November 2002 Public Policy Computer Graphics Column

Introduction

Laurie Reinhart

Our first section is a recap of our program's activities at SIGGRAPH 2002 in San Antonio TX, written by our chairperson, Robert Ellis.

Next Myles Losch provides an update on entertainment industry initiatives to force changes in computer design, so as to limit what the public can do with copyrighted works.

Mark Banas who created and manages the new Public Policy email discussion list describes that, and how to sign on via Web access.

Myles Losch attended an entertainment lawyers' luncheon meeting in Los Angeles and gives a description here, together with comments on related recent developments.

For several months/years, Bob has been collecting a bibliography of URL's of interest in the area of public policy and these are now available on our website; a short description of content and how to access this are in this column.

Note to readers of this column's print edition: Online documents cited below can most easily be displayed by following the World Wide Web hyperlinks at http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy/CGColumn-11-2002.html.

Public Policy at SIGGRAPH 2002

Bob Ellis
November 2002

Overview

For the second year in a row, the SIGGRAPH Public Policy Program was well represented at the annual conference. We presented two courses and a Birds of a Feather (BOF) Session that were all well attended by a small (by SIGGRAPH standards) but enthusiastic and passionate number of people. In addition we held our annual committee meeting and participated in the SIGGRAPH Executive Committee meeting.

Noteworthy this year was an impressive publicity piece put together by Laurie Reinhart and Mark Banas. This piece contained descriptions of the courses and BOF as well as an article (reprinted with permission, http://siggraph.org/pub-policy/pdf/ZDNETART.pdf) from CNET about SIGGRAPH course speaker Barbara Simons' Stanford technology policy course.

Courses

Two courses were presented this year: "Introduction to the Impact of Public Policy on Computer Graphics" (Course 38) and "Intellectual Property, Copyright and Digital Rights Management for Computer Graphics" (Course 53). In addition to myself, speakers included Barbara Simons and Dan Burk. Myles Losch prepared significant material. See the report later in this column on the courses by Myles. As we did last year, we have put the PDF version of the course notes on http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy.

The intellectual property course was an unqualified success judging by the audience's size, reactions and formal comments. The introduction course had some problems. Judging by the responses during the course I felt that there were some people who really didn't need the introduction but were undoubtedly attracted by the subject matter. Formal comments indicated problems with the presentation although an informal survey during the course indicated that about 75% of the attendees were pleased with the way the course was going. My conclusion is that there is simply too much material for a 1-¾ hour course if we intend to continue a survey of the whole range of computing technology policy issues. I believe it is important to offer this course, both to bring people up to speed on policy issues as well as provide a broad survey of those issues affecting not only computer graphics, but computing in general. We will have to make some changes if we want to present the course again.

Birds of a Feather

This session was again very popular. Simons and Burk participated and an enthusiastic audience went from over 30 to about half that when I finally terminated the session after 2 ½ hours. The participants represented a wide variety of CG interests from technology to the arts. Also represented were museums and education. As we did last year, we held the BOF immediately after the second formal event, a decision, which undoubtedly contributed to the turnout even though it was held during the lunch period.

Committee Meeting

Several items of interest were discussed at our annual committee meeting. I reviewed our activities from the past year. We discussed plans for next year and what to do about the lack of a Panels Program at S2003. All agreed that conference presence was important and we discussed ways to achieve that given the fact that our audience is small by conference standards. SIGGRAPH President Chesnais has asked me to prepare a proposal for the EC on this issue. I've since looked into a new S2003 program: Graphics Discussions. They appear to be somewhere between a course and a BOF in concept. We will probably develop proposals for courses and discussions for S2003.

We talked about non-US representation and how to achieve that. No conclusions were reached but Dieter Fellner from Eurographics was at the meeting. Separately I discussed with new SIGGRAPH Director at Large, Masa Inakage, the possibility of interactions with SIGGRAPH members in Japan.

I previewed the draft logo design (an issue discussed last year) done by Mark Banas to a receptive audience.

