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Consumer Electronics, Hollywood Work Against 'Video Napster'
cadfael writes: "The EETimes reports that "a new working group within the existing Copyright Protection Technology Working Group (CPTWG) will review a technical method for flagging video content that is not authorized for Internet transmission. ... The group was formed at the suggestion of Gary Shapiro, head of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), in a letter sent roughly two weeks ago to Jack Valente, head of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)." Does this make sense in the light of this article?"
these aren't the droids your looking for...
And how long will it take for this to be circumvented?
while true; do eject; eject -t; done
Well, it's nice to see that at least someone in the article recognizes encrypted CDs for what they are.
But I wonder if the people trying to flag these videos to prevent their transmission over the internet ever heard of hackers? I find it hard to believe that by now they can be so naive as to think that they'll be able to pull this off.
This is the NFL, which stands for "Not For Long" if you keep making those bulls*** calls.
it. wont. work.
ok, I'm just speculating. How the hell do they know that someone isnt transmitting unauthorized content on tv especially pay per view??
Just like RIAA, MPAA must find a way to be much more attractive to consumers actually buy their product and avoid them to download it from internet.
Recently RIAA lowered their prices to US$10 for a regular CD. If I'm really interested in an artist I would buy a ten-buck-cd, I would pay for audio quality, and even for graphical quality (and of course know the real music name :o) and for a nice case.
This was the first RIAA intelligent step, and I hope MPAA follows its fellow.
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
Wasn't this more or less what CSS was supposed to do? Just like macrovision is _supposed_ to protect videos.
Oh well, we can run a sweep stake on how long it takes after release to get reverse-engineered. (I reckon 6-7 days)
If they start making broken CDs massively, all you will trust will be mp3. And you can be sure as hell that if the music is good enough there will be good quality mp3s around.
And if they buy legislation in the USA, it will take them about 5 years to impose it worldwide.
That is far too much time to stop the tide.
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
It all comes down to the codec / software used, right? I mean, if I have a binary file that's an mpeg2 encoded video, and I ftp it somewhere else, it's the same video. You can't really do anything to the file that makes ftp say "ohhh, I shouldn't copy this."
I think the only way to enforce something like this technically is to build a check into the playing and transfer softwares. And of course, in order to make it work, it would have to be a closed spec, and would probably be licensed.
As long as "normal" software and protocols work, there's probably not going to be a compelling reason to switch to the new protected ones.
I hear you yelling. They want to flag a lot of videos that are being transmitted through file-sharing networks like Kazaa and Gnutella, right? It's gonna be tough to get some marker or flag to remain in place through the various compressions and wrappers (mpg, div-x, asf, avi, wmf, etc.).
Of course, if they do flag files, then it may b possible to use the DMCA as another method to sue the rippers, since the loss of the flag would be circumventing a "copyright protection mechanism".
Just my 0.02 [1]
woof.
About that .02 Euro: The plural of the Euro-cent is also "cent", giving you "Just my two cent". We have prices like "Fifteen Euro and twenty-seven cent". I already miss the Deutschmark (but not the Franc).
When I read about this, my first reaction was that every single second of TV broadcast will be flagged as uncopyable.
My second thought was "hmmm, I wonder if the comercials will be flagged as copy protected."
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I have a feeling they will use a combination of video watermarking and steganography to allow copyright holders to mark any video as their own. Of course, like sdmi, it won't last long.
Persuant to the DMCA, we probably won't ever hear about it. Maybe, we need to help these guys.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
When will these companies realise that until they start making money out of what consumers what to do they're always going to be in a pitched battle against so-called 'hackers'?
So people use the internet to trade music. And they might invent something to trade video without the adverts. And years done the line they'll be trading whatever comes next. Why do companies insist on trying to stop what is obviously going to happen, and start embrassing it. Instead of trying to stop people doing this why not work on creating a business model that consumers are happy with and would be willing to pay for. I'd certainly pay a bit for television sans adverts (a bit of in-show product placement would keep the advertisers happy, I just hate the breaks), and if I could get these shows over the net as and when and whereever I want them I'd pay even more.
Companies that are wholely antagonistic toward their customers are really annoying.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Suppose companies start distributing video using the CPTWG encoder (whatever they might call it) to mark it as nondistributable. What's to keep folk from sending the video output to a DV device, then reading it back and re-encoding it to whatever 'open' format they choose? This isn't the easiest way to accomplish it, I'm sure, but if media can be played, can't it be re-recorded and converted?
It seems to me that whenever the powers-that-wanna-be try to establish total control of digital media, they lose whatever control or influence they already had. Why not redirect efforts toward better fair-use policies, reasonable licensing schemes, and accept that somebody will copy your work no matter what you do?
I think the real trick will be to improve Joe Random's perception of the recording industry to the point that he feels guilty about having media he hasn't paid for. Their current tactics will never accomplish that, and in fact will tend to perpetuate the Robin Hood fantasy that Napsterites currently enjoy.
"The more you tighten your grip, Valente, the more encoding systems will slip through your fingers." -- Princess RIAA
Macrovision has always been something I think the government should deem illegal-- especially in light of DVD players and how it infringes on a consumers rights;
Example: Mary has an old RF (coax) input TV that works fine, and she has a semi-old (1990) VCR attached to it to watch movies. This VCR has a video input on the back for hooking up other devices, camcorders and so forth. Mary decides she wants to take advantage of the latest price drops in DVD players (example: Pioneer DVD player at Costco for roughly $200-250). Mary buys said DVD player, takes it home and plugs it into her VCR using A/V cables (RCA jacks). Mary proceeds to try to watch The Matrix. Lo and behold, Mary notices that instead of a superior image, she sees the image getting extremely dark, then turning bright, then dark again, repeatedly. The culprit? Macrovision.
It's bullshit that people should have to purchase a brand-new television set to watch DVD movies (and this may in fact not be possible for the person used in the example above, after all, a new TV can cost three times as much as a DVD player).
It's also interesting to note that Laser Discs, for whatever reason, didn't employ Macrovision. Another problem I have with Macrovision is that (supposedly, based upon my little understanding of the subject) introduces errors into the video (and audio?) INTENTIONALLY, errors which the human eye supposedly can't see, but which confuse video inputs on VCR's and other 'video input' devices (video capture cards in PC's, and so on).
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
The main problem that both the RIAA and the MPAA have is that they have lost touch with reality. They are not, by any stretch of the imagination, computer literate people. Because of this, you get idiotic decisions like the Cactus CD-Rip protection, the 0.99GB per .vob limit on DVDs, CSS, any all of the rest of the things that we love to laugh at.
/. and laugh at.
