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MPAA Ruins Own Films As Anti-Piracy Measure
WCityMike writes "Steve Kraus, a Chicago film projectionist, noted in this week's Movie Answer Man column that movie studios are quite purposefully putting 'large reddish brown spots that flash in the middle of the picture, usually placed in a light area' in order to ruin computer-compressed pirated copies of films. Among recent films that feature these spots are 'Ali,' 'Behind Enemy Lines,' '28 Days Later,' 'Freddy vs. Jason' and 'Underworld.' (I guess they had to destroy the movies in order to save them ... )"
They've been doing this for years. It's a simple plan: make movies so bad no one will want to copy them.
lysergically yours
I just watched 28 days later the other night (loved it). I didn't even notice that the film was ruined. Just to be sure though, I should probably download a copy and see how much better it could have been w/o the spots?
i don't understand why they don't flash something more useful - like a serial number - so that they can identify where and when the illegal copy was made.
--Slashdot readers delight in generalizing the behavior of other Slashdot readers.
The red dots were the best part of some of those movies.
How lucky for them that all compression formats are fixed in stone and can never be changed.
Also that the pirating industry doesn't have any resources it could dedicate to changing said file formats.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
I mean, how exactly does one RUIN Freddy v Jason? Isn't that kind of like trying to invent whiffle lace?
You are not the customer.
they should blast the audience with emp energy. take out cell phones and cameras alike. no cameras = no piracy. maybe they can even make one for loud annoying kids.
"Let's see how we can piss off and ailienate our customers some more. Oh I know, let's give them even less of a reason to buy, view or care about movies. That'll teach em."
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
I'm sure it couldn't be that hard to edit the "ruined" frames, no? Final Cut Pro anyone?
I've been saying for years that the big studios are just flinging shit onto film. Now we have more direct evidence :)
Unless these spots are particularly difficult to identify, someone need only write a filter to detect them and fill in the offending space, possibly with the average of the previous and next frame.
It's just Tyler Durden messing around again. Look closely and you'll find it's a penis.
The movie company then downloads the film, see's the spots and tracks it to my theater. Now what? Are they going to shake down the theater owners, untill they install security and metal detectors?
How does this really prevent anything, aside from viewers like me having just ANOTHER excuse to wait until the DVD comes ou and rent that, rather then deal with tampered film (among the other lame problems of theater viewing, like ticket prices, travel, lines, food, seating, etc)?
And in other news the MPAA will require people to duct tape their eyelids closed before entering the cinema. A MPAA spokesperson was quoted saying:
- "In order to produce decent movies we have to make sure noone sees them".
Um ... so I think I'm missing somthing. Whats stopping someone from using a diagnostic tool (since DivX is multipass now) from finding points where the compression goes to crap and just cutting out the bad frame? Yeah it's a LITTLE more work but as most compressing jobs take on the order of several hours I don't see why the pirating groups wouldn't do it to save the output quality.
in order to ruin computer-compressed pirated copies of films
WTF? These supersized cap codes have nothing to do with *ruining* copies of the film. Rather they are used to *identify* the person responsible for leaking the film. These films go to the projection houses long before their release dates and are often seen on the internet often before opening day. So obviously some houses have evil employees capturing the movie into computer video formats and leaking them via P2P networks. All the MPAA has to do is download and look at a pirated movie and look for the cap codes and bam, they have ID'ed the projection house responsible for leaking the film. These cap codes have been in film forever - but only recently have they been enlarged enough so that they show up in low resolution computer encoded video.
I SAW the dots in Underworld. They drove me NUTS. I thought it was some kind of problem with the film copy or... I dunno what.
I did not see this on 28 Days Later. Maybe I just missed it, or maybe it was only in the re-release with the new ending.
They are doing this on PURPOSE? Madness. Will these be on DVDs too?
What the movie industry SHOULD be doing, instead of pissing in the wind, is add value to the movie experience. I personally don't go see a movie in the theatre unless it is a 'Spectacular' movie. One where the experience of seeing it on a Big screen cannot be duplicated by any other means and actually plays and integral part of the film.
They should invest, partner, encourage more theatres like the IMAX franchise. As I understand the Matrix has done very well in those venues and cannot be duplicated in any other environment.
Give the movie goer a REASON to see the movie in a theatre, make us CHOOSE the theatre instead of our living room/computer monitor/etc.
There will always be individuals who would not pay to see a particular movie in a theatre, this is something that cannot be changed (and should not show up on any studio's bottom line). These are the same people who would rather pirate them to just be up on the popular culture of the day.
Make Better Movies, make us WANT to go to the theatre, make us excited enough to go, otherwise they will destroy themselves fighting a trend that will never cease to move forward.
