Harry Potter, Macrovision and Economics

markthebrewer writes "Apparantly Warner Home Video have released Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone without any of the usual Macrovision copy-protection systems. Looks like its just a trial, but someone's done the maths and decided it may be cheaper not to copy-protect videos after all. Find the full article in the New Scientist." There is certainly something desperate about macrovisions response to this development. Does anyone see macrovision as a real barrier to copying anymore? What a bunch of snake oil salesmen these people are. In related news, I'm marketing my own personal copy protection device.

Comments

Reasons for not cp'ing

[NickRob]

The reason is simple. The first wave of Harry Potter video buyers are going to be parents driven crazy by their children to get the thing. Middle America usually just goes to Wal-Mart or some store and picks it up. For $20 they get the best babysitter in the world. It's cheaper to make non-cp videos so that makes profit margins go even higher up for the video.

No parents is going to let their kid keep screaming while they go call people they know and see if they can't make a copy for it. They'll go to the store and get it and quiet the kid.

Good.

[TheSHAD0W]

Adding Macrovision to video doesn't prevent the pirates from duplicating videos, so the biggest effect of Macrovision is to reduce the quality of the video. I applaud Time Warner for having some sense. (Now if they'd only let people log onto AOL without using their stupid software...)

Blah, which some knowhow you can get rid of it

[Verizon Guy]

On some DVD players, you can disable Macrovision by means of uploading a new ROM into the player by burning it onto an ISO 9660 CD-R, or by hitting a secret key combination on the remote. It's mostly APEXes and Daewoos that let you do this; ironic that they are the cheapest yet most hackable DVD players. I have a cute little APEX I scored for $70 at Circuit City... that sucker plays DVDs, VCDs, SVCDs, CD-Rs, MP3s (!), and they kitchen sink. Most DVD players have a "Factory setting" menu that you can get to, but you need to know the secret code.

Of course you'd never get goodies like this from the big boys (aka Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic).

Macrovision running scared already!?

[FrozenFrog]

Macrovision a little scared by this? From the article:

Says CEO Bill Krepick: "Effective immediately, Macrovision's licensing policy (requires that) 100% of the title must be copy protected in a geographic territory or, if less than 100% of the title is copy-protected, then a Macrovision copy protection logo must be included in the exterior packaging of those units that are copy protected."

I say this is excellent news. Now I can make sure I only buy DVDs *without* Macrovision protection. Not because I want to pirate them (I own almost 300 DVDs now), but because Macrovision deteriorates the video signal. Don't "protect" your product by lowering the quality.

Frog

Brilliant move

[joel8x]

I really don't believe that Macrovision is necessary, and this Harry Potter example is a perfect one. If your a fan of the movie, you want to own the original. That pretty much sums up the whole Video and Music pirating industry. I guarantee there are thousands of Slashdotters out there that own the bootlegged DVD screener rip of Lord of the Rings, and I bet that almost everyone of you will buy at least one if not both of the DVDs when they become available later this year - just to have it. You like to display it in its packaging on a nice shelf next to your home theatre system, you enjoy the special features that one time you look at them (except for the Kevin Smith movies - the extra stuff on those are golden). Its just a strange little need to have the original - you feel like your contributing to something you enjoy. I'll download any movie I'm a fan of, but rest assured that as soon as its available on DVD, I'll pick it up.

What Macrovision? Just hit

[(H)elix1]

the secret menu on your 600a Apex player and turn it off. I jumped to circut city when I saw the remote control trick posted on slashdot a while back...

Re:Violation of DVD Consortium Licensing ?

[timster]

Macrovision is mandatory in the DVD player. The player itself is responsible for creating the signal; you can't encode Macrovision into an MPEG stream. The creators of the disks have to decide whether to use Macrovision on their disk though, which is basically "set the Macrovision bit" or not. If they choose to set the macrovision bit then they're supposed to pay some money per copy to Macrovision.