If they wanted to sell their products, they'd lower the prices (seriously, 10$ CDs are good, but 30$ for a DVD? Come on, a DVD isn't that expensive, and you've already raped the consumer in the theaters, so drop the price. 15$ or 20$ for a new DVD would be nice), as well as try to get intelligent people to protect their goods.
Instead of going after whoever cracked CSS, the MPAA should have approached them, asked for suggestions to improve encryption, not sue them for copyright infringement, or whatever bullshit they currently are pulling out of their asses.
Information will find a way to be free, be it ripping CDs, DVDs, or whatever. As long as you have computer-illiterate people making the decisions, we'll always have news stories to post on
Gawyn
Freedom of Speech?
It's funny how these kind of "news" pop up all the time. The big execs out there are not really even trying to understand the technology or what it could offer, instead they try to stomp down on any new thing that they perceive as a threat - which pretty much includes anything related to the 'net nowadays.
To accomplish what they want they would need to control the whole technology chain that's used to transport the content. This means that they need to have control starting from the distribution mechanism down to the playback unit used to (dis)play the content. If they do not, there will always be someone, somewhere with access to the raw, unprotected content who will copy and release it over the 'net. Of course, they are trying to fight this on the other fronts than the technology front, too - the "someone, somewhere" is labeled as a pirate, and new legislation is written in an attempt to stop him/her. But humans do not work that way. There will always be one "someone", and with the 'net, it's only one it takes.
I don't know what I would do if I was the King of Sony, but I think "throw it all up in the air and see how it lands" kinda sounds like a good approach. They need to just let the technology go where it's going, and try to catch up with revenue models that serve the technology.
They can try and kneecap the h/w and s/w if they want, but there are more minds working AGAINST them than for them. Resistance is futile! Embrace the chaos! Stop trying to defend the Alamo. Maybe the enemy will let you live.
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
where are these 10$ cds everyone is talking about? here in nyc a cd will cost ya about 20$...well sure if you want super pop nsync britney spears marilyn manson eminem mtv cd sure that will run ya 12.99$, but want something actually worth listening to and you gotta cough up a 20. Well unless you buy one of the bootleg cds (same quality minus any copy protection, thanks organized crime) that are 5-10$.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
what you must first do is to make a truly open source codec for video.
2.
make a fast, effective oss kazaa like thing.
it must be MUCH faster than gnutella, so i would imitate kazaa's stuff.
with a lot of indexing servers around ze world, we will not be stopped!
viva la revolucione!
If I do a video capture of a tv show. Edit out the commercials. Burn it to a cd, and then send that cd to a friend. What law am I breaking?
How is that any different than using a VHS tape, and hitting pause when a commercial comes on, then sending that tape to a friend?
Ok final question? I have this episode, and my friend downloads it from my PC, did we just break the law?
This path makes far more sense than fighting with the consumer on copy protection. Watermark their files so that it would be relatively easy for law enforcement to "know" a file has been illegally copied. Are they going to raid someone's home looking for them? Probably not. But they might look through a suspected criminal's computer (with a warrant, of course) and prosecute based on what they find.
I really don't have a problem with this as it would be no different than car manufacturer's putting the VIN everywhere they can on a vehicle.
In this case, enforcement might be substantially easier than prevention.
a new working group within the existing Copyright Protection Technology Working Group (CPTWG) will review a technical method for flagging video content that is not authorized for Internet transmission
In other news, Hackers announce that they will keep abreast of the situation via news releases and pirated code, and have already announced their plan to circumvent and remove such flags 1 to 2 days after their release to the general public.
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Today's Top Deals
Just like with encrypted CD's.. .it there a legal way of opposing this latest plan to restrict fair-use?
3000 dead over past 2 years, still no free Palestinians, still
When is the RIAA and MPAA going to get it through their thick skulls that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PIRATE-PROOF DIGITAL MEDIA!
... the studios just need to do it.
... in my mind, I own it! I am not going to pay $1.99 an episode for each episode every time I want to watch a tv show I missed. I am going to download once, "time-shift" it on my Replay TV, and if I like it, I am going to archive it to VHS, VCD, DVD, etc.
You can do whatever you want to a binary file, but the reality is that when the consumer wants to listen/watch the file (You know, guys, WHY you made it in the first place!), there has to be a translation from protected digital to unprotected digital before it is converted to analog. All I have to do to pirate is capture that stream before it goes to analog.
Their answer seems to be to force everyone to push the translation from protected digital to analog into hardware and pass laws to make it illegal to break their algorithm. This will never work. Everytime you change your protection scheme, you make all the current players obsolete - pissing off your customers.
It takes months or years to get the new algorithm distributed to consumers in the form of hardware, but is takes only days or weeks for hackers to reverse engineer it in software and start pirating.
It is a game they can not win. They need to simply make it a hassle to pirate, accept that a certain percentage of people are going to pirate no matter what they do, and focus on their legitimate customers. Accept the price that the market will bare and get on with life.
It the day of ReplayTV and Broadband, it is moronic that I can not tie into media servers of all the major studios and download any movie or tv show on demand on a Pay-Per-View basis. They technology is *ALL* there today to do it
And they have to understand that once I have downloaded it
That is reality. That is your market. Sell to it and stop trying to using the government to be your Guido the Killer Pimp that throw people in jail because they dared to watch a DVD on Linux!
Another industry group getting together to invent
:)
a watered-down-compromise-type copy-protection scheme
How long 'till this one's broken?
Oh.. it's been done already..
Sure, the studios make large profits on hit movies and albums. However, there are also our fair share of bombs. At the end of the day, our return on investment is not significantly different from that in other industries.
We realize the consumers' desires to make personal copies, pass programming onto friends, etc. We simply cannot make a profit without sufficient copy protections to ensure that people actually buy our products.
Although there are good consumers who would abide by our copyrights if we removed all watermarking and other copy-prohibiting technologies. Both you and we know that there are always a few bad apples in the cart, and we must take preventative measures to protect our copyrighted material. Instead of directing your anger at us, why don't you join us in our efforts to track down people engaged in illegal activites?
The idea that information is free is simply not true. Without a way of paying the producers for their time and effort, the amount of material would evaporate until nearly nothing remains.
Okay, flame away :-)
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
>prices to US$10 for a regular CD?
What does this mean? I have not seen the CDs at this price in record stores. Does that mean that the record stores buy them at $10? If so, they'll just keep the prices the same and laugh all the way to the bank, won't they?
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
I would like to address the legislature (US, EU, and everywhere else).
The internet is the greatest developement in communication since the invention of the printing press. More people have access to more information than ever before deamt possible. The cost of distributing information to unlimited numbers of people is virtually zero.
We can embrace this new technology and it's benefits, or we can reject it, cripple it, destroy it.
