DVD Watermarking On Its Way 208
Cranston Snord writes: "A group of seven major players in the DVD market has come together to form the Video Watermarking Group, which will be submitting a spec to the DVD-Copy Control Association in July. More info is available from this article on Business2.0. With the recent SDMI Watermark crack saga, it's hard not to see the storm clouds looming..." This article has more information about how the waterworking would work.
DVD-CCA REOI (Score:1)
"The protections afforded by CSS technology alone do not always prevent content from being copied or utilized in unauthorized ways. The 'marks' are intended to act as persistent indicators of the original CSS protection and authorized copying, if any, as the audio-visual content is transformed from one condition to another." on page 3. I would almost say that the watermarking initiative is proof that their CSS system doesn't protect against piracy. The fact that CSS was successfully broken (by an amatuer [although very intelligent] teenage cipher analyst [hobbiest]) is irrelevant.
Re:My thoughts.. (Score:1)
I don't see how watermarking can prevent me from stealing a DVD from my local DVD store. Their only goal is to prevent copyright infringement.
Re:My thoughts.. (Score:1)
Actually, I think the RIAA and MPAA have both addressed this issue. The RIAA and MPAA don't really give a fuck (legally) about recording your CD's and dubbing your tapes. In the first place, that does legitimately fall under "fair use" and secondly, you suffer degradation when you dub tapes and videos. Tis true. Same goes for MP3's. As long as the copy is not as good (although it may be good enough for your purposes), you still have the "incentive" to purchase the original. So, Joe Blow makes a copy of Britney Spears "I'm 18 and you know it" CD onto tape and gives it to Mary Suck. She goes "oh golly! her voice is so dreamy! but that static in the background.." and goes and buys the CD, or so the thinking goes (in reality, many high quality tape decks eliminate most hiss, I've never had many quality problems). Here's the cruz of the MPAA/RIAA argument: when you can make bit for bit perfect copies of digital media, then you lose 90% of the incentive to go out and legitimately purchase/license the material. DeCSS and the like do this. Ripping off a video stream to MP4 or whatever does *not* give you the same quality, at least with any reasonable size. Same can be said with MP3's, which are still a small bit lossy at the highest settings. However, burning a CD image gets the same quality. If you were able to do the same with DVD's (and we eventually will), people will do that, as well.
<rant>
It's their shit, let them do what they want to with it. If you don't like their rules, don't buy their shit. Fuck your stupid "But, music and movies belong to the people!" arguments, if you want to make music and movies and "give them to the people", go buy yourself a camcorder and have at it. </rant>
On a more serious note, yes, I do agree: there's rampant piracy of DVD's and CD's (predominately in non/minimally regulated SouthEast Asian markets), all completely without Napster, DeCSS, MP3's, etc. The only reason that I can think of that the MPAA/RIAA are all in a hussy is because they lack the legal bargaining power in SE Asia that they have purchased (or in many cases, earned) here. So, it may be more of a "yeah, we can't do dick in Singapore and Hong Kong, but by fucking god we're not gonna let these DOMESTIC assholes copy our shit!" here's where fair-use arguments come into play. I also agree with the premise that not everyone who wants to use DeCSS wants to rip and pirate DVD's. I certainly don't (you like the movie? Go buy it at Walmart, asshole! don't come to me looking to save money..)
anyway, back at the ranch...
What really going on. (Score:1)
Why not introduce the ultimate YACPS, making the movies cheap enough that it is not profitable to bootleg them? Instead spend those millions on producing better movies, or actually procecuting those bootleggers who seem to causing them so much concern. My theory is DVD's technology is so expensive BECAUSE of all the YACPS.
Do you think DVD's are so expensive because of the costs to actaully produce them? That is why the bootleggers make a profit anyway. The YACPS are hurting not just the end-user, but all the middle industries as well.
What really bites be is that we, the end-users, get stuck with the check of all that red-tape.
A question (Score:1)
The technology is here. Why is it restricted to a special video format?
Lets study this phenomenon. Companies have stopped general purpose laser disks to CD. Which is quite old. Not even one has come up with the next generation of CDRs.
I demand data-independant recordable laser disks.
That would be a superset of DVDs and thus make DVDs obsolete.
Thanks.
Rips are already tagged, why watermark? (Score:1)
A watermark should be invisible to the naked eye, but readable under scrutiny. How can a vague watermark survive a reduction in resolution followed by mpeg1 or mpeg4 compression? These formats throw out all but the most obvious pixels in the scene to achieve massive compression. Sometimes actors faces are unrecognizable and don't even think about what they do to text or background images.
Lastly, DVD rips are not the "hot" downloads. The current run movies shot with a camcorder in the theater are. I fail to see how this will stop them. By the time the DVD is released, the movies are already old news to those who download them.
AC
Chinese bootlegs (Score:1)
watermarking...the rest of the story (Score:1)
Here's what your not being told. The watermarking system can determine what MEDIA the bits are coming from. That's because every recordable DVD, except the professional DVD for Authoring, has a unique serial number, in the place where a stamped DVD places the CSS key info. So a watermark that says don't copy on a DVD recordable is a clear violation.
Also, because the system allows some use of "copy one time", each device may have the ability to re-mark the watermark, probably by re-encoding the MPEG. Yes, this will totally kill the quality of the original, IMHO, but it is required to change the "copy one time" to "don't copy anymore".
