Cory Doctorow,
European Affairs Coordinator,
Electronic Frontier Foundation
cory@eff.org
Unit 306
456-458 Strand
London UK
WC2R-0DZ
Presented to the DCMS Culture, Media and Sport Committee hearings on Analogue Switch-Off
September 29, 2005
Overview:
A little-noticed standards body is crafting a new regime of restrictions that will shape the future of television. The Digital Video Broadcasting Project (DVB) is a standards-specifying body that creates standards for digital television in Europe, Australia, and much of Asia 1. Consumers — who have not been consulted — have much to fear from behind the closed doors of DVB.
In 2003, DVB stepped outside its usual domain of specifying modulation schemes for satellite, cable, and terrestrial broadcasts, and undertook a radically different work-item: specifying a far-reaching system of use-restrictions on digital television programming.
This specification is called Content Protection Copy Management (CPCM) and it represents a grave danger to national development priorities, social concepts of the family, competition, customary public rights in copyright, and innovation.
When CPCM emerges from its DVB committees, it will be presented to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the European standardisation body that turns the DVB’s specifications into standards. Thereafter, each nation whose digital television system is based on DVB specifications will be encouraged with all the lobbying pressure big U.S. entertainment companies can bring to bear to adopt regulations giving CPCM the force of law. This is because CPCM is not free-standing and capable of voluntary adoption by the private sector; it requires the force of law to be effective 2.
Every nation that mandates DVB CPCM signs away its citizens’ rights, signs away the competitiveness of its technology industry, signs away its domestic artists’ self-determination, and signs away its programmers’ rights to innovate and publish their work.
CPCM represents an unprecedented level of control for entertainment companies over the technologies that let the public enjoy and use lawfully received television programming.
Summary:
- DVB creates digital television specifications for use in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Australia
- A DVB project called Content Protection and Copy Management (CPCM) goes beyond the customary work of setting television standards to set out specifications for restricting how television programmes are used after reception
- CPCM represents a grave danger to nations that mandate it as part of their digital television strategies