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SVP : More Video Anti-Copying Technology
rkroetch writes "NDS, STMicroelectronics and Thomson have announced they will develop a new anti-piracy technology called SVP (Secure Video Processor). This will require a special SVP processor in the box to play the encrypted video signal. All those licensing fees for our DVD-ROMs for nothing?"
Why they always have to call it piracy. Why not something like, "Copyright Control Device/Software".
Oh well, I suppose I do understand why. I just don't like it.
tv out anyone?
fuckin' bastards....
i'll be sure to avoid anything that has this in it until it's easily bypassed.
of course, given past techniques, that shouldn't be too damn long...
someone's probably already hatching a plan..
Use the decoder chip that you need to view the encoded content anyway!
...but people don't believe me when I say that we currently have the technology to create a total lockdown of digital content.
Sure, the analog hole is still there, but we don't want to be limited by that, do we?
Stop the world; I need to get off.
Satisfies and exploits the proven consumer demand for high value content that is accessible and distributable over a variety of media
Thanks, but no thanks. I don't buy from people who exploit me.
Yet another waste of resources that could of gone in to making the technology better.
It's was never designed to do that...
How long is it going to take for some malaysian company to make a PCI card with the required chip on it?
From the article...
NDS, 78 percent owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, has developed the anti-piracy software component for SVP. Beginning next year, Thomson will embed SVP-enabled chips developed by STMicro into its video playback devices and set-top boxes.
American satellite TV operator DIRECTV, a News Corp affiliate, is the first to use the new technology, the companies said.
Now, let's think about this for a second. Even though DirecTV has about millions units in circulation now, the actual decryption part of the operation is done in the form of a single smart card that is very easy to swap out. Therefore, DirecTV doesn't have to make everybody get new boxes to apply this tech, they just have to send out new cards.
I am curious as to how they will manage encryption with this, and if it will be yet another encryption through obfuscation.
It seems the smartest approach is to publish and patent the encryption scheme, but make it so time consuming, that you will need hardware to do the decryption properly. That way any one who tries to get around the protection scheme and not pay royalties will be easily sueable.
The upside for non-mainstream OS users, is that it will most likely mean non-OS dependent solutions (maybe).
Of course programmable logic chips could potentially be a threat, but not a major one, as most people don't have that type of hardware.
" A rise in piracy has accompanied the explosion of digital video players. Crafty programmers have discovered ways to crack into DVD players, for example, to make copies of Hollywood movies quickly and cheaply." Yup, and this will be cracked too. It's a game of cat and mouse. Remember how DVD's were supposed to be iron proof? And they certainly haven't locked down CD's. Create whatever technology you want but in the end, unless we change the greater system of licensing media, none of this will matter and piracy will continue.
What licensing fees? We didn't license anything. We bought copies of copyrighted works. Those copies are our property.
At this point the general befief is that pirates of legend merely sought to share homes, villages and governors' daughters.
Since it appears that these large companies are afraid everyone will pass along their public data to their friends / partners / some dude in China, why not just stop putting out public data? No one can steal your data if you don't have any data, now can they?
That's because people who are technologically adept and who have sufficient resources are quite rare. Only someone who can hack the hardware would be able to grab the original digital content from a properly-designed black box.
I suspect that hardware like this will, in time (if not immediately), be used to enforce pay-per-view or something like that for permanent media. From the info page:
Yep, sounds like pay-per-view to me.
It really is only a matter of time before everything that's available falls under the control of something like this...
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
as long as I can *SEE* it with my eyes, I can COPY it. whoohoo :) ain't nothing they can do about it.
The new technology is fine with me. As long as its presence is clearly marked on the DVD box, so that I don't accidentally purchase such a protected DVD.
When we finally do get those implanted Nikon eyeballs, they'll probably come with anti-piracy chips. (The country-code would be a bitch on business trips.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Yet another waste of resources that could of gone in to making the technology better
Don't forget the roughly equal amount of effort that will go into cracking it.
