While Jon Strayer is busy putting his 6-year-old son Eric to bed, his wife Chris tapes "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" for him to watch later. Now Strayer says he's worried the government may end the tradition.
Strayer was one of more than 1,400 people who wrote to the US Federal Communications Commission before a Dec. 6 deadline, protesting a proposal backed by News Corp and other media companies to require software in digital televisions and recorders to limit the use of home recordings.
Public interest groups also say an FCC mandate may stifle innovation and eventually curb consumer rights to copy and save creative content. The companies say they need the technology to prevent distribution of digital TV shows on the Internet and promise they won't keep viewers from recording for personal use.
"They might change their minds later," Strayer, a 47-year-old computer programmer, said in a telephone interview from his home office in Indianapolis. "I'm afraid that all the power is moving into the hands of the copyright holders and that the users are going to be left at their mercy."
Walt Disney Co's ABC and other broadcasters say they need more protection as the industry shifts from the current analog TV to new digital signals, which are more easily copied.
Erick Gustafson, vice president of federal affairs for the free-market nonprofit group Citizens for a Secure Economy, said it's unfair to protect TV programming with technology that will raise the cost of TV sets and recorders.
The FCC risks stranding viewers with obsolete equipment once TV stations turn off analog broadcasts, set to happen when 85 percent of US homes can receive digital TV, Gustafson and other consumer advocates say.
Disney, Fox parent News Corp and other movie and television companies want the commission to impose an industry plan based on anti-piracy methods developed by a group including Intel Corp. The proposal would merely prevent redistribution of digital TV on the Web, not curb home recording, supporters say.
Opponents give a distorted view of what the proposal would do to win public support, News Corp lobbyist Rick Lane said.
The debate should focus on the substance of the plan, "not the rhetoric and scare tactics by those who are trying to oppose protection of free over-the-air broadcasting," Lane said.
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