Theares, Home and Otherwise

[xSterbenx]

(I say this in terms of DVD not VHS)

When I want to see a movie, I want to see the whole effect: the sound, the quality, everything. I have never watched a pirated DVD movie before, so I will be the first to admit that I don't know how good of a quality the rip may be. Perhaps very good, I just don't know.

In terms of actually _watching_ the movie it doesn't matter. Anyone can hook up on the web and grab pretty much whatever movie they want to watch. From what I've seen, movies found online are substandard quality. Yes, some are top-notch; however, then you must watch them on you computer system (which for some people a 21 inch monitor suffices).

Personally, I would prefer to watch movies with my wife in my living room on my TV with surround sound and DVD component quality. Perhaps this is old fashioned; yet I believe the atmosphere of a movie is just as important as the movie itself. I know quite a few people who had rips of AToC who refused to watch them until they had seen it in the theatres for the _full_ effect. Those same people will buy the DVD when it comes out regardless of their opinions of the movies itself (after all its Star Wars, though this has been debated already a million times already). This isn't always the case, obviously. However, I think the majority of people (ie computer-illterate) would much rather prefer to shell out a few bucks for the actual DVD than watch some ripped version on a computer screen (or burned to a DVD, which again I have not yet seen and maybe it IS as good as the original). I myself have taken to buying pre-viewed DVDs from blockbuster, they usually cost around $15.00 and in most cases are in perfect condition.

In terms of Harry Potter, Blockbuster actually has a deal where if you rent the movie, you can can come in later and buy a previewed DVD for only $10.00. Not to sound like an ad for BB, but 10.00 for a DVD is not a bad deal (although you have to add in the 4.00 you spent to rent it in the first place).

Re:Theares, Home and Otherwise

[cafeman]

Small point - did you know that running a DVD at 1600x1200 won't show any quality increase, as the video is only encoded at 720x480 in NTSC (720x576 in PAL)? It's like zooming in on a picture - you can try to mitigate the artifacts, but you're not actually getting any improvement in quality. I understand what you mean though (comparing the TV to the computer based on your setup). Anything over aprox 1/2 of the screen at 1600x1200 won't show any increase in quality (and will likely make things blurry in comparison due to the rescaling). If you wanted the best possible quality, drop the resolution to 720x480 (or 800x600 if your card can't do it). Try it and see if there's a difference - things should actually look marginally sharper.

Re:Theares, Home and Otherwise

[evilpenguin]

but if I'm going to spend $4.00 to rent a movie, why not spend $6.00 more to own it?

You have proverbially hit the proverbial nail on the proverbial head. This is what the "entertainment industry" needs to realize. People pirate their stuff because it is too expensive. They are trying to maintain an imblanced market. Instead of spending money to cpoy protect and spending money to buy senators to pass bad social legislation to make petty theft a felony they should simply drop the proce to the point where people will not bother to pirate!

Personally, I've been furious with them since CDs came out costing twice as much as cassette tapes, despite the fact that they are many times cheaper to produce. I understand the theory that says I'm paying for the superior quality of CDs (yes, I agree that "quality" is a factor in price), but when the other major factor in "price" (that is: "cost to produce") is less than a thenth the cost to produce the other product, why am I paying two to three times as much?

I've pretty much stopped the legal practice of recording movies off of cable. I buy the damned things. And I like having them on my shelves. But just as with CDs, DVDs are much cheaper to produce than VHS cassettes. And don't hand me that guff about "special features." Even if we assume a ridiculous price for getting two people to sit in a studio for two hours and chatter inanely about how they rewrote the movie while they were making it (don't get me started!), a ridiculous price like $100,000, divide that over 1 million copies of a movie and that adds 10 cents. 10 godd--ned cents! Take a DVD with fancier special features (like a "MIB" or a "Harry Potter" for instance) and let's assume a million dollar proce tag on the special features. Those movies sell tens of millions of copies, so we are right back at 10 godd--ned cents! This is added on to the price of discs that cost pennies per unit to manufacture!