And while they're re-marking, why not add an ID from the player to the OUTPUT watermark? And don't forget the CPRM system uses all of this to know if you are the original recording of a program or a clone on a different piece of media. Can't clone the recording because of CPRM and can't copy on another recorder because of watermarking. So a single copy is the limit if the "copy one time" watermark is used.
"What, my new DVD-VCR knows what I'm doing and watches to keep me honest?"
Easy to defeat? Hollywood-MPAA wants to put the watermark pickup inside each and every DVD drive!
interesting (Score:1)
number scheems, not trying, and HUGE file sizes.
The best workaround i've heard of is a flag on the disk that executes a scipt to point to a partion on the disk with all the cool stuff(interviews commentary etc.)The other partition on the DVD would play only the movie, the idea being, yeah you might get the movie but not all the fun stuff.
And how about the other side of the issue: the price of DVDs? Reduce that to the point where it's not worth it for wouldbe pirates, bang it's more available, costs the same as a rental (4.00 dollers at blockbuster), and people will be more inclined to purchase the.
Re:My thoughts.. (Score:2)
2. It may or may not do anything to stop copyright infringement -- but you can bet that if it at all effective at stopping non-commercial copyright infringement (as opposed to exposing counterfeit commercial DVDs), it will infringe on Fair Use rights and make it harder for people to use the movie when it passes into the public domain.
3. This isn't instead of waves of lawyers, this is in addition to lawyers (see recent Slashdot items about 2600 magazine / MPAA / DeCSS case, where the movie-industry-favored DMCA threatens not just Constitutional copyright law, but First Amendment freedoms of the speech and of the press). Even if it was instead of lawyers, who says that copy protection systems which impede Fair Use and eventual public domain use (that is to say, just about all of them) should be welcomed with open arms?
Re:Inconceivable! (Score:5)
I do not think that word means what you think it means...
Re:BLOCKBUSTER sez "7 rents before DVD is useless" (Score:1)
Also I do have kids, and funny thing is I can let them have access to the VHS tapes. They seem to stand up to standard kid wear. DVD's are a no-no. They can't pass the 6 year old test.
Totally agree here -- all of my wife's Disney collection is VHS for this specific reason: My three kids (well only one has the ability now) can grab a movie, pop it in and go to town. It's also why Fisher-Price hasn't come out with the sing-along CD box yet -- CDs and DVDs are just too susceptable to scratching.
However I do feel that in 10 years' time, my DVDs will be perfectly watchable, while my VHS tapes will be fading and generally crappy to watch.
Re:BLOCKBUSTER sez "7 rents before DVD is useless" (Score:2)
This so called "durable media" isn't... when compared to VHS. Yes, virginis, this MORE FRAGILE MEDIA has a far greater NEED FOR CONSUMERS TO BE ABLE TO BACK UP.
I would debate that point. Magnetic media is far more fragile when presented with extreme heat and magnetic fields... things that consumers don't even think about.
Optically, DVDs are far more vulnerable, this is true. But causing damage to the surface of the disc is something which (IMO) happens on purpose -- scratching the disc, dropping it, letting the 3 year old get at it...
I'd also like to see some proof (press release?) that shows that Blockbuster only gets an average of ten rentals out of a disc. I know our little hometown movie store gets hundreds if not thousands of rentals on their DVD media without issue.
Re:The ultimate protection? (Score:2)
No... After these news after genetically modified humans, they'd probably start talking with the genetic engineering folks to produce humans with no ears, eyes or any other senses.
Yet, even that is bound to fail. There's no scientific explanations for sixth sense, and with all other senses removed, such modified humans would develop psychic skills with which they could a) guess what happens in the movie and b) burn DVDs with just those psychic powers.
=)
That holography idea... (Score:5)
And yet, the method is still effective. Anyone would be able to tell at a glance whether or not a disk was pirated. With a number for an antipiracy put into DVD boxes, this would provide the movie companies with a very effective method of stopping piracy: consumer policing. Believe it or not, most people actually don't want to pirate movies, and most would probably be more than happy to turn in pirated discs, as well as whoever sold the discs to them. And yet, this method would still allow legitimate copies to be made. It's the best of all worlds. It's not as effective at stopping all piracy as Draconian methods like watermarking, but it doesn't punish a single innocent, and in the end that's what is truly important.
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Region encoding (Score:2)
It is currently illegal to sell region-locked players in New Zealand. So they are not locked - so I am told, but I'm having trouble confirming this.
In Australia, all it takes is one court case to decide on prima-facie evidence that region locking reduces consumer choice and restricts competition, and any CE manufacturer importing region locked devices will be up for large fines. The vitamin industry was fined $AUD25.5m because of very similar behaviour, and the fines are relative the ability of the companies to pay. I'd love to see Sony, et al fined lots of $$$ because of their illegal players.
Re:My thoughts.. (Score:2)
Re:My thoughts.. (Score:1)
Actually, it's now Life of Author + 70 years, or 95 years for corporate stuff. Of course, it's "limited" (which the US Constitution requires), but expect them to try and make it life + 90 years or 115 years in about 15 years (when the current copyright life starts showing).
Of course, you're right on the lobbyists.
