Slashdot Mirror

You may be correct that I am mistaken, no one ever accused IP law of being simple, but this is how I understand it:

The license is for the use of CSS to encrypt and decrypt the content. This is the DRM that the anti-circumvention clause refers to. This is a license to use a patented product that the DMCA is enforcing.

If you produce a DVD and want it encrypted with CSS, then you need to have a license agreement to use CSS before you can distribute it. I haven't read it, but I would assume that it explicitly grants your permission for DVD players licensed to decrypt CSS to play your content. Any other use would be restricted without your consent.

The DVD player manufacturers have purchased a decryption license for their products and passed the cost of that license (and its limited rights) to the consumer. You can always use your own encryption scheme, but good luck finding a DVD player that supports it. You would also somehow need to grant consumers the right to play the content when they purchase the disk.

When you buy a DVD or Blu-Ray from Sony, do you have to agree to a license that says you can only play it back on a Sony player on a Sony television?

No, but you can't legally make a player without a license from a group where Sony is a major player.

Do you consider DVDs to be a monopoly?

According to mp3licensing.com, the rates are assessed per copy of the codec and decoder. It looks like it would cost about $3-4 per copy. The OS doesn't factor into it.

dvdcca.org is not so forthcoming about the cost of their licenses, though the FAQ on that page specifically discusses Linux: "The DVD Copy Control Association would welcomes [sic] applications for the legal use of CSS from all manufacturers. In fact, Sigma Designs (www.sigmadesigns.com) is now marketing a DVD player for Linux under its license to manufacture products using CSS." I glanced quickly at the sigmadesigns page, but all I saw was hardware.

The fees for Windows Media aren't very high, especially in comparison to MP3. They look to run about $0.25 per copy.

Even if we're talking about another $25 per computer for licensing fees, I'd be happy to pay that to have legal software. Unlike some other people here, I wouldn't be buying an OEM Linux computer to avoid the so-called "Microsoft tax." Once you factor in the fact that the OEM won't be collecting additional fees for including trialware, and you add in some money for licensing, my guess is you'll end up with a price not that different from a machine that comes with Window. My interest is in having OEMs provide machines with pre-installed Linux that works flawlessly when they arrive and for which support is available on the same terms as Windows machines. Despite my initial hopes that Dell would be providing that experience with its Ubuntu machines, that doesn't appear to be the reality.

In the article nowhere is said that this is server software. I can imagine this kind of software just fine on a desktop that runs a browser, mail and office software for the average office warrior. As it won't play dvd they can even save a few dollar cent they won't have to pay to dvd patents holders

From DVDCCA

February 7th 2007 Announcement:
An updated version of the CSS Procedural Specifications is available now. A downloadable copy is available by completing the on-line inquiry form.

That is the document that they submitted to the court as part of the "contract". It is the first update to it since 2005. My guess is they realized they were going to lose and hence the update to the license.

Most of the anime DVDs I purchase don't have DRM. Why? The Anime companies figured out that [their] customer base is technically skilled enough that DRM is less than an annoyance.

Or maybe they just didn't feel like paying $15,500 to license CSS and $25,000 to license Macrovision.

Nah, you're probably right. They probably did a lot of market research and decided "only nerds buy Anime!"

Both would require special blank DVD discs that will use the Content Scramble System (CSS) for encryption and will be compatible with the millions of existing DVD players in the marketplace today.

According to TFA, they're changing the CSS spec, not creating special discs. So you should be able to take the DRMed movie you legally downloaded, and burn it to a standard DVD. The only difference is that the DRM would not be "broken" to create the disc as Music DRM is when a CD is created.

IN http://www.dvdcca.org/data/css/DVDCCArecordrlsFINA L.pdf

would require special blank DVD discs

Actually, they are authorized to burn the DVDs. The DVD CAA had a press releaseyesterday about it. It is now legal for Retailers (Circuit City, etc) to rip DVDs.

Actually, they are authorized to burn the DVDs. The DVD CAA had a press releaseyesterday about it. It is now legal for Retailers (Circuit City, etc) to rip DVDs.

The DVD CCA doesn't let you download the CSS license without submitting personal details, but I have my doubts that they would sell Circuit City a license if they knew they were doing this. Then again, the DVD CCA announced yesterday that they're licensing keys now for the reverse process (burning copyrighted movies to CSS-obfuscated discs, allowing JIT publishing of movies and such at store-placed kiosks), so I guess anything's possible.

