Presentation given at Association of American Publishers' Professional and Scholarly Publishing Conference, February 2009, Washington, DC

1. Slide 1
Digital Copyright Technology
Policy Challenges
Bill Rosenblatt
GiantSteps Media Technology Strategies
billr@giantstepsmts.com
bill @ i t t t
www.giantstepsmts.com
212 956 1045
© 2010
GiantSteps
Media Technology Strategies
1

2. Slide 2
The Background
Digital Content is E
Di it l C t t i Everywhere
h
 Places
– User generated content sites
– File sharing networks
– “Warez” sites
Warez”
– Search engines
– Email
 Much of it is unauthorized copyrighted work
py g
– E-book market growth draws more attention
– Especially with 3 incompatible major platforms
© 2010
GiantSteps
Media Technology Strategies
2

3. Slide 3
The Background
Fronts i th I f i
F t in the Infringement B ttl
t Battle
 Legal
 Economic
 Behavioral
 Technical
© 2010
GiantSteps
Media Technology Strategies
3

4. Slide 4
Technical Responses to Infringement
 DRM a/k/a TPMs – proactive protection of digital content
 Filtering – gatekeeping of © content in networks and websites
 Secondary Liability – going after those who enable
infringement through technology
 Free riding – addressing behaviors of search engines, blogs
engines blogs,
etc. that use © content for their own benefit
© 2010
GiantSteps
Media Technology Strategies
4

5. Slide 5
Technical Protection Measures/DRM
 Technology: used in e-books by most major publishers
e-
– 3 major DRMs: Amazon, Adobe, Apple
 Covered in DMCA (17 USC 1201(a))
– C i i li h ki and t ffi ki i h ki t l
Criminalizes hacking d trafficking in hacking tools
– Result of agreement between telcos and media cos in early 1990s
 Key issues
– Liability is on hacker, not supplier of technology
– Lack of statutory exemptions for Fair Use and other use cases
– Lack of clarity over standard of “effectiveness” of DRM
effectiveness”
 Not an active area public policy now
– Was hot in the post-Napster era (2002-4)
post- (2002-
– Current area is video – “Selectable Output Control”
Control”
© 2010
GiantSteps
Media Technology Strategies
5

6. Slide 6
Secondary Infringement Liability
 Who is liable when someone uses content w/o authorization?
– Direct infringement: the actual uploader/downloader
uploader/downloader
– Secondary: aiding and abetting infringement (tools, services),
or “looking the other way” for financial benefit
way”
 17 USC 512 (DMCA) provides for takedown notices
– Service providers can take content down in order to avoid liability
 M di industry wants to require service providers t take more steps t
Media i d t t t i i id to t k t to
filter unauthorized content
– Viacom v. YouTube – in process
– UMG v. Veoh – decided for Veoh in district court
 Technologies and costs are at issue
– Proactive (filtering, DRM) vs. reactive (takedown notices) technologies
( g, ) vs. ( ) g
– Who pays – content owner or service provider?
© 2010
GiantSteps
Media Technology Strategies
6

7. Slide 7
Content Identification Technologies for
Filtering
Filt i
 Fingerprinting
– Examining “plain” files to determine content identity
plain”
– Various technologies for music and video
– Leading vendor for text: Attributor
– Used primarily by news publishers
 Watermarking
– Reading hidden p -embedded codes in files
g pre-
pre
– Not applicable to text content
– Widely used for still images
– S i providers e.g. Pi S
Service id PicScout
© 2010
GiantSteps
Media Technology Strategies
7

8. Slide 8
Filtering Initiatives
 Video industry self-regulation attempt failed
self-
– UGC Principles, 2007
 “Progressive response” a/k/a “Three strikes, you’re out” legislation
response” you’ out”
– F
France, Singapore, S K
Si S. Korea
 Litigation
– Morpheus file-sharing case in US, under appeal
file-
– SABAM (music licensing) v. Scarlet (ISP) case in Belgium
 Efforts to include mandatory filtering in national broadband plan
© 2010
GiantSteps
Media Technology Strategies
8

9. Slide 9
FCC v. Brand X Decision (2005)
 Telcos exempt from content liability
– © Infringement (and libel, fraud, etc.)
– “Just the wires” – no ability to control content
wires”
 Telcos also run Internet services
– Verizon
– AT&T
 D i i said th t I t
Decision id that Internet services are diff
t i different b t
t beasts
– Not subject to common carrier liability exemptions
– Therefore telcos can control content on their ISPs w/o risking loss of exemptions
 This frees telcos to control content on ISPs
– Copyright filtering – doing it in exchange for content licenses
– Net neutrality
© 2010
GiantSteps
Media Technology Strategies
9

10. Slide 10
Free Riding
 Book publishing – Google settlement
 News publishing
– N litigation so f …
No liti ti far…
far
– Associated Press hNews tagging technology
– Antitrust inquiry in Germany
– Dormant technology standards initiative (ACAP)
 Will become bigger issue as more news publishers put
up pay walls
© 2010
GiantSteps
Media Technology Strategies
10

11. Slide 11
Consumer Concerns over Technologies
 DRMs
– Lack of interoperability (platform lock-in)
lock-in)
– Various technical glitches
 Filtering technologies
– False positives
– Due process, presumption of innocence
process
– Network performance
 Free riding
– Negotiations taking place without consumer input
 Fair Use – applies to all of the above
– Of special concern in scholarly publishing
© 2010
GiantSteps
Media Technology Strategies
11

12. Slide 12
Bill Rosenblatt
GiantSteps Media Technology Strategies
billr@giantstepsmts.com
212 956 1045
www.giantstepsmts.com
py g gy
copyrightandtechnology.com
© 2010
GiantSteps
Media Technology Strategies
12