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Carly on DRM

Carly Fiorina spoke at CES about digital rights/restrictions management:

[..] We all know that the best system in the world won't mean much if the content you're receiving isn't rich, and exciting, and meaningful to you. From creation, to distribution, to consumption – we are working today to ensure that the music and the movies that will be part of your digital entertainment system are as rich and compelling as they can be.

Let's start with music. One of the ways to ensure that the digital entertainment landscape really takes off is to protect the artists and the creators of the content. And so today, we are very proud to appear on this stage and take a tough stand on digital piracy.

You've heard of Moore's Law. Digital piracy has brought us Kazaa's law. Kazaa's law states that our sense of right and wrong doesn't evolve as fast as our technology. Just because we can do something, doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. Just because we can steal music, doesn't mean we should. Just because we can take someone's intellectual property for free, doesn't mean we should. Just because you can do it and not get caught, doesn't mean it's right. It's illegal, it's wrong, and there are things we can do as a technology company to help. And here is what HP intends to do.

Today, HP is stepping up its commitment to building, acquiring or licensing the best content protection technologies for our devices that will set secure copyrights without sacrificing great consumer experiences. In recent years, we’ve cancelled planned products because we weren't comfortable with the level of protection. We've been active through the Business Software Alliance to educate consumers and businesses that digital piracy is a threat to economic growth. We've worked in cross-industry efforts like the Secure Digital Music Initiative to develop a solution to digital piracy. And in partnership with Microsoft, our Media Center PC responds to a copy control flag embedded in current generation TV signals.

Starting this year, HP will strive to build every one of our consumer devices to respect digital rights. In fact, we are already implementing this commitment in products such as our DVD Movie Writer, which protects digital rights today. If a consumer for example, tries to copy protected VHS tapes, the DVD Movie Writer has HP-developed technology that won't copy it – instead, it displays a message that states, "The source content is copyrighted material. Copying is not permitted." And soon, that same kind of technology will be in every one of our products. HP will also work constructively with technology and content industries to implement Broadcast Flag into some of our products this year.

Later this year, we’ll also introduce a new protection technology that encrypts recorded content. Going forward, we will actively promote the interoperability of content protection technologies to ensure that content protection becomes the enabler it was intended to be – not the obstacle to compelling content that many fear. And we will also step up our efforts to work with anti-piracy industry advocates and consumer advocates.

The Register disagrees.

posted Mon 12 Jan 2004 in /issues/copyright | link

Copyright (C) 1999-2007 Martin Pool.