Digital Rights Are Key to Intel's Digital Home Vision

For the digital home to work, Intel's Whiteside says the consumer must have enough rights to acquire and use digital media content. Like other Intel Corp. executives, Don Whiteside is enthusiastic about pursuing the company's vision of the digital home.

"The essence of the digital home is flexibility and portability of content," said Whiteside. "This means that any content can be played on any machine, whether it's a PC, TV or [mobile] phone."

But Whiteside isn't focusing on Intel's Viiv technology to make this happen. That's because Whiteside, Intel's vice president of technology and policy standards, isn't a technologist. He works with national regulators and policy-makers on issues of digital copyrights.

To achieve "flexibility and portability," Whiteside believes the consumer must have enough rights to acquire and use digital media content.

The problem is that the ability for consumers to use digital content freely on multiple devices is at odds with the need for content creators to prevent pirating. This has created disagreements between the entertainment industry, cable providers and consumer electronics interests.

"We fought tooth and nail with the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] on the cable plug-and-play agreement," said Whiteside, referring to the 2003 FCC decision that allowed digital TVs to receive cable signals without the need for a set-top box. The decision still required set-top boxes for content on demand. At that time, the entertainment industry wanted tighter control over how consumers could access digital content.

Whiteside thinks that in order for the digital home concept to work, consumers can't be too restricted in the use of digital content.

"In this country we have the concept of fair use. We own a private copy," said Whiteside. "You have to let consumers do some copying for their own use."

At the same time, copyright owners need a fair compensation mechanism for the use of their digital media content. Whiteside believes that such balance of interests can be achieved by having consumers pay upfront for the number of copies they want, similar to the way businesses buy software licenses.

"You could buy a version that lets you make one personal copy," Whiteside said. "Another would let you make five copies."

Whiteside was critical of levies on the sale of playback devices such as DVD players, digital content, and blank CD and DVD media. Some countries use levies as a means of compensating copyright holders. Whiteside believes that levies raise the cost of products for all consumers regardless of how individuals are using the products.

"If you buy a CD in Canada, 65 percent of the retail price is a levy."

Rights owners don't like levies because they don't fairly distribute proceeds to the copyright holders, Whiteside said.

"Business models are being disrupted," he said.

Under copy licensing systems, consumers pay only for what they use, and content creators are paid for what the consumer buys, without the tax-collecting body getting in between.

Service Providers and Bandwidth

With the digital home's potential to create new types of digital entertainment services, Whiteside thinks the model of cable TV needs to change. Technology is needed to bring in significantly more bandwidth, but Whiteside believes that consumers need control over the use of their bandwidth, which they currently don't get from cable companies.

"Consumers should be able to portion out their bandwidth. They should be able to say, 'I want 25 percent for a media server, 25 percent for security services,'" said Whiteside. "Right now the service provider decides what the bandwidth is used for."

As the digital home expands from a single digital TV to a network of entertainment devices, the home will need a network. One way this could happen is for cable companies to expand the wire that comes into the home so that it doesn't stop at the wall. Whiteside believes that it is in the interest of the cable industry to do so.

"Service providers want to control the home network," said Whiteside. But such control many not be in the best interests of consumers.

"The consumer should own the product, not the service provider.

"In the past Ma Bell owned everything," said Whiteside, referring to telephone service. "It brought in content on its wires. If you wanted a phone in every room, Ma Bell was the only provider. Look at all the options we have in buying a phone now."

Whiteside also believes that cable companies want to be the entities that install the home network.

"Consumers will set up their own networking," said Whiteside, just as consumers hire their own contractors to install other home furnishings.

Another challenge is the issue of which consumer devices will be allowed to display which content. Currently, set-top boxes are designed to restrict the viewing of content to permitted TV sets under permitted circumstances. Whiteside said that entertainment devices in the digital home should be all-purpose players, able to handle any media. The differences would be in form factor and in primary focus of the device. Just as digital music can now be played on a 5.1 surround sound audio system and an iPod, movies should be able to be viewed on a big-screen TV, a PC and a mobile phone.