IBOC CONTENT PROTECTION RULEMAKING ‘INAPPROPRIATE,’ CE GROUPS SAY
Consumer electronics groups have told the FCC they believe any rulemaking on protecting in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio content from re-distribution over the Internet or from home copying would be “inappropriate and premature.” RIAA has claimed that music transmitted over in- band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio is unprotected from piracy and that “safeguards” could be implemented easily (CD April 12 p3).
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Not only has the recording industry submitted no technical proposal for IBOC content protection to the FCC, but the content community has made “no delineation” between whether it’s seeking control over home recording or unauthorized Internet redistribution, CEA and the Home Recording Rights Coalition (HRRC) told the FCC in 2 separate ex parte filings. With the Commission scheduled to take up IBOC station rule changes at its meeting Thurs., including possibly content protection, CEA and HRRC said no “licensing proposal or structure” ever has been presented to the FCC. Moreover, there hasn’t been any citation made to a licensing structure “in any related service to which a new imposition arguably would be ancillary or complementary,” the groups said.
In contrast to the multi-industry talks that preceded the FCC’s DTV broadcast flag rulemaking, no such “process has been devoted to or chartered to discuss either a technical proposal or licensing structure,” CEA and HRRC said. Even with FCC procedures and rules adhered to in the broadcast flag rulemaking for DTV, “that proceeding has still proved controversial, and private sector consultation was claimed to be inadequate,” they said. Echoing earlier comments by Public Knowledge and Consumers Union, which first brought the possibility of IBOC content protection to light, CEA and HRRC said if the FCC was determined to pursue the issue further, it should do so via a notice of inquiry rather than a rulemaking.
The CE groups said no comment on the subject of content protection had ever been filed in the long history of the Commission’s docket on IBOC radio (No. 99-325), whether from “a technical or a legal or a regulatory viewpoint.” CEA and HRRC also argued: (1) No right by a content owner can be cited “to prevent or condition the use of audio media in free, over-air terrestrial broadcast services.” No such right is pending, the groups said, nor has Congress instructed the FCC “to act in the absence of such a right.” (2) No basis for Commission jurisdiction on the issue had been “asserted.”