We discussed the possibility of changing the name of the program to Technology Policy. I feel that this would resonate better with our audience and indicate that we were not pursuing social issues. In addition it would strengthen our position with those outside our community. Most agreed with me although we all felt that it would have a negative impact on the pleasing symmetry (PP to TP) of the logo. Subsequent discussions with the SIGGRAPH EC, Barbara Simons and Jeff Grove from the ACM Washington office provided additional support for the name change.

We briefly discussed doing another on-line survey but tabled it due to lack of an obvious volunteer to do it. I discussed my plans for an on-line bibliography of policy articles (see separate report later in this column).

I discussed my need for a co-chair. The amount of time has gotten to be too great for one person, particularly now that we have a major conference presence. I am also surprised at the amount of reading required, although creating the bibliography has been partly responsible. All during the conference I asked senior members of the CG community for suggestions. It is a difficult position to fill because it requires interest and knowledge in areas that are typically not a part of most people's professional responsibilities.

We had a special session on the pending National Research Council (NRC) study on Computer Graphics Research Topics (The NRC study has been discussed in these columns: Aug 2002: http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy/CGColumn-08-2002.html, May 2002: http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy/CGColumn-05-2002.html, Feb 2001: http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy/CGColumn-02-2001.html, Nov 2001: http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy/CGColumn-11-2001.html, Nov 2000: http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy/CGColumn-11-2000.html, Nov 1998: http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy/CGColumn-1198.html, Nov 1997: http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy/CGColumn-1197.html)

towards which SIGGRAPH has contributed $50,000 in seed funding. Attending the meeting, among others, were Cynthia Patterson from the NRC and Jim Foley who last year graciously accepted my request to participate in this project. We had been concerned about NRC's apparent lack of interest but the aftermath of the September 2001 terrorist attacks had put us lower on the list for attention. At the meeting and during the conference several of us introduced Cynthia to key CG participants and potential funding sources both inside and outside the U.S. government. Subsequent conversations with Cynthia and others at the NRC confirmed enthusiasm for the project.

SIGGRAPH Executive Committee (EC) Meeting

I attended the SIGGRAPH EC meeting on the Saturday following the conference. I presented our activities and issues and received comments from the EC members. It was also an opportunity to talk with the conference chairs for S2003 and S2004.

Review of SIGGRAPH 2002 Public Policy Courses

Myles Losch

As Bob Ellis notes above, this year's conference featured two short courses on public policy's relationship to computer graphics: #38, an updated introduction and overview of the subject that was first presented a year earlier, and #53, a new course on intellectual property. The latter built on last year's well-received panel session covering the same topic (see Computer Graphics, November 2001; http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy/CGColumn-11-2001.html).

Course #38: As in 2001, the lecturers for the introductory course were Bob Ellis and former ACM president Dr. Barbara Simons. While substantial material was moved from the original version of this course to 2002's new intellectual property course (see below), that was offset by adding good fresh content; details are at http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy/pdf/s2002_course38.pdf.

Ellis notes above that the result was a presentation which, although clearly valuable and timely for attendees, was too full for its 105-minute time slot. Yet that 'drink-from-a- firehose' quality seemed to stimulate many newcomers in the room, if one judged by the question period.

Queries from the floor included several on privacy, and others on patents, the effect of video games on children, and similarly diverse topics that got scant coverage in the formal presentation. A handful of 'policy veterans' were also present, and made well- informed comments that enhanced the session's interactivity and value.

Despite all of this, relevant topics inevitably were slighted, e.g. the effects of proposed treaties on cross-border enforcement of civil and criminal laws; the regulability of software authorship, publishing, and reverse engineering; info-contraband laws; and business policy aspects of broadband access competition. (Comments on the latter are in Computer Graphics, August 2002; see CFP2002 at http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy/CGColumn-08-2002.html).

The course effectively exposed a broader cross-section of conference attendees to its subject area, and encouraged the receptive among them to delve more deeply. For 2003 and beyond, it's to be hoped that Ellis will renew his efforts (described in earlier columns) to 'carve out' the important course material on broadband access, so that it can receive a more adequate, separate presentation.

Another useful step might be to schedule added rehearsal time for lecturers, with the aim of achieving a more polished delivery of their talks. Experience suggests that tight speaking schedules can in this way be made less problematic.