....that the only difference between this processor, and the old style processor, is that they put "secure" in the name...
Before you mod me funny, think, perhaps I was insightfully funny?
Quick shut the gate!
Both the summary here, and the article, call it anti-piracy technology.
In "ye olden days" pirates were people who would go to great lengths, working against heavily armed opponents and risking incarceration or worse in order to obtain something that, nine times out of ten, wasn't worth having in the first place.
Thus their ledgendary rum consumption.
Now-a-days it's closer to ninety-nine times out of a hundred, but the principle is the same.
-- MarkusQ
i won't buy anything like that. i doubt you will see anything new with drm for tv outside of the next 10 years. nothing is going to replace the dvd players. it would take some device that can play with even better resolution like the dvd did with repsect to vhs. the only reason people purchased dvd players is because they are very cheap, and the resolution is considerably better than vhs. for a new device to take off, they will have to make it cheap and so much better. i doubt that anything which is superior to dvd will come out at a cheap enough price that people will buy it in large enough quantities to make a differance. plus, if there is any company that could dominate such a protocol, it would be microsoft. unless they get involved, any other company will not be able to get widespread enough approval from the industry.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Sure, they can have make the media unplayable without the chip, but:
If you can see and hear it, you can copy it.
If you can make a raw copy of the media, you can pirate it without loss of quality, even if you can only play the copies in an SVP device.
This sort of technology has no use in preventing piracy, only in making money and killing competition. Manufacturers must license the "technology" or else they can't make devices that will play the latest media. Consumers must purchase new DVD players to replace their perfectly functioning old players (most won't, you can bet). There will be no interoperability with other devices. And PC users will simply be out of luck, unless they decide to license it for software use to companies like Microsoft, which will completely defeat the cryptographic advantages of embedding the DRM in hardware and make it as useless as DSS.
if only people could protect their private data from corporate databases, like banks selling customer information to marketing firms or third parties. too bad nobody wants to protect people the way the movie industry wants to protect their content. :(
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
With Moore's Law still in effect and multi-core processors coming, what requires dedicated hardware today may easily become software doable in three years. Which would be about the time it hits mainstream, given that the public buys into it.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I'm one to say "suck it up" when terms change, like with hacker becomming a bad term. However this is one I say the media industry should get nailed for. Why? Because piracy is still very, very real. In North America and Western Europe we tend to forget about it since we have powerful navies/coast guards that keep our waters essentially free of it.
Well that's not the case in much of the world. There are still real pirates that really do raid ships, rape, kill and steal. We also aren't talking like once every 10 years or something, we are talking about a reasonably common occurace in relation to other violent crime.
Thus I think it is quite stupid, and unfair to those that suffer from real piracy, to equate digitally copying a song to violence on the high seas. When real piracy is dead and gone, then maybe I'll accept the transformation of the term.
If they are saying they will encrypt the source on the disc, for all the dvd players that are in production now that dont have this chip will the video still be viewable or will the discs only work correctly with a SVP dvd player? Seems harmless but where there is a will there is a way, to stop the piracy i think they have to stop looking at the end user who gets a dvd and copies it to his mates. I think they need to look deeper into the employees that pass the orginal source on
http://www.thegreynomads.com
There are none. Neither free as in costs nothing, nor free as in Free Software. There never can be any of those as long as the DMCA is on the books.
But what does this have to do with anyone paying a license fee for a DVD-ROM? We don't pay license fees for DVD-ROMs. There are "license" fees to make a player without being sued by the DVD-CCA. We don't pay that either, at least not directly.
Think of how low they could cut the costs of production and distribution which would allow them to sell their products at a lower price, which would make them more attractive to the groups most likely to pirate their goods. I guess I just don't understand why the MPAA's members would rather sit around and piss and moan about piracy instead of trying to defeat it. It's not like it's impossible to make a good deal of extra money off of it.
