The trade press is praising Warner Home Video for its innovative approach to cable releases. Even before launching Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and Observe and Report on DVD, Warner deployed them on video-on-demand throughout the Atlanta, Georgia couch potato market. "It's the first test by a major studio in releasing a film on VOD before DVD," notes Videobusiness.com. Plus Warner has been experimenting with simultaneous VoD/DVD premieres since 2007, releasing The Astronaut Farmer on both platforms in July of that year.
But this sort of gutsy marketing raises a question that the Hollywood lobby probably doesn't want asked. If Warner is already playing with pre-DVD and simultaneous VoD releases, why are the studios still asking the Federal Communications Commission for permission to block the analog outputs to HDTVs and DVRs? That's the point that the folks over at Public Knowledge are making as they fight the Motion Picture Association of America's efforts to get a waiver on Selectable Output Control, which the FCC currently prohibits.
"The MPAA insists that SOC is required to offer pre-DVD release of high value content on VoD," a duo of PK reps wrote to the FCC on Monday. "As the above examples illustrate, not even MPAA member studios agree."
Incredibly pro-consumer
For those not acquainted with this rather obscure theater of FCC combat, go take a look at the back of your HDTV set, or this image. See those little red, green, and blue plugs? Those are analog inputs, and Hollywood wants your cable or satellite video provider to be able to cut off the stream to them in the case of pre-DVD release movies the studios plan to offer in VoD form.
Why do they want this? MPAA argues that the analog throughput is more susceptible to piracy. The output lacks "or can easily be stripped of, protection measures," trade group warns. Broadcast over it will "facilitate the illegal copying and redistribution of this high value content, causing untold damage to the DVD and other 'downstream' markets." MPAA's latest filing with the FCC calls its waiver proposal "pro-consumer." In past statements the association has argued that SOC will allow families to watch pre-DVD movies from the comfort of their homes—a necessity given the cost of movie tickets these days. Giving the studios a waiver on SOC would be "an incredibly pro-consumer development" MPAA insists.
While public attention has largely focused on the FCC's net neutrality and National Broadband Plan dockets, the SOC proceeding is a site of constant argument and debate. On one side are MPAA and its allies in the cable industry, regularly pushing for a waiver on the ban. On the other side are PK, the Consumer Electronics Association, and the Home Recording Rights Coalition—all opposed to any changes in the SOC rule. Their main argument is that millions of consumers would have to upgrade or replace their home theater systems were the analog streams on early run movies blocked.
"The MPAA’s proposal would exclude over 20 million HD television sets, and an unknown number of related audio/video devices, from displaying SOC-encumbered content," CEA and PK warned the FCC on Tuesday. "There is no lawful way to make a converter box to accommodate these existing televisions and other home video equipment; in order to access the content, new televisions and equipment would have to be purchased by consumers."
Can't be ignored
Hollywood disputes that number, but acknowledges that some home theater systems could be affected by a waiver on SOC. But that's OK, MPAA's latest letter to the FCC insists, because "whatever the number, the simple reality is that many millions of American homes do have televisions with secure digital inputs and would get access to this new offering if the Commission grants the waiver."
As for the Warner Home Video early release experiments, MPAA brushes their significance aside. "Although Warner Bros. and other content producers run such trials in order to better understand and be responsive to consumer demand," they told the FCC this week, "the threat of content theft—especially for theatrical movies in early windows—cannot be ignored."
At this point everybody is wondering what FCC Chair Julius Genachowski is going to do about this demand from the studios. Former Chair Kevin Martin rejected MPAA's SOC waiver request. In a new instructional film on SOC, PK analyst and part-time YouTube star Harold Feld proclaims that "even the FCC isn't going to fall for this one, especially not with Julius Genachowski in charge, because as Julius Genachowski has said time and time again, this is going to be a data-driven agency. This is going to be an agency that doesn't just do favors for special interests. This is an agency that says that whatever it does, it's going to be data driven and in the public interest!"
Feld is pounding his fist by the end of his speech. Then he takes a breath.
"Well," he concludes. "First test, guys." Indeed.
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