Does HDCP Herald The End Of Time-Shifting?

Kagato writes: "HDTV is starting to roll in many markets now, and the question on many peoples' minds is how do I record all this high quality content? Two years ago Panasonic made a HDTV recorder for the consumer market, but for some unknown reason the product was pulled from the market. Now JVC is bringing out its D-VHS recorder, but instead of using the conventional Y/Pr/Pb inputs they now use a DVI input. On the surface DVI (similar to firewire) is a good thing: high speed audio and video all on one cable. However, it seems the express reason for using DVI is for high-bandwidth digital content protection (HDCP). Hmm, sounds a lot like CSS..." One of the more disturbing aspects of HDCP is that it has a blacklist of devices that it will expressly not work with that can be updated by the manufacturer. If your VCR is on the blacklist...no video for you.

"In researching HDCP I've found that HDCP encrypts the content between the HDTV tuner and the Display and/or HDTV recorder. HDCP allows the content provider to choose if you have the right to record the programming that comes into your home. According to this article HDCP also allows supports a master lists of devices not to work with (a.k.a. Key Device Revocation). For example if the APEX of the HDTV recording world is unleashed the content provider can instruct your HDTV tuner not to send it any content. That's a least what I'm reading into it.

Are we on the verge of having our right to timeshift taken away? Will all the consumers have won with the Sony Betamax suit be lost in one swoop that is the DMCA and HDCP? Or, am I reading too much into this and the MPAA has our best interests in mind?"

Comments

Re:Has copy protection ever really worked?

[sjames]

Can anyone name an incident where copy protection really worked and there was no way to get around it. I can't even think of something that wasn't fairly easy to get around. Of course I am only 19 and don't have the history that some slashdot people do, but I can't remember anything that was really impossible to manipulate.

So far, none. However, all of those were broken when it wasn't a felony to manufacture the needed devices. If you read the ads for the various devices you'll notice that they all claim to be useful for some other purpose. Macrovision defeating devices claim to be video stabilizers. When the content is being delivered with crystal clear digital quality, what excuse will there be for a device that tricks the VCR into letting you record something the broadcaster explicitly set the 'no copy' flag on?

Keep in mind, under the DMCA, if the excuse doesn't hold water, it's a felony with very little wiggle room. Look at what has happened so far with DeCSS in spite of having a legal use!

Re:Not the end of time shifting

[the red pen]

• consumers will eventually win. The free market demands it.

"Market Forces" are the "God's Will" of secular society. Why not just say that God will take care of consumers? It's equally meaningful.

The fact is that market forces serve the market, not consumers. Market forces drove down the price VHS VCRs and made them as common as dirt. Market forces didn't force Sony to license the Beta standard to other manufacturers and Beta disappeared. The consumers did not win.

You are correct that consumers are used to being able to record TV shows and watch them later. There's nothing in the proposed technology that will stop them. I expect that HDCP-compliant receivers will gladly pipe output to an HDCP-compliant Tivo. This HDCP Tivo would only deliver the content back to a display device, but not to a media recorder of any type. Thus, Joe Sixpack can timeshift to his heart's content, but he can't record "Battlefield Earth" off HBO-HD, transfer it to HD-DVD and resell it on Ebay. His HDCP Tivo will refuse transfer that valuable intellectual property to the DVD recorder.

Sure, there will be some way to make a copy of the HBO-HD broadcast of "BattleField Earth," but the pirate copy will be robbed of the full glory of the original digital clarity, robbing the viewer of the full effect of the spine-tingling special effects.

Of course, you will also be prevented from doing something perfectly legal, such as making a "Best of the Simpsons" compilation for your own personal use. You lose. The question is, will the market care? My money says "no".

This *HAS* to be a Troll

[the red pen]

• when you are watching a PAL or NTSC television set, you are unconsciously aware that what you are watching is false, at some deep level.

...and when you are watching a SECAM television set, you are unconciously aware that you might be in France.

• However, at high framerates and definitions, this is not the case. The id can no longer seperate fantasy and fiction

Wow! If I could invent an extremely high resolution image with no flicker at all, I could control the world! I'd give this terrifying new technology some kind of fancy name, with a Greek root or something... How about photograph?

