Louisville, Colo. — CableLabs, a non-profit research and development consortium for the cable television industry, has announced its approval of Digital Transmission Licensing Administrator’s (DTLA) Digital Transmission Copy Protection for Internet Protocol (DTCP-IP) technology for use in the protection of cable content transmitted via unidirectional and bidirectional digital cable products.
According to a release, CableLabs’ approval of the standard allows its “licensees under DFAST, CHILA and DCAS to protect pay-per-view and video-on-demand transmissions against unauthorized copying and unauthorized Internet retransmission, while assuring consumers’ ability to record broadcast and subscription programming, in digital formats, for personal use.”
DTLA said that the DTCP-IP standard has also been approved for use by the DVD Copy Control Association on DVD players, the AACS License Administrator for high-definition optical discs, the Association of Radio Industries and Businesses in Japan, Digital Living Network Alliance for networked devices and as an output to the Content Management License Administrator trust model for the Open Mobile Alliance Digital Rights Management version 2 specification for devices such as handsets and PC laptops.
CableLabs had previously approved DTCP for protection of content over the IEEE 1394 interface.
As part of this latest agreement, DTLA and CableLabs agreed to “several forward-looking provisions to implement the new developments and facilitate new business models.” According to a release, these provisions include:
- DTLA, licensor of the DTCP-IP technology, will offer cable operators and other multichannel video service providers a new operator participant agreement that provides participation in the DTLA change management process;
- CableLabs and DTLA will update their respective specifications and license provisions as necessary to ensure effective revocation and renewal;
- with respect to “copy never” content, DTLA will make available to cable operators the same level of protection, functionality, and treatment of content that DTLA adopts to obtain approval by the Advanced Access Content System, Licensing Authority, the licensor of content protection technology used for Blu-Ray and HD DVDs; and
- DTLA and CableLabs also have agreed to discuss potential extension of DTCP capabilities for other business models for cable operators.
DTLA noted in a release that in conjunction with this agreement it has withdrawn a related petition with the Federal Communications Commission.
