The debate over digital copyright protection goes public in the House of
Representatives Thursday, with News Corp. president Peter Chernin and AOL Time
Warner Inc. co-chief operating officer Richard Parsons planning to testify
before the House Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee, Chernin via
satellite.
Other witnesses scheduled to appear are Dr. Paul Liao,
chief technology officer for Panasonic/Matsushita Consumer Electronics; Larry
Blanford, CEO of Philips Consumer Electronics Co.; Larry Jacobson, president and
COO of RealNetworks Inc.; Assaf Litai, founder and acting CEO of Vidius Inc.;
and Joe Kraus, cofounder of DigitalConsumer.org
.
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chairman of the subcommittee, and other key
committee members have been participating in regular meetings on digital
television with the broadcast, cable and consumer-electronics industries and the
movie studios.
Many of the discussions have focused on the problem of
protecting copyrighted digital material from being redistributed on the
Internet, which is among the issues Thursday's hearing will address.