The DVD CCA doesn't let you download the CSS license without submitting personal details, but I have my doubts that they would sell Circuit City a license if they knew they were doing this. Then again, the DVD CCA announced yesterday that they're licensing keys now for the reverse process (burning copyrighted movies to CSS-obfuscated discs, allowing JIT publishing of movies and such at store-placed kiosks), so I guess anything's possible.

As far as I am aware, DVD CCA owns CCS, the 'Content Scramble System' used on DVDs, not Macromedia.

As far as I am aware, DVD CCA owns CCS, the 'Content Scramble System' used on DVDs, not Macromedia.

See the FAQ: http://www.dvdcca.org/faq.html

Michael

Authorized by the DVD CCA, which controls the technology and sells licenses.

Mod parent up. The DVD CCA will never grant Apple a license to rip CSS-encrypted movies to a hard disk. While it is technically entirely feasible to make DVD ripping as easy as CD ripping, it is not, for legal reasons, anything that a major consumer electronics manufacturer like Apple can do.

This is all just DVD DRM (aka CSS) hard at work, stifling innovation.

Not true - to manufacture DVD players you need a license from the DVD Copy Control Association. If your player includes features that they don't like, such as skipping commercials, they won't give you a license for CSS.

The nice people at the DVDCCA would be happy to sell you a license for their great product, which not only has been cracked, but was cracked about 5 years ago! Im not exactly sure what the point of selling an expensive copy-protection system thats been broken is (since the only people that are going copy it are going to know about DeCSS anyway) but if you want to burn your money on crap its up to you. I think 1000s of poor filmmakers get ripped off by these people every year they just accept paying the license when they could just release the DVD without CSS and exactly the same number of illigal copies (maybe minus 1) would be made.

The DVD CCA probably makes it a condition of licensing CSS. No CSS, no encrypted (read: commercial) DVD playback.

one could make DVD playback software available for free as long as somebody still plays [pays?] the playback 'rights'

Nope.

I'll assume you are reffering to a DVD Copy Control Association licence. Have fun reading their licencing terms, if you they will even let see their licencing terms. They certainly aren't going to allow licencing to any sort of open software.

So yeah, the DMCA makes any sort of open DVD software illegal.

-

There seems to be no indication of this on Sigma's website, but I filled out an inquiry on their site a few days ago, just to see. No response yet...

Yes thats exactly the difference. Cyberlink pays lots of money to license a player key from the DVD CCA. The authors of livdvdcss have never paid a cent. The reason there was never a linux dvd player in the first place is cause no company thought it was worth it, from a strictly economic standpoint, to spend money to develope and license a dvd player for an operating system with minimal marketshare in the home/entertainment demographic. Honestly, I cant blaim them. Because of all the DeCSS commotion, Cyberlink has seen that there is a demand for dvd on linux, and now they are investing in it. You can't fault them for not putting out a linux dvd player before they knew if it was even worth it. There wasn't really any conspiracy against linux, its all economics. With that said, if there was a linux dvd player from the start, we wouldnt have DeCSS and all dvd playback today would still be proprietay, so I'm glad no one decided to make a legal linux dvd player too early on in the game.

Absolutely false. Used to be true before 1999, but it is not true anymore. I wrote the Linux DVD Playback HOWTO, so I should know.

The interaction between region flags and CSS encryption is confusing and it is not surprising that people often get it wrong. For computer DVD players there are actually three levels of region playback enforcement:

1. A player application such as WinDVD or PowerDVD will refuse to play back discs that do not match the region setting stored in the application.
2. An operating system such as Microsoft Windows will refuse to read data from discs that do not match the region stored in the OS registry.
3. For RPC-2 drives manufactured after 1999, the drive firmware itself will refuse to apply CSS decryption to discs that do not match the region stored in the drive firmware.

...just remember that every purchase of DVDs or a DVD player benefits the so-called DVD "Copy Control Association", a secret industry organization whose goal is to destroy your Fair Use rights to use the media that you've purchased.

Only morons like Michael Sims would willingly invest money into a medium that is fundamentally designed to deny you your freedom.

Sincerely,
Seth Finklestein
2-Time EFF Pioneer Award Winner

This is about licencing fees. Each player must be licensed.

RTA. The manufacture and sale of such devices is exactly what this lawsuit is trying to prevent
Umm, no. If the movie industry doesn't want you to build DVD players (software or hardware) than the dvdCCA just wont sell you a CSS license to do it. Its that easy.