Course #53: For this new survey of intellectual property (IP) issues that bear on computer graphics, University of Minnesota law professor Dan Burk (who at last year's conference had been a key member of the IP panel cited above) was joined as a lecturer by ACM's Dr. Barbara Simons. Their course materials are at http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy/pdf/s2002_course53.pdf.

Prof. Burk, in his quick informative review of copyright basics, successfully internationalized part of the course content by stressing conceptual distinctions between U.S. and other nations' IP regimes, and how treaties have been crafted to bridge those differences. Dr. Simons' talk centered on very recent legal cases, and clearly gained impact from her teaching work at Stanford with Princeton's Prof. Ed Felten (a key player in some of that litigation).

Both instructors engaged their hearers through probing, critical analyses of court decisions and legislation, testing these against relevant public policy principles. Burk, for example, examined whether an over-fragmentation of IP rights has at times thwarted the valid aims of copyright. And Simons imaginatively explored alternatives to some recent IP trends.

During the question period, among the many concerns raised from the floor were (e.g.) those related to a university's student project that could run afoul of art museums' IP rights to their collections. An independent content creator asked whether competition policy (i.e. antitrust) issues would arise if IP protection technologies favored by huge media firms (and potentially mandated by governments) proved cost-prohibitive for smaller producers. And a professional fair user wondered if new IP lock-down proposals would block his lawful activities.

As Bob Ellis noted above, course #53 had a highly successful debut, though it did not wholly escape the schedule-related problems of introductory course #38. The reason: eager attendees, well-versed in the subject area and intent on engaging the instructors in (mostly) illuminating digressions, which however overran the 105-minute session format. Luckily, both lecturers' presence in Ellis' Birds of a Feather session directly afterward, in effect let course #53's question period continue without arbitrary time limits.

Given the many continuing developments in the IP field (including those described in other parts of this column), it was clear to this reviewer that future SIGGRAPH conferences would welcome -- and benefit from -- updated session offerings in course #53's subject area. In that case, the suggestion above (re: course #38) on speaker rehearsal, would also apply if similar time limits were imposed.

Copyright vs. Computer Design (Continued)

Myles Losch

This column's previous edition (Computer Graphics, August 2002: http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy/CGColumn-08-2002.html) discussed entertainment industry proposals to change the architecture of computers by means of new laws and/or regulations, thus restricting their ability to process digitized commercial video, music, etc. in ways that might (but also might not) infringe copyrights. As we have noted before, when technology offered to the public is artificially limited, experience shows that one risks alienating potential customers. In this case, public acceptance of digital television entertainment, and/or its integration with home computers, could be put in doubt. Bob Ellis recently commented on this topic's importance to SIGGRAPH:

"... the computer graphics community has been waiting 20 or so years for a convergence of computer graphics and digital television because it would allow CG practitioners to have a single output medium and bring consumer business economies of scale to CG. So it's important for computing to make sure digital television is not messed up..."

Unfortunately, policy developments in mid-2002 did not bode well from that perspective. The U.S.' Federal Communications Commission (FCC) moved toward imposing the movie studios' "broadcast flag" technology on digital TV equipment (including computers), despite strong protests from affected businesses like the Computer & Communications Industry Association (see http://www.ccianet.org/press/02/0604.php3).

Also objecting were consumer and civil liberties groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which had monitored the plan's creation by a multi-industry Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (BPDG). See EFF's letter to the FCC: http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/HDTV/20020807_eff_bpdg_fcclet.html.

EFF earlier responded on this issue to both the BPDG (see http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/archives/000116.html) and to the movie studios' lobby, MPAA (see http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/archives/000148.html).

The music recording industry, not to be outdone, aired plans for an "audio performance flag" designed to similarly restrict consumers' use of commercial sound recordings. And sympathetic U.S. legislators (perhaps seeking campaign funds from Hollywood) proposed to legalize forms of technical cyber-warfare by copyright holders against peer- to-peer Internet file-trading services, and to criminalize many 'fair use' online retransmissions of copyrighted works.

Meanwhile, entertainment lobbyists urged further technology mandates, (a) requiring consumer audio and video recorders to detect, and refuse to capture, 'watermarked' commercial works; and (b) obliging telecommunications and Internet companies to similarly detect, and block, unlicensed (even if lawful) transmissions of such copyrighted works over their networks. (How this plan would cope with encryption, is unclear.) EFF comments on these ideas at http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/archives/000113.html.