Personally, I blame the fascist culture of "right to profit" that has developed. If I build a house that looks identical to yours, have I stolen your house? Do you have a right to tell me to pay you a royalty on the sale of my house? How about the original developer, does he/she?
If corporations affected by technology would invest their money into researching the new technology and finding ways to update their business model, they'd do well for themselves. But that would require effort and a pretense of competition. It's easier to make the small companies earn their place in the market than make the big ones justify their size and reach.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
With the advent of cheap memory, cheap drives, cheap screens and nifty cool players, WHY is hollywood still stuck in 1989?
.. I paid for it, it's MINE to do as I please .. are they going to give me my money back when I want to de-license it? No? Piss on them) could be on a little teeny little drive that isn't going to fail because the "shiny disc looked pretty" as a mirror.
Why do we have to have obsolete 8 gig plastic discs, when our movies (I dont give a shit what they say about you're only licensing it
Piss off, Hollywood - I paid you my ransom money now leave me the hell alone.
Oh yeah, and for that BS copy protection? As long as my eyes see it I'll find a way to get past your POS scheme.
= Grow a brain...
Are they out of their godamn minds???? i guess dtv really does love being hacked - this time they are bringing the media player industry along for the ride. jeeze if history has proven one thing dtv smart cards are forever fucked.
Just give me your name, address, DOB and credit card number.
How we know is more important than what we know.
And it does in fact, have the NDS logo on it. It makes your explaination all the more reasonable.
All those licensing fees for our DVD-ROMs for nothing
Simple solution - stop consuming the 'property' of these robber barrons.
Its not like this is food, shelter or clothing.
Not if you use a sane encryption scheme. With your logic, all our encrypted data will be hackable in a couple years, and thus not very useful. The biggest difficulty is getting cheap hardware that can do the decrypt quickly.
Come on...I can stop complaining because this week I got a satnd-alone DVD player, and when I went to watch a _legal_ movie on it, because it was connected to an old TV-set, and the only way to do that is to have a VCR to modulate the signal, Macrovision Protection(tm) kicked in, and I could not enjoy the movie at all.
We are _already_ slaves to the Media companies. Perceive that none of this crap will stop some "Pirate Cappo" who cashes in 100.000 East Asia Bootleg Disks a week - this guy can pay people to bypass wahtever protetcion they put in it.
It just stop us - ordinary people - from making perfectly legal things, like quote some seconds of a video to a lecture, or whatever.
-><- no
Back in the 80's, a lot of people were hyping copy-protection schemes for software. It was basically snake-oil; none of it did any good, and any software which used it soon died because copy-protection doesn't help the consumer.
Now, here in the 00's, we have the reincarnated version of this. The ONLY people who care about it are the Media conglomerates. Again, not the consumers.
Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
So, my big question is this. Does anybody have any actual numbers on how much money has been dumped into these snake-oil schemes?
A fool and his money are indeed soon parted. It really beats me why spends their time developing this stuff, let alone funding it. Clearly it is self-delusion.
It doesn't bother me in no time someone will be able to crack it and over write SVP anit-copy technology. It's just a matter of time....
--- hows it taste mother f$#@er!!!
Okay, how about this time we wait until AFTER they start using the algorithm before we tell them it's been hacked. I'm looking at you Edward Felton. ;-)
Hypothetically, if I am in the possession of a copyrighted work, does that copy become mine and my property? Shouldn't I be free to do whatever I wish to do with it?
The rights granted under 17 USC 109 apply only to the owner of a lawfully made copy of a work, not an eMule copy of a major studio film, and they apply only to the owner of a copy, not somebody who went and rented a copy from a video rental store. I'd also imagine that judges would more likely buy a fair use defense if the defendant owned a lawfully made copy.
i doubt you will see anything new with drm for tv outside of the next 10 years.
