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FBI Anti-Piracy Seal
Supp0rtLinux writes "Looks like the FBI is giving a new anti-piracy seal for entertainment and software products. Looks like now the RIAA and MPAA pursuits will add a new federal level to future prosecutions." I'm pretty sure that our forms of media already contain warnings against unauthorized duplication, rebroadcasting, and public performance, but now it's in logo form!
So they think adding more annoying popups to other devices and services will help stop copyright infringment? Ya, that FBI warning in evey video type is a big problem for the pirates, that FF>> button is So hard to push. Of course we get DVD's that force you to watch them, but if you backup the dvd with a little IFO hacking you can remove the warning. That is if your not luckly enough to have a player that ignores the user prohibition codes. Why not instead of spamming us with more useless stuff they figure out away to encourge us not to want to pirate the content in the first place. Like Sell cut rate on movie tickets or early sneak peaks if you buy the DVD up front. Or other real world advantages. Sooner or later these companies are going to see that forceing the status quo is tilting at windmills, they need to learn to innovate and get people excited about buying their products instead of being viewed as a nesicary evil to recive any decent content
> "We absolutely need downstream revenue to
> survive," said Ken Jacobsen, senior VP and
> director of worldwide anti-piracy operations for
> the MPAA, noting that only four of 10 movies earn
> enough at the box office to recoup the average of
> $89 million spent on producing and marketing a
> film.
I think the MPAA should be looking at two other issues in addition to piracy:
- why do only 40% of movies actually make money? I find it hard to believe that wholesale copyright infringement is ripping that much off the bottom line; very few people actually have the bandwidth to download movies, and not all of those have DVD burners
- why does the average file cost $89m to make and market? I can remember only about 10 years ago that $100m was considered an obscene amount to spend on making a film (refer to "Waterworld" and "Last Action Hero" as examples); now it's only slightly above average?
I think these guys have got to have a bit of a reality check if they're spending $89m per film and complaining about not recovering costs. *Someone* has had a very big salary hike...
I wish that there was a Special logo on every dollar and every paid invoice to these companies that would
remind them that they do not own us and it is a privilege to serve it's valued customers instead of treating
us like lambs waiting to be shorn, wearing retention collars and being fed confinement loaf.
These messages hurt impulse buys in my case. When I see a message like "this software contains anti-copying technology" I remember all the times I've had games fail to work because of buggy piracy protection.
It means that I put off buying the game until it has been around long enough for users to report problems with the copy protection and the publisher to release patches. Sometimes I never get around to checking and lose interest in the game.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
Err... Illegal to skip a government document? Well, in the UK, it's completely legal to do whatever with the disc, as long as you don't copy it or alter its contents without permission. We don't have a government warning, and if it weren't for the fact that my DVD player doesn't appear to support enforced viewing (ie/ watching the adverts) then I'd certainly be hacking a PC to play the movie, or at least mashing the keys to work out how to skip the commercial when you put the disc in...
Put yourself in their position, you're working for what you believe is the right cause, you do as your told, and you glide into a pension after service moving into the private sector afterwards. Bottom line.
As for the sticker... Means nothing and yes you can attribute piracy in some form to illegal activities. Although you see this from a downloading-does-no-evil perspective, fact is there are organizations that make money off of these things, and yes they can somehow can intertwined with terrorism. For example, out here in NYC where tax free bootleg cigarettes are the rage for those looking to make a quick buck, do you think Joe Blow average is bringing in truckloads to sell them to lower level sellers? Sure people run off to Indian reservations to buy and resell, but it's not an uncommon notion to think how easy it would be to make some mega black market cash to fund something more sinister.
So while the typical /.'er trolls along thinking about how evil this is, I personally think this was done to appease those with money making noise (RIAA), and as a means of saying "We're watching you", beyond that I doubt if the FBI is going to run around and arrest little Jack Horner for trading songs with Little Bo Peep, but rather would focus on factories who do this on a mass scale. Then again this is my perception of it all, and I am definitely not one to be an expert solely one who looks at things from a different angle. And in case anyone has forgotten, a law is a law is a law. Like it or not.
MoFscker
Now it will be easy to tell what CD's are put out by RIAA members will have a handy marker on them... wait a few months till they put the Logo on all their shit then start a "Do Not Buy" campaign
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Just get one of these stickers from downhillbattle and place it over the stupid FBI Warning.
Real Pirate upon seeing the Warning: "Oooooh I'm sooooo scared!"
Yeah this stuff is just there so that you can't give try excuse that you didn't know it was illegal. However, I would be happier if in addition to this the companies spelled out the purchaser's fair use rights along with this stuff.
The partial answer to your questions lies in answering this one: why didn't FBI propose to work with FSF or Linus and others to put an FBI copyright warning on their software for SCO and other corporate software "pirates?" It seems like corporate pirates need as much reminders and education of what copyright means as your average person buying a CD or a DVD.
Fair enough, but if this is similar to what's already on DVDs (forced to sit there and look at it without modified software/hardware), then there is a problem. When I pay for something, I don't want a lecture on not pirating it.
That said, if it's unintrusive and quick (or just on the packaging), then I have no problem.
