It is taking a while, but Open Source opponents to Senator Fritz Hollings’ newest anti-copying legislation are starting to get traction — with a lot of help from a variety of
big business types. Unfortunately no one in Hollings’ home state
seems to care about his services to the entertainment industry or its
impact on high tech. At least one important IT ally of the Open Source
community might just benefit if the Hollings Bill goes through. And another old
enemy might help Open Source advocates fight it.
After a quiet couple of weeks there’s increasing disquiet about the
Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act in a variety of
industry circles. There is nothing quite as powerful as a “consumer”
movement underwritten by an important business sector, and the business
community is beginning to take sides.
Financial analysts are already warning major stockholders that their
investments in the electronics industry are going in the tank unless
the Hollings bill is killed. Credit Lyonnais’s Brad Beago suggested that
the CBTPA “would be negative for the entire IT/telecom industry” and that
the communications and networking hardware industry would be thrown
“into disarray.” Beago suggested that investors steer clear of the equipment
and components sector until this “ominous bill” is killed for good.
Video outlets, especially those who sell used videos to supplement
rentals, have read the fine print in the Hollings bill. They worry that the law
would overturn what is called the First Sale Doctrine. Enshrined as
Section 109 (a) of the U.S. copyright statute, it allows purchasers of
copyrighted material to “dispose of” such property as they see fit, including
renting it to third parties, and selling a used videocassette or DVD at their
discretion. Rental agencies worry that the changes in property rights envisioned by
the Hollings bill extend past restrictions on copying to restrict
resale or redistribution rights of any type — effectively putting them out of
business.
Promoters of high definition video and interactive TV likewise see
their investments at risk if high priced HDTVs are made obsolete by the bill.
Independent cable outlets are already furious about what they see as an
orchestrated attempt to force them to deploy copy restriction equipment
and to take the legal hit, should that equipment fail or be
circumvented.
As a result of these industry concerns, an array of lobbyists for
the IT industry have been buttonholing congressmen, either directly or
through sponsorship of a variety of “consumer” organizations. Industry execs
and venture capitalists active in the IT and high-definition TV industries
have joined together with Open Source activists to create Digital
Consumer.org and transform it into a high-profile, consumer
lobbying organization. DigitalConsumer claims to have sent more than 80,000
faxes to members of congress in recent weeks, all denouncing the CBDTPA and
most promoting a consumer’s “Bill of Rights.” Other industry PR types have
been busy placing op-ed pieces, such as one by Intel’s Andy Grove, into
prominent newspapers. For their part, Hollywood executives, led by Disney’s
Michael Eisner, are accusing Intel and the electronics industry of
orchestrating consumer protests while profiting from software and content piracy.
One result of the war among industry leaders is that the Hollings
bill is about to generate opposition from an unexpected source: conservatives.
The upcoming issue of the National
Review, one of America’s most influential conservative
publications, will take a chunk out of South Carolina’s junior senator for supporting
the CBTPA. Suggesting he’s “a joke” who is beholden to anti-technology
interests, the magazine mischievously suggests that Hollings has
“betrayed” his Democratic Party and its de facto alliance with the high tech
industry. Hollings once said that he would rather have BMW employing the citizens
of South Carolina than Oracle or Microsoft. The Review suggests that
his position on the Senate Commerce Committee means that he is “in a
position to do real damage” to the economy in general and high tech in particular.
On the other end of the U.S. political spectrum, liberals are already setting up roadblocks to the Hollings bill. U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) has already said he would personally make sure that the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act wouldn’t make it past his Judiciary Committee and onto the Senate floor. The Web site his Judiciary Committee set up to solicit comments has
registered several thousand hits. According to spokeswoman Mimi Devlin, the
committee has yet to receive any emails in favor of the Hollings bill.
Over in the U.S. House, leaders sympathetic to the bill are already
ducking for cover. Freshman Congressman Adam
B. Schiff (D-California) represents a district that consists of greater
downtown Burbank — home to Warner Brothers, Disney and NBC studios. He has
circulated a “Dear Collegue” letter and claims to have widespread allies for his
effort to introduce the CBDTPA on the House side. However, in
public, most congressional leaders are looking for a compromise.
House Judiciary Chairman Charles Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) is believed
to be sympathetic, but he has broadly hinted that he wants to avoid a
public fight, and wants to generate a “consensus” bill. Reportedly, he wants
to introduce legislation that might meet some Hollywood concerns about
distributing bootlegged digital movies over broadband, while at the same time,
appeasing opponents by amending some of the more controversial provisions of the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act. His colleague Billy
Tauzin (R-Louisiana) is looking for a similar compromise. Tauzin suggested that
because Sony was both a movie studio and an electronics manufacturer, he
hoped it could provide him and his colleagues with objective advice on
how to proceed.
Despite all the controversy, Hollings’ home state has had
little to say about the CBDTPA or the senator’s activities on behalf of the
entertainment industry.
The media outlets in Holling’s home state are generally small, but they
represent a wide range of opinion, from the funny and liberal-leaning Charleston Daily News to staunchly conservative publications such as The
State or the Greenville
News. However, none of these publications have had much to say
about the Hollings bill, nor have Charleston
Courier, or the Spartansburg Herald
Journal. These papers are lively and opinionated, but the issue of digital
rights has not made much of a blip on their collective radar. With the
exception of a pungently written letter to The State, South Carolina’s press
have not touched the issue, or even treated it as news. As far as their
readers are concerned, the Hollings bill has been a non-event.
While most IT companies are resisting congressional pressure, some
have made it clear they would be open to creating an industry-led
“standard” that would parallel many of the provisions of the Hollings bill.
Congressmen, such as California’s Howard
Berman, are pressuring IT executives such as Cisco’s John Chambers to “find a
way” to cooperate with Hollywood and other content producers. Some of them
appear to be open to the idea.
As a result, Open Source advocates fighting the Hollings bill may
find themselves with some odd allies and opponents. One of the firms best
positioned to develop precisely the type of hardware envisioned in the Hollings
bill is IBM. The company has invested years of development work on its
Electronic Media Management System. Despite the fact that IBM’s
marketing staffers have argued against a government-mandated hardware standard,
they have voiced little objection to standards generated by an industry
consortium.
One firm that might help lead the fight against the CBDTPA — or any
“industry led” standard — could be Microsoft. Microsoft has been quietly promoting
streaming media and peer-to-peer broadband networking, and both
initiatives could be crippled by the CBDTPA or any hardware based anti-copying
scheme. It is a shocking notion, given Microsoft’s historical opposition to
file sharing and its development of proprietary encryption and copy
protection software. At least one news source has suggested that Microsoft technology
is virtually written into the bill. However, my sources suggest that
Microsoft is just as opposed to the Hollings bill as the rest of the IT
industry, perhaps even more than most. So if the company lobbies hard
against the Hollings Bill, Open Source advocates could find they they have a
temporary ally that they may have trouble getting used to.
