EISNER RAPS DIGITAL PIRACY MORE SECURITY BEING SOUGHT.

Byline: Greg Hernandez Staff Writer

Digital piracy threatens not only the fabric of the entertainment industry but the U.S. economy as well, Walt Disney Co. Chairman Michael D. Eisner told a Senate committee Thursday.

Eisner, speaking before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, said that more than 350,000 pirated movies are downloaded from the Internet each day. He called upon Congress to enact open and common standards for technological protection of creative content in digital distribution.

``We know that we can never achieve - and do not expect - 100 percent content security,'' Eisner said. ``But, there must be a reasonably secure environment to prevent widespread and crippling theft of the creative content that drives our economy.''

The Disney chief pointed out that movies, television shows and other audiovisual works produced domestically are part of creative content industries that lead the U.S. economy in contributions to job growth, gross domestic product and foreign sales and exports.

He suggested that by establishing standards for protection of creative content, Congress would be acting ``to ensure the domestic viability of one of the most important positive contributions to our nation's balance of international trade.''

According to Eisner, digital piracy is particularly threatening because the quality is much higher than in the analog world where each successive copy degrades in quality.

``In digital, each copy is perfect - a perfectly coded series of ones and zeros. The 1,000th copy is just as perfect as the original,'' he said. ``Because of the ubiquitous nature of the Internet, perfect, but unauthorized, copies can be transmitted virtually instantaneously all over the world with no regard whatsoever for the rights of the content owners.''

Eisner said a common set of ``baseline'' technologies are needed to help digital media devices identify and reject the illegal, pirated copies. He also maintains that technological content protection standards would play an important role in stimulating the deployment of broadband communications networks, accelerate the digital television transition and re-energize the sale of many different digital devices, including personal computers.

He added that digital technology and broadband communications hold the promise of tremendous economic growth for the nation and said the technology is being embraced by Disney in various ways.

``Unfortunately, these same digital technologies can enable a level of piracy - theft - that would undermine our capacity to produce films and entertainment, undermine the deployment of broadband networks, undermine the digital television transition and ultimately result in fewer choices and options for American consumers,'' he said.