Yeah, it is all pretty retarded. Come on, we have to deal with half a minute of remote-locked FBI video warnings, what the heck does this new seal do any differently?
All the more reason to backup your DVDs (as if the risk of them delaminating in under five years doesn't do it for you)...
Every major ripping tool out there now allows you to disable both IFO and VOB P-UOPs (the things that lock out buttons). So just back up your DVDs, put the originals away somewhere for safe keeping, and only use the copies. They'll also remove Macrovision and RCE, as well (the latter you don't even have a choice on, since no non-pressed DVD format includes a writeable CSS ring).
Personally, I don't watch the originals even once, anymore. As soon as I buy, into the PC it goes, and an hour later, out comes a copy without all the crap. Or more accurately, out comes a copy with all the crap, but nothing to stop me from hitting "menu" the second it starts.
> Back in the day (early 80s) we'd copy whole tapes, FBI warning and all.
Of course you copy the FBI warning! Only a half-assed pirate would leave off the FBI warning. Copying the warning was my way of saying "Hell yes I know this is technically illegal, but screw em anyway."
Like copying a tape from the rental shop is somehow EVIL and taping from HBO is different? Personally I draw the line at assholes selling bootleg tapes, but even then I don't think it is always EVIL. Selling bootlegs of titles that are not (and usually never will be) available through legit channels just doesn't seem wrong. Copyrights should not be allowed to be used to suppress a work. (example: Disney and _Song of the South_)
But I would like to be able to hack my DVD player to allow me to skip the damned thing, especially FOX titles that force it down your throat before the opening menu will come up. But I bought a good Japanese name brand deck that can't be flashed. On the other hand the picture is very good (compared to the el cheapo Chinese stuff from Apex, etc.) so I guess I won't bitch too loud.
Democrat delenda est
Here's the deal. If large corporations agree to pay their taxes like everyone else, and not use illegal tax shelters, generally show a bit of civic responsibility, I'll agree to not pirate ANYTHING. /me just finished watching Frontline.
a x/
Look here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/t
Sound fair? Good. You cannot have your cake and and pie and cream puffs and every last damn thing you want AND eat it too. Greedy bastards.
The FBI is an essential and necessary part of the U.S. government. To give them credit, they have done a great deal in investigating and prosecuting government corruption, organized crime, child abductions, and many other serious crimes.
Unfortunately the FBI, through no fault of their own, are being coerced by politicians at the behest of the entertainment industry (whose multi million dollar campaign contributions have had an undue influence on public policy) to become more and more a private law enforcement agency for powerful and wealthy organizations, propping up archaic and inefficient business models, who should be financing their own investigations. (I doubt the FBI would pursue GPL violations.)
I encourage all taxpayers to lobby their respective representatives with the aim of curtailing this waste of our important resources.
The downloading of copyrighted videos and music is now largely done via P2P networks. Unless it concerns national security, espionage, terrorism, or organized crime, etc., the FBI should not be spending its resources on prosecuting Internet file sharers.
The Linux alternative are mplayer, xine and others for just playing the part of the DVD you want to watch (I was never aware there were mandatory warnings on DVDs until someone pointed them out to me, with the Linux software you can just jump straight in).
To be able to copy/transcode DVDs with Linux, use either mencoder (comes with mplayer) or transcode. Note that in many countries this is illegal.
I don't think it's intended as a deterrent. It's ammo for MPAA lawyers. If there is an FBI warning on every DVD, it's difficult to say "i didn't realize it was wrong" when you get to court.
I couldn't resist creating an Open Source variation of this logo. I mean, I want to have shiny logos on my software, too! It's just all Open Source stuff, though! ;^)
Anyway, here you go. ("Don't worry, it's Open Source!")
I bought my DVD player last year from ASDA. (Walmart, for the Merkins among us.) It cost me 49.95 UKP. It's a Pacific 1002.
It's brilliant. It plays everything on all media; DVD, DVD-R, CDR, CDRW, you name it. (Haven't tried the more exotic rewritable DVD formats). I burn stuff onto VCD and SVCD and it just works. Picture quality is good, navigation is decent, it's got all the ports I want on the back. It'll play MP3 files burnt onto a CD, plus miniDVD discs.
But I keep finding new features. Region unlockable? Open the tray, type three numbers followed by the region you want, or 0 to completely unlock it.
One feature I discovered by accident recently: put in a DVD. It'll start playing automatically, working through the menus and those ghastly unskippable warnings. Press STOP, and the PLAY again. It'll start playing... but from the beginning of the first title. Which, in most cases, is the actual movie.
It's quite, quite clear that the DVD player manufacturers, or at least the bottom end ones, know exactly where the money is: their customers want devices that will let them watch what they want. And what they want is not what the studios want them to watch.
The only downsides to my shiny new DVD player are that it looks ugly, the seek time is slow (making interactive content a bit clunky --- like I care), and I can't turn Macrovision off. Which I'm surprised at.
It's interesting to compare with a friend's more expensive Sony DVD player; it has fewer features, won't play CD-R media, isn't region code switchable, etc. It also cost about six times as much as mine, although this was a few years ago.
Moral: cheaper is not always worse.