Sony takes up HD-blocking Selectable Output Control fight

On Tuesday two top executives from Sony Television and Sony Pictures, accompanied by an influential lobbyist, met with the Federal Communications Commission to talk up "the advantages of expanded consumer choices in the marketplace" which would supposedly come with a waiver on the agency's ban on Selectable Output Control. That bright idea originates with the Motion Pictures Association of America. Present at the meeting were Sony Pictures TV President Steve Mosko, Sony Executive Vice President Frances Seghers, and Jim Free of the Free-Smith Group, which got almost a million bucks to lobby for Sony in 2008. They met with FCC Chair Michael Copps and Paul Murray, the Wireless Bureau's senior attorney. It's unclear what Chairman Copps thinks of the MPAA's proposal, which his predecessor Kevin Martin essentially punted to the latest FCC. As Ars reported, in early June the MPAA filed a request for agency permission to work with cable and satellite providers to disable analog output of pre-DVD release movies in favor of "secure and protected digital outputs." Current Commission rules forbid SOC use limiting either analog or digital transmission. But the MPAA says that analog streams are insecure. They "either lack, or can easily be stripped of, protection measures," in the trade group's words, and broadcast over them will "facilitate the illegal copying and redistribution of this high value content, causing untold damage to the DVD and other 'downstream' markets." Hollywood contends that relaxing SOC rules will allow the studios to release movies over cable and satellite prior to their DVD release without fear of copyright infringement.