Boucher Sees Easy Path to Bill for DTV Hard Deadline

The Congressional Internet Caucus co-founder predicted easy decisions on sweeping patent reform, a hard deadline and subsidy model for DTV transition and Internet-specific Telecom Act updating. But the broadcast flag and digital content reproduction and fair use issues will be more contentious. The promise and perils of making digital content available online have drawn considerable attention from lawmakers, copyright holders and the high-tech industry, Boucher said. A D.C. Court of Appeals decision to invalidate the FCC’s broadcast flag rulemaking -- aimed at keeping over-the-air TV programming from unlicensed uploading to the Internet -- is a major issue on the 109th Congress’s plate. If broadcast flag “is done well, it will be a rare example of Congress imposing a technological mandate,” Boucher said, noting that Hollywood rarely comes to Washington to fight for a legislative solution.

As content sectors press their cases, horse trading may be needed -- particularly in the brawl with the high- tech sector, exemplified by MGM v. Grokster, Boucher said: “There are some things we want, too.” Recognizing that, no matter how the Supreme Court rules, the matter soon will reach Congress’s doorstep, Boucher introduced a bill to codify the high court’s Betamax decision. That ruling gave legal certainty to recording device manufacturers. The bill, which enjoys broad support, also would make sure the fair use doctrine on noninfringing use applies to digital media.

The recording industry’s Internet piracy problems can be solved not by suing illegal music-swappers but by updating business models, Boucher said. Labels lose as much money to inefficiency as to file sharing, he said. “Let’s urge the recording industry to make the deals they have to make with music publishers and others so they can put content up for sale in a friendly format and at a reasonable price,” he said: “The time has come to harness the power of the Internet and use it for their own purposes and stop fighting it.” Whatever the Supreme Court or Congress decides, file sharing isn’t going away, Boucher said. If the climate in the U.S. becomes too inhospitable, operations will move offshore. “There are a lot of little island countries around world that would love to be the Mecca for file sharing,” he said.

The DTV transition “has not gone well,” Boucher told CCIA members, joking that a rural constituent of his would be found to own the last analog sets in America. Noting that 73 million analog sets depend on over-the-air broadcasts, he said: “It’s going to take forever for this transition to occur if the current law stays in place.”

The DTV transition will succeed only if Congress finds a way to offer converter subsidies, Boucher said. Boucher wants the govt. to provide a full subsidy to ensure that traditional TV sets don’t become “boat anchors” whenever the deadline arrives. But lawmakers also must “make sure we don’t all lose our jobs when we vote for this bill.” The end of 2007 or sometime in 2008 is “a fairly practical hard date,” and the consumer subsidy may not be full, but it will be substantial, Boucher said. He said he expects that debate to be resolved within a month, with House passage by late summer or early fall: “Before this year is out, we'll pass a hard date for surrendering analog spectrum.”