A fight over control of computer hardware, fanned by music trading posts such as Napster and Gnutella, is pitting free-speech advocates against some of Silicon Valley's largest companies. Powerhouses such as Intel and IBM are taking early steps toward building antipiracy protections for music, videos and software directly into storage drives, memory cards, chips and other hardware parts. These technologies, some of which are nearing the marketplace, could block a song or any other digital material from being copied or saved -- potentially welcome news to record labels and movie studios. Microsoft and others are pursuing the same idea with software, but critics say even the best of these models is likely to be broken or stripped out by dedicated hackers. Hardware-based protections could prove a much stronger layer of protection. The battleground over hardware controls crosses territory ranging from the obscure inner workings of computer storage devices to intellectual property disputes that some say may soon reach the Supreme Court as a part of the Napster controversy or other pending copyright cases. For for all involved, these massive issues boil down to a simple question: How much can technology and entertainment companies control what consumers do with their products after buying them? "If they succeed in this, all of a sudden these industries have complete control over how the public does such things as backing up their music libraries," said John Martilla, director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF) Campaign for Audiovisual Free Expression, which is spearheading opposition to several "digital rights management" technologies. Even legal activities such as sampling digital works for educational or critical purposes could be blocked under proposed models, Martilla said. On the other side are copyright holders, who argue that the proliferation of peer-to-peer networks threatens to undermine entire industries ranging from entertainment to software. Even after recent legal precedents that imposed limits on Napster, underground traders have vowed to circumvent any restrictions. The motives of the hardware manufacturers are not solely altruistic. Computer and electronics companies badly want the market for digital media players to expand -- and that means convincing the content companies that the world is safe for digital music and video. The idea of building copy-protection technology into hardware is not a new one, nor has it proved highly successful in other initiatives. The Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), sponsored by the music, technology and consumer electronics industries, has been trying to find a universally acceptable way to do just that with limited success for two years. A key problem is that partial measures aren't particularly useful. Security locks are foolproof only when all brands of stereos, computers and MP3 players use the same antipiracy technology, leaving consumers little choice but to accept it. When products with no protections have been left on the market, consumers have purchased those instead. This consumer trend has been evident for years. Circuit City's Divx DVD player, designed to control the use of digital videos, died a quick market death. Sony's Vaio Music Clip was the only music player to add early versions of the SDMI's proposals, but the technology was removed after negative reviews and slow sales. Even more successful products with copyright protections have met with difficulty. DVDs and DVD players work together to prevent piracy partly with an encryption system that blocks copying. But a young Norwegian man figured out how to evade this in 1999, forcing a series of legal battles by the movie industry in attempts to keep that information off the Internet. This history alone would seem to provide ample evidence that technology companies might take a jaundiced view of building features into their products that restrict their customers' ability to use them. But as personal computer sales are flattening, hardware makers are doing what they can to help jumpstart the market for media content that might persuade consumers to buy more high-end machines. "We're not in this for the fees we're going to get from the record companies or anything," said Don Lake, program director for copy-protection business development at IBM Research, which is helping to develop several antipiracy technologies. "We're a PC company. As long as we see content providers that want to protect content, and we have the technology, we're going to help." Take me to Pt II/ CPRM - a controversial weapon Have your say instantly, and see what others have said. Click on the TalkBack button and go to the ZDNet News forum. Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom. And read what others have said.