The

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

The Digital Transition Content Security Act (DTCSA, ) was a bill introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner Jr., a Wisconsin Republican, on December 16, 2005. The bill was backed by Democratic Rep.

John Conyers John James Conyers Jr. (May 16, 1929October 27, 2019) was an American politician of the Democratic Party who served as a U.S. representative from Michigan from 1965 to 2017. Conyers was the sixth-longest serving member of Congress and the lo ...

. Its goal is " require certain analog conversion devices to preserve digital content security measures", i.e. plugging the

analog hole The analog hole (also known as the analog loophole or analog gap) is a perceived fundamental and inevitable vulnerability in copy protection schemes for noninteractive works in digital formats which can be exploited to duplicate copy-protected ...

. The bill effectively proposes mandating of the VEIL Rights Assertion Mark technology into new video-handling consumer devices. The bill was referred to subcommittee in 2006 and no further action seems to have been taken since then.

Advocates

MPAA The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, the mini-major Amazon MGM Studios, as well as the video streaming services Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. F ...

Chairman

Dan Glickman Daniel Robert Glickman (born November 24, 1944) is an American politician, lawyer, lobbyist, and nonprofit leader. He served as the United States secretary of agriculture from 1995 until 2001 in the Clinton administration. He previously represen ...

applauded the bill, saying it was a "''very important piece of legislation that will promote more

consumer choice The theory of consumer choice is the branch of microeconomics that relates preferences to consumption expenditures and to consumer demand curves. It analyzes how consumers maximize the desirability of their consumption (as measured by their pr ...

as it protects copyright owners in the digital age.''"

Critics

Public Knowledge Public Knowledge is an American non-profit organization, non-profit advocacy, public interest group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 2001 by David Bollier, Gigi Sohn, and Laurie Racine, Public Knowledge is primarily involved in the fields of ...

President Gigi Sohn testified before the

House Judiciary Committee The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, also called the House Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. It is charged with overseeing the administration of justice within the federal courts, f ...

( United States House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property. Oversight Hearing on "Content Protection in the Digital Age: The Broadcast Flag, High-Definition Radio, and the Analog Hole") on November 3. She stated: ''"The broad, sweeping draft legislation to close the analog hole suffers from the same problem; it puts the government in the role of making industrial policy, and will severely limit consumers’ ability to make lawful uses of copyrighted content. Like the

broadcast flag A broadcast flag is a bit field sent in the data stream of a digital television program that indicates whether or not the data stream can be recorded, or if there are any restrictions on recorded content. Possible restrictions include the inabili ...

, the legislation mandates a one-size-fits-all technology that has not been the subject of public or even inter-industry scrutiny. The prohibitions in the legislation would require redesign of a whole range of currently legal consumer devices, including DVD recorders, personal video recorders and camcorders with video inputs. Importantly, the existence of the analog hole has been touted as a "safety valve" for making fair use of digital media products where circumventing the technological locks has been rendered illegal by the

Digital Millennium Copyright Act The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or ...

. Should Congress close that hole without amending the DMCA to protect

fair use Fair use is a Legal doctrine, doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to bal ...

, consumers' rights to access digital copyrighted works will be eroded even further.'' ''There are better alternatives for protecting digital content than the heavy-handed technology mandates proposed here today. Those alternatives are a multi-pronged approach of

consumer education Consumer education is the preparation of an individual to be capable of making informed decisions when it comes to purchasing products in a consumer culture. It generally covers various consumer goods and services, prices, what the consumer can ...

, enforcement of copyright laws and use of technological tools developed in the marketplace, not mandated by government. The recent Grokster decision and the passage of the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, which you spearheaded, Mr. Chairman, are just two of several new tools that the content industry has at its disposal to protect its content."''

Secrecy

Ed Felten Edward William Felten (born March 25, 1963) is an American computer scientist. At Princeton University, he served as the Robert E. Kahn Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs, as well as being director of the Center for Information Tec ...

, a respected Computer Scientist, has criticized the law for its secrecy. He calls it a ''"secret law—a requirement that all devices that accept analog video inputs must implement a secret technical specification for something called a VEIL detector. If you want to see this specification, you have to pay a $10,000 fee to a private company and you have to promise not to tell anyone about the technology. It’s pretty disturbing that our representatives would propose this kind of secret law."''{{cite web , title=Analog Hole Bill Requires "Open and Public" Discussion of Secret Technology , url=http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=972 , accessdate=February 8, 2006 , author=Edward Felten, date=8 February 2006

References

External links

Full text of the BillH.R. 4569: The Digital Transition Content Security Act of 2005
from

U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary News Advisory
(PDF), December 16, 2005

Ars Technica ''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sci ...

, December 18, 2005
Forum to discuss the digital transition

Criticism

"A Lump of Coal for Consumers: Analog Hole Bill Introduced"
EFF, December 16, 2005
"Analog Hole Bill Requires “Open and Public” Discussion of Secret Technology"
Edward Felten, February 8, 2006
"VEIL Technology: Four Patents & an Application"
Kathryn Cramer, February 22, 2006 United States proposed federal intellectual property legislation Proposed legislation of the 109th United States Congress