Not the end of time shifting

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Fortunately, two decades of ordinary VCR's will prevent The Industry from putting an end to time shifting. Consumers have gotten used to the idea.

The bottom line on this kind of stuff is that consumers will eventually win. The free market demands it. From a technology perspective, bulletproof copy protection is impossible. Every single attempt has been defeated. From the errors on Track 40 of a Commodore-64 floppy (and the copy programs that put those errors on the duplicate), to Macrovision on VHS (and the sync repeaters that worked around it), to CSS (and DeCSS), technology has proven time and again that you can't give a consumer access to some sort of media and completely lock out the ability to copy it. The only sure-fire way to prevent copying is to deliver all pay-per-view programming with an accompanying lawyer, policeman, or whatever in the consumer's living room. And that ain't gonna happen.

Big Media scumbags tried to prevent the consumer public from gaining access to cassette recorders, and later VCR's. Why should this round be any different?
--

Re:Not the end of time shifting

[jms]

... bulletproof copy protection is impossible. Every single attempt has been defeated.

Well, DIVX was never cracked, but only because it went out of business before anyone had a chance to work on it.

I suppose that in another sense, DIVX was defeated. Not by technology, but by the marketplace.

Re:We will have to buy

[FFFish]

The consuming public has ultimate power. If enough people refuse to participate in supporting a product through its purchase, the product will disappear from the market.

The key, as with anything, is that enough people have to do it.

If the public would get half a fucking clue, it could enact real, significant, positive and long-lasting change in the way our governments and corporations operate.

But it's the frog-in-boiling-water thing: until things get so excrebly untolerable that the mass public literally can not stand it any more, they'll put up with the moderately intolerable.

Which is to say, that which is untolerable, generally isn't. People adapt, get used to it, suck it down, and live with it.

It's a pretty fucking sorry state of affairs, and it certainly makes one worry for the fate of future generations. Will the mass public demand ecological change, in time to keep the environment from going kaput? Will the mass public demand government change, in time to keep democracy from becoming lenient corporate dictatorship? Will the the mass public demand freedom to view/listen to media as desired, in time to keep it from becoming a pay-per-view, each-view, each-person event?

Frankly, I doubt it. The mass public is too apathetic. It's gonna be a bugger apologizing to our kids for letting things get as bad as they will...

--

Oh, it will backfire soon enough.

[Nemosoft Unv.]

Just imagine the uproar that will ensue when half a nation comes home from work, school, dancing lesson or whatever, and finds out their favorite show or the NBA game of their team has not been recorded on their VCRs because the broadcaster decided to flip the "Nay" switch. It may be too late for a refund, but it will be the last time they will buy such equipment!

Frankly, I don't really see the point of forcing customers to be at home to watch a program; the only reason I can come up with is that they can't fast-forward through the commercials. We are so used to taping programs for our use, no-one will accept such measures.

As for the video-blacklist: yes, that's a shame. And no, I don't think the MPAA has the best intentions for the consumer's right, only their own.

Re:Oh, it will backfire soon enough.

[QuantumG]

Digital VCRs will probably include software to do time shifting (without fast forwarding the commercials). There will just be no way to get the unencrypted digital stream out of the VCR. What's more the user interfaces in these VCR's will probably be so superiour that people will immediately forget about the freedom they used to have to fast forward, especially seeing more people will be timeshifting than used to. New users fix everything.

Re:Oh, it will backfire soon enough.

[OmegaDan]

Are we going to have to fight this fight everytime a new piece of hardware comes out ?

In a nutshell heres whats going on:

Add revenues are WAY down, NBC is laying off 10% of its work force, Turner has had a hiring freeze, because of this problem -> TV Adds aren't working anymore. The problem was this : Back in the 50's , the standard was something like 40 new shows a year ... Then they started doing sweeps, and the new shows were only during sweeps because, they got paid for the rest of the year based on sweeps's numbers ... Now in an attempt to "trick" people into watching, they've taken to staggering new shows and old shows during the new show season ... For instance: Futurama ... They didn't start the season until OCT 29, then they alternated new shows and old shows ... Add to this the fact that they're only making 15 new episodes a year of many shows.