It wouldn't be so bad, if... (Score:5)
Okay, in case it needs repeating -- and it probably does:
Copying is not theft. Period.
That said, if this watermarking scheme were intended to protect the reputations of the people who created the film, then I'd be all for it. For artists, reputation is what's really at stake here. A watermarking scheme would help thwart someone copying an artist's work and passing it off as their own.
As it is, it's going to be used by the DVD player's firmware to determine whether the user has "permission" to view the content on that disc, which is a pointless exercise.
The central flaw here is that the studios are failing to acknowledge that the users don't give a rat's ass about what the studios claim is, "their property."
I mean, think about this: In the mind of the average consumer, posession is nine-tenths of the law, especially when they have a receipt to back it up. Yet the studio claims the receipt is meaningless -- they believe they still get to tell the user what they can and can't do with it after the fact. Name a single consumer who's going to buy in to the idea that they should pay for the privilege of being bossed around simply to protect the pocketbook of a guy who's already filthy stinking rich. Where's the value to the consumer in such an arrangement?
On the other hand, if the encryption/watermarking were there to preserve the creator's reputation so that it couldn't be usurped, I think you'd get a lot of consumers to heartily sign on to that bandwagon.
Schwab
Re:Why will pirates care about watermarks anyway? (Score:1)
It stops the real threat, which are pirates which produce packages that look like the real thing and which get sold into stores, etc. George making a copy for Frank to watch on his VHS isn't the problem, and even Sally sharing a .VOB with Susan over Gnutella isn't the issue. 100,000 authentic looking DVDs complete in packaging, etc. arriving from offshore and ending
up on the shelf at <insert retail store name here> is the issue.
And for those, the hologram scheme sounds like the best bet to me.
--Joe--
Re:Why will pirates care about watermarks anyway? (Score:1)
Notice I didn't advocate watermarking as the solution for this, I advocated the very-hard-to-reproduce holograms. As best as I can tell, all the watermark tells you is what source they copied from (assuming different masters have different watermarks) -- pointless, I heartily agree.
I guess my main problem is that I replied to the wrong post without fully clarifying my stance. My point to the poster I was replying to was not that the watermark was the right answer (I don't believe that it is), but that the real pirates do provide all the trimmings that make the package look legit. And the answer there is the hologram or some other object/thing that the pirator cannot copy easily. A watermark consisting of bits can be copied just like any of the rest of the bits, which in my mind is not really a watermark. (Think of real watermarks on paper and how they work -- I can't think of a digital equivalent.)
--Joe--
Re:Linticular holograms (Score:1)
It's LENticular, not LINticular.
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Waterworks, indeed. (Score:2)
Yup, indeed. Waterworking. What else could better describe that UNsanitary plumbing that waterMARKing DVD would be. But in any case, it will be LEAKY plumbing...
So, whenever we pop a movie in the player, after the DREAMWORKS PICTURES logo, we'll see the "PROTECTED BY WATERWORKS PICTURE PROTECTION"???
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Re:It Won't Work (IMHO) (Score:2)
Well, it's an inconvenient solution, but there's really no other alternative. Every software-oriented solution gets cracked.
So so most hardware solutions. Home satellite dishes are hacked, hardware protection schemes for software are hacked[0], "fleetnet" style police radio systems are hacked..
At some point in the process the data becomes unprotected, that's where it's vulnerable.
grubby[0] I realize these incorporate software on the computer as well, but some dongles now contain key pieces of the software in them. No matter.
Mass-produced watermarks? (Score:3)
But that won't work if every watermark is the same, so they won't be able to just stamp these out.
It also won't work if they can't tell which watermark is on Mr. X's DVD. Unless they require registration and outlaw cash sales, they'll never know who the original source of a pirated videos. They would also need to outlaw (or track) after-market sales, because Mr. X should be free to sell his DVD to Mr. Y (who may be the pirate).
Not designed to stop everyone . . . (Score:2)
I think their goal, however, is to make it difficult enough that copying a DVD isn't a commonplace event for the average user.
The trading of online music, for example, didn't become such a hot topic with the recording industry until services such as Napster in conjunction with MP3 rippers and encoders made it easy enough for the guy down the hall who has trouble turning his machine on, to rip, encode and share the latest music with the nation.
However, an even bigger concern for myself is how much trouble too many incompatible copy protection schemes will cause for someone attempting to simply play their legally purchased DVD's. Macrovision on VHS annoys me as it is.
Watermarking on digital media in general (Score:2)
The real question though - how does watermarking prevent digital copies? If I'm doing a bit-for-bit copy of a DVD, the watermark isnt going to change, and as far as the DVD player is concerned, everything is "jake". Note: this is assuming that the world the MPAA lives in is the real world, wherein anybody with a computer can make a digital copy of a dvd.
Is this designed to keep people from copying dvds to VHS? Isn't that what macrovision does? And, even if macrovision doesn't work (or, is defeated with a $20 box), wouldnt the VHS players have to support watermark detection?
I just dont see when this would ever come into play.
Somebody, fill me in?
Wasn't CSS supposed to ..... (Score:2)
Re:Mass-produced watermarks? (Score:2)
>>So if Mr. X buys a DVD and copies it and
>>gives it to a friend and the copyright-police >>find Mr. X's watermark on his friends copy, >>they know to prosecute Mr.X.
