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Copy Protection Issue Hardware, software camps clash over copyright plan By George Leopold, EE Times Washington -- The hardware and software industries are clashing over proposed legislation that would implement a global copyright accord approved last year. At issue is a provision in a House bill dealing with circumventing digital copy protection schemes. The provision is backed by the Clinton administration, software firms and other content providers seeking stronger protection for their intellectual property as the Internet grows. Industry groups here representing computer and consumer electronics manufacturers said the provision is too broad and threatens to dictate which technologies can be used in future consumer electronics products and even PCs. The bill, H.R. 2281, was introduced July 29 by Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., chairman of the House Judiciary intellectual property subcommittee. The bill implements two international copyright treaties approved by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in December. The legislation is based on proposals from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which promoted similar legislation last year. Coble's proposal is "a compromise because it's not completely what the content providers wanted and it's not what the consumer electronics industry wanted," said Matt Glazier, the subcommittee's chief counsel. Computer and consumer electronics groups lobbying against the provision disagree. "We are very concerned that the legislation targets regulation of specific technologies, rather than behavior and illegal acts," said Rhett Dawson, president of the Washington-based Information Technology Industry Council. ITI represents the U.S. computer industry, on-line service providers and OEMs. The group has proposed substitute language that would soften the bill's impact on manufacturers. "We want to provide more balance [and make the bill] more technology neutral." added ITI spokeswoman Jan Goebel. Along with concerns about the bill's impact on the design of future consumer devices, ITI's members are also concerned about liability issues. One proposal under consideration to limit liability for violating digital copyrights is a test that would exempt manufacturers from liability if a device contained one "substantial" noninfringing application, congressional sources said. U.S. officials said the proposal is too broad, and would undermine fundamental copyright protections." The U.S. consumer electronics industry joined in last week in opposing the House bill, warning the anticircumvention provision would prohibit the use of "any electronic components in the design of a recorder or computer that fail to respond to any anticopy technology that a content owner might choose." The Home Recording Rights Coalition, a lobbying group headed by the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association (Arlington, Va.), criticized the House bill's anticircumvention language as "contrary to the WIPO treaties themselves and unreasonably threatening to the design of new generations of recording devices and computers." The debate over the anticircumvention provision is a repeat of a similar fight last year. Legislation favored by the patent office failed to make it out of the House Judiciary Committee. (Next article.)
[This article comes from EE Times in a joint cooperative effort with the Motley Fool. For more articles like it, please look at Fool's Gold every weekend or simply go to the Fool's Gold Mine and page through our back issues, which all have clever and cool EE Times articles in them.]
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