If you are talking about an individual that wrote a program that copies DVDs then, according to the DMCA (a law that I despise), he is a criminal. That's like saying that Xerox has a right to sell a product that is designed to remove the binding from a book and copy it 'en masse. I think the 321 studios would have a better leg to stand on if they created a product that let the user excerpt a portion of a DVD for a movie review; that is where their legal arguments seem to be focused anyway. The real difference here is that Xerox can sell a regular copy machine because it has substantial non-infringing uses where as in the digital world, thanks to the DMCA, the use doesn't matter; it is the capabilities of that device (the ability to circumvent copy control technology) that matter.

A point that has not been argued that I think would be interesting to see debated is the definition of effective in the following passage:
No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
Isn't the fact that it was circumvented proof that it is no longer effective.

Regardless of how you look at it the DMCA is in direct conflict with a number of the other laws (some being case law - as defined by the courts) that allow Fair use

Offtopic: So much for moderating in one of my favorite topics of discussion.

Doesn't "I can't play DVDs legally on my Linux box" go under that convenience category?

I think it could also come under "inhibiting the marketplace", as the DVD CCA can currently control who enters the marketplace producing DVD players, by chosing who it gives CSS licences to.

He should.. and that was my point, thank you. He is not forced to rent from Blockbuster, and has a choice.
End of story.

P.S. If you are talking about non-MPAA companies making DVDs (we were talking about DVDs), then you are mistaken in the assumption that it doesn't fuel the MPAA.

Who licences DVDs and DVD Players?

The DVD CCA licenses the CSS system to plyer manufacturers.

Have you seen a DVD player that didn't use CSS? Me neither.

Who runs the DVDCCA? Hmm?

How much are the licenses? Hmm?

How do you suppose they use the money? hmm?

NEXT

A copyright holder should have the right to completely remove the copyright from their creation, and thus allow others to use it completely and freely without worry about any sort of licensing issues.

...to which einhverfr offers a seemingly obvious, yet deviously incorrect reply of:

They do.

But this is not the case. Consider the following...

I have created a work, and I am the copyright holder. I have published this work as a CSS protected DVD. Now I wish to completely relinquish my copyrights to this work and make the work freely available for one and all to use.

As the copyright holder, I have the exclusive right to decide who can copy [1] my work. I can grant you explicit permission to make a copy [1] of that DVD, or by placing my work into the public domain, I can allow everyone to copy [1] my work. What I cannot do is grant you or anyone the permission to access my work who is not already licensed to do so by the DVD Copy Control Association. And if DVDCCA is unwilling [2] or unable [3] to grant such a license, the right to speak [1] my work becomes abridged [4] through a law [5] enacted by Congress.

So the technical answer is "No, I cannot "allow others to use it completely and freely without worry about any sort of licensing issues."

This is a terrible tangled web we are weaving ourselves into. How many of your copyrighted works would be locked forever on your hard drive if Microsoft revoked your license to access those files?

1. [1] publish, create a derivative of, or generally
2. express

1. [2] because you haven't offered them enough money, or because they don't like the content of the DVD I've published.

1. [3] because they've gone out of business.

1. [4] c.f. First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

1. [5] DMCA

• Gang0x01
• Gang0x02
• Gang0x03
• Gang0x04
• Gang0x05
• Gang0x06.

I'd hate to think such innovations are right around the corner, only to find they haven't been approved.

I am not aware of anyone producing a licenced DVD player for Linux that is open source, that is free, or for general PCs. All the efforts to produce open source DVD players for Linux are unlicenced, and it's been made pretty clear (such as by actually having Johanssen extradited to the USA, and by Valenti lying in a submission to Kaplan's already biased court, about the nature of the open source movement) that Hollywood is 100% opposed to such developments.

It has certain benefits that PCs do not have (locked hardware, unified memory, etc.)

Locked hardware is a benefit?! For whom? Certainly not for the customer. Maybe for those that love control, such as the MPAA and the RIAA, but not us, the customers.

It seems you have already been assimilated into the Borg.

Makes me long for the day when PS2 meant PS/2 and not PlayStation 2. (Maybe we shouldn't abbreviate PlayStation 2 like that, look at CSS, is it Cascading Style Sheets, Content Scrambling System or C Styled Script?).

Anyway, the PS/2 was somewhat of a closed system (IBM had been overly tight-fisted about controlling use of the MCA bus technology - it hurt them and they have learned from their mistake), but it was far more open than the PS2 game machine.

P.S. I am wondering, what benefits can game consoles have over PCs anyway? PCs have TV out for those that want connections to TVs and the frame rates are nowadays faster than human perception and the scan rate of any monitor or TV out there. Please let me know what I am missing. Granted they are cheaper than PCs sometimes, but not by all that much it seems. And anything with a hard drive is getting close to being a PC anyway... Heck, GCC can be made to run on it I heard.

