Hollywood DRM plan : put a Soc in it

The Hollywood studios want the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) to allow them to start using selectable output control (Soc) DRM consumer control technology.

Soon-to-be-gone MPAA boss Dan Glickman says the anti-piracy effort is “the option” for people “to enjoy movies in a more timely fashion”.

“If the FCC agrees, the MPAA and the movie studios it represents (Paramount, Sony, Fox, Universal, Disney, and Warner Brothers) would be able to ‘turn off’ any output plug they choose, like those on the back of consumer electronics devices of an entertainment system, during special video-on-demand movies on cable television,” said Public Knowledge last year.

Not only but also, if you use a TiVo, any Slingbox, or a TV manufactured before 2004 ; connect your TV to your cable box with analog cables (either component or composite) ; or, have a TV without a digital connection, such as HDMI, you’ll probaby have to replace much if not all of your existing entertainment system, it said.

Nor are consumers the only ones under threat.

There’s “no definition of ‘a more timely fashion’ - something that theater owners have demanded,” says IMDb, going on :

As of now films are not made available for home viewing until four months after their theatrical run. And, in an interview with today’s (Thursday) Los Angeles Times, John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, said that while his group doesn’t oppose the use of Soc, he objects to the fact that the MPAA isn’t “telling the FCC or anyone else how early they want to go, so there’s no way of telling what the impact is on the cinema industry and our consumers.”

But, it adds, “industry analysts have observed that the barn door was already unlocked by peer-to-peer technology, which has made bootlegged versions of movies available online at about the same time they are released in theaters - or even earlier.”