From: Martin Minow <minow@apple.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 12:57:23 -0800 (PST)
To: cryptography@c2.net
Subject: Why Digital Video Disks are late to market
Message-ID: <199702202057.MAA22509@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



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.

---

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

Martin Minow
minow@apple.com