Nope.... doesn't work that way. They can't prosecute Mr.X. It is unenforceable that you could be required to protect any media you bought from duplication. Just like now - if a friend photocopies a commerical book that you have - they can prosecute him, not you. You can't be legally required to guard a copyrighted work.
There are 2 reasons here:
1) They can prosecute the friend, because by the watermark they know he didn't buy it.
2)Automatic determination of content. Think Napster. All the noise about how can they block songs if they don't know who it's by (renaming, pig latin, etc). If all
j
Re:Once again, if you can view it, you can copy it (Score:2)
This is true, only if "fair use" actually exists (Score:5)
Only if copyright law allows you that fair use, for example in UK copyright law, there is no such thing as "fair use".
In the UK, according to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act [hmso.gov.uk] it would be even illegal to make a recording of a song, even for your own personal use. Don't believe me? - look at the section about Infringement of copyright by copying [hmso.gov.uk] section which states that "This includes storing the work in any medium by electronic means".
If you think this falls under "fair use", think again, there is no such thing. There is a section called "fair dealing" which allows certain exceptions [hmso.gov.uk] and copying for personal use (as opposed to personal study) is not one of them.
Oh, and one of the clinchers is that if you are unprepared, you can be convicted for copyright infringement on a work that has passed into the public domain [hmso.gov.uk], because "it shall be presumed [that it was copied illegally] until the contrary is proved, that the article was made at a time when copyright subsisted in the work."
So, in the UK, you can only legally access a work in extremely limited ways, and you can be found guilty until you can prove otherwise
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Don't understand watermarking (Score:3)
Sounds like yet another scheme that can only prevent hobbiests from copying discs. Real pirates can always just copy the media bit-for-bit, flaw-for-flaw.
Re:This is true, only if "fair use" actually exist (Score:2)
On the other hand UK law does not have the rather draconian idea of any "derived work" belongs to the original copyright holder, which is the case in the US. (Probably made sense with the original term of copyright in the US, but now is simply another "club" for large corporates.)
Thus in the UK things which would in the US fall under the "derived work" criteria would actually be "original works"...
look at the section about Infringement of copyright by copying section which states that "This includes storing the work in any medium by electronic means".
Thus radio and television are now illegal... Using "any medium" is a very very silly definition.
Re:Liberty in the UK - meta-topic (or off topic?) (Score:2)
That's part of the reason for not allowing people to be repeatedly tried for the same thing. It gives the prosecution an incentive to do a decent job in the first place.
Re:My thoughts.. (Score:2)
Simply because the large scale priates can get access to the same production lines or to the content in unencrypted form.
Re:My thoughts.. (Score:2)
Compare also the cost of distribution and quality control.
Re:It wouldn't be so bad, if... (Score:2)
But is it going to protect the reputations of actors, writers, directors, stuntmen, editors, etc or the "reputation" of the studios and distributors.
Whilst the consumers might care about the people who actually created the content they probably couldn't care less who the publisher/distributor/middleman is. Film studios know this, that's why they make their logo the first thing you see...
Re:Logic flaws abound (Score:2)
It might make sense for the first case to be different. But with the issue between VHS and DVD it looks like the people involved are trying to have their cake and eat it. Also there is the issue that a DVD costs more even though the actual cost of producing and distributing the media is undoubtedly far less.
Re:It Won't Work (IMHO) (Score:2)
Except this is likely to backfire, people will soon find out the reasons for the trade embagos this would need to be remotly effective.
Re:Could someone please buy these people a clue? (Score:2)
Also both the encryption mechanism and any keys are static, the information is valuable for 70-100 years and decryption systems are very common.
It's a matter of when rather than if...
Re:Could someone please buy these people a clue? (Score:2)
Except that at some point in the chain the data will end up in an unencrypted format. Be it before the DVD is mastered, in the RAM of a player or the electronics driving a CRT or LCD array.
Re:Could someone please buy these people a clue? (Score:2)
Except that the TV isn't remotly secure the electronics have no way of knowing if they are driving a CRT or a pile of electronics which outputs in PAL, NTSC and SECAM all together.
Re:Could someone please buy these people a clue? (Score:2)
The more copyright gets extended the longer any "useful life".
Anyway when it comes to security you need to consider the whole system. Encryption has rarely (if ever) been broken purely by brute force. It's more common by expoiting a weakness in the system. Here the weakness is that keys are fixed and embedded in consumer devices. As a whole it's probably a weaker complete system than those used in WW2. At least those cypher machines had the keys changed every day! (Also the information was only valuable for a fairly short time.)
Re:Could someone please buy these people a clue? (Score:2)
Unless you make a dongle which cannot be reverse engineered, produced in a factory where people can only leave in coffins it's impossible to make such a secure device.
Re:You can't change human nature (Score:2)
The assumption here is that Windows is suitable for the average computer user...
Windows is a mediocre sever platform but UNIX is just plain awful as a workstation platform for the average user.
For many "average users", i.e. those who use a computer as a tool for a job such things are unix workstations, graphics terminals even TEXT terminals could be very good. Because they can't break the thing easily, even if it fails its easy to swap in a spare.
Windows with it's single user, end user is expected to be a sysadmin, store everything possible locally approach is an awful approach for a workstation.