Ahh, but the region-check is not built into the hardware. They are pursuing just as doggedly any hardware vendor who provides means to circumvent the region-check. Also, the MPAA is not in control of the players, but rather the DVD Copy Control Association http://www.dvdcca.org, arguably, a tool of the MPAA.

The MPAA is in this case concerned over the control of their copyrights, which led to the argument I found most interesting, and analogous. What happens AFTER the copyrights expire? It was interesting to note the discussion that the current encryption was sub-standard, and thus the law was intended to provide for future protection, when encryption technology for copyrighted works had improved. If you're going to argue the law is about protecting the future, then you must take both sides of it. Not only the future protection of copyrighted works, but also the future use of works which have fallen out of copyright. I find it *laughable* to think of the MPAA or any other former copyright holder coming out and distributing a work in an unencrypted form after the copyright has expired. I find it much more plausible to think, instead, that they would release an encrypted DVD with some token NEW AND COPYRIGHTED content, which would of course be encrypted along with the old content which had fallen out of copyright. As I read the transcript, I could vividly see and hear Sims attempting to supress a snicker as he suggested that the industry could make copies of older movies available. Of course, we're talking about something 99 years in the future, or more... if they go back and get Congress to change the term again.

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 (brief, general instructions)

Request for Expressions of Interest (formal instructions and requirements)

Both are PDF documents.

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 (brief, general instructions)

Request for Expressions of Interest (formal instructions and requirements)

Both are PDF documents.

In the posted Request Expression of Interest on the DVD-CCA site they actually have a contradiction to their testimony. They testified that CSS protects against piracy, yet here they state:
"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.

What concerns me even more than this is as I understand it, the DTV that the FCC has mandated that we migrate to will be, by law, encoded in pay-to-license formats. (Dolby Digital and MPEG.) Currently, NTSC television is (to my knowledge) license free. This means all sorts of nasty private corporate interests between people who want to make stuff and the Evil Companies. ("No, it won't run Ogg or on Linux.")

but with the (eternally) soon-to-be-released recordable DVD formats

These will be loaded with so much copyright control (DVD CCA is also the 4C Entity) that the only files you'll be allowed to store are works you create yourself and works created before January 1, 1923 (in the US at least). This means that you will need to be in a band to store music on your DVD-R, and you can only store your band's music. And you definitely won't be able to encrypt files on DVD-R, as decryption of works you didn't create is a violation of 17 USC 1201.

The proposal to enhance the ATA-spec with copy protection extensions is an enhancement of CPRM.
CPRM itself is just one of several technologies which are part of the so-called "Content Protection System Architecture" (CPSA).

[http://www.4centity.com/4centity/data/tech/cpsa /c psa081.pdf]

Enter CPSA, servants, attendants.

CPSA is an attempt to define a technological framework in order to fulfill the entertainment industry's (RIAA, MPAA etc.) demand for complete control of distribution and copies of audio/video content. The idea is to create a secure end-to-end chain from cable-station/satellite-receiver/settopbox/DVD etc. to the enduser's speaker/digital-display etc.

CPSA is supposed to include the following content protection technologies among others:

Content Protection for Recordable Media (CPRM)
- protected exchange of audio/video on DVD, FlashMedia, (ATA-hdds planned)
- encrypted storage of content
- protected storage of content management information (CMI)
- system renewability
- methods to prevent playback of bit-by-bit copies

developed by: 4C (IBM, Intel, Matsushita (MEI), Toshiba) http://www.4centity.com

Content Protection for Pre-recorded Media (CPPM)
- robust protection of DVD-Audio content on DVD-ROM media
- encrypted storage of content
- protected storage of content management information (CMI)
- system renewability
- methods to prevent playback of bit-by-bit copies

developed by: 4C (IBM, Intel, Matsushita (MEI), Toshiba) http://www.4centity.com

Content Scrambling System (CSS)
- protecting DVD-Video cotent via authentication and content scrambling

developed by: DVD Copy Control Association (CCA) http://www.dvdcca.org

Digital Transmission Content Protection (DTCP)
- robust encryption of content passing between digital devices in the home e.g. IEEE 1394, USB
- copy control information
- authentication and key exchange
- digital encryption [sic!]
- system renewability

developed by: 5C (Hitachi, Intel, Matsuhita (MEI), Sony, Toshiba) http://www.dtcp.com