The adoption of any new technology means change. Any bussiness unwilling or unable to adapt to that change will fail. The adoption of the automobile meant the doom of the buggy-whip industry.
With the adoption of new technology businesses will fail. They will make way for new businesses and new possibilities. We will all reap the rewards.
As for the other choice, that road leads to maddness. In this specific case - flagging video - for this scheme to work EVERY SINGLE ELECTRONIC DEVICE must respect this flag. This means all other devices must be made illegal - including existing devices. It must be illegal to alter devices you own. It must be illegal to create your own device. It must be illegal to attempt to understand how these technologies work. It must be illegal to explain to anyone how these technologies work.
KNOWLEDGE MUST BE MADE A CRIME.
Furthermore, such restrictions must be enforced GLOBALLY. Any nation who resists must be crushed into submission.
Such is the madness of the DMCA, EUCA, and other attempts to "protect" us from progress.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
You can rent DVD's MUCH easier than renting CD's and copy DVD's (to divx) very easily now, mind you it takes about 2-3 hours, but for someone like me with dialup it is 100% more attractive than waiting 5 days to download a movie and find out it has either horrible recording (i.e. Handy Cam) or ugly subtitles, or some little banner in the corner.
I see a lot of posts which are very anti copy protection and I understand why - fair use rights being eroded, the deliberate crippling of useful technologies etc. However very few people seem to understand the other point of view. There's no proven revenue model for content that doesn't depend on keeping unauthorised copying to a minimum.
However much you may think that the MPAA or content producers are the evil empire, they are at the end of the day just companies trying to make a profit. They know they can make a profit if their content if their copyright protection is in some way enforceable. The problem is technology has made copying easier and with digital media copies maintain perfect quality. There are only two ways forward - find a different revenue model that can survive large scale unauthorised copying, or try to prop up the existing one. Most of the effort seems to go on the later because no-one seriously believes that a revenue model exists that doesn't at least strongly discourage unauthorised copying.
Personally I don't know where this will end but I can only see tough times ahead. Companies are not going to stop trying to protect their content and thus their revenue, and inidividuals are not going to stop trying to use the flexibility that the technology promises.
Isn't it ironic that this story is posted directly after the one about punishing freeloaders?
The art mass-production industry is running headfirst into the consumer aftermarket reproduction industry.
What's interesting is that rather than raise their standards to the point where people will be willing to buy their products, their attitude is to try to destory the aftermarket reproduction industry.
It's interesting because it bespeaks two things:
1. Complete contempt for consumers. The assumption is that people will always prefer to make illegal copies, rather than buy at the store. I'm willing to pay for stuff if it's worth the price. I'm not willing to pay for one good track and a load of crappy tracks, so I don't buy, in the primary- or aftermarkets.
2. Complete arrogance on their part. the attitude is "take it or leave it because you can't get it elsewhere."
Personally, I say a pox on them. Encrypt your stuff as you will. Until you produce something worth buying, you won't get my dime.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Get ready for more and more of these schemes to protect copyrighted material...also be ready for a larger percentage of the market to participate in ways of circumventing it. Every time these guys raise the bar it makes the act of "getting away with it" that much more appealing to Joe-Sixpack. Hey, who doesn't want to be considered part of the tech savy croud. The dinosaurs of the record and music industry will do whatever it takes to preserve their outdated business models. Inovation outside of their control is a direct threat to the empires they have built. I'm sure there were quite a few record execs that were grabbing for their heart medication when (gasp!) they found out that people were so fed up with paying $17 for a CD with one or two good songs and another 8 tracks of crap that their "customers" were now able to take them out of the loop. If they want to survive and, yes, even become more successful, they should consider cutting prices and making more profit on volume of sales instead of higher profit margins and embracing newer, more efficient means of distribution. I mean, c'mon, cd burners are selling for well under $100. These companies could save a bloody fortune in manufacturing, packaging, logistics and transportation by using electronic distribution methods over the internet. They could sell indvidual tracks over the net, cut out at least 3 middle-men in the process, save consumers money and possibly make more money than ever. Short-sighted morons!
You know its stories like this that really make me wonder what kind of morons are running the show over there.
They can do all they want, rally behind a format, develop a new one, encrypt things what ever. It doesn't matter.
Lets asume for a sec that DeCSS doen't exist and there is no way to play a DVD on linux box. Ok if I wanted to copy a DVD to send to someone what would I have to do. I would hook up my DVD player to my TV Tuner card and capture the stream. Duh!
These dude are never going to be able to copy protect anything because to do so would make the product so dificult and inconvient to use that the average consumer wouldn't buy or use it.
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"We think the best thing is to develop something along the lines of the Copyright Scrambling System" Fritz Attaway, general counsel for the MPAA, on howto protect video form being copied.
Things move in cycles and the execs know it. Now that school dropped classes like music, art and other liberal arts courses, people are creating their own. There's no barrier preventing a gifted artist from distributing their work around the world without a media company making a cent. The modern metropolis created the need for distribution systems, but the internet has decreased the value of those institutions.
The core function of a media company is under attack from all sides. Look at the 405 movie made by a few guys that got world wide attention. Median execs are afraid that will become the norm and not the exception.
", but the truth is, that's only true if you can see the one's and zero's yourself, and there aren't many of them.
//'s in choice places before recompiling.
Otherwise, you're using a device to copy it.
It's like prohibition.
"Pshaw, how can they prohibit ALCOHOL? I can make it myself using nothing but widely available, cheap-priced hardware from the grocery store. Heck, I could grow my own wheat and produce it from that."
Well guess what?
I'm 18 years old, and if I were living in Boston, I would have a great deal of difficulty buying alcohol. Like, to the point that I couldn't do it without someone's help, or without doing something like physically stealing it out of the store. And I'm on the resourceful side.
The fact is, if laws say "New law. Every digital device must now have one bit attached to the end of each packet, or for a stream, one bit every three bytes, even at the cost of special translators on each end of the line. Is your keyboard non-compliant? Then you need a translator before it hits the PS2 slot, so that if your keyboard sets the non-copy bit, it stays set.
Translate that bit across anything that moves stuff. Keep track of that bit in your file system. Have it completely transparent to everything, just an extra bit. And if it's set to 1 at any point down the chain, don't copy it to anything marked a file system."
Sure, hackers can circumvent this. I'm 18, and I know enough programming to grep my kernel source for "copy bit" and insert a few
Sure this is "trivial", but so is "growing marijuana." I bet you're allowed to own marijuana seeds (hemp seeds?) if you don't grow the plant and don't distribute it. I bet it'll be the same way with kernel source. (Can have it, as long as you don't modify it to get rid of the copy bit.)
Last time the word marijauna showed up in a slashdot article? Never.
