The title of the CES session I attended today, "Copy Fights: Consumers and Hollywood: Are They Compatible?" is reflective of the myopia one sometimes finds here at CES. I say this with no malice -- I have seen some remarkable innovations from well-meaning people that will truly change the way we interact with our media. As Bill Gates said last night, people want to be able to use meda when they want the way they want. But it's also fair to say that when copyright comes up in the discussion, it is typically as a roadblock that must be overcome.

The seven-person panel I mentioned above was ably moderated by CNET's Declan McCullagh, who only on one or two occasions let fall the veil of moderator impartiality. Of course, it was fairly easy for him to do so, as there were no artists or content industry representatives on the panel to strongly defend IP. Instead, we had a capable ISP attorney who made a name for herself fighting the RIAA and MPAA, representatives of Slingbox and BitTorrent, as well as the P2P tracking firm Big Champagne, which wouldn't make as much money if P2P didn't continue to thrive. There were kind words regarding IP from representatives of Intel and MovieLink.

Despite the bias that CEA set up on this panel -- Declan told me he didn't get to choose his panelists, and I suspect the journalist in him would have wanted a more balanced one if only to provoke some controversy -- the 90-minute event didn't turn into a huge copyright-bashing orgy. It was generally acknowledged that DRM has been successful in many businesses, and has a role to play to the extent consumers accept it, and that the fact that it can be breached is not alone reason to abandon it. There was also a general consensus that artists deserve to be compensated for their creations, and that it is important that they be able to use the tools the Internet makes available to further that aim rather than have their hopes of compensation trampled. There were some misleading definitions of a "market," for example, one panelist described unauthorized peer-to-peer as a functioning market (it is a black market, but hardly one worthy of respect in a discussion of technology and copyright).

I'm focusing on this panel because it was a microcosm for what I saw on the show floor today. There is so much competition for the consumer among these widget makers, and most of the widgets I viewed today involved manipulation of content. How are rights cleared for that content? What possibilities for piracy are introduced by those manipulations? These are questions that aren't necessarily being asked, let alone answered. The floor reps I spoke with certainly didn't have the answers.

I was last in Las Vegas in September for the Vegas Music Show. That conference was completely contained in the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. CES comprises all of Las Vegas. It's important this "copy fight" not become an all-out war, because the CE industry has far more troops. Instead, both sides need to remember what I have heard so many CE executives here say this week, namely that "content is king." (Yes, the phrase first coined by a content giant has migrated to the CE community.) The CE industry has a long-term interest in seeing quality content continue to be produced; I'm hopeful they will see the connection between ensuring compensation for creation and the future creation of quality content.

posted by Patrick Ross @ 5:50 PM | Free Culture Movement

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