High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP)
- encryption on high-bandwith interfaces to digital displays e.g. DVI

developed by: Intel http://www.digital-CP.com

4C/Verance Watermark
- technology for creating/reading watermarks (Content Management Information - CMI) in audio content

developed by: Verance Corporation http://www.4centity.com

Finally, a video watermarking scheme (to be selected by the DVD CCA)

An interesting tidbit on HDCP can be found in an article at maximumpc.com:
http://www.maximumpc.com/reprint/intel_revamps/

a quote from that article:

(...) Intel has proposed the High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection encryption spec. Using hardware on both the videocard and the monitor, HDCP will encrypt data on the PC before sending it to the display device, where it will be decrypted. The rub is that only new DVI-equipment will have the feature, which creates a slight risk of obsolescence for those who invest in DVI early on.

Intel officials have downplayed that issue. They claim that any DVI monitor will be able to display protected content, because the HDCP-equipped DVI card will simply sense that an older DVI monitor lacks HDCP features and will lower the image quality to keep the content protected. Of course, no one has accounted for consumer acceptance. Will people embrace a standard that reduces image quality on their older equipment? Intel officials say the loss won't be enough to irk people.

how about this one:
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20000218S0008

"HDCP uses a 56-bit key, with individual keys distributed to the various vendors. A violated key could be tracked down and revoked over a satellite broadcast network, for example."

Apart from the documents obtained from the specification websites referenced above a search on the manufacturer's websites (Panasonic, Sony, etc.) for keywords like DTCP, CPRM etc. yields further information such as press-releases and other documents.

A couple of devices that already make use of these technologies have already been announced and/or gone into production such as:
Matsushita (Panasonic) DVD-RAM recorder DMR-E10
Panasonic D-VHS VCR PV-HD1000
Silicon Image SiI 168 PanelLink transmitter chip for DVI hardware
Silicon Image SiI 861 PanelLink controller chip for DVI hardware chip

The proposal to enhance the ATA-spec with copy protection extensions is an enhancement of CPRM.
CPRM itself is just one of several technologies which are part of the so-called "Content Protection System Architecture" (CPSA).

[http://www.4centity.com/4centity/data/tech/cpsa /c psa081.pdf]

Enter CPSA, servants, attendants.

CPSA is an attempt to define a technological framework in order to fulfill the entertainment industry's (RIAA, MPAA etc.) demand for complete control of distribution and copies of audio/video content. The idea is to create a secure end-to-end chain from cable-station/satellite-receiver/settopbox/DVD etc. to the enduser's speaker/digital-display etc.

CPSA is supposed to include the following content protection technologies among others:

Content Protection for Recordable Media (CPRM)
- protected exchange of audio/video on DVD, FlashMedia, (ATA-hdds planned)
- encrypted storage of content
- protected storage of content management information (CMI)
- system renewability
- methods to prevent playback of bit-by-bit copies

developed by: 4C (IBM, Intel, Matsushita (MEI), Toshiba) http://www.4centity.com

Content Protection for Pre-recorded Media (CPPM)
- robust protection of DVD-Audio content on DVD-ROM media
- encrypted storage of content
- protected storage of content management information (CMI)
- system renewability
- methods to prevent playback of bit-by-bit copies

developed by: 4C (IBM, Intel, Matsushita (MEI), Toshiba) http://www.4centity.com

Content Scrambling System (CSS)
- protecting DVD-Video cotent via authentication and content scrambling

developed by: DVD Copy Control Association (CCA) http://www.dvdcca.org

Digital Transmission Content Protection (DTCP)
- robust encryption of content passing between digital devices in the home e.g. IEEE 1394, USB
- copy control information
- authentication and key exchange
- digital encryption [sic!]
- system renewability

developed by: 5C (Hitachi, Intel, Matsuhita (MEI), Sony, Toshiba) http://www.dtcp.com

High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP)
- encryption on high-bandwith interfaces to digital displays e.g. DVI

developed by: Intel http://www.digital-CP.com

4C/Verance Watermark
- technology for creating/reading watermarks (Content Management Information - CMI) in audio content

developed by: Verance Corporation http://www.4centity.com

Finally, a video watermarking scheme (to be selected by the DVD CCA)

An interesting tidbit on HDCP can be found in an article at maximumpc.com:
http://www.maximumpc.com/reprint/intel_revamps/

a quote from that article:

(...) Intel has proposed the High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection encryption spec. Using hardware on both the videocard and the monitor, HDCP will encrypt data on the PC before sending it to the display device, where it will be decrypted. The rub is that only new DVI-equipment will have the feature, which creates a slight risk of obsolescence for those who invest in DVI early on.