--
If I ever download a movie, it's so I can watch some of it and decide if it's worth shelling out the $30 to go see. It's about $30 because:$9 for me, $9 for my g/f, and the rest for popcorn/etc.
Can't bring in outside food or drink anymore. Can't even bring in a backpack, either - post 9/11 fears and "anti-piracy measures" gone too far.
I don't care if the movie looks like crap on my computer. I'm not interested in keeping most movies anyway. If I like it, I'll go see it in the theatre or wait for the DVD.
This really isn't a bad thing. Heck, since the MPAA is purposely altering movies, maybe they should go ahead and let us download stuff and leave p2p alone. If the stuff on p2p is of such low-quality, what is the big problem?
Oh, the problem is that we'll watch it and realize that the movie sucks and we won't shell out $$ to go see it.
I wish I could have my money back from John Carpenter's "Vampires" - aside from 1 hot nude chick, that movie was a total waste of time and money.
The article does not say the blotches are used to screw up compression to ruin the film for pirates, as the slashdot summary suggests. Rather, it is just 20-year old "cap code" technology enlarged to be more easily visible in high-compressed pirated copies.
Cap code was "designed to uniquely mark film prints so that pirated copies could be traced to the source." Originially the dots were small enough that compression obscured them out of usability.
I've seen some pirated movies, and in my opinion, a few splotches on a few frames isn't going to screw them up a whole lot. They already tend to look and sound bad.
Somewhere just beyond the asteroid belt, Jupiter is on the phone to its lawyer...
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
At the first cue mark, 8 seconds from the end of the reel, you'd roll the second projector and uncap the arc lamp. At the second cue mark, you'd close a shutter on the first projector, open the shutter on the second, and throw the sound feed over the the second.
After you changed over to the other projector, you had to shut off the carbon arc, unload and rewind the film on the first projector, thread it up with the next real, check the carbon arcs, and go back to sleep for 10 minutes.
And yeah, I still always see the cue marks.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
http://www.vcdquality.com/image.php?id=18919
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
When I go to see a movie in the theatre, I pay more for the 'experience' then the actual movie. Why would you ruin a potentially great movie like "Return of the King" by watching some crappy DIVX-over-compressed copy of it?
"If it sucks without butter, it still sucks with butter, only creamier." - AC
See http://www.snopes.com/business/hidden/popcorn.asp for more.
Ok there's not much usefull info in this thread so I'll try to add some :)
Exhibit A: screenshot with dots ...ok that's my only exhibit. Enjoy!
You can see the big T shape in the upper middle part of the image.
Exhibit B:
I researched this a year ago when working out a fake number to use in a book, and finally have the opportunity to share this worthless information...
DVDs that you buy in the stores are pressed (instead of burned), so by definition they all end up having the same image.
It's possible for stamped DVDs to include up to 188 bytes of individual data in the Burst Cutting Area. To get an idea of what BCA markings look like, turn over a GameCube disc and look for a fine 1.2mm wide "barcode" that overlaps the inner edge of the data area. Though DVD Video does not use the BCA, the forthcoming DVD HD Video specification may require decoders to read decryption key and serial number information from the BCA and add watermarks to the decoded picture.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Remember DIVX? It was the same idea.
Sorry, I will not buy into a format that requires that some central service authorize my media before I can watch the movie. That central service may go down (again, like DIVX) or suddenly decide.. "Hmm, we're going to re-release _The Lion King_. Let'd disable everyone's copies so they're forced to see it in the theater!"
No thanks. Once I buy media, I want to be able to watch it whenever I want. I urge everyone to avoid formats that require any sort of "authorization" for this reason. If no one buys it, it will fail.
Seriously. Takes a bit longer to d/l and also need a DVD burner but they last longer, look better. And it also feels more like stealing!
Trust me, you're not losing anything.
They're being amazingly stupid by adding even more annoyances.
Don't forget skyrocketing ticket prices (I paid $9.75 per ticket Saturday night), 20 minutes of adverts and previews, and then the cr@pola movie starts.
Movies only need to look as far as the music industry to see what happens when prices rise, choices lower, and tastes merge. I think they forgot that this is an "art." Now, it's merely a business.
Too bad for us.
lose conciousness from chronic brain death
I suppose no one can rightfully argue with you on the point that death is chronic.
Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
I would rephrase that as a "no real loss" compression method.
Yes, I bought their album. I am a long time Metallica fan (since the beginning), and the only reason I bought it was because my wife had several gift certificates for Borders, and she wanted to use them up. I have listened to that album twice, and I could barely get through it both times. What a stinker. It also came with a DVD, which I haven't watched, and some special code to get free music over the net (which I haven't used). Why would I want crappy, free music? I paid good money for my crappy music, thank you very much.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Maybe it says something about the movie, if i was paying that much attention to a random flaw on the screen...
"I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
Debunking the "59 Deceits"