Long before those 10 years are up, analog terrestrial broadcast television in the USA will die, and DTV compatible video recording devices will have to follow a "broadcast flag".
Well, so now we have to pay for a new "license" to possess a device that can playback other "licensed" media we bought from the store. For all the licensing, we still need to pay for the license in this damned player to play something we rightfully own.
Is it just me? Or is everyone starting to get sick from the word "license"?
So what are we getting here, is a "license" something that I can eat? Or is it something I can use to wipe my ass like toilet paper? Or can a "license" protect me from the elements?
None! It is really just a pay-and-pay world nowadays. We have to bear all these extra costs just to be able to spend money and view their products?
I'd say all consumers should unite and show them what consumerism is all about by giving them such a big backlash they will never get to forget it.
Screw it, it is not like the stuff they make are so worth it anyway. I can't stand the (RIA|MPA|BS)A making such a big fuss over their pathetic ingenuity and creativity.
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
What if this technology would allow us, at the press of a button, to browse the entire Blockbuster catalog (or, since this is Slashdot, everything from Vivid Videos) and rent the movie for 3 nights on our PVR for $2.99?
What if a studio releases films under this sort of pay-per-view scheme several months before selling copies in DVD Video format? Or what if a studio decides never to sell copies of one of its films to the public? And what if the studio later decides to pull one of those films from the PPV market, either for some sort of "Disney Vault" business model or for political purposes?
Erm, how about: Okay, how about: "I don't buy from people who try to squeeze out every last bit of comsumer surplus..."
Hehe, sorry about that, but I'm sure none of us mind minimizing the producers surplus. Refresher:
- Producers Surplus - The area above the supply curve, but below the price
[RANT]What makes the whole discussion stupid IMHO is that we're all this anti-'piracy' crap is by definition not talking about internal market features. Attacking 'fair use' on the other hand is, if anything, going to lower the demand curve- we are talking about reducing the marginal utility of the widgets here.
If you were not willing to purchase the product at the 'market clearing price,' then the producers are not losing revenue.
People downloading free copies of various titles does not directly affect the relevant portion of the demand curve**! Nor does it cause translation along the demand curve! Think of it as 2-tier price discrimination, where a subset of the people who exist to the left/below the market get it at marginal cost :) Crap, that means some consumer surplus. I highly doubt there is a significant cross-elasticity of demand between .torrent's and movie tickets/DVD sales.
Bootlegging is an entirely seperate discussion. IANAL, but isn't there already a body of legislation that addresses that?
** The market externalities involved can in fact shift the demand curve. The marketing exposure can be priceless (bandwagon effects, knowing the product exists, being familiar with a product/brand, etc.), however it also has the [perhaps all too oft] effect of lowering the percieved utility of a product to it's actual value... If you know how much that InternetPrivateDick software [or the-other-12 tracks-on-the-cd, CuteNFuzzy-Jedi-Episode-2 1/2, etc...] suck, you're less likely to pay as much for it ;)
Naturally, anything that causes consumers to act more rationally or with more complete information might make Economics more workable, much to the distress of all those other social sciences... And likely most politicians...
And I won't even mention the fact that most restrictions that insulate producers from the market are bad for both society AND the producers, nor that these markets are already far from perfectly competative... Ok, I guess I did mention them...
[/RANT]What?! We can do that?! Well where's my governor's daughter!?!
Oh, I mean.... Shiver me timbers! Whar' be thar scurvy landlubber who's fair lass I may be hav'n ta tup? YARR!!
*Ahem* Now if you'll excuse me, my download is just about finished here... time to watch a movie! Now where I put me dish o' popper-corn and mug o' ale? Yarr!
Understandable, I suppose, although it's in the summary on the frontpage too, not just in the article.
Crafty programmers have discovered ways to crack into DVD players, for example, to make copies of Hollywood movies quickly and cheaply.
