Someone in Hollywood is in a hurry

[romper]

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Paul Sweeting, Editor
ContentAgenda
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MPAA pressing hard on FCC petition - June 20, 2008
The MPAA isn't fooling around with its petition to the FCC for a waiver on the use of selectable output controls (SOC). The FCC record shows four ex parte meetings between representatives of the MPAA and agency officials between June 10 and June 18, including one between MPAA CEO Dan Glickman and Commissioner Robert McDowell, to discuss the matter. Glickman was accompanied on his visit by Eddie Fritts, head of the telecommunications lobbying firm The Fritts Group and the former head of the National Assn. of Broadcasters. Fritts was at the NAB in 2003, when the rules restricting the use of SOC were set by the FCC and knows their history and nuances intimately.

That's some serious lobbying for a rule change.

In its petition, the MPAA said the waiver would allow its member studios to "explore partnerships" with cable and satellite provider to offer high-definition video-on-demand movies concurrent with or immediately following their theatrical runs and well in advance of their release on DVD and Blu-ray Disc.

"In order to make this extremely high-value content available for in-home viewing at such an early window, protections are necessary to deter unauthorized copying or redistribution of the content," according to the petition. Specifically, the studios want cable operators to be able to block non-copy protected analog outputs for those VOD showings so the movies can't be recorded on a DVR and then re-encoded digitally--the dreaded "analog hole."

Clearly, though, the studios' plans are well past the exploration stage. As the National Assn. of Theatre Owners pointed out in a letter to the FCC on July 17, "At least one of the MPAA members has been contemplating this 'new business model' for a long time. News Corp. President Peter Chernin stated publicly his plan for an early release window of movies in high definition to the home on January 6, 2006." (The NATO letter cites a story I wrote at the time quoting Chernin that appeared in Daily Variety.)
Yet in its petition, the MPAA asked the FCC for expedited review of its request, suggesting some degree of urgency. In fact when NATO asked the MPAA to consent to a request to the commission to extend the comment period on the petition from the 20 days permitted under the expedited review process, to 45 days in order to allow more time to discuss its implications, the MPAA told the theater owners to get lost.

Somebody at the studios is clearly in a hurry to get on with an early VOD window, and they've got the MPAA working overtime to get the necessary waiver.

Unless the FCC grants NATO's request for an extension, the comment period ends June 25.