We're not complaining.
So let's not complain.
Paul T.
preemptively spelled a la Taco.
Note: this post done as AC because I can't log in to change my password without having it appear plaintext in the URL. Do you people have ANY idea what it's like to see your password plaintext? In the URL? Damn near gives me a heart attack. Same thing when a site "helpfully" sends me an e-post card with it in bright letters:
Username: whatever
Password: tipx9pa
Gah!! It's like having your housekeys mailed to you in a very, very thin envelope.
Of course, it doesn't help if you use 7-word diceware phrases for every password, which have 128 bits of entropy and are such a pain to generate and to remember that you make just one and use it on everything from slashdot to your encrypted file system. 128 bits of entropy. Unbreakable. Until it appears in the URL. And in the came-from logs of whatever site I visit next. And all over the local filesystem of wherever I log in with netscape or I.E. at a computer other than my own. Gah again! (Note: one trick I've learned is that if you want to permanently get rid of all traces of what URL's you've visited in netscape or I.E., simply run your filesystem through a few passes from dev/random. Here's linux on a floppy. for you to boot the target computer off of.)
If the MPAA associated companies put up a website tommorow with AC-3 DIVX versions of every movie ever made, I'd easily pay 5 or 10 bucks to own a movie. But instead they'd rather spend the 'hard earned artists' dollars' on litigation.
They won't stop progress. History will show that in the end the consumers won out, perhaps at the expense of repressive corporate movie and music publishers.
www.lonseidman.com
Why don't these people just give it up?! There will always be a way to obtain video and MP3's from the net. The internet has become too broad and conclusive to track everything down and make it illeagal or put a membership on it.
There isn't much they can do, take Napster as a great example. They began to drop half they're content, then throw a membership around for the people who truely wanted to continue with it's use. But once that poped up, look how many other programs came into light! Audiogalaxy dropped a big bomb as soon as Napster went under. Then Kazaa and Morpheus came into the big picture only a few months later. If even a few a few months. These people tracking all the sharded material arn't cut out for they're work. No matter how illegal, or how much the membership is, someone will have it for free.
If their files are shared on P2P networks, intranational artists can apply for a government grant. Consumers pay for this through taxes.:)
- Ordinary users now have an ever-increasing array of high-bandwidth transfer mediums at their disposal: ftp, IRC, ICQ, email, web hosting, CD-Rs, tape drives, removable hard drives, laptops... you think the new iMac's DVD burner is going to be used for home movies?
:)
- Ordinary users still have freedom to choose what code their machines run, which means content is in enemy territory. It can be unlocked, transferred to a new format, edited, or even just played.
Content providers need to address these underlying problems, not the latest Napster clones. This will mean locking down media, data, networks, protocols, OSes, apps, BIOSes, hardware, the whole lot. Pretty doubtful, methinks.Why is it that everyone is talking about pay-per-view only? It's not the only business model on tv, why should it be the only one on the Internet?
Is said organization really a working group of the IETF or have they just picked something with a WG in it to acquire a semblance of integrity ?
They're not hard to find if you do a little looking. There is a "video stabilizer" available at Circuit City that I've been using for a long time to clean up the signal and kill the macrovision (even DVD color bursting). I have a nice, but older TV and I wasn't going to pay $400 to replace it just for them. I have it hooked into the video out from my receiver so that all signals are cleaned up before they go to the VCR.
Okay, let me get this straight:
Movie studios took a risk a few years ago by putting money and support behind a new format (DVD -- and don't come back by asserting that there was no way the format could fail so therefore it wasn't a risk). DVD brought consumers high quality, non-degradable copies of their favorite movies in a small, convenient, and AFFORDABLE package. Why is everyone so intent on spitting in their faces? Let's take a look at some of the common reasons:
1. "If they would price DVDs reasonably, I wouldn't pirate them." $20 (or less) isn't a good enough for movies that are of excellent quality, will never degrade (theoretically), and usually come in very nice packaging? I've got news for you... just because it cost $1.00 or so to produce that DVD doesn't mean that companies are making $19.00 of profit when it's marked up to $20! These movies cost many millions of dollars to produce and market, and many fail to even break even. A lot of my favorite movies were complete box-office failures or are very obscure... I think it's very GENEROUS of movie companies to take a risk and produce thousands of copies of movies which they might lose money on just so a relatively small number of people can have high-quality copies of their favorite (obscure) movies!
2. "Sure, lots of movies bomb, but that wouldn't happen if the studios weren't making crappy movies." I've got news for you... studios aren't nearly as stupid as you may think. They've been in the business long enough to know what moviegoers want, AND THEY MAKE THE MOVIES THAT AUDIENCES WANT TO SEE! Teens love stupid teen movies, so movie companies produce them. Most people enjoy crude humor, so movie companies produce crude comedies. It's just that simple. Movie companies are only willing to take a risk on cutting-edge movies if they have a feeling that audiences will go for it, which usually doesn't happen. Maybe our society should broaden its tastes and then Hollywood will respond.
3. "Movie companies aren't willing to embrace the internet revolution and they're getting what they deserve." Okay, hotshot. You've just spent $50 million on a movie. Naturally you want to make that money back, right? How do you plan on doing that if you distribute your movie on the internet with no copy-protection whatsoever? Charge a "reasonable" price for a download of your movie (which can be viewed indefinitely)? What might be a reasonable price to you is a ludicrous price to someone else. You may think $5 to download your movie is reasonable, but there's a bunch of pirates and freeloaders who think your movie sucks far too much to be worth a whole $5. And, since you don't believe in copy-protection, it's even EASIER for said pirates to share your hard work with everyone on Morpheus. Good job. You're now bankrupt.
I think the whole pro-piracy/anti-RIAA/anti-MPAA issue boils down to this:
1. If given a choice, most people would take a movie at 90% of the quality for free over 100% quality for $20.
2. People who support pirating movies/music believe that if the tools to reproduce and redistribute movies/music are there that it is their God-given right to use them.
What you people have to realize is that movies and music ARE NOT PART OF YOUR INALIENABLE RIGHTS. Companies can charge WHATEVER THEY WANT for their products. Movies and music are LUXURIES, they are not necessities. Things would be different if the MPAA had a stranglehold on milk/bread/fruits/vegetables/etc. and started charging ridiculous prices for them -- BUT THAT ISN'T HOW IT IS. They have luxury (non-necessary) items that they spent billions of dollars on FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT -- all they ask of you is that you give them a modest amount of money to compensate their efforts. Grow up and stop trying to get a free ride.
The media companies are going to figure out how to wrap video content into a streaming form with "copy protection" built into the stream. In a closed source environment, in which the API layers that translate the stream into viewable video are hidden, it will work perfectly.