Nor did even these initiatives exhaust the variety of proposals to "lock down" technology that could be used to infringe copyrights. Bob Ellis comments again:

"...Another insidious movement afoot is ... the [computer industry's] Trusted Computing Platform Alliance [TCPA; see below] which would put this type of enforced restriction on copying into all digital devices potentially forcing computers to be little more than entertainment [applian]ces..."

To be fair, the workplace computing market (in both business and government) would welcome -- for some uses -- hardware security such as TCPA (and Microsoft's closely related future operating system, 'Palladium') promise to enable. And as Ellis has often said, home computers (particularly with broadband Internet access) also have critical security needs.

But major differences exist between computer security requirements at home vs. in the workplace. (In part this is because the user of a home computer is also typically its owner, while at work the opposite is most often true.) And both TCPA and Palladium appear motivated less by either of these usage scenarios, than by the desire of copyright- based industries to limit (via technology, often more severely than through law) what the public can do with their works.

Cambridge University's prominent computer security researcher Ross Anderson wrote an excellent introduction to the policy issues raised by TCPA (an early version of which is already in business use) and Palladium. Complete with hyperlinks to diverse opinions, it is at http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rja14/tcpa-faq.html.

Readers desiring a more technical account of Microsoft's 'Palladium' should also read Seth Schoen's description at http://www.activewin.com/articles/2002/pd.shtml.

Finally, a detailed survey article by Cory Doctorow (see http://www.tidbits.com/database-cache/tbart06901.html) offers the view of an active participant in many of the policy debates we've touched on in this and previous columns, related to the computer's role in digital home entertainment. From this account, it appears that the computer-TV convergence outlined above by Bob Ellis is not yet within reach, and may remain so for some time.

SIGGRAPH Public Policy Email List Subscriptions Now Available Via Website

Mark Banas

There are two ways to subscribe to this automated list (http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy/CGColumn-05-2002.html#SIGGRAPH Public Policy Email List); either through the list website or by email. The list website can be reached at http://siggraph.mab4d.com/.

From this main page you can subscribe an email address (pending confirmation), browse the archives, or email the list owner. Alternately, to subscribe via email, send an email to publicpolicy-request@mab4d.com with the word "subscribe" in the Subject line. After subscribing through either method, you will receive a reply asking you to confirm your email address. Once you reply to this message you are officially on the list! You will begin receiving all messages sent to the list for distribution, and can contribute messages to the group as well.

You will also receive a welcome email with a link to your own subscription management page and list information. If you would like to unsubscribe at any time, visit your subscription page or send an email to publicpolicy-request@mab4d.com with the word "unsubscribe" in the Subject line. Again, you will be asked to confirm your request before that email address is removed.

Copyright: Some Legal & Political Developments

Myles Losch

Elsewhere in this column, we discuss recent efforts by copyright holders to protect their revenues by influencing (often through government) future computer technology. Here, we turn to some parallel developments, similar in purpose but less narrowly technical in nature. Most of these involve work by copyright lawyers to shape public policy through court cases and legislation.

Past columns in this series have at times noted computer-related copyright litigation, but its impact has usually been limited. For example, last year's court-ordered shutdown of the Napster online file-trading service did not put an end to such activity; indeed, music companies say it has increased. Similarly, the movie industry successfully sued 2600 Magazine for posting on its website the DVD decryption program DeCSS, but such software remained widely available elsewhere.

Some current U.S. cases may in time have broader consequences, even internationally. (That is partly because, in a networked world, treaty negotiations seek to harmonize rules on such topics across borders.)

One example is a constitutional challenge (to be decided in the U.S. Supreme Court by mid-2003) to the statutory duration of copyrights. While not directly linked to matters of more immediate concern to our readers (e.g. how free are software authors to write and publish new programs?), the high court's acceptance of this case is seen by some as perhaps implying greater willingness to scrutinize matters of copyright policy that usually have been left to legislators.

