managed-copy, the other main item on the studios' agenda for the meeting, and for which CE and IT enthusiasm is also open to question. Why the studios would bring up an issue they have to know is likely to get voted down is a mystery Media Wonk won't try to fathom.

But then again, it's unclear why the studios would want to put everybody through an arduous negotiation on managed-copy at this point, either. The Nov. 7 meeting comes just two weeks before Fox's Live Free or Die Hard DVD hits the streets, complete with bonus electronic copy of the movie preformatted for loading onto a PC or a portable device. That will be followed a two weeks later by Warner Home Video's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which will come similarly accompanied by a transferable copy.

Both releases will accomplish all of what the studios would conceivably allow with managed copy, but without involving CSS or the DVD-CCA.

Fox Home Entertainment president Mike Dunn even said this to the Hollywood Reporter about the Live Free release:

We're looking at this as giving the consumer a whole other experience, with an emphasis on choice and ease of use. There's downloading, which takes 45 minutes to an hour, and managed copy, which I never liked because it involves moving the movie off the disc and onto something else, which also takes forever. With Digital Copy, the file is formatted to go across and onto your computer and movie device, so it's already a small file--a rocket file that plays beautifully.

That ought to boost everyone's enthusiasm for a painstaking negotiation over contractual language to bring managed-copy within the scope of CSS.

It took more than two years to reach a final agreement on managed-recording, which had the support of most of the parties to DVD-CCA. Two years of meetings in an airport hotel.

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