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p2pnet news view | MPAA:- MPAA boss Dan ‘The Joker’ Glickman, about to re-enter the hinterland of obscurity, says SOC is “the option” for people “to enjoy movies in a more timely fashion”.

If Hollywood is behind it, it’s a foregone conlusion it can’t be good for us, and so it’ll come as no surprise to learn (Soc) is just a DRM consumer control rose by another name.

“If the FCC agrees, the MPAA and the movie studios it represents (Paramount, Sony, Fox, Universal, Disney, and Warner Brothers) would be able to ‘turn off’ any output plug they choose, like those on the back of consumer electronics devices of an entertainment system, during special video-on-demand movies on cable television,” said p2pnet, quoting a 2008 Public Knowledge post.

If you use a TiVo, any Slingbox, or a TV manufactured before 2004; connect your TV to your cable box with analog cables (either component or composite); or, have a TV without a digital connection, such as HDMI, you’ll probaby have to replace much if not all of your existing entertainment system, said the story.

Why would they need to put a SOC into it?

To plug up the Analog Hole, of course.

And that’s because  a “great harm” is devouring the motion picture industry.

The Huffington Post has an OpEd by Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, part of which goes like this »»»

Four years ago, the motion picture industry convinced the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold a hearing to explore what Hollywood studios claimed was rampant piracy of movies occurring through the so-called “analog hole.” (For non-engineers, the “analog hole” is the movie industry’s term for any content-playing device connected to a TV through the red, blue and green multi-use port on the back of millions of TV sets.) The industry’s trade group, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), argued that a great harm was devouring the motion picture industry: that consumers would export movies through the analog output, stealing content and sending it out over the Internet.

By the end of the hearing, Committee leaders did not appear convinced that such analog connections on TV sets were in fact leading to piracy. In fact, as the transcript of the hearing reveals, Committee Chairman Arlen Specter challenged the head of the MPAA, Dan Glickman, to provide evidence in support of the alleged problem:

“Chairman Specter. Mr. Glickman, lots of information about piracy from you and from the Department of Justice, but can you quantify any direct connection between piracy and the analog hole?

Mr. Glickman. We have just completed a major study called the LE case study which estimates that our companies lose about $6.1 billion a year in piracy, and as part of that–

Chairman Specter. OK. I mean from analog — I have only got 5 minutes.

Mr. Glickman. OK, $1 to $1.5 billion in what we call noncommercial copying of movies for family and friends. We believe a big part of that is due to the analog hole.

Chairman Specter. How do you arrive at the figure of $1.5 billion?

Mr. Glickman. The firm did worldwide and national piracy study focus groups. The methodology we considered to be quite good.

Chairman Specter. Well, let me ask you to supplement your answer with the specifics as to how you come to that conclusion.

Mr. Glickman. Sure, be glad to.

Chairman Specter. We would like to see the methodology because before we really tackle the problem, we want to know – before we really look for a solution, we would like to have a specification of the problem.

Mr. Glickman. We will get you that, Senator.”

And, “what of that methodology that MPAA’s Glickman said was quite good’?” – Shapiro asks, adding:

“It turns out it wasn’t quite so good. Rather than provide the evidence requested by Congress, the MPAA was forced to confess that due to ‘human error’ they ‘got the math wrong’ and were unable to properly quantify piracy ‘losses’ from analog TV connections. Forced to admit the much-ballyhooed study exaggerated the losses due to piracy, the MPAA repudiated its own analysis.

“Now, having failed to make its case to the Senate, the MPAA is back — this time, before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) – asking permission to disable lawfully purchased HDTV-capable TVs. Using an obscure procedural mechanism, MPAA is asking the FCC for authority to use “selectable output control” (SOC) to shut off TVs that do not use the motion-picture industry’s preferred digital connections. (Again for the non-engineers, SOC allows content providers to shut off the video stream to any TV that is receiving content over a non-favored connection, such as analog.)”

Remember when the MPAA claimed 44% of Hollywood’s domestic ‘piracy’ losses were down to file sharing students?

It turned out 3% was a more likely statistic.

Human error was to blame, but not before the studios had wrung every last PR ounce from the mistake.

Again.

No need to stay tuned.

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

hinterland of obscurity – MPAA boss Glickman’s new job, July 7, 2009
p2pnet – Hollywood DRM plan: put a Soc in it, November 7, 2009
Huffington Post – Dear FCC, Please Don’t Let Hollywood Break My TV, November 12, 2009
file sharing students – Huge Hollywood mistake in student download stats, January 23, 2008

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