Re:Just another day in the realm of profit margins (Score:2)
Pity we can't simply introduce the whole lot to a character played by the Mission Impossible leads' daughter
Re:I believe copy protection borders on illegial. (Score:2)
They don't have a God given right to this "protection" or even to consider this "property" in the first place anyway...
Re:You know the next step (Score:2)
Considering how much is spent trying to stop people importing things into the US (including people) and how ineffective this is does anyone seriously expect this to work?
Re:Content protection is futile! (Score:2)
How is the MPAA going to verify the information they are given? How are they going to ensure it stayes valed, e.g. if people move? What happens when a DVD is bought be a corporate?
Re:How this will *really* work (Score:2)
Except the relevent issue here is how much does it cost to either gain access to such a machine or to build one which does the same job.
Re:Liberty in the UK - meta-topic (or off topic?) (Score:2)
Or alternativly defendants start getting off on the technicality of there being no prosecutor, because so many have been jailed for contempt of court.
Re:Holography is the best solution (Score:3)
Except for the "bootlegs" which are made on the same production line as the "genuine" ones.
DVDs are cheap to make, especially where they are made in the poorest parts of the world.
Re:BLOCKBUSTER sez "7 rents before DVD is useless" (Score:2)
If you mishandle it (get fingerprints and food smudges over it, use it as a Frisbee, etc.), a DVD won't last too long. That is Blockbuster's likely problem. I rented a movie once and it wouldn't play at first. A few minutes at the kitchen sink with some water, some dishwashing detergent, and a towel fixed it...maybe they should invest in some cleaning equipment to deal with the slobs who don't know how to properly handle DVDs.
The DVDs I own, OTOH, all look like-new, with no scratches or smudges. I handle them only by their edges, and they're either in the player or in their boxes. I suspect they'll last much longer than 7 to 10 plays.
None of this, of course, negates the fair-use rights of people who buy DVDs to make backup and/or working copies. I don't have kids, but if I did, it'd be nice to rip DVDs of their favorite movies to VCD or SVCD, lock up the DVDs, and let them use the copies. They won't notice the difference, and if they screw it up, you just rip & burn again.
Re:Inconceivable! (Score:2)
Judge: Okay, RIAA, you win. Napster, you must comply and take down the songs that RIAA says you must take down.
(time passes)
RIAA (in a whiney voice) Your honor, names alone aren't enough, can't you do something?
(time passes)
RIAA: (all cocky) Your honor, we have a program that can automatically identify which songs are ours. Please have Napster remove all songs which this program identifies as ours.
Judge: So this will stop copyright infringement of the major labels, but will allow songs from individual artists who want their songs to be traded to be traded? Sounds good to me. Napster, I order you to comply.
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DVDCCA Official Request for Watermarking Proposals (Score:2)
Here are the official DVDCCA requests for watermarking proposals. The proposals are due by May 9, 2001. Some of the interesting highlights include a serial-copy-management-like copy protection (ie, ability for producers to designate NO-COPY or COPY-ONCE flags); the fact that watermarking is not a prerequisite - other technologies will be entertained. A preliminary selection will occur later this month. Candidates will be required to pay for their own testing expenses (ouch!).
Notice to Interest Parties [dvdcca.org] (brief, general instructions)
Request for Expressions of Interest [dvdcca.org] (formal instructions and requirements)
Both are PDF documents.
Re:My thoughts.. (Score:2)
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I'm a C++ guru
Re:Logic flaws abound (Score:2)
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I'm a C++ guru
Re:Mass-produced watermarks? (Score:2)
Nice, except because Napster Inc.'s servers don't actually see the data, people will be able to use cracked clients and/or proxies to bypass this. ... What's STL?
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I'm a C++ guru
Still having probs with Watermarking (Score:4)
[Why is watermarking a hard problem [nec.com]] [mirrored [antioffline.com]]
Authority Figure: How long till watermarking protection is final?
DVD Crypto Engineer: Sir we're still working on it we're not sure
Authority Figure: Great I'll put out the word to Associated Press that we're ready to go.
Can you find the Mole? [antioffline.com]
Re:irrelevant (Score:2)
Re:These guys really care for us (Score:2)
Re:My thoughts.. (Score:3)
Honestly, this particular proposal, which basically sounds like the SCMS from DAT/CD isn't so bad. What pisses me off is CSS and region coding. Honestly, I don't understand why region coding is legal, and I think CSS ought to be illegal.
Also, while from the description in the article doesn't sound so bad, given the recent history of these IP organizations, I am going to reserve judgement until I actually see it. The fact is, they are a bunch of greedy, arrogant, unethical bastards that should all be thrown in jail.
Re:Watermarking on digital media in general (Score:3)
However, later on they talked about identifying particular sources, which is begining to sound a lot more like watermarks ala digimark.
In either case, how resilient they are to tampering remains to be seen.
The funny thing is, this might keep someone who buys a DVD player in the future from copying a DVD to VHS, but as long as someone has a DVD-ROM that predates this, it will be possible to find perfect digital copies online.