Intel officials have downplayed that issue. They claim that any DVI monitor will be able to display protected content, because the HDCP-equipped DVI card will simply sense that an older DVI monitor lacks HDCP features and will lower the image quality to keep the content protected. Of course, no one has accounted for consumer acceptance. Will people embrace a standard that reduces image quality on their older equipment? Intel officials say the loss won't be enough to irk people.

how about this one:
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20000218S0008

"HDCP uses a 56-bit key, with individual keys distributed to the various vendors. A violated key could be tracked down and revoked over a satellite broadcast network, for example."

Apart from the documents obtained from the specification websites referenced above a search on the manufacturer's websites (Panasonic, Sony, etc.) for keywords like DTCP, CPRM etc. yields further information such as press-releases and other documents.

A couple of devices that already make use of these technologies have already been announced and/or gone into production such as:
Matsushita (Panasonic) DVD-RAM recorder DMR-E10
Panasonic D-VHS VCR PV-HD1000
Silicon Image SiI 168 PanelLink transmitter chip for DVI hardware
Silicon Image SiI 861 PanelLink controller chip for DVI hardware chip

Then why hasn't the MPAA/DVDCCA authorized any Linux/OSS developers to use CSS?

Actually if you read the DVDCCA FAQ you'll find that Sigma Designs has plans and a license to make a Linux DVD player. Non open-source, but it's something anyway.

God bless america, land of the free.

Prepare to witness the most concerted and massive engineering effort -- both social and technical -- ever undertaken by mankind: The digital equivalent of damming the ocean.

I wrote about this on Slashdot almost a year ago, in the vague hope it might become a featured article: The music and movie industies are working very hard to prevent you from using your lawfully-obtained material in any way they don't want. To that end, they have formed the Copy Protection Technical Working Group (CPTWG), which is working hand-in-hand with a ton of high-tech companies to bring pervasive copy protection measures to your PC.

I saved my original screed on the subject, and it's reproduced below, with appropriate updates. Bottom Line: Do not let them sneak this garbage past you or your friends. If you find that a product contains copy protection, don't buy it, and encourage others to do likewise.

____________________

Recent stories on Slashdot have told of the ongoing "tennis match" between digital content providers versus consumers and technically skilled people. The recent cracking of DVD's Content Scrambling System (CSS) lent ammunition to the opinion held by computing professionals and users that copy protection systems are doomed to fail. The effort has been likened to building a dam against the ocean; a foolish and useless exercise. In Slashdot discussion fora, the point has often been raised, "If you can perceive it, you can copy it. What are they going to do, encrypt the bits all the way to the speaker/electron gun?" If the Copy Protection Technical Working Group gets its way, that is precisely what's going to happen.

I received a piece of email spam today, which actually turned out to be useful (probably the only time that's ever happened anywhere). It directed me to a flat panel display industry group. Among others, one of the links pointed to the California Display Network, which had a link pointing to technical info on flat panel technology. Since I currently earn my living writing graphics card and display drivers, I clicked through to see what I could learn.

I found an entry for an overview of digital visual interfaces, provided by Silicon Image. As I reviewed the headings of the slides, one entry stopped me cold: Conten t Protection Status. Content protection? In a flat panel?? Yup: "Implementation of DVI content protection is suitable for PCs and monitors." [emphasis mine]

Thus began an evening of link clicking and Google searches to find out what this off-handed remark could mean. The slide made mention of the 'CPTWG'. This is the Copy Protection Technical Working Group, a consortium of content providers (movie companies), consumer electronics manufacturers, and players in the IT industry. This is the same group that developed CSS for DVD players.

One paragraph from the above page is particularly disturbing:

CPTWG has focused until now only on "casual piracy [sic]", characterized as what a grandmother can do in her home with her DVD. Piracy [sic] requiring even the level of expertise (and equipment) of her grandson, who might be an EE student, has been excluded from consideration. There is a growing awareness that a broader content protection effort may be necessary.

The most recent meeting of the CPTWG was yesterday, 8 December, 1999. Their meeting announcements may be found here. It costs $100 to attend. According to the site, their last meeting was on 11 April 2000. It's not clear if additional meetings have been held at regular intervals.