And then these greedy bastards have the guts to say the pimply-faced teenager who burns a few mp3 CD-Rs is a thief? Who is fleecing whom?

So, while this crusty old curmudgeon has never downloaded a song, or attempted to defeat the copy protection on a VCR, while I actually believe in and support limited IP law (you remember, copyright law before it was made perpetual for corporate owners?), I still say the "entertainment industry" is screaming because they aren't finding as much as they want when they break into our piggy banks. "They took the money before we could steal it! Waaa! Waaa!"

They simply fail to realize that the market has changed and they can't make people want to pay too much anymore. If they don't wake up and simply adjust the price to remove the WILL to pirate, they will find the need for their services disappearing. It will happen with music first, because musicians and bands can afford the means of production. We are still a few decades away from every home being a motion picture studio, but that day is coming too.

If they want their industry, it is time for defensive pricing, not aggressive criminalization of the use of tools that have legitimate creative (and perfectly legal) uses.

Re:Sorcerer? Philosopher?

[Nonesuch]

The Philosopher's stone changes lead into gold.

The first book in the series was Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone , published in the UK in 1997. When the book was released in the US, the title was changed to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone .

There were other changes as well.

The movie release had the same title change.

Re:DVD value CD - Soundtracks

[frovingslosh]

I particularly enjoy the insanity of this when the soundtrack of a movie costs more than the movie.

VCD Helper...

[chronos2266]

VCD Helper has had a list of DVD Player hacks available for quite a while. From everything to modifying your brightness to reconfiguring country codes through methods put in by the manufacturer for testing. It's really interesting to see the hidden features of your otherwise normal DVD player :)

Best cure for casual piracy.. BE NICE!

[NanoGator]

If the MPAA is worried about me downloading a movie w/o paying for it, the best defense they have is to have a good rapport with me. If I respect you, I'm not going to let harm come to you. Unfortunately, they have treated us all like they need to throw us all in jail. At least that is what I envisioned when I heard about the SSSCA.

Let's face it, the tools are out there. They'll always be out there. Whether we use them in a damaging way or not is dependent on two things: 1.) Incentive not to, i.e. extras on the DVD and so on... 2.) Whether or not we care.

Frankly, when I first heard about the SSSCA and it's over-reaching implications, I was out for blood! I still am, really. If I do something the MPAA wouldn't like, I feel good about it. Film88.com? I probably would have been all over that had it not gone down, half because I knew the MPAA would have a shitfit. This sentiment is far more damaging than DeCSS or any other circumvention tool around.

What the MPAA needs to do, instead of trying to invent new technology to thwart copying they don't want, is to make us friendly towards them. Show that they're out to have fun instead of out to squeeze money out of our wallets. When that happens, I'm happy to give them my money for stuff like DVD's.

Make it socially unacceptable to download copies of movies w/o paying for them and you'll get far more done than using encryption that somebody's going to break.

What's the big deal?

[haggar]

The great majority of Miramax titles are published without Macrovision protection. I don't see Slashdot clamoring about that fact.

Re:Macrovision is easy to defeat

[Lumpy]

Macrovision is just a really lame hack... here's an excerpt on how it works...

The way the copy protection signal works is interesting. It's not that the second VCR "knows" that the video signal is coming from a video tape. It's that the signal coming from the original video tape contains a special type of noise that the TV set does not notice, but that a VCR cannot handle. This noise signal confuses a component, known as an automatic gain control (AGC) circuit, in the VCR, and the confused AGC records the signal incorrectly.

Macrovision copy protection was defeated minutes after it's release back in the 80's. it was very common to buy "video scrubbers" or "video stabalizers" to fix macrovision. today, anyone with a DVD player and a TBC (time Base Correcter) can make perfect VHS or SVHS copies without a hint of that macrovision was ever there. and the TBC gives the side effect of makking the video signal perfect. TBC's can be purchased surplus for as little as $50.00 and everyone that is very interested in video should own one.

Everything I have ever seen come out of the Macrovision company has been a lame attempt, i expect the same level of incompetence from them in the future.