The ultimate protection? (Score:4)
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Re:Mass-produced watermarks? (Score:2)
And of course, if they can't just stamp these out -- we'll all be paying a nice premium for that wonderful little watermark that we don't really want.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Re:Once again, if you can view it, you can copy it (Score:2)
The film companies are banking on appliances as maintaining their dominant role as the primary display/storage devices for entertainment. I think the 10 to 15 year outlook will proove that assessment as wrong. Software will become the primary medium (just look at lame things like Tivo). The computer is the future DVD player, not some appliance.
Re:My thoughts.. (Score:2)
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Re:My thoughts.. (Score:2)
You're either thinking of patents, or how long copyrights USED to last. Copyrights now last 70+ years (courtesy of Disney's lobbyists). The only DVDs available then are going to be in museums.
How long will it be... (Score:2)
Someone tell me again... (Score:3)
Re:My thoughts.. (Score:4)
Don't expect things to change until the public in general is notified of it. The only thing the public is against the RIAA is for the insane prices they've fixed on audio CDs due to their stranglehold on the market. The average consumer probably doesn't realize the amazing price difference there is between pressing a CD (which is no more than a couple cents per disc) and recording a cassette (which is considerably more).
Re:Logic flaws abound (Score:2)
Do you have a DVD pressing machine? Do Napster-using online pirates have them? The idea is that if the player detects the watermark on non-approved media -- anything that isn't a pressed DVD, like VCD's or DVD writables -- it won't play. The strange part is that this method doesn't affect the "real" pirates, the ones who do this as a business and can afford a pressing machine.
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Re:My thoughts.. (Score:5)
No one objects to them trying to minimize piracy. The problem is they are taking it too far and these schemes are interfering with the consumers Fair Use of the product. Under which I have the right to make backup copies in case the original is damaged, I also have the right to listen to/watch the product in any format I choose on any device I choose. For example, I can take a CD I have purchases and record it onto a cassette tape and listen to it in my car or at work. I can make copies of my video tapes and take them to a friends house to watch. I can also use a TV tuner card to convert my video tapes to realvideo and watch them on my laptop. All this is very legal under Fair Use and are by no means a bad thing. The media companies want to deny me the ability to do any of these things with DvD's and this is a bad thing. The media companies and upto this point, the courts, are assuming the only purpose of programs like DeCSS is to pirate DvD movies. The reality is, there are no known cases of DeCSS having been used to pirate any movie, so the correct assumption should be that legal users are using it for Fair Use purposes. DvD Pirates are going to make copies no matter what, so the only people who are being penalized is legal users. This was very likely thier intent to begin with.
Jesus died for sombodies sins, but not mine.
Could someone please buy these people a clue? (Score:2)
Copy protection can never totaly prevent someone from copying something, only make it so difficult most people can't do it. The problem with DVDs, CDs, and any other digital medium is that all it takes is one person to make a copy of the data free of the copy protection scheme. Then that copy can be spread to an infinite number of other people.
Encyrption is useless until we get implanted chips directly into our brain (and not even then realy) since at some point the data must exist in it's unencrypted form somewhere in the users hardware. And as long as that unencypted stream exists it can be taped and duplicated, be it via some software crack or by grabing the stream going to the output hardware. There may be some quality loss, but if anything the MP3 craze proved that people don't care.
You realy have to wonder what the engineers who designed this stuff and claimed they could make it an effective copy protection scheme were thinking. You'd think people involved in things like encyption and whatermarking would be aware of how they can be broken/bypassed and realize that this is one area where they can not be effectivly applied. Of course it may be that the managment and business drones are the one's pushing for it, but if that's the case then shouldn't the engineer's be the ones to step in and give them the truth of the matter? I think that fact that businesses and organizations can so blindly embark on a such project without giving any thought to what the people who actualy know what they're talking about are saying is a much greater indication of the breakdown of our society than the mass copying of data contained on overpriced plastic discs.
Re:DVD and other Copy protection gets a grade of F (Score:2)
And even that can be overcome. One word: bribery
Re:commercial (Score:2)
Money watermarks exist as an easy way for someone to check authenticity (look for the picture under the right lighting) without adversely affecting the primary image; the watermark is largely imperceptible unless you know what to look for. Likewise, DVD watermarks add something to the image that will normally not be noticed unless you know what to look for (and may need additional technology to observe). Like watermarks on money or checks, they're hard to duplicate and either don't appear in copies (new $ bills), or grotesquely stand out in copies (many copied checks scream "VOID"); new DVD players would look for "watermarks".
Holography is the best solution (Score:5)
It won't stop people from copying the DVD's (Which is realistically an impossible goal) but it will make it very easy to determine whether a DVD is pirated or not. That will hopefully protect people from being scammed and buying bootlegs unintentionally and it doesn't require some watermarking or encryption scheme that is doomed to fail.
As the article also mentions it will make it very easy for law enforcement to ID bootleggged DVDs. That's the route they need to take. Go after the scum who are actually profiting off of other peoples work. That's who's costing them real money and frankly, that's a whole lot easier to get a handle on than trying to come up with yet another copy protection scheme that just pisses the customer off...
the planet it article is erroneous (Score:5)
It Won't Work (IMHO) (Score:3)
In a similar vein, the copy protected hard drives will fail. If there is a demand for drives without protection, wouldn't a company show up to provide them? I don't claim to be an expert, so maybe somone with experience in the field could rebut my theory.
