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FCC Approves New, Barred Window for Pay-TV Movies

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Hollywood won another incremental battle Friday in its war on digital piracy, persuading the Federal Communications Commission to approve a new approach to protecting movies on cable and satellite TV systems.

The likely result is that some, but not all, pay-TV subscribers will be able to pay a premium to watch a movie at home, in high definition, before it comes out on disc. My colleague Richard Verrier wrote about the order for the Company Town blog, focusing on the complaints voiced by movie theaters and consumer advocates. My take is a bit different. Although it's unnerving to think about the studios turning off certain TV sets and digital video recorders via remote control, the FCC did a credible job limiting the studios' influence over new technology.

The order concerns an anti-piracy technique known as “selectable output control." For a movie made available before its release on disc, a studio will be able to instruct pay-TV operators to turn off the analog connectors on viewers' set-top boxes, transmitting the movie only through encrypted digital outputs. Analog connectors have rudimentary anti- piracy controls at best; encrypted digital outputs, such as HDMI with DTCP, can be programmed to bar or limit copying.

A 2004 FCC rule had forbidden pay-TV operators from using selectable output control, largely out of concern for the millions of early digital-TV buyers whose sets don't have encrypted inputs. But the commission had also said the prohibition could be waived for a new Hollywood business model. The Motion Picture Assn. of America applied for a waiver almost two years ago for movies made available on pay TV before they came out on disc, only to be fiercely opposed by lobbyists for the consumer-electronics industry, tech companies and consumer groups. These groups argued that the MPAA hadn't demonstrated that analog outputs were a piracy problem. They also argued that too many consumers would be hurt by the use of selectable output control, and that the studios were seeking a dangerous degree of control over technology development.

The FCC accepted the anecdotal evidence the studios offered about piracy, and I'm not troubled by that. A decade ago it took professional-grade equipment to record high- definition programs transmitted through an analog output, but that's not true today. And the ready availability of bootlegged cable-network programs online, in high definition, strongly suggests that the “analog hole" really is a hole.

As for the harm to consumers, it's hard to see how anyone is hurt when programs are made available in additional ways in a format that only some people can access. That kind of thing happens any time a new technology is introduced -- witness HDTV and Blu-ray discs, for example. And the FCC smartly barred studios from turning off analog outputs for more than 90 days on any given title, to avoid the possibility of consumers who rely on older TVs and conventional DVD players from being cut off completely.

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