At Broadband Census, Andrew Feinberg reports on the Chamber Intellectual Property Summit at which Mark McKinnon of Arts+Labs spoke. The panelists, Feinberg writes, "spoke about the importance of preserving
users' right to make "fair use" of copyrighted material", as well as "the importance of technological protection measures." Some excerpts...
There is "no question" that old business models need to change in a networked world, said Rick Cotton, executive vice president and general counsel for NBC Universal. Embracing digital distribution will "drive the future," Cotton said. "It's what consumers want."
New content protection technology brings the promise of a "mature model" of internet distribution that avoids "the dark side" of peer-to-peer technology, said Cotton. The broadband ecosystem envisioned by Cotton would somehow tell people that they can access programming as they please, but also send a message that stealing is not acceptable. Such an ecosystem must be built cooperatively, balancing ease of access, consumer desires and a choice of ad-based or fee-based models.
[...]
Lane and McKinnon agreed that consumer convenience is paramount in any content protection scheme and should be "seamless," Lane said. McKinnon predicted that with the rise of broadband and good content protection, it would not be long before "DVD's are like 8-tracks."
Fair use is not incompatible with content protection, Lane said. Content protection technology is a "key component" of the future broadband economy, and mechanisms could be devised to protect fair use as well as copyrights. Lane cited News Corp.'s MySpace Music as an example. He said that MySpace had received "zero complaints" about its content protections restricting fair use.
Read the rest at Broadband Census.
Leave a comment