Other such cases include lawsuits over how to interpret controversial parts of 1998's Digital Millennium Copyright Act, e.g. how much help telecom and Internet companies must give copyright holders to thwart infringers who use those firms' networks. A political result of such court cases (merely because they have been filed) is that influential telecom carriers have tried to block some of the new copyright restrictions which entertainment firms are seeking.

To gain insight into current legal thinking on copyrights and the Internet, this observer attended a midsummer luncheon and panel discussion ("Will File-Sharing Kill the Copyright Industries?") presented by the Beverly Hills (California) Bar Association's entertainment law section. Given that sponsorship, the panel's lack of balance was unsurprising: the moderator urged vigorous criminal prosecution of online file-traders, and only one presenter (of four) spoke for users of copyrighted works.

That speaker, though, was the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)'s energetic copyright lawyer Fred von Lohmann, whose views can be gauged from his recent EFF filing with the U.S. Department of Commerce [on fair use vs. digital rights management (DRM) copyright enforcement technologies]. (See http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/fair_use_and_drm.html)

While von Lohmann was treated with professional courtesy by his fellow attorneys (and warmly greeted later by several attendees), the intense hostility in the room toward the ideas and clients he represents was striking. It seemed (e.g. from the support expressed for what critics call 'cyber-vigilante' attacks by copyright holders against Internet file- traders) that to most entertainment lawyers, views at odds with their own could not be sincerely held by thoughtful people.

One panelist's comment that (digital) entertainment delivery didn't need computers or the Internet, seemed to suggest more than nostalgia for the last century. At best, it could be seen as an implied threat that copyright holders, if unable to force such new platforms to become 'DRM-friendly,' would seek to wall off their businesses through deliberate technical incompatibilities, backed by restrictive licenses for patents and other technology. The remark could also be seen as reflecting little if any concern for (or awareness of) the positive aspects of today's computers and networks, nor (by implication) for the potential harms that could flow from full adoption of his industry's public policy agenda.

Current examples of the "walling-off" strategy are the (dueling) encrypted high-end audio disc formats, SACD and DVD-Audio. Neither is yet playable on computers, though that might change if home PC's of the TCPA or 'Palladium' type ever become common. Nor has either attracted much interest from consumers, who continue to favor the decades-old open audio CD standard despite its lower sound quality and lack of compression.

And as this is written, yet another mutually incompatible, locked-down removable storage medium has entered the music market: DataPlay, a miniature optical disc that, like the larger decade-old MiniDisc, will be offered in both blank and pre-recorded forms. Some early reports in the general press were distinctly skeptical; see for example http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/29/technology/circuits/29RECO.html? ex=1031747648&ei=1&en=f58bc1f147a14a09.

Parallels in the video realm can be expected in a few years, when high-density, HDTV- capable "blue laser" DVD's are to be introduced as an improvement on today's standard- definition (SD) "red laser" DVD's. But some analysts doubt that consumers will be quick to abandon the current DVD for a new higher-resolution medium which, to be fully appreciated, will require the use of costly HDTV displays.

The lawyers' panel discussion (that led me to these musings) was predictably inconclusive, with EFF's von Lohmann defending the legitimacy of peer-to-peer network technology while the other speakers (and questioners in the audience) sought to punish its abusers as criminals and/or block, disrupt, and otherwise thwart their online activities. Clearly, peace in these matters isn't about to break out any time soon.

SIGGRAPH On-Line Technology Policy Bibliography

Bob & Margie Ellis
November 2002

For several years I (BE) have been trying to decide how to make available to people who are interested citations to the many articles I read on technology policy. Late last year I took the first step by saving the materials as plain text files.

There is now a collection of nearly 1,000 items. These have been prepared for our website by the development of a Perl program (ME) which extracts the citations and first few lines of each article. Almost all the source materials are copyrighted and there aren't the resources to request permission to reprint them. The extracts which contain the citation, usually a URL and a sentence or two will provide people with the necessary facilities to access the article directly, yet still conform to the principles of the fair use of intellectual property.

The initial results will be available on http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy/bibliography.html concurrently with the online publication of this column. The initial version is just plain text but we have plans to make both the internal and external links live as well as conform to the format our webmaster, David Richard Nelson, has developed.