DigitalConsumer Takes Up the Fight
Against Copyright Plans in Congress

A crucial debate is shaping up in Congress and in private industry about how freely you, the consumer, will be able to use digital music and video in the future.

The record companies and Hollywood are scheming to drastically erode your freedom to use legally purchased CDs and videos, and they are doing it behind your back. The only parties represented in the debate are media and technology companies, lawyers and politicians. Consumers aren't invited.

For about a decade, big media companies, especially the record labels, have been lobbying Washington to recast federal copyright laws. At the same time, the bootlegging of music has become a huge phenomenon, even though the courts shut down the most famous means for doing so, the Napster online song-swapping service. Movies and TV programs are also being bootlegged on the Internet, though to a much smaller extent, so far.

So, these media companies have a legitimate problem. Unfortunately, they are trying to solve it with new laws and private-industry pacts that would build copy-protection mechanisms into every personal computer and digital recording and playback device on the market. That would mean severe limitations on the consumer's long-recognized right to unlimited personal, noncommercial use of legally purchased copyrighted materials.

These mechanisms would also likely have severe, unintended consequences for the free and open development of new digital technologies, even of the Internet itself. For instance, these copy-protection schemes might interfere with the free transfer of computer files. Also, consumers might refuse to buy new PCs, preferring to hang on indefinitely to the current, uncrippled models.

Thursday, a new group goes public to fight back on behalf of consumers. It's called DigitalConsumer.org (www.digitalconsumer.org) and was formed by Silicon Valley businesspeople who oppose the erosion of consumer rights and of technological innovation. It aims to get Congress to pass a six-point Consumer Technology Bill of Rights.

This bill of rights wouldn't condone theft of media content or bar the industry from protecting itself. It would merely mean that in doing so, industries couldn't trample on the rights of honest consumers who buy content legally.

In the new world sought by the media companies, you might not be able to buy a CD or DVD and play it back on your PC. You might not be able to copy to your hard disk, or to a custom-made CD, the few songs you really like from a CD you bought. You might not be able to tape, or to digitally record, any TV program you like.

Already, record companies are putting copy protection on a few CDs, and more may follow. But that's nothing compared with the future they envision in which the PC itself is crippled to enforce copy protection. Modifying computers and other devices in this fashion is the topic of discussions between the entertainment and technology industries. It's also the goal of a new law contemplated by Sen. Ernest Hollings (D., S.C.).

Let me be clear about this. I strongly support the concepts of copyright and intellectual property. I support the right of artists and rights holders to be paid for their work. I oppose the theft of intellectual property. But honest consumers also have rights under the law.

Copyright law embraces the idea that consumers have the right to unlimited private use of legally purchased music, videos, books and other media content. In simple terms, consumers are free to copy this material as long as they don't distribute the copies to others. A federal law, the 1992 Audio Home Recording Act, specifically confirms this freedom to copy music for personal use. However, the industry's latest plans would severely curb that right.

DigitalConsumer proposes that consumers be guaranteed certain rights to use digital content they have legally purchased. These include:

In addition, the proposed Bill of Rights would allow consumers to use technology to exercise these and other rights. If industry copy protection blocked you from exercising your rights, you could use technology to defeat that protection.

Already, the rights granted in the Home Recording Act are somewhat undone by another law, the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The latter law makes it a crime to "circumvent" copy protection, even if that copy protection impairs your legal rights under the 1992 law.

If you want to preserve both the music and movies we enjoy, and your rights to use them freely, there are several things you can do. First, stop stealing music online, and stop condoning the practice. Second, boycott copy-protected CDs. Third, start paying attention to the coming fight over copy-protection, and speak up for your rights as a consumer.

Write to Walt Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

Updated March 14, 2002