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Re:Wasn't CSS supposed to ..... (Score:2)
Besides, the comparison between cell phones and DVD's is not exactly fair.
The former is trying to convince a consumer that he or she needs a product that is vastly different from what they used to have.
Also comparing a one time purchase (DVD) to something that you pay a monthly, significantly bloated fee for (cell phone) is unfair because the cost of the phone (to Voicestream / Verizon / Bell Atlantic, not to you, true wholesale and retail is a large difference ) is made up by the consumer in a short time - especially if they call long distance.
The difference between a DVD and a tape is not that great, essentially same shit, different pile - but with dolby 5.1 and subtitles.
And DVD does have a standard. The legal mumbo jumbo isn't really that great.
The conspiracy by manufacturers to prevent consumers from excercise their fair use rights is the problem. Therein lies the screwjob.
People don't give a shit about standards, as long as you can plug it in, insert the disc (?disk?)and press play, and have an image come up, that is all that matters to 90% of the consumer market.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
Wouldn't it be ironic (Score:3)
Just whoring for some karma, but it does pose an interesting question.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
Re:My thoughts.. (Score:2)
No, they're after everybody.
If you buy the DVD they are not trying to punish you.
I'll tell you what I did just today.
My 5-year-old daughter has a CD of kiddie songs she loves to listen to. I noticed the CD wasn't going to survive much longer, so I ripped everything as MP3 into the PC and created an el neato desktop icon for the asociated playlist. Now, when the CD gets scratched beyond redemption she'll still be able to hear it. (I do the same thing with my own CDs of course; the wear and tear is considerably less but there is some)
They want to prevent such a thing, so I keep buying the same product over and over again. For movies, for music (they want to make unrippable CDs too, or migrate music distribution to the DVD format), heck, even for books.
So, can you still say I won't be punished if I buy the media?
I get the feeling that in the future the only way I can be free is by eschewing electronic entertainment altogether and only read books and play music with instruments (unles thay mandate "secure guitars" or something). Might be a healthier life, too. Fahrenheit 451 anyone?
Logic flaws abound (Score:3)
vs
BLOCKBUSTER sez "7 rents before DVD is useless". (Score:2)
Blockbuster is PISSED that DVDs are only good for about 7 to 10 rentals before they gradually become unplayable without major skipping and such. Then angry renters demand their money back because their rental has unwatchable segments.
And neither can Blockbuster accuse SPECIFIC renters of damaging the discs because NO SINGLE RENTER caused the damage. It's a cumulative effect.
You bet there's a need to back up DVDs. Legal provisions allowing back ups often don't apply to so called "durable media". Are DVDs "durable"? Real life usage seems to say, no.
Once again, if you can view it, you can copy it. (Score:5)
Does not the sheer number of copy protection schemes on a single disc strike anyone as ludicrous?
So, on my copy of Star Wars Episode III, I'll have:
* Macrovision
* CSS
* Watermarking
and none of that can prevent me from making an easy copy in any way. A modified player disables macrovision. It decodes CSS when it plays the movie back, and the watermark is irrelevent to an unaware format (pick one, there's tons of them out there and they aren't magically going away)
If I as an individual person can so easily copy a disc, how are any of those things supposed to stop pirates? As mentioned previously, bit-by-bit copies circumvent any means of digital protection. Copy protection is a huge waste of money that threatens to drive the price of DVDs higher.
That's the best anti-piracy tool that the industry has going for it - most DVD's are priced reasonably. Sure I can make a copy, but why would I want to? I'm going to buy movies that I like. The price is right. That's all they have to do, is keep prices reasonable.
Mike Massee
Re:the planet it article is erroneous (Score:2)
Re:My thoughts.. (Score:4)
No, he's right... (Score:2)
He's right! (If you copy it onto, say, a record.)
Inconceivable! (Score:3)
Like, are they so afraid of P2P technology, that movie sharing and such, will rise that watermarking is worth the effort?
It almost seems like the corporations involved are mixing their signals!
Are they trying to prevent pirate/bootlegs? Why would watermarking prevent that?
Are they trying to prevent people from copying content they legitamately own? Why would watermarking prevent that?
This is ludicrous!
Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]
Re:Could someone please buy these people a clue? (Score:2)
Of course, as a practical matter, the studios want to have their cake and eat it too. They want perfect copy protection and also take advantage of all the installed base of players and displays out there. This, of course, they cannot have.
But, here's a sketch of a scheme that allows for fair use, but where the only way to bootleg it would be to point an (expensive, frame rate synchronized) video camera at the display and record it that way (nothing can prevent that, of course, but the quality degradation is sufficient to make it pointless, at least currently... if it's desired to make this more difficult, the display frame rate can be randomly shifted slightly in a way that humans wouldn't notice, and I would claim that the non-infringing use of a camera that can track this would be sufficiently low that it would be reasonably justified to outlaw such devices, making it prohibitively expensive to even do that). The scheme is as follows:
Make each DVD individually, heavily, securely encrypted, and designed such that it requires a special box to play it. Upon first insertion, the box securely connects to the internet and downloads a sufficiently encrypted decryption key which only that box can decrypt (using, say, an *excessively* long private key in its ROM). The box writes this key into its internal hard disk (which has enough capacity for as many disks as will be published in its useful lifetime).