The attendance roster from the April meeting (RTF file) lists a very interesting, and possibly worrying, mix of organizations. A partial list of representatives included:

• MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America),
• AFMA (American Film Marketing Association),
• Sony Pictures Entertainment,
• Universal Studios,
• Warner Bros.,
• Disney,
• Paramount,
• CEMA (Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association),
• MEI (parent company to Panasonic), makers of consumer electronics,
• Pioneer, makers of consumer electronics,
• JVC, makers of consumer electronics,
• Philips, makers of consumer electronics and VLSI components (including video encoders),
• Sony, makers of consumer electronics, computers, and displays,
• Toshiba, makers of consumer electronics, computers, flat panels, disk drives, digital cameras, copiers, and laser printers,
• NEC, makers of computers, displays, printers, and telecomm equipment,
• Hewlett Packard, makers of computers, printers, and testing/measuring equipment (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, etc.),
• Quantum, makers of disk drives,
• IBM, makers of computers, disk drives, and bunches of other stuff,
• Compaq, makers of computers,
• Apple Computer, makers of computers,
• ATI Technologies, makers of PC graphics cards,
• Dolby Labs, creators and licensors of audio enhancement technologies,
• Intel, makers of microprocessors, motherboard controllers, and graphics and peripheral chips,
• Microsoft, software market monopolists,
• Dow Chemical (I have no idea why they're here),
• DVD-CCA, licensors of CSS, and currently in court trying to prevent the spread of DeCSS,
• A number of law firms.

If you download the roster and read closely, you'll see every major piece of your computer represented. There is no doubt that at least one part of your computer -- your CPU, your RAM, your disk drive, your graphics card, your monitor -- is manufactured by one of these companies.

If you look further still, you'll see there are no consumer advocacy groups listed.

What are they all working toward? Quite simply, to prevent you from using your lawfully obtained digital material in any way they don't want.

Here's one example of how they'll do it: If you've visited Fry's or CompUSA recently, you'll notice that full-size flat panel displays are starting to appear. Currently, most of these displays are based on the old VGA analog signals, which are converted into the digital signals needed by the panels. The Digital Display Working Group is working on a new connector and signalling standard called Digital Visual Interface (DVI) that will allow computer displays to go all-digital. You won't need a DAC on the video card; the digital signals will be fed straight through to the display. Image fidelity will be much higher, since there won't be any intervening DAC/ADC conversions. Version 1.0 of the standard has been published and is available for download (PDF format). The DVI spec currently does not stipulate copy protection measures. However, plans are in the works to incorporate it.

Intel is one of the primary contributors to this effort. On Intel's developer site, they have some papers on copy protection for IEEE 1394 (Firewire) digital streams. In two separate articles, 1394-based Digital Content Protection: an Intel Proposal, and Content Protection for IEEE 1394 Serial Buses (the latter being a Powerpoint presentation masquerading as a PDF file), Intel outlines its proposal for protecting digital content over Firewire. By using cryptographic authentication techniques, a device offering digital content will "handshake" with other devices on the bus to assure that digital data is only received by, "compliant devices." In a revised overview of the proposal, IDF Talk: Content Protection for the IEEE 1394 Bus, Intel offers concrete implementation details, including:

• DSS (Digital Signature Standard)
• Diffie-Hellman key exchange for device authentication,
• Blowfish cipher for content encryption, with a keylength of 32-128 bits,
• Digital watermarking techniques to declare "rights" (right to playback, right to copy, etc.) to the receiving device.

The full proposal (currently version 0.91), with lots of technical detail, is mirrored on CPTWG's site (the links to Intel's site don't work).

Intel's proposal also recommends that the copy protection system be field-upgradeable to thwart ongoing attacks, and that it should be possible to revoke (read: disable) a device determined to be "compromised." (The tone of the proposals is also interesting. It's previously been thought that, because of USB, Intel is hostile to IEEE 1394. Yet these proposals suggest that Intel's quite enthusiastic about 1394... Once copy protection is incorporated.)

Intel's proposal mentions only IEEE 1394. However, it also mentions that there's nothing preventing the technique being applied generally to any bi-directional link. So for all occurrences of '1394', substitute 'DVI', and you've got an idea of what to look forward to in your new digital monitor. And your new DVD player. And your new HDTV set. And your new USB speakers.

Intel goes even further in their paper, A Framework for DVD-Audio Content Protection. In it, the author suggests that DVD-Audio recorders permanently remember the IRSC (International Standard Recording Code) of every song the device is asked to copy, so that it may only be copied once, period. They go on to suggest that the recorder could have a modem built-in to authorize (read: purchase) the ability to make additional copies.

In short, through this industry consortium, Hollywood proposes to exert control over every link in the digital chain, from the digital camera, to the disk drive, to the CPU, to the graphics card, to your display. They will decide what rights you have. Even if a court decides Fair Use includes multiple copies for personal use (such as assembling a video montage), it won't matter. Your computer will still refuse to make the copies (and probably fink on you, as well).

