Before the Federal Communications Commission Washington, DC 20554

Before the Federal Communications Commission Washington, DC 20554 In the matter of: ) ) Closed Captioning of Internet Protocol- ) MB Docket No. 11-154 Delivered Video Programming: Implementation ) Of the Twenty-First Century Communications ) And Video Accessibility Act of 2010 ) Comments of the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator, LLC Bruce H. Turnbull Counsel and Co-Manager, AACS LA, LLC Turnbull Law Firm, PLLC 5335 Wisconsin Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20015 (202) 274-1801 [email protected] Donald Leake, Jr. Co-Manager AACS LA, LLC 3855 SW 153rd Drive Beaverton, OR 97006 November 4, 2013 These comments are submitted by Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator, LLC (“AACS LA”) in relation to the Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 78 Fed. Reg. 39691 (July 2, 2013). In these comments, AACS LA brings to the Commission’s attention the reasons why analog outputs for AACS-protected motion picture content on prerecorded Blu-ray Discs are scheduled to “sunset” for Blu-ray Disc players (“BD players”) that are distributed after December 31, 2013 and why requiring analog outputs for BD players is neither necessary nor desirable. By way of background, AACS LA is a limited liability company established by eight companies (IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Panasonic, Sony, Walt Disney, Toshiba, and Warner Bros.) from three different industries – motion picture content providers, consumer electronics, and information technology – to develop and license content protection technology to protect high definition motion picture content from unauthorized reproduction and distribution. AACS LA’s technology has been applied to prerecorded Blu-ray Discs distributed in the United States and around the world since February 2006. AACS LA operates on a cost recovery basis, with its primary mission being to facilitate the market for prerecorded high definition content distributed on Blu-ray Discs and other types of optical disc media. The success of AACS LA’s efforts is demonstrated by the fact that to date, more than 730 million prerecorded Blu-ray Discs have been sold worldwide protected by AACS Technology. AACS Technology is currently licensed by over 1000 companies worldwide. AACS Technology consists of a combination of strong cryptography, using the Advanced Encryption Standard with 128-bit keys and state of the art media key block technology and revocation of compromised keys using an efficient, tree-based broadcast encryption system. 2 The content protected by AACS Technology as high definition prerecorded motion pictures distributed on Blu-ray Discs is considered, by the companies that produce and provide that content and by the consumers who enjoy it, to be “high value,” indeed often considered the highest value content distributed to consumers for enjoyment in their homes due to its high resolution video, high fidelity multi-channel audio, and its typically early release window. Accordingly, the technical and legal mechanisms protecting this content from unauthorized uses must be as robust as possible. AACS LA has strived to maintain the robustness of its technical and legal regime to protect Blu-ray Disc movie content from such unauthorized uses. As described below, the sunset of analog outputs on newly manufactured BD players is an important element of keeping the AACS system robust, and we urge the FCC not to mandate that BD players have analog outputs going forward. AACS Technology is protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s provisions prohibiting circumvention of an “effective technological measure” and distribution of products or tools that are primarily designed for, marketed as, or not capable of substantial uses other than circumvention of an effective technological measure. In the context of closed captioning issues, in the most recent triennial rulemaking concerning requests for exemption from the prohibition against circumventing effective technological measures controlling access to copyrighted works, the Librarian of Congress did not grant requests to permit circumvention of AACS Technology for the purpose of research and creation of players to display closed captions, noting that the Register of Copyrights (in her recommendation to the Librarian) “further determined that the record did not support the proposition that circumvention was necessary with respect to Blu-ray content….” 77 Fed. Reg. 65260, at 65271 (October 26, 2012). As stated by the Librarian in his ruling, AACS LA has expressed the willingness to grant a royalty-free license to those desiring 3 to conduct research and development on how to make closed captions (and other mechanisms to make motion picture content recorded on Blu-ray Discs more accessible to those with hearing and sight impairments). We reiterate that willingness and expect to have outreach to the organizations and individuals involved in those activities over the coming months. In relation to the specific points in the Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, AACS LA offers the following comments. 1. Treatment of DVD and BD players In its Notice, the FCC discussed BD players that have the capability to play back DVDs and then whether such BD players should be mandated in certain ways. AACS LA urges the FCC to distinguish between DVD playback functionality and Blu-ray Disc playback functionality even within the same physical product. The technologies are totally separate, one involving the use of red lasers and the other blue lasers, and the content protection systems are totally different, managed by totally different organizations under separate legal regimes. Further, to AACS LA’s understanding, there is no contemplated sunset of analog outputs for DVD players, so DVD playback is in a different situation from that of Blu-ray Discs. 2. Analog outputs from BD players As noted above, the licensing requirements applicable to BD players incorporating AACS Technology state that for products that play back content that is protected using AACS Technology, any such product sold by the AACS licensee after December 31, 2013 may not output content decrypted from AACS over analog connections. Advanced Access Content System Adopter Agreement at 106 (AACS Compliance Rules for Audiovisual Works on Optical 4 Storage, Part 2, Section 2.2.2.2), available at http://www.aacsla.com/license/AACS_Adopter_Agreement_20121115.pdf (last visited November 4, 2013). It is important to understand the precise parameters of this requirement. First, it applies only to BD players that are manufactured or sold by the licensee after December 31, 2013 and imposes no requirement to alter or disable analog output functionality in products already in consumers’ homes (or for that matter, already in the stream of commerce). Second, it applies only to the output of content originally protected using AACS Technology. So, the AACS requirements do not prohibit analog outputs on the products, but only the use of any such outputs to pass content originally protected using AACS Technology. In keeping with point 1, above, this means that a product that has dual playback functionality for both DVD and Blu-ray Disc content may continue to have analog outputs and use those outputs for content sourced from the DVDs played on that product. This analog sunset requirement is in keeping with both the progression of the consumer entertainment market into fully digital products and connections and the recognition that the conversion of high quality analog signals into digital presents a clear threat to the technical protection regimes, such as provided by AACS Technology, that seek to restrict unauthorized consumer copying and distribution of motion picture content. Thus, consumers using televisions and other displays on the market today have the ability to obtain content from BD players over digital connections that themselves are protected against unauthorized uses through technological protection measures (using, for example, the High Bandwidth Digital Content Protection [“HCDP”] technology for HDMI connections or the Digital Transmission Content Protection [“DTCP”] technology for IP and other connections) to deter unauthorized uses prior to display. 5 Digital televisions have the necessary technology to decrypt the HDCP or DTCP protections (or both) and then display the high definition pictures for consumer enjoyment. The potential need for analog connections in order to ensure the ability of consumers to be able to enjoy the closed captions is, in AACS LA’s view, an incorrect understanding of the technologies involved in getting content to televisions. First, contrary to the statement in the Notice, there is a standard for the inclusion of closed captions in the Blu-ray format. See Letter from Blu-ray Disc Association to BD-ROM Licensees (October 2, 2012), available at http://www.blu-raydisc.info/docs/BDA_Letter.pdf (“BDA letter”) (last visited November 3, 2013). Second, it is AACS LA’s understanding that, despite this standard’s availability, there are a limited number of prerecorded Blu-ray Discs that actually incorporate the closed caption information. Third, in cases where caption data is present with the video content, as with video programming delivered over IP on services such as Netflix or Hulu, HDMI connections are fully capable of delivering decoded and rendered “open” captions to a television for display, without any need for an additional analog delivery path. (See FCC 12-9 at para. 116). More specifically, as the BDA letter indicates, BD players that have IP capability for the BD Live functionality

Load more