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Studios still trying to manage copying - July 2, 2008

Despite myriad setbacks, the major studios remain keen on finding a way to allow consumers to transfer movies from DVD to a portable device that doesn't involve circumventing CSS and results in a copy-protected file. With Disney's August DVD release of "A Nightmare Before Christmas," complete with an embedded file suitable for transferring, all the major studios except Paramount will have embraced some form of "digital copy." Most rely on embedded files, although for longer films, or for full-season TV series compilations that eat up disc space, Warner has relied on downloads from its Web site to provide the second copy.

Yet while each studio is pursuing its own second-copy strategy, as a group they haven't given up on an industry-standard approach. Yesterday, the studios in the DVD Copy Control Assn., which administers the CSS license, circulated a new proposed "managed-copy" amendment to the CSS licensing agreement, several DVD-CCA sources told Media Wonk. By circulating the proposed amendment now, the studios will be able to bring it up for a vote at the group's next scheduled meeting on July 23 in LA.

Details of the new proposal were still sketchy as the reports were coming in to Media Wonk World Headquarters, but its appearance is a clear sign that the studios have not given up on managed-copy despite its tortured history. The DVD-CCA has been arguing over managed-copy for nearly three years, amid litigation and threats of litigation, and straining relations among the device makers, IT companies and studios within its ranks.

Unlike the studios' current second-copy solutions, managed-copy under CSS would allow users to rip their own, DRM-protected file for transfer to another device.

Whether the studios' latest proposal will fare any better than previous managed-copy amendments remains to be seen. Some within DVD-CCA argue that the studios' roll outs of their own digital-copy solutions obviate the need for a CSS-managed copying. But others worry that the proliferation of incompatible solutions from different studios increases the urgency of settling on an industry standard.

Currently, Warner’s digital copies work with PCs and Windows Media portable devices, but not iPods. Digital copies from Fox, Disney and Lionsgate, on the other hand, can play on iPods. Sony Pictures' digital copies are only compatible with the PlayStation Portable, along with PCs.

That's a formula for encouraging consumers simply to rip their own copies, as they do now, without reference to CSS.
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