This coordinated effort is ostensibly to combat unsanctioned copying (which the industry chronically refers to incorrectly as 'theft' and 'piracy'). However, no one has ever been able to provably quantify the value of unrealized sales due to such copying. All dollar estimates that have been published are just that: estimates, based on idealized extrapolations of what-if scenarios. Moreover, although the industry claims to "lose" billions every year, they continue to post record profits. Finally, despite the proliferation of CDR drives and the Internet, most unrealized sales are the result of organized mass counterfeiting rings, not casual copying. None of the proposed methods I've seen appear to thwart mass counterfeiting at all. So clearly there's some other reason for all this.

The thing that puzzles me most is why the computer and consumer electronics industries haven't told Hollywood to take a hike. Intel's copy protection proposals state, in bold letters, "No content protection = No Hollywood content." This belief is taken as axiomatic by all the players, and appears to be the driving force behind the entire effort. This belief is also false.

Audio on CDs are recorded as plaintext, and the music industry continues to earn rapacious profits. Even the with the advent of CDRs, no music industry executive in his right mind would suggest dropping CD sales and going strictly with cassettes and vinyl. If nothing else, the manufacturing costs for CDs are lower than those for cassettes and vinyl. Likewise, DVDs are tremendously cheaper to produce than videotapes. Videotape duplication is a labor-intensive process; DVDs can be stamped out automatically. The savings in cost-of-goods alone would more than balance against any unrealized sales from casual copying. Corporate shareholders, always mindful of the bottom line, will also demand that the studios move to the cheaper, higher-quality process, copy protected or not.

The fact is that the computer and electronics firms are in the driver's seat, and are free to dictate how the new digital formats will work. Hollywood will use whatever format becomes popular, whether it has copy protection or not. They may grumble about it, but they'll use it. The economics afford them little choice.

We are only now beginning to explore the social and ethical consequences of a Star Trek-like universe where everything can be infinitely duplcated at zero cost. We have no idea where things will end up. But now is not the time to start erecting electronic walls and imposing artificial scarcity. The ignoble and richly-deserved death of DIVX showed -- fairly unequivocally, I thought -- that consumers want to make free, fair use of their digital media, without interference from outside. I believe its death reinforces the future toward which we've been pushing for centuries: Increased abundance at reduced cost. We can only hope that the lesson of DIVX will be repeated until it is learned.

Schwab

I guess you missed the point of my original message: If you don't like paying the price for DVDs, then buy the video tape. Or rent the DVD, or VHS, or LD. You use the word cartel, but ignore the possibility of just ignoring the cartel by NOT buying in to their "insideous" plan by simply not purchasing their wares.

The price of laser discs was high becuase they were niche-market. People who wanted the quality and the experience were willing to pay for it. This is the way vinyl records will probably go now: if you want a decent player and decently mastered/pressed records then it'll cost you, becuase very few people want the added enjoyment that people claim they have over CDs.

DVDs are a different issue. They are a mass market product, which will gradually cause VHS to be phased out. Not immedietly, because we can't record yet, but they will, eventually. Now - with Laserdisc I could import American titles if I wanted to, but I would need to import a TV and voltage convertor to get it all to work. With DVD there's no technological barrier to watching DVDs anywhere.... except that which is forced on us, the consumer. Now, I don't think there's a problem with manufacturers selling anything they want. If they don't bow to consumer demands, they'll go out of business - who cares? It's their problem. But when they start arresting people for playing back movies which they legitimately own, that's going too far. I can't import movies from the US because they've been crippled. High street stores are scared to sell players that are multi-region in case they get accused of hacking. But the MPAA may just have met their match in Tesco, who are very used to getting their own way, and have the hard cash to back it up.

I posted a comment in a previous DVD topic, about the way encryption keys could be used by the DVDCCA to effectively make obscelete ranges of players by simply not encoding the keys on certain discs. If you feel confident in the DVDCCA then read this and tell me you don't feel scared. It seems to me that by letting earlier players be multi-region, they have seeded the market and let it grow, and now they're tightening the net. They've lied to movie studios and said that region coding is for anti-piracy; in fact it makes very little difference. I, for one, do not trust them.

Netcraft reports that the DVD CCA site is running Apache 1.3.3 with PHP 3.0.5 on BSD/OS.

I trust that everyone will use that information only in constructive and helpful ways.

You never know... if you look you might even find a copy of the source code there, too..... VBG.... I do like the "Page Title", though!

Perhaps they should summon themselves?