But what about an open source environment? When the stream-to-video APIs are open source, it becomes trivial to stick a frame-grabber on top, instead of a media player. Instant, lossless recording of any internet video stream, whether it be "copy protected" or not.
Access-controlled streaming is going to be the standard MO in the media industry, and that means two things: one, that open source OSes are going to be left out of the content-on-demand game, and two, if Linux takes over a commanding portion of the desktop, Big Media will be inhibited from doing any sort of access-protected media streaming.
The best reason, in my mind, to use open platforms is that it keeps the entire Internet open and functional for everyone.
dinner: it's what's for beer
"We think the best thing is to develop something along the lines of the Copyright Scrambling System that was worked out by various players in the marketplace. "
:)
Go right ahead guys
Through-out the article, the big companies are more worried about their money stream? The want to get paid for the copywrights they "own".
Copywrights are useless in today's society. It is time these companies realise that. People will pay for what they consider good, but if people think that they are paying too much, they will pirate the media (such as Napster).
For example, it is not way off the mark to assume that IF the HDTV movement hit mainstream, consumers will eventually be forced to to record their shows in a poorer quality than the original signal so as to protect the rights of the copywright holders. IF the media companies deems the consumer worthy, they might allow them to record the high quality media, but this will come at a cost. We might not be allowed to fast foward through commercials like most of us do when we record our favorites shows so we can actually watch them--this would probably be done with some type of modifications to the hardware &/or software. The other way they might do it is we "pay for the right" to record our shows and watch them at our convenience. There will be strings attached to this option too. Strings such as you can only watch the record x number of times and/or only on the original machine. Some of these options are being persued as we speak/read.
These companies are now abusing the copywright rights. It is time we dtop giving them the power to do so!!! The companies are no longer pursuing what the customer wants in entertainment and services. The companies are pursuing what will strengthen there bottomline! They will eventually learn that this will come back to haunt them. Consumers will eventually get fed up with being told what they can and cannot do! Consumers will then take actions like we saw with Napster--pirating! It will be virtually impossible to stop--mainly because the companies will only pursue legal means of stopping this new rise in piracy! They have, and will have, forgotten that the consumer's happiness is what sells there products.
Another step that will be taken by consumers at this upcoming time will be to return the legal purchased products, and cancel the legal purchased services. The consumers will then turn to pirated products and services!
All these companies need to get a wake up call. They simply _CANNOT_ control the market the way they are current tryig to do. The market has faught back, and will continue to fight back! THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY AS A WHOLE MUST LEARN TO COME OUT OF THERE CRYSTAL PALACES AND JOIN THE REAL WORLD!!!!! Consumers and the market will not tollerate this for long, and eventually not even the government will be able to help there industries. The market is a creature that cannot, and will not, be tamed. You can hold it for a short while, but the minute you turn your back, it will be on you like a wild animal and be out of your control!
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
But then they wouldn't have their egos stroked by paparazzi and their throngs of fans. These people are not driven by economic utility, and that is what you are basing your model on.
Brad Pitt would make movies for half of his going rate if that is all that was offered. What else is he going to do, sell used cars?
Quit treating these people as dispassionate, rational agents out of an ecomomics textbook. It doesn't wash.
"..unauthorized rebroadcasting of movies or television content over the Internet."
By 'rebroadcasting'... I tend to think of things like RealPlayer, or that company in Canada that was broadcasting American television shows over the Net. To me...this does not mean that they are going after the file-trading apps (yet!). At this point it almost seems like their major concern is the "public rebroadcast" of their movies and shows.
You can still fire-up KaZaa and download DivX movies by the truckload. You just can't rebroadcast them on the Web using a streaming server/client!
Why not a global simultaneous release?
Because the studios want you to see the movie in a theater before you can get it on DVD, theaters aren't digital with respect to video, and it takes time and money to make more prints.
Will I retire or break 10K?
My brother who is living in a different state records a show on a channel I do not receive and sends (either on VHS tape or digitally) it to me.
You could always set up your own cable system with one subscriber and license the satellite feed from the station.
My brother who lives in the same city (with the same TV channels) as me tapes a show I was too busy to see and drops it off at my house so I can view it later.
Under the Betamax decision, if you subscribe, you should set your VCR or DVR to tape it.
My brother who lives with me tapes a show I missed so I can watch it when I get home.
As long as nothing leaves a household, timeshifting counts as fair use in the United States.
</IANAL>Will I retire or break 10K?
A decent movie is about 2 GB, compared to 5 MB for a five minute song. This about 400 times larger. No problem for the high speed InterNet II in many colleges. Less than five minutes to copy there. Lord of the Rings was on the net before broad theatre release.
What you people have to realize is that movies and music ARE NOT PART OF YOUR INALIENABLE RIGHTS. Companies can charge WHATEVER THEY WANT for their products.
My concern is that in the future, Goliath will own every possible melody (there are fewer than a trillion by one count, or fewer than a million by another), and no independent music will be created because Goliath will sue David: "We own every possible melody; therefore, we own the song you just wrote. Pay us $100,000 for each song on your album."
The exclusive privilege of creating derivative works must be weakened.
Will I retire or break 10K?
For a few years people have been working behind the screens to make the general purpose PC a certified hardware device.
All hardware vendors are involved in the "trusted PC" initiative. From BIOS, See www.trustedpc.org
The specification has been published in december 2001.
Certified by an additional chip on your mainboard, before your BIOS even boots. It certifies BIOS, then bootblock, then OSloader, and then the OS and its applications. They really want you not to be able to see or hear content if there is even a single piece of hardware or software not certified. Let's hope it will become a failure.
Ofcourse, it is all done as a "privavy meassure" with a "privacy Certificate Agency" that will only unique mark you as anonymous entity, and which will not "store" your information after your application. Right.
Leto
Wait, do you mean you just got an adapter from the DVD player directly to the TV? That's not nearly as exciting...
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
...is a failure to communicate" and another good one: "EVIL! Pure and simple, from the 8th dimension!"
While I agree with most of your post, I think you trivialize the role of these companies. The very same economic 'principles' you refer to in your argument are the very ones the RIAA and its cronies are using to stifle new and unique ways of providing customer what they want. Remember, there are *2* sides to every story... If you can't beat your competitors (who built a better mouse trap) then you run to 'legislators' who, given enough money, might do it for you. That way, you can continue to "serve" customers the same way you used to (with CD's and DVD's but no real online options). Unless there is a real fear that the competition might take away your business if you DON'T serve your customers, then business processes don't change. In other words, the music companies don't HAVE to serve their customers because there is no viable alternative. Its the same principle behind M$ taking as long as they want to fix bugs. If M$ had REAL competition (ie: like long distance or something) you might see their behavior change regarding how fast they get those fixes out. I can't guarantee it, but I just betcha they would.... If you need further illustration of the issue, consider mp3's. I think by any reasonable measure, customers have indicated they like and want mp3's. This much is clear. What is not clear is why the record companies have not responded to this request after a year or two of 'discussing' it. All I have seen are proposalss that do not even come close to what customers are saying they want. So...who is to blame? The customer - for not 'voting with their dollars? or the companies for not providing customers with what they want? I dont think the answer is very clear.
