IP: Why Digital Video Disks are late to market

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 12:51:40 -0800
From: Martin Minow <minow () apple com>
To: cypherpunks () toad com, cryptography () c2 net






http://techweb.cmp.com/eet/news/97/942news/encryp.html


To summarize, the Digital Video Disk standard contains an encryption
standard for copyright and anti-piracy protection. however, "some U.S.
PC and silicon vendors have just about abandoned hope of keeping to
their revised launch schedules for DVD-enabled systems."


... as far as anybody knows, "none of the U.S. PC vendors today has a license
to use the DVD-decryption algorithm" in software.


"We all know the situation; we don't have a license," said Michael
Moradzadeh, program manager of Intel's copy-protection task force.


A solution may be in the offing within days. Some sources said late last
week that Matsushita [who owns license rights] and key U.S. computer
companies may resolve the software-licensing issues by the end of this
week. The PC industry seeks amendments to the licensing-agreement language
that would result in equivalent treatment of software- and hardware-based
CSS decryption.


... there apparently has been some speculation among the U.S. PC community
that Matsushita may be stonewalling on the software-licensing issue so that
it can establish its hardware-based decryption solution in the marketplace.



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Nothing in the article suggests that "national interests" are involved.


Martin Minow
minow () apple com