Compounding the problem is, the quality of Television shows is similiar to the quality of MS products ... Most networks have degraded into "Shiny Things Networks" (an omage to the onion) ... Look at the string of just WORTHLESS shows, Temptation Island, Millionaire, suvivor, who wants to marry a ... etc etc ... people were attracted to these novelty shows because the television has become so formula driven its turning people off. Most shows are just about sex (Ally McBeal, Boston Public ... ) Even classic shows like star trek (DS-9, Voyager, just can't keep the interest of even their die hard viewers -- because the writing is just THAT bad).

So the networks are already in bad shape, because people who have better things to do then to watch teenage girls in dupres are doing that better thing ...

Now that you understand the trend in the market, TIVO's and VCR's become incredibly important -- because if they show is shown 52 times a year, and theres 15 new episodes, most people aren't gonna watch the other 37 shows OR the adds with them. They need to restore this revenue stream ... If you can't record it -> you gotta be there to watch it -> if you gotta be there you'll probaly watch it wether its a repeat or not because yuou've already rearranged your schedule.

I believe your supposition is correct, people won't stand for it, they'll just end up missing the TV they can't record, because, who can take the night off work to watch the simpsons?

I would like to think the public would start to see the encrypted HD's, the DVD CSS, HDCP and the DMCA as an attack on the sovreignthy (sp?) of the consumer ... HDCP just might be the issue that drives this problem to the public.

Ultimatley, this will create an opertunity for new broadcasters to get into the market, probably over high speed internet whenever that becomes a reality ... It dosen't take alot of money to make a good show, it takes alot of heart. I point towards BBC shoe-string classics like Monty Python, Black Adder, the Thin Blue Line, Upstairs Downstairs, All Creatures great and small, Danger UXB, Wallace and Gromit etc etc that were made in their entirity for less then one episode of Ally mcboring.

Re:Speak with your money

[amccall]

This will probably work about 10x better for HDTV than it would for DVDs, Microsoft, and the like, for the simple reason that: the average consumer understands the inability to have a VCR.

There is currently such a large market for VCRs, and Tivo like devices, that most major electronics companies have a vested interest in keeping these products alive. Remember, it doesn't benifit the ones making the electronics, only the ones making the media. Kindof like the whole Hard drive copy protection business.

Further there is no really defined standard for an HDTV recorder. We'll probably have something like the Betamax vs. VCR wars again in this next couple of years. Hopefully the nonproprietary standard will win again, bolstered by consumer confidence. I don't put the lack of VCR like products for HDTV on some conspiracy, but the simple facts that: 1. Extremely few people own a HDTV, so the market is little. 2. These people are probably watching off broadcast anyway, as most HDTV signals aren't really there yet.(There's been more than a few technical problems, and last I heard unless you were sitting on station, it doesn't work all that great.) So they have VCR's. 3. These same people are probably only using the HDTV capabilities to watch their latest DVDs anyways.

Just my $2.00.

Where's Don Knuth?

[Captain Zion]

Now JVC is bringing out its D-VHS recorder, but instead of using the convent.ional Y/Pr/Pb inputs they now use a DVI input.

Wow. I bet the TV shows are written in TeX!

What about Fair Use?

[gcondon]

Since the early days of VCRs, the Courts have upheld the individual's right to record broadcast programming for the purposes of time shifting under fair use. However, content that arrives in a non-ephemeral medium, such as tape or disk, seems to be allowed to incorporate copy-protection because there is no need to duplicate for fair use. This appears to be the rationale behind technologies such as Macrovision which prevents DVD to VHS duplication.

As we are all painfully aware, content providers have recently been fighting tooth and nail to stop any form of duplication, fair use or otherwise. Although people of good conscience can argue about the fairness of music swapping services such as Napster, recording of broadcast programming for private time shifted use is clearly within the already accepted bounds of case law (IANAL).

Therefore, content providers have shifted the debate to the 'perfection' of digital-to-digital duplication. Since a D->D copy is exactly identical to the original, natural controls on duplication such as generational degredation disappear. Content providers argue that the removal of this barrier will cast the world into a miasma of unbridled piracy which, in turn, will stifle creative pursuits, destroy the global economy and perhaps send the Earth hurtling into the Sun.

