The digital rights management issue, pitting Hollywood against the Internet and consumer electronics industries, continued to defy solution at a Commerce Department workshop this week that was designed to bring the parties together to find what most participants said was a market-based rather than a government solution.

The two camps have struggled for nearly five years to come up with a copy protection solution that prevents illegal copying of blockbuster movies while allowing hardware manufacturers the flexibility to build plug-and-play devices to view them. Regulators have tried to prod the two sides, but concerns about slow broadband deployment are prompting government efforts to compel the sides to work out their differences.

"The challenge for those of us who see broadband as critical to U.S. competitiveness is that, despite availability to 85 percent of American homes, and notwithstanding fast [subscriber] growth, only 10 percent of American consumers have chosen to subscribe so far," said Bruce Mehlman, assistant Commerce secretary for technology policy.

Still far apart

Despite government entreaties, the two sides in the high-stakes copy protection debate remain far apart. Jack Valenti, president and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), said a copy protection standard for digital TV and Internet broadcasts requires an "open platform" on which proprietary systems could be built. "Let's start talking," Valenti told consumer electronics manufacturers. "If we don't do this ourselves, [the government] will do it for us."

MPAA has been a prime mover behind copy protection legislation that will be introduced shortly in the Senate. The bill would give the two industries 18 months to settle their differences or empower the Commerce secretary to intervene. If the industry forges an agreement within the deadline, the Commerce Department would turn it into a regulation. If not, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) would determine security system standards.

The PC industry has mounted a campaign to defeat the bill. "This is not an issue you can put deadlines on," Rhett Dawson, president of the Information Technology Industry Council, told Valenti. "There's no one-size-fits-all solution here."

Commerce officials said they preferred a technology solution to legislation. What is needed, experts at the workshop said, is a copy protection spec that covers all media. "We need a cross-industry platform" with common middleware that would allow developers to fashion their own applications, said NIST's Victor McCrary.

Since few compelling applications have emerged to drive broadband deployment, the copy protection debate has focused largely on movies.

Hence, a copy protection panel has begun work on a digital broadcast spec that could, if successful, go a long way toward resolving the protracted debate.