In order to send information through my body, you are required to accept my "Body Pass-through Usage Agreement", which simply states that you completely and instantly transfer all copyrights and ownership on that material to me (If they don't like that, all they have to do is to stop sending thier radio waves through me).
So, I am the sole owner of those shows and music that you are hearing, and I officially give you permission to copy them and pass them around to your friends.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Would you mind passing along a citation or two that I could look over? I think this sort of work is neat, and I'd like to know more about it. Just reply to this message & I'll check it out. Thanks in advance . . .
Before the powers that be create PC hardware (motherboards that spy on what you do), all the hackers and hardware people should make a PC motherboard system as a set of FPGA's so that a person could create a PC or similar configuration in a future (large) FPGA. This way, if you could not buy a PC motherboard at your local PC store, or import one because of the law, then you could download the code to burn an FPGA and roll your own system, you may not have a "real" motherboard, all I/O may have to go thru usb, firewire etc... The thing is, it has to be done before the saw says that you can't do this (create, publish make, etc, a design which does not have digital rights managment). If such a design whas created, then downloading the code for it (in the future) would probably be hard to police..
1. Cry me a river. For some reason, pity doesn't exactly gush from my heart for the poor, poor movie studios. The cost of any movie not considered a flop is recouped in the theatrical release. Making the DVD is gravy.
2. Umm, studios make mediocre, derivative crap because they are afraid to take risks. This is why they make sequels. They know that enough people will go see it to make back their investment, and then some. This is what happens when a supposedly ``artistic'' industry is run by a bunch of accountants.
3. Like I said, theatrical release almost always makes the cost of the movie. They could *give away* digital copies of the film once it had made back the investment plus ten percent. What a wacky concept, eh?
No. But fair use is.
Yeah, so?
I think we have two different perspectives here. Sure, piracy is illegal. But any technique that would supposedly prevent piracy would also prevent fair use. I'm sure the studios will be crying all the way to the bank.
I'm having a really hard time believing you're a) serious, and b) not Jack Valenti.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
that doesn't apply to Buffy.
One company owns the exclusive American rights, another the European, another the South African, and another the Australian. All those countries want region coding so that they can get their geographic monopolies.
Will I retire or break 10K?
From the article:
***Looking to stave off a potential video versions of services like Napster, ***
Not only is this bad grammar, isn't this called Limewire (insert app of choice or favorite videohound on IRC)?
Or to really break it down, as so many have already tried to say in great length, if it's 0s and 1s, it's going to be transmitted over the Internet and all you can do is make it a little tougher to get started.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
The MPAA, RIAA and their ilk must be stopped before all of our freedoms are crushed! Such fascistic attempts to control information and protect profits are offensive to my intelligence, and I for one will not support them! BOYCOTT! BOYCOTT! UNTIL OUR DEMANDS ARE MET! Damned money-worshipping corporations!
"* There's no way to guarantee that movies/music won't be freely redistributed". Exactly. So why continue down this path? Makes far more economic sense to find an acceptable level of piracy/loss and shoot for that number. NO business can ever become 100% immune to theft of its services and if that is the criteria for moving forward into a new line of business or technology, then Corp. America would *never* get anywhere. The fact is, there are companies out there - RIGHT NOW - who can provide these services. Unfortunately, they won't even get a crack at building a better mousetrap because of the power the top5 music co. possess.
"* Customers become up in arms when the music/movie companies try to protect their interests by stipulating that music can only be played on approved players, can't be redistributed, etc. They can't win because customers feel that giving away music is their right"
Not true. Most customers would gladly pay for the music -- however -- they will NOT pay under the current pricing/service offering. In other words, the companies have put out a product and the customer has said "we don't think its worth that". If people thought $15 CD's were a good deal, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. However, the fact is, people DON'T like paying premium prices for commodity products.
"The days when there was a select group of artists, created by the studios, up on top are over, because today anyone can create anything," said Chuck D, an independent music maker on the panel. "The studios put all their money into Britney Spears, and they tank if she doesn't have a good year. Meanwhile there's a whole field of Britney Spearses out there."
The solution is simple: if we don't want the RIAA/MPAA's encrypted proprietary formats, make them obsolete. Put them out of business by offering something better: a new generation of independent media. Chuck is dead on when he says "today anyone can create anything." More and more musicians, even just hobby musicians, have everything they need to make exceptional quality recordings in their basements. If not, they probably have a friend that does. The same can be increasingly said for movie production. Prosumer DV cameras are getting cheaper and better. Off the shelf computer hardware can produce CG effects that surpass what Hollywood could muster 5 years ago. Free software for audio and video editing is slowly maturing. And regardless of the technology, TV shows like South Park have demonstrated that most people don't even care about visual quality if the desired content is there. (not that I particularly like SP..)
So in conclusion, the best way to fight the media giants is to provide an alternative, much as Open Source has provided an alternative to MS and proprietary software.
So how could those RIAA/MPAA guys use the technology ?
Here's one idea: make new codec/player that before playing the movie asks you to pay either:
Let anyone download it / trade it (don't even have to invest in servers).
Keep the protection simple (it will be broken anyway) and let people decide what option to pay.
If it's simple, I guess most people wouldn't mind paying 1$ for a viewing (Hey, DVDs on rent are 4$).
If it always end up being traded with broken protection, then lower the 2nd price.
And I certainly don't mind paying 5$ for something like LOTR or
Non-Linux Penguins ?
It appears that you've managed to move the focus of the debate from "Industry Lobbies To Curtail Fair Use!" to "Lazy Slashdot Punks Are All Pirates!".
Regardless of whether the industry is losing its shirt, we have the right to fair use. When the industry sells us product, we as consumers have the right to fair use. The industry's desire to eliminate the potential for crime is a distant priority at best.
It is never okay to abrogate a right in order to remove the potential for crime. I'm trying to think of an example to put here, but they're all coming out police-state-y, and I don't want to fall prey to Godwin.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I read an industry commentary a couple of years ago in Electronic Musician or something like that. There was one comment I thought was very perceptive. The author talked about the observation that most people will listen to a given 5 minute song they like MANY many more times than they would watch a favorite movie, television show, or even short or segment of a show.
Now, granted, this observation was made by a music fan/musician to music fans/musician. And you have to take into account that for every time you can watch "The Mummy Returns" or "O Brother Where Art Thou" you can listen to "Short Skirt, Long Jacket" or "Man of Constant Sorrow" about 30 times. however, I've listened to William Walton's "Belshazzar's Feast" which is about 30 minutes probably hundreds of times. Brandenburg Concerto #4, ditto. And most people will listen to a complete album (like, say, U2's Joshua Tree) over and over. So I think the generalization holds. People's interest in music holds longer (whether or not there's less material). The author of the article held it was because there's a mental/emotional participatory nature to music that isn't present in TV or movies. I think the way he said it was "In music, there's an 'us'. In TV, there's only 'them'."
Anyway, the point is, a Napster for video would work differently, and perhaps not as well. I think you'd have a smaller number of people constantly scouring the thing for files. Fewer people on as often reduces the value. Except for real film fans (you know, the people that actually BUY most of the movies they watch, rather than rent, or that work at blockbuster and/or majored in film at school), most people would have a small collection on their hard drive of a few favorites, and perhaps a season or two of their favorite show. So mostly, it'd be easy to find "E.T." and "The Simpsons". Films by Zhang Yimou might be available when the right people got on.
Yeah, that problem existed with Napster. But it'd be magnified for video... because fewer people I know are as anxious to make video a constant and repeated presence in their lives. Music just trumps it as an art form.
(Of course, it may just be that since I stopped watching the TV in the early 90's -- occasional exceptions for Animaniacs, Simpsons, the Tick, and the X-Files -- I haven't made friends with TV people, and am out of touch.)
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
I am going to make the $10,000 toothbrush. Then, when nobody buys it, I'm going to complain that I can't make money, that imported commie toothbrushes are destroying my market.
And then, I'm going to demand protection by the government to make sure that I *do* make money.
Or, I could see the writing on the wall and make cheaper toothbrushes. If I make $10 toothbrushes or $1,000,000 movies, its harder to lose your shirt.
Yeah, in the future, the $100,000,000 movie may not exist. So? Home Alone cost a couple of million dollars. There's no way India's film industry (bigger than hollywood) makes movies costing that much.
Trust the free market. They'll make money; hell, like television and the VCR, this will probably lead to more profit than ever before. (despite their origional claims to the contrary) The demand for Entertainment is insatiable, and hollywood is DAMNED good at manufacturing it by the ton-lots.
They will find a way to make money.
I download movies all the time but it wouldn't matter to me if they found away to block playing of bootlegs. I've probably bootlegged a total of 50 movies, but if you cut me off it's not like I'd actually go out to a theatre to see a movie. I'd simply stop going to the movies. Downloading movies is not a replacement for going to the theatre, so if they're expecting to boost sales, they won't. Plus, a lot of the movies on morpheus are still in theatres, so they're recorded with a video camera. And as far as the whole CD issue goes, sure I have 'bout 2000 mp3's. And I don't buy CD's. I buy vinyl :) Yes, the majority of music comes out in limited release on vinyl. And more than the majority of dance, tech-house, techno, breakbeat, etc..., comes out on vinyl.
Concerning this topic, there are three main types of products sold.
1) Merchandise - This includes things like computers, furniture, cars, and clothes. Merchandise can usually not be copied. Sure cheap imitations can be made, but since imitations are not the same thing as the real thing, most people will buy the real thing anyway. However, software can be copied and books can be reprinted to copied digitally. Generally merchandise will be bought only once.
2) Services - This includes things like internet access, plane tickets, and lawyers. Services can not be copied either. If the price is right for the service one wants, he/she will buy that service. Services are usually recurring. That is, they are bought many times. So, companies generally see services as the most profitable way to make money. '.NET' and Pay-Per-View show this.
3) Media - This includes music and video. Currently, media can easily be copied. Computers and file sharing programs make media easier than ever to copy. Media is unique so it needs more explanation.
In the beginning media was a service. Since there were no microphones, recording devices, or cameras, media couldn't be copied without a lot of work. So, media providers charged for each time they performed a concert or play.
Before modern technology, when you wanted to hear a song, you would have to hire someone or a group of people to play that song. If you wanted to see a play (the equivalent of a movie), you'd have to buy a ticked.
When things like tapes, cd's, vhs, dvd, computers were invented, everything changed because media became a product. If you want to hear a song now, you can buy the cd and listen to it as many times as you want. If you want to see a movie, you can buy it on vhs or dvd.
However, media is still in some ways a service. Concerts and movie theaters are still services (with the exception of movie passes), which generally are the most profitable.
Up until file sharing and the internet, media as a product was relatively profitable. With microphones, camcorders, or video input cards, media could be digitalized, but it was a cheap imitation digital version.
When media companies make media available as digital files, those files can easily be copied (even with drm/css/whatever they come up with next). The result is freely available, near same quality copies of the media. People have the choice of paying for the real thing or getting a free, damn good imitation.
The media companies' response to this is to make the digital versions unable to be copied. Non-computer cd's are easy to rip, css was broken ages ago, and drm is just vapor right now. Also, media companies tried to kill the Napsters, which allow the digital media to be easily copied. But this has proven to be a wild goose chase.
RIght now, the media companies need to come up with a solution to keep alive. They can't make media available only as a service, because then concerts and movie theaters would be the only way to get media. The problem with this is that the media is not always available, and can not be accessed on demand. So, a digital copy has to be available.
The only problem is that the digital copy is copied and distributed over the internet easily. It only takes one person to rip a cd or dvd and encode its content. Then, people download it and keep the full, near original quality copy of it without buying it.
There is a simple and obvious solution to all this: make a digital copy freely available all over the internet (from a website, on fasttrack, gnutella, etc.).
This download is not the great-quality full version though. Obviously, it can be a low-quality mp3 or video file.
In the case of music, this would work well because music is repeatedly. Only people that don't care about quality would not keep this low-quality version and not buy the real thing.
However, with movies, this would not work well. One of the main points of a movie is to follow the plot line and laugh at the jokes. When you see a movie, you usually don't want to see it again, unless it is really good. SO, people would watch the low-quality version and forget about it.
In order to keep people from just downloading the low-quality version and using it, the media companies would have to limit the digital copy in another way. This way would be trimming. With songs, only some parts would be in it. If you want to hear the rest, you buy the cd. With videos, the good stuff is included. It would be necessary to make the digital copy have lots of foreshadowing to make the viewer go to the movie or buy the dvd.
You might say there is an obvious hole in my solution. When someone buys the cd opr dvd, they will rip it and share it on the internet. The trick is to make the trimmed copy a lot easier to get than the ripped copy. Making it available early would also help because it will have spread more and the chances of downloading it would be greater. Plus, they might want to have a better experience and see it in big screen or have a good time at a concert.