Such arguments have been used to incorporate copy-once protection into consumer grade DAT devices and appears to be the motivation for this new round of copy protection efforts. (It is interesting to note that Macrovision protects against a form of copying that already includes generation degradation, however a sense of irony is not a strength of the MPAA/RIAA.) The motivation of content providers is, not surprisingly, to implement as much copy protection as they can and then to let the Courts push them back a little later. IMHO, the important issue is to keep the quality of duplication out of the debate over the limits of fair use. This may lead to a copy-once scheme similar to DAT but that would represent a compromise between the rights of content owners and users. As some smartypants once remarked, we must give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's.

Quantum Copyright Protection Scheme Shows Promise

[QuantumG]

Physicists have developed a software only form of data streaming that just might send hackers packing. The technology, based on the Hiesenburg uncertainty principle, makes it possible to send a digital song or movie over the internet without fear of the data being intercepted or copied at the final destination. Dr Peter Hackinsack from the University of Southern California explains:

"It's truly amazing. When we first started thinking about sending quantum data over the Internet we were talking about optic fiber and very complicated optic only switches."

Electromagnetic fields have been shown to disrupt the stability of quantum super states and has been a major hurdle in quantum computing.

"Then one day we decided to try measuring a quantum state but not actually observing the calculations until they had passed over the Internet as normal data. We expected the results to be skewed and indeed they were. It was during this process that we discovered that we could shape the data into any form we wanted!"

Dr Hackinsack continues to explain how the data passes through a complex encryption mechanism that is the key to the data's encoding. Dr Hackinsack ensures us that the encryption process is very fast and can be done on a media company's web server in real time. The data then passes over the Internet to the user's home computer where a program such as Windows Media Player or Winamp can deliver it to the end user.

"They can store the data for as long as they like and make as many copies as they like. But once the song or movie or whatever is actually istened to, all the copies revert to random garbage!"

The process is called "quantum state destablization" and is observed daily by researchers in quantum computing. Dr Hackinsack and a number of associates who requested not to be identified have formed a startup company and secured funding from the MPAA.

"Oh we're going to make the SDMI obsolete. There's no reason to rely on big numbers when you've got the power of the universe to protect you."

But securing funding has not been easy. Describing the process to media executives has been grueling for scientists who deal with this kind of physics day by day.

"They were such a pain. We tried everything. They didn't want to learn about the technology and they didn't understand the demo we erformed. In the end we got some undergraduates to explain it and they seemed happy. Well they gave us the money!"

Deployment of the product is still some months away.

Read other fake news..

Here's some good news

[VFVTHUNTER]

that I saw on TechTV yesterday. Although manufacturers can build content protection of public television streams into their devices, Dvorak and others made reference to a Supreme Court case a few years old that gives consumers an absolute right to record these public streams. Dvorak et al seemed baffled that the FCC had let HDTV copy pretection pass, since this ruling effectively nullifies it.

What does this mean to us geeks? It means that although manufacturers can make copy-protected TV's, they don't have to. Companies (e.g., Apex Digital, makers of the best $170 DVD player ever made) can simply choose to make TV's and VCR's etc that ignore this copy-protection scheme, just and Hedrick has gotten T.13 to do with CPRM.

Re:Here's some good news

[Speare]

This is similar to a California ruling where the judge upheld a Californian resident's right to descramble satellite broadcasts, stating if they didn't want him to see their content, then get it off of his property. This doesn't mean that the judge said satellite broadcasts cannot be scrambled, just that if they aren't scrambled sufficiently, then they cannot prosecute home users that descramble the signal.

It would seem that this is thrown out the window by the DMCA, however.

Previously, if I went to the retail store and bought a piece of glass-plastic-and-burnt-aluminum, I was able to do whatever I wanted with that glass-plastic-and-burnt-aluminum, for my own noncommercial use. I wanted to read the content on it, descramble it, and view it. I was rightly allowed to, and the courts upheld that notion. Paraphrased, "if they don't want me to use the content inside, they shouldn't let me bring the media home."

(As an aside, I'd say that I would go along with the notion that I couldn't make revenue off content that I bought at retail. Retail is for private end-consumers. If I want to become a distributor, I should acquire a business agreement with the distributor(s) higher up the chain.)

But the DMCA changes this world. Congress has altered the law, and the courts are charged with interpreting the current law, not the old case law. Akin to the bedroom laws, these media laws senselessly restrict what I can do with people and objects I bring into my own home.

Re:Here's some good news

[Fjord]

Although manufacturers can build content protection of public television streams into their devices, Dvorak and others made reference to a Supreme Court case a few years old that gives consumers an absolute right to record these public streams.

This is an incorrect interpretation of the ruling. We do not have an inalienable right to timeshift, but the Supreme Court said that individuals cannot be brought up on criminal charges for recording a public broadcast. If the MPAA can come up with a way to scramble the recording, then it doesn't violate this ruling. But this ruling does say a home user recording content is are within their rights, even if that recording is scrambled to the point that it is not viewable.

This is similar to a California ruling where the judge upheld a Californian resident's right to descramble satellite broadcasts, stating if they didn't want him to see their content, then get it off of his property. This doesn't mean that the judge said satellite broadcasts cannot be scrambled, just that if they aren't scrambled sufficiently, then they cannot prosecute home users that descramble the signal..

Has copy protection ever really worked?

[donglekey]

Can anyone name an incident where copy protection really worked and there was no way to get around it. I can't even think of something that wasn't fairly easy to get around. Of course I am only 19 and don't have the history that some slashdot people do, but I can't remember anything that was really impossible to manipulate. Cable TV seems like the hardest to me and even then there are cable descramblers and such all over the place.

A lot of effort for nothing

[luckykaa]

These "Casual pirates" DON'T cause a problem. If people subscribe to a TV channel, its a lot of effort to tape things for any purpose other than time shifting. Very few poeple are interested in recording PPV movies since people really only want to see it once anyway.

However, this will most likely add to the price. Surely the people who are having their content protected should subsidise this.

So don't buy 'em.

[OverCode@work]

You're a customer. Don't put up with this crap. I've bought one DVD in my life, and that was for the purpose of testing the Linux DVD players. The DVD CCA pisses me off, so they don't get my money.
Same goes with any manufacturer who supports SDMI (I've already returned one portable player). High-definition TV that limits my freedom to timeshift or make copies for friends is no different. A certain dorm room at Georgia Tech will not be equipped with one of these.

If enough people do this, it'll stop happening. If enough people don't do this (the likely case), we deserve what we get.

-John

Re:Digital means crackz

[b1t r0t]

Some players can be made region-switchable. All the "new" protection does is check the GUI region code in addition to the MPEG region code.

Only One Answer

[Fatal0E]

The days of simple PnP pirated video are prob coming to an end.

As the hardware gets smarter and smarter that only means that the game of cat and mouse between the pirates and broadcasters are is going to get more and more heated. As boradcasters get smarter and start adopting new tech, the people supplying the public with the means to circumvent are gonna have to catch up. Remember all those early copies of Phrack that had all those HOWTO-Cable Piracy tx files?

RANT

The worst part is that the paradigm of "pirate" is shifting more and more towards the mainstream, instead of on the fringe as it always was. It's gonna be John Q. Sixpack with his pirated (made in China) VCR that can record everything he wants, watching TV on his pirate TV (made in Taiwan) connected to his pirate Sattelite dish (modded in the good ole US) that lets him watch East Coast NBC and West Coast NBC.

I guess the assumption that Corps are only worried about the "big time" pirates are over. Even I myself had the assumption that they were only worried about the rings that were dupeing their movies across the Atlantic/Pacific in bulk and that reg ppl were small potatoes and could only be prosecuted (picked on) at a loss. Are those days over? Will the FBI bust into trailer parks across the US under FCC/DMCA/UCITA/CPRM laws? Stayed tuned....
"Me Ted"

high quallity content

[blkros]

I find the use of the words "high quality content" enormously amusing. After all, we're still talking about TV and there ain't much high quality content on it now. I haven't found anything on it worth taping in years.

Divx

[flafish]

How long did it take for Circuit City to drop Divx ? Same will happen here if people don't buy into it? As bandwidth and computer speeds go up, the lenght of time that a code works to lockout ( the use of your equipment) goes down