You can crack a DVD player to burn discs? That's gotta be one of the sweeter hacks I've heard about. Or maybe by 'crack' the reporter means 'buy professional DVD duplicating equipment'.
It's almost a peaceful feeling to watch the heat death of one's society.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
If I contracted with an architect for an original design, and the rights to the design, then, damn right I would be demanding royalties on production and sale of a copy. If I were really pissed off I might sue for demolition.
Great! The more incompatible "standards" there are, the less likely this stuff will catch on.
OK, start registering those domain names!
svpcrack.ru
svp-modchip.cn
"Security through obscurity just doesnt work - at least not in the long term."
And for the umpteenth time. Security isn't about keeping your secrets forever, or being perfect.
Security is about inconviencing the majority of the bad guys long enough that the information when obtained is of little to no use.
"But the media houses answer only to their stockholders(ironically us) and they demand profits and they always want more. So chalk this one up with the rest of the similar attempts until they fix the real problem - their business model."
Did you read what you wrote? Maybe what should be fixed is US. Not the companies that respond to our "bigger stock dividend" whims.
Here's a thought: if none of the tech companies license the tech to make the players, then we wouldn't have to worry about these crap copy protection schemes and BS laws (i.e. DMCA) in the first place. Maybe its time for a grassroots campain. Not to lobby our congresscritters mind you, but to let the tech companies that would be making the players know that we simply won't buy them if they're produced. This way it doesn't get bought into (licensing) and its killed at the source. Its effectively what did in DIVX, and I see no reason it won't work this time around.
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
"No one can steal your data if you don't have any data, now can they?"
I've been trying to convince every artist I can get my hands on, big and small. Known and obscure. To stop writing books, making music, and creating movies, among other things.
Of course if Slashdot is to be believed? Consumers will just smile and trek over to the magic "idea" fountain for their fix.
"It seems to me that encryption schemes are always broken, it's just a matter of time."
That reminds me. Has any "your information just wants to be free" advocate ever broken any military encryption?
And somebody else having the same design would lessen your enjoyment of your own house? Sounds like sour grapes to me. Like a smug, selfish, spoiled child who thinks that having something unique makes them more important, and a 'better person' somehow.
These are the attitudes of the music and movie industry execs. Nothing but older versions of the spoiled child.
This is of course the real reason they are so up in arms about P2P, etc.: not that stuff they control is being distributed "by word of mouth" but that stuff they don't control will be. If a band can make it without ever signing with a label, if an independent film can reach the audience without a distributor, a lot of middle-meddlers are going to be very, very unemployed.
-- MarkusQ
This, despite protestations to the contrary, is NOT a new usage. The OED gives usage examples of piracy / pirate in the context of written works going back to the 17th century, with indications that usage existed even earlier.
:-p
Piracy as applied to radio goes back to at least 1913.
This is one term you CAN'T blame on the RIAA
(and I'd be happy to provide citations if you'd like)
Anyone else find it odd that since this story it's been an abnormally long time for /. to go with no new stories on the front page? Did the editors all go out drinking together or something?
11*43+456^2
If the Thomson hardware is as crappily shitacular as the Thomson DVD drive in my XBox, we have nothing to worry about -- either it will fail to enable the copy protection scheme correctly, and movies will be watchable, or it won't let you watch *anything* -- in which case, the machines will be yet another failed technology on the trash heap.
What does it mean to wake out of a dream
and be wearing someone else's shorts?
BNL, Born on a Pirate Ship (1998)
Don't lay all the blame on the "right to profit" ideal. Some of the problem stems from people not knowing what their rights are and not really caring as long as it doesn't affect them.
/. crowd drags out the tinfoil hat every time something like this comes up, but how many people is that compared to the remaining population of the U.S.? All those non-/.'ers are going to hear is "piracy evil, RIAA good" because they can buy the airtime and they can buy Congress.