Basically, media should be offered as a service (concerts, in theaters), a product (cd, dvd), and a freebie (trimmed version). Of course, people will still share songs and movies, but with my solution people have the chance to get a taste of what it is without paying and finding out it's crap, and buy it if they aren't cheap bastards.
This too has solutions, of course, like embedding copy control systems into the output device (= monitor). By using a crypto handshake between all the devices, from disc reader to monitor, it can be the monitor itself which refuses to display the watermarked data.
I've wondered about this for a while, and if the MPAA/Studios/whoever else are really convinced they're losing as much money as they say they are, a fix is realtively easy: They simply commission several big-name consumer electronics companies to build a really nice flatscreen display with copy-protection embedded in the monitor's silicon, then subsidize the heck out of them in the marketplace.
Think about it: How many people wouldn't jump at the chance to get a nice 42" HD plasma screen for $500? Not many. (In the volumes we're talking about, those prices wouldn't even need all that much subsidizing - big flat screens are expensive now at least partly because volumes are low.) People would suddenly decide they didn't care very much about that little poison pill embedded in the product, and once enough of the market is seeded, then rights managment is a de facto reality.
The interesting thing is that this could work quite well right now, but there is a limited window in which there is a tasty enough piece of bait (flat screens) that people want, but don't have. It works for the content owners because they now know that the screen owners will have to obtain thier content legitimately in order to view it.
Perhaps I should write this up and let them pay me for building such an initiative...
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
If company A has exclusive distribution rights for area X and company B for area Y, then this should only affect the supply of to shops in areas X & Y.
What if the law of one of the areas does not recognize the right to resell genuinely produced copies?
If a consumer in area X finds that it is cheaper to purchase from area Y (paying postage charges, customs duty, import taxes etc)
Region lockout is possibly meant to segment the market such that an amount of money that would otherwise go to governments in the form of taxes instead goes straight to the studios.
And then there's the problem of quality control for a given title across NTSC, PAL, PAL-M (i.e. PAL at 60 Hz), and SECAM video systems.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Record Exec: Hmmm.. What to do... What to do... Must protect products from scumbag customers - ummm pirates... hmmm... Encryption? Naaa, it gets broken right away because the people writing the good stuff won't work for us, and that 16 yr old genius who wrote CSS is still whacked up with thorozine from his psychological breakdown... hmmm... what to do...
I KNOW! I've got it. The DMCA is our savior! We'll *say* that the content is protected, and that's it... No wait, the lawyers said we have to do "something" even if it's one bit that says it's protected... What do the geeks call it again? Oh yeah, a flag... we'll set a flag!
Now we can sue anyone who unsets the flag for violating the DMCA. Cheap, clean, and easy! We get back our legal fees from those we sue, and this is easy to implement...
Better have jan set up those golf games so I can work out the deals with the boys...
I say, retire all those megabuck movie stars and starlets! Let's rehire instead Princess Fiona and Aki Ross (even if her Final Fantasy bombed, the Square folks will have her polygons on storage somewhere). Now, if only Intel and friends can produce that killer teraHz processor that will make directing these virtual stars a real-time job. Imagine.
Is that as long as the media (video, or audio) get's decoded and displayed in human interperateble format, it can be hijacked and copied. Even if they were to embed the decoders into TVs, all it would take is someone to pick out the decoded signal, before, during or after, it is displayed.
:)) people will still buy originals.
Media sharing will continue to exist in it's present form untill a new form comes along. We went through all this when audio cassette recorders came out, and then when recordable VHS. The same arguments over and over, it will canibalize sales and the creative industry will crumble to dust. Sorry to say, it doesn't happen. Untill the impossible happens, and copies become better than the original (though this does occasionaly happen with programs, espesialy M$ ones
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Of course, if they do flag files, then it may b possible to use the DMCA as another method to sue the rippers, since the loss of the flag would be circumventing a "copyright protection mechanism".
...
now since gamma rays can have unfortunate interactions with data in ram, thereby possibly flipping a bit or two on occasion
"no officer, i don't know how that copyright bit got flipped, thereby unflagging the file as copy protected"
**AA: a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes
The real reason being COST!
The integrated design of any monitor is dependant upon the control electronics, which set the display's refresh rate, scan, purity, frequency and power consumption as well as a host of others.
The display drivers require very specific instruction sets to properly scan the horizontal, and the refresh rate of the vertical so you can't detect teh "flicker" with the naked eye(HATE that!). Encoding any protection scheme into the monitor will force the electronic sub-assemblies to be redesigned to incorporate the algorithms and the newly included encoding hardware. The cost would NOT be undertaken by the manufacturer solely for the benefit of the "industry", but that cost WILL have to come directly out of the pockets of the RIAA/MPAA BEFORE the manufacturer would even consider a total redesing to include this copy-protection measure. Doing an on-floor, immediate board design NEVER occurs in this fashion.
The implementation MUST take place before the initial design, to make it's integration a seamless undertaking and also be less costly for both manufacturer and the "industry".
We're talking millions of dollars in up-front costs here, not to mention the labor costs added to the design, and the extra costs due to the increased hardware.
The case design might also need to be reworked due to the extra electronics "package" now crammed into an already tight enclosure.
Next comes EFFECTIVE cooling/heat dissipation of those components inside the case. See, it's not just one "issue" at stake, but several, intertwined with each other to make the entire cost to produce a risky undertaking for a product not yet "mature" enough to survive on its own merits or value.
Plain truth being this; will the RIAA/MPAA gamble their big money to bring to market, a device not quite accepted as a de-facto standard within the industry? In one simple word; NO!
Certainly not valuable enough to throw away millions of "real" dolars to prevent someone, someplace making a copy for him/herself.
That is a risk I am quite certain they would rather not pursue, currently, that is.
Just my thoughts....and 20+ years in electronic
communications and manufacturing experience.
*Give an idiot a soldering iron, and he'll contemplate all he could do with it; but give that same idiot a plugged in soldering iron, and he'll burn his fingers and complain that you should have warned him of the dangers of heat*
Remember folks: The bigger the blob, the better the job!
206.39.38.2, DDN-BLK-36, DOD NET INFO CENTER. 800.365.3642 206.36.0.0-206.39.255.255 NET RANGE.
This means that in addition to the content providers wanting to stop a video napster, the cable internet companies will also want very much to squash it. The impression I got with audio naptster was that the bandwidth usage was low enough to not hurt cable performance, and so the cable companies didn't care that much, and so didn't want to get involved.
Video peer-to-peer will have a much harder time catching on, I think...it won't take many cases of ISPs canceling accounts of people who do it to scare people away.