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09/19/2006MPAA Warns on File Sharing Over Citywide Wi-Fi
Recently, Culver City, California — “The Heart of Screenland” — added software to monitor downloading and to filter illegal content on its citywide Wi-Fi network, making it among the first — if not the first — to do so in the country. The solution ultimately protects copyright and enables control over the network, but could it also raise First Amendment questions in regard to any other content-filtering features that are implemented?
At the W2i Digial Cities Convention in Los Angeles in May, Dean Garfield, Chief Strategic Officer for the Motion Picture Association of America, urged cities to bring themselves up to speed on intellectual-property protection laws. The MPAA represents the six major U.S. motion-picture studios, which are concerned about illegal file sharing and content distribution. From our perspective the rollout of municipal broadband is more of an opportunity than a challenge. There are at least 500 municipalities developing their own broadband systems, and for a number of reasons we view it as an opportunity. I’ll point to two. One is the social benefit of municipal Wi-Fi, which is an opportunity to bridge the digital divide. It’s particularly critical in our role across the country and in Los Angeles, as a major employer, in finding people who are technically savvy and sufficiently adept in using new technologies to contribute to our industry. Given the trend lines in our industry — bilingual and well versed not only in languages but in computer development — it is critical to the growth of our industry.
But I’m not here as a savior of the city or the country, so in addition to the social benefits of municipal Wi-Fi and broadband dispersion, there is a great growth opportunity for our industry generally. The motion picture industry encountered significant growth over the last twenty years, from 1985 to 1995, and again from 2000 to 2005, and the main drivers of that growth were new technology and distribution mechanisms. The technology was largely the DVD, and the new distribution mechanisms were the rollout of cable systems…so broadband presents a new opportunity…to get more eyeballs on our content, which for us brings great benefit. So we look at this opportunity with great energy and excitement.
The one thing I’ll say before I close, is that in rolling out broadband it’s critical that cities establish a framework for dealing with all the issues that are raised by that, and so it is critical that you have a framework of policies and processes in place for dealing with your legal obligations. Most of the municipal Wi-Fi systems that we’ve seen being developed are really public-private partnerships, so you have a traditional telephone company or broadband provider who otherwise has to comply with federal statues including statues dealing with protecting intellectual property — Title 17, Section 512 — on dealing with people who engage in piracy and having processes in place for identifying those individuals….
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