From now on, only this special box can ever have the "root" key for that disk, because the server will refuse to serve up another key for another player.
For fair use purposes, any device that wants to display or play back or copy this disk would have to be verified as a valid, studio-authorized rights-preserving device that is physically connect to the special box, engage in a secure transaction with this box to get a newly encrypted decryption key that only this new device can decrypt (the box can use timeouts on the initial zero-information exchange secure handshake to determine whether the device is physically connected by a sufficiently short cable :-). Even the sharing with friends variety of fair use would work with this, though I suspect studios would be unhappy about that.
Of course, if the criminal were willing to require that the customers bring their player with them to the site of the transaction, they could connect to the criminal's box and get a key, but this would still prevent widespread bootlegging. Also, such a transaction could be made easy to trace if desired (e.g. allow only, say, 10 different devices to get a key before another internet connection to the server was required).
To deal with the fair use problem of the box or its disk crashing, the consumer could connect to the data center and satisfy a support person that reseting the server's "don't serve up another key" bit for this one disk is justified (this would allow at most 1 bootleg copy per such transaction, which I suspect the studio wouldn't care about).
Even the digital display that would be required to show this disk wouldn't be able to show the video without a physical connection to the player box with sufficient handshaking, because unencrypted data from would never be sent anywhere in digital form.
You can make as many bitwise copies of the disk as you want and it won't make a damn bit of difference because nothing will be able to play it.
If this sounds scary, it's essentially what Micro$oft is proposing with their rights protected media services, at least in terms of downloaded media... Luckily, being Micro$oft, they will inevitably f*ck it up royally in the first several implementations, so there will be a contaminated gene pool of insecure players out there that will require yet another round of incompatibility to fix...
Re: (Score:2)
Re:My thoughts.. (Score:2)
If the MPAA "fought technology with technology" by utilizing CSS that would be fine with me. Great, ok, so people can copy movies, we'll just make it HARD. Thus fewer people will copy movies. Lets leave trading movies P2P out of this, the time involved is prohibitive with most people's connections (56k is still the standard right?).
But when they start using lawyers to press felony charges on kids... they start looking bad. Now, don't get me wrong, they are legaly within their rights. But remember, there are three major court systems in this country. State/Local courts (on the MPAAs side), Federal Courts (also on their side, at least for now), and the Court of Public Opinion. That last one is getting pretty pissed off at them and the RIAA.
We'll see... I think it's going to take one nasty arrest of an otherwise perfectly respectable looking white collar pre-law student with a 4.0 and a lifetime membership in the debate society to destroy the MPAAs credibility with the general public. After that, their lawyers won't be able to stand up to the grassroots outrage.
This has been another useless post from....
Re:My thoughts.. (Score:2)
Re:My thoughts.. (Score:5)
Re:the planet it article is erroneous (Score:2)
"At the DVD 2000 conference this past summer in Universal City, Calif., the MPAA's head of anti-piracy said the latest batch of bootlegs in China were indistinguishable from the real product."
Now, what is this supposed to mean? Based on the previous two paragraphs of the article, it would seem that what they call a "bootleg" is a movie which hasn't been released on DVD that's been copied from another source (VHS, laserdisc, etc.) and burned to a DVD disc in DVD format. So...how can these be "indistinguishable from the originals"? There *are* no originals to compare them to if these movies aren't out on DVD! And if there were, then the MPAA spokesgerbil is saying that DVD movies are no better than VHS or laserdisc movies! I thought DVDs were supposed to be way more cool and beautiful and awesome than VHS, or so all those ads on my VHS rentals keep telling me over and over and over... Or does copying a movie onto DVD automagically replace all the low-quality VHS video and audio with brilliant digital picture and 3-D ultrarealistic sound? Does it add all those cool DVD extras like trailers, directors' comments, outtakes, and all? If so, I gotta get me a DVD burner and start bootlegging. Do you think the magic of DVD will get rid of those annoying "If you like this free preview then call 1-800-2BUYME to order HBO now!!!!!" overlays on the movies in my collection, too?
Or does the spokesgerbil mean that the DVD copies were indistinguishable from the original low-quality copies of those movies? If so, I'll have to mod him up a couple of points for creative doublespeak that fooled at least one media drone, but he gets a point off for stating the obvious...
DennyK
Re:Just another day in the realm of profit margins (Score:2)
Slashdot story: Self-Destructing DVDs: Son of DIVX [slashdot.org]
There's not much info there, but you can also check SpectraDisc's own site [spectradisc.com].
Scary, huh?
-Jade E.
My thoughts.. (Score:5)
This article is going to bring out the 'Why this/that' arguments about bad laws and such. I only want to point out that they are going after people that are STEALING movies. If you buy the DVD they are not trying to punish you. They are also doing exactly what many people in here asked for, fighting technology with technology.. Instead of sending waves of lawyers out they are trying to make it less 'plausable' to steal. Now, if they are trying to take away any fair use then I am going to complain, but to make things harder to steal is called security. My personal thoughts on the impact? None.. people will STILL be able to rip movies off DVD'd and download them over the net. It only takes ONE person to destroy there encryption scheme.. it takes hundreds of lawyers to defend the people.
Re:more of a challenge (Score:2)
Re:It Won't Work (IMHO) (Score:2)
The Longer Term (Score:2)