Los Angeles - AT&T has partnered with Hollywood movie studios and record labels to develop anti-piracy technology for deployment on its broadband networks, the Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday.

About 20 technology executives from Viacom, its Paramount Pictures studio, and other entertainment firms met at AT&T's headquarters in San Antonio, Texas last week to discuss the project -- which they said would target "the most frequent offenders."

"We do recognize that a lot of our future business depends on exciting and interesting content," AT&T senior vice president James W. Cicconi told the Times.

"We are pleased that AT&T has decided to take such a strong, proactive position in protecting copyrights," Viacom said in a prepared statement.

"AT&T's support of strong anti-piracy efforts will be instrumental in developing a growing and vibrant digital marketplace and will help ensure that they have a steady stream of great creative content to deliver to their consumers."

Public interest groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge were wary of AT&T's move.

"AT&T is going to act like the copyright police, and that is going to make customers angry," Gigi Sohn, president of digital rights advocacy group Public Knowledge, told the Times.

Related Links:
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-piracy13jun13,1,5531531.story

http://www.publicknowledge.org