Category Video
R.I.P. UV
Last week the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) announced that it is winding down the UltraViolet system for interoperability of digital video. The service will shut down at the end of July. This step – widely seen as inevitable for the last couple of years – is a milestone in the gradual demise of consumer […]
Judge’s Ruling in Redbox Case Raises Concerns for Physical/Digital Content Bundles
A ruling from a California district judge last month impacts an area we explore here from time to time: when you purchase a digital content product, what rights do you have to that product, and are you buying it or licensing it? Judge Dean Pregerson’s recent ruling in Disney v. Redbox helps define the boundaries between sale and […]
W3C Approves Encrypted Media Extensions as Web Standard
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announced on Monday that it has approved Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) as a Recommendation, meaning that it’s now an official standard. This announcement marks the end of a very contentious debate about the role, if any, that DRM should have in web browser environments and open web standards. EME […]
Big Data, Skinny Bundles
This past week, Google pre-announced a new live Internet TV service called YouTube TV. YouTube TV is a “skinny bundle”: a pay-TV service with a subset of channels commonly available on American cable and satellite TV at a price that’s lower than what pay-TV subscribers pay for TV programming. I used this announcement in my latest […]
Facebook Faces Copyright Issues Amid Video Explosion
It’s fairly well established by now — thanks to court decisions like Viacom v. YouTube and UMG v. Veoh — that online service operators have no legal duty to proactively police their services for potential copyright infringement. But that doesn’t mean that some services don’t do it anyway. The biggest example is Google’s Content ID system for YouTube, […]
2017 Conference: Panel Change; Earlybird Deadline Approaches
I’m announcing a couple of changes in the Copyright and Technology conference on January 24. When we were setting the agenda for the next conference, the FCC was deep in to deliberations over its “Unlock the Box” proposal to require pay-TV operators to stop requiring consumers to pay for renting their set-top boxes and make their […]
2017 Conference: New Website, New Panel
I’m pleased to announce the launch of a dedicated website for the Copyright and Technology 2017 conference. You can find all the details about agenda, sessions, speakers, and so on. Registration is live now, with earlybird discounts available through November 24, and there are still plenty of speaking slots available if you would like to […]
FCC to Vote Thursday on Open Set-Top Box Ruling
The Federal Communications Commission is set to vote this Thursday on a rule that would require pay-TV operators in the United States to make their services available on third-party devices in addition to the set-top boxes (STBs) that they currently require subscribers to rent from them. This week’s vote has more drama than usual because one of […]
A World Without DMCA 1201
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) last Thursday filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government (the Attorney General, Library of Congress, and Copyright Office), in an attempt to have Section 1201 of the Copyright Act found unconstitutional. Section 1201 is the provision that makes it a violation of copyright law to circumvent (hack) DRMs and other “technical protection measures.” The nominal […]
Panel at NAB Will Consider the New World of Open Set-Top Boxes
I’ll be moderating a breakfast panel during the NAB trade show in Las Vegas in mid-April: The FCC’s Open-STB World: What Does It Mean for Content Security? Back in February, the FCC approved a proposal that will require pay television operators to let users choose their own access devices instead of using the set-top boxes (STBs) […]
Copyright and Technology 
Recent Comments