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Zucker: Ditto Dauman - October 3, 2007

As expected, NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker continued the content companies' full-court press on technology providers in his speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Anti-Counterfeiting and Piracy Summit Wednesday, reiterating many of the points made by Viacom chief Phillipe Dauman the day before. 

Echoing much of Dauman's language, Zucker called on ISPs, network operators and, especially, device makers to incorporate technology to block the copying and redistribution of illegal content.

And he dismissed what he called the "conventional wisdom" that filtering and DRM technology is not up to the task of effectively protecting digital content.

"That, to put it in a word, is baloney," Zucker said. "Technology is not just something that feeds the beast of piracy. It has both the promise and increasingly the reality of a powerful engine that can be harnessed to effecitvely combat it."

He praised AT&T for agreeing to investigate ways of filtering unauthorized content from its broadband network, adding, "Within the next few months, we hope to see the vast majority--if not all--of the eight largest U.S. ISPs embrace this approach."

Other highlights:

• [M]ore ISPs in the U.S. are now agreeing to send notices to customers when they are caught infringing...and warning them that further illegal activities will result in sanctions...But sending notices, while important, is only a stopgap measure. The development of filtering technology is the best shot at relieving clogged networks by keeping copyright-infringing content off the networks in the first place.
• User generated sites: Today, I am happy to report, the technology exists that recognizes copyrighted content that the copyright owner does not want uploaded, and block such content from the sites...It will work even better in the future, and soon should become the industry standard.
• University students are responsible for 44% of the revenue loss from piracy to the major studios, over $500 million per year. Filtering technology that will not permit copyrighted content to be passed over university networks is available...Major public and private universities across the country should be moving rapidly to adopt these tools.
• Home networking devices and other home electronics: It is clear that protections can be built in so that pirated content cannot be easily played and moved around in the home environment, while legitimate material plays without consumers even having to think twice...[b]ut we need the consumer electronic and IT companies to add the code readers to the hardware to make it effective.

Zucker also called on attendees to support the package of anti-counterfeiting legislation being pushed by the Chamber's Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy.

The full speech is here.
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