Sure, the
Me? I'm out of ideas beyond boycotting. It's legal and doesn't hurt anyone who doesn't have a pocketbook in the fight. I don't see the point in trying to crack the encryption - they just come up with more and more. At least with a boycott, they can't force you to consume.
(Well, unless someone finds your secret weakness for Britney or Madonna).
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
Burn DVD for self, and then pop the file into shared folder for the ravenous hordes on Limewire to "share".
The ONLY thing that will really slow these bastards down is if the decryption system is in the monitor itself, located somewhere in the processor for the projector / screen.
Audio, as usual, leads the way - we're about > Eventually, some smarty pants will figure out a way around the audio driver and built a simple route to the Hard Drive, but until then, the Time Base Corrector is your friend...
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Sorry but your argument doesn't wash. If you look at all the "ideas" that have been implimented and floated around over the years. All have been for control of what the RIAA/MPAA already "owns". Your "independent" isn't affected by all of this[1], and in fact may benefit from some of this (yes I know of some small time artists who have used the DMCA on a pirate and crook). After all copyright, despite slashdot rumours to the contrary isn't just for people with money, but all of us (including you).
[1] Please feel more than free to give contrary examples.
If you are going to couple one misdeed that no-one will take seriously with another, do you compare it to shoplifting or murder and theft on the high seas? If you are unscrupulous, want to get people on your side and keep on raking in the dubloons, why settle for less than piracy?
In the case of legislation the public foots the bill for those who claim blockbuster movies make no profit at all (so they don't need to pay tax). At least in the case of devices like this they are using their own resources to pay for something. It also remains to be seen if the implementaion will be as flawed as DVD encryption was. It also remains to be see if the companies that use this will be their own worst enemies. In my country one cinema distribution company is asking the government to block people from buying DVDs from the USA of movies that have not yet been locally released - the DVDs are sold by the same company! They want the government to protect them from themselves (plus wanting to make it illegal to buy DVDs from another region).
It's already here. It's called High-Definition Content Protection (HDCP, intro here, and definition here). This system provides serious crypto, unlike CSS. It also has provisions for devices to exchange lists of compromised keys, so they can "blacklist" any key which the crackers break.
I've already seen one retailer listing HDCP as a feature on a big-screen TV.
It is surely the envious, the lustful, the smug and the spoiled, who would demand the right to the fruits of another's creation without payment or consent.
"All those licensing fees for our DVD-ROMs for nothing?
Of course not! My retirement is well padded now, thankyouverymuch.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
At least with a boycott, they can't force you to consume.
They already do that in Canada by levying a 'copy tax', whether or not you actually intend to download movies or music.
Do you really think that the RIAA/MPAA, faced with declining sales here in the U.S., won't get Congress to pass a new 'copy tax' levied on each and every one of us whether we download or not? Perhaps a 'fee' attached to your monthly broadband payment?
That's surely the next step. They'll scream that broadband access encourages piracy, and demand their 'cut' of the broadband gravy train. And we will ALL pay whether we like it or not, because our supposed 'representatives' will force us to pay or forego broadband altogether.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
(from http://linas.org/mirrors/cryptome.org/2001.04.21/
"Ultimately, if it is possible for a consumer to hear or see protected content, then it will be technically possible for the consumer to copy that content."
Enough said.
Sounds like you will enjoy Talk Like A Pirate Day. Be sure to mark it on your calendar, only one week to go.
Not if you use a sane encryption scheme. With your logic, all our encrypted data will be hackable in a couple years, and thus not very useful. The biggest difficulty is getting cheap hardware that can do the decrypt quickly.
No, the biggest difficulty is getting cheap hardware that can store the decryption keys securely. And that won't happen.
Your other suggestion, using some sort of descrambling operation that is so computationally-intensive that it can only be done in hardware is better. However, it is subject to Moore's Law, and will fall on that basis.
Not to mention the eternal problem of the "output hole" -- if viewers can see it, they can copy it. Analog copying will always be possible and getting the highest video quