Delivering the latest movies to consumers’ homes – far earlier than they can watch those movies at home today – should and can be the next big idea.  Why shouldn’t you be able to watch the latest movie in the comfort of your own living room (and on your own schedule) months before you can now buy it on DVD or watch it through conventional video-on-demand?  We think you should be able to and are working with the movie studios to make it happen.

Consumers, content companies and distributors all benefit if more content is out in the marketplace sooner.  Imagine, for example, what this would mean to those who can’t even get to the movie theater for health or other reasons.

However, delivering this high-value content has to be done properly or the system that produces content won’t be able to financially survive.  High-quality content (most movie productions take years from start to finish) is expensive to create and content owners rightly need adequate protection against indiscriminate and unauthorized distribution of their content to take this next step. While content producers already make some less expensive independent movies available to cable at the same time they are in theaters, it’s clear that major studios will not release their blockbuster films early unless we can guarantee proper protection. (To a certain extent, mid-level budget movies benefit even more from being protected from piracy.)

Some people think copyright protection doesn’t need to be taken seriously. For example, note this comment: “Piracy is like a cockroach – you can’t stop it.” If you think it’s not a problem, forget the street vendors selling bootleg DVDs – go to your favorite search engine and type in the name of a movie, plus the word “torrent.”

Getting Content Out Earlier Through SOC

The FCC has, as it happens, set up a process for approving the use of something called Selectable Output Control (SOC) that can provide content owners with the confidence they need to distribute their high-value content sooner.  In 2008, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) asked the FCC to support SOC for this purpose.  NCTA met with Commission officials back in September to express our support for the waiver and filed this letter afterwards.

Somewhat surprisingly, the SOC waiver has run into opposition by some who are concerned that it would limit choice for consumers.

For example, the group Public Knowledge (PK) has been very active on this issue. See their letters here, here, here, and here, as well as this alert urging consumers to “Tell the FCC to Say ‘No’ to the Cable Kill Switch.”

PK includes a link to this video with Harold Feld, in which he argues that SOC “breaks 25 million television sets,” and causes your personal devices – such as your TiVo or Slingbox – to no longer function.

In the video, Feld says that movie studios, as well as cable operators and DBS providers, would “like to be able to remotely turn off your Slingbox, turn off your DVR, turn off anything that’s coming out of the TV set that we don’t directly control.”

As an additional example, see this Ars Technica post, which says that the “output changes [MPAA] wants could, in fact, hobble some home video systems.”

SOC Does Not Break Your TV

We addressed the charge that SOC “breaks” devices when we filed Reply Comments last summer on the waiver. We noted that the Consumer Electronics Association and its affiliated group the Home Recording Rights Coalition made the argument that such a move would “put at risk… very ‘early adopters’” and that it was important to maintain “the value of devices in which consumers invested earliest and most heavily.”

We noted that existing devices are not harmed.  If you have a TV set that doesn’t support SOC, then you wouldn’t be able to order these new movies releases anyway. But nothing prevents your TV from doing all the things it can do now.

The situation is analogous to any early adopter who acquires new equipment which, with the passage of time, cannot access as easily or at all new services coming down the road. From computers to cell phones to televisions, that has been and likely always will be the case. The important point is that nothing is being taken away from those consumers, and other consumers with more capable devices will have more viewing options. Indeed, there can be no public interest justification for denying new choices to a majority of consumers simply because a small minority cannot avail themselves of those choices.

Both Public Knowledge and Ars Technica have argued that the MPAA’s bid for selectable output control could force some consumers to buy new home theater equipment. But that isn’t even close to accurate – both MPAA and NCTA have demonstrated that an SOC waiver simply means that a consumer’s current gear without protected connectors will work exactly the same way it does today, and newer generation devices with protected connectors (including devices in homes today) will be able to take advantage of the earlier release of movies under an SOC waiver.

When Apple introduced the “Classic” iPod with the ability to rent movies, earlier generation iPods still functioned well, played music, and (for 5G iPods) played video, but they didn’t play rentals. Apple’s release didn’t suddenly render your older version useless, but you needed to purchase the Classic to get access to the video rental library. So while your “older” device may not have all of the features of the latest model, it certainly still works as intended when you bought it and isn’t “screwed up.”

Technology changes all the time.  And the pace and intensity of innovation across the board in technology, communications networks, and consumer electronics is undoubtedly going to raise these types of issues with greater frequency.  I don’t pretend that these issues are necessarily easy.  But it does strike me that in order to continue providing consumers more services, more choices and the opportunity to do things they currently can’t do today . . . we shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Not all consumers are going to be first adopters; not all technology changes are going to instantly, seamlessly and magically work on every device currently in the marketplace.  Taking practical steps, like approving the SOC waiver, that move us down the path of greater consumer choice is a far better policy choice than standing pat, or pretending that creators of content are going to accept unnecessary risks with their investment.