Media Wonk

DVD-CCA punts on managed copy - November 8, 2007

It appears cool heads were able to prevail, at least for now, in DVD-CCA. At a meeting of the group's Copy Protection Advisory Council in Los Angeles Wednesday, two controversial studio proposals concerning managed-copy and Kaleidescape Systems were discussed without being voted on. Instead, the proposals were kicked over to the CSS Innovations Committee, which was given more or less carte blanche to see if it can come up with a mutually agreeable solution that would allow for managed copy of DVDs without provoking litigation.

The gambit spared members of CPAC from having to take any concrete action that might have brought further legal trouble with Kaleidescape, while keeping the issue of managed-copy via CSS alive for now. Kaleidescape CEO Michael Malcolm had sent a letter to members of CPAC on the eve of the meeting threatening to sue the group on antitrust and copyright misuse grounds if it voted to endorse the proposals.

One proposal in particular--an explicit prohibition on playback of CSS encrypted content unless the original DVD was present in the disc drive--would have effectively banned Kaleidescape from selling its home media servers, which allow users to store DVDs on a hard drive for streaming over a home network. Although strongly backed by the studios, many of the CE and IT companies in DVD-CCA were wary of provoking potentially expensive litigation and resisted being forced into a vote on the issue.

Sources tell Media Wonk that recent high-level discussions between the studios and technology companies involved in DVD-CCA helped guide CPAC onto a less confrontational course.

At this point, no one seems certain exactly what the next steps will be, other than the issue will be turned over to the Innovations Committee. Chaired by Sonic Solutions senior VP Jim Taylor, the Innovations Committee was responsible for designing the system of managed-recording using CSS and shepherding the necessary changes to the CSS license.

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