Bowing to criticism, Microsoft Corp on Wednesday backed off a copyright protection scheme that would have restricted the use of TV programs recorded on computers that run an upcoming version of the Windows XP operating system.
Windows XP Media Center Edition, which is to be installed on a new line of Hewlett-Packard Co personal computers later this year, would have encrypted recordings so that they could only be played on the PC that recorded the program.
After details of Microsoft's original plan emerged last month, consumer advocates criticized the system as being more restrictive than traditional technology such as videotape recorders, which let viewers make personal copies of TV shows and watch them on any set.
Now, consumers will be able to burn recorded programs onto DVDs to watch on other computers and, by the end of the year, on standalone players, said Murari Narayan, a product marketing director at Microsoft.
The recordings also will be transferrable over the Internet, though that would not be easy given the size of most video files.
"We have to make sure we enable a very good consumer out-of-the-box experience," he said.
The software still will support the Copy Generation Management System, which, if restrictions were encoded into a broadcast, would bar the sharing of a DVD recording, Narayan said. He said less than 1 percent of all broadcast content is encoded with CGMS restrictions.
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