NCTA Supports MPAA Waiver Request
National Cable & Telecommunications Association: Motion Picture Association of America trying to offer new services that would benefit public.
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 7/31/2008 8:58:00 AM
The National Cable & Telecommunications Association asked the Federal Communications Commission to grant studios the ability to selectively block copying of HD movies via output controls on cable set-top boxes.
The NCTA, which supported the FCC ban on selectable output controls, also supports waiving that ban for studios that say they want to try delivering HD movies to multichannel-video subscribers before they are released on DVD but they need to be able to prevent their copying to protect that DVD window.
The trade group pointed out that the agency predicted that banning the select control of digital-content output might need to be waived for new services that would benefit the public, and that is just what the Motion Picture Association of America is trying to offer.
"The MPAA petition will permit consumers unprecedented early access to programming that they do not have today and could not have without the requested waiver," the NCTA argued in its filing.
Not surprisingly, other multichannel-video providers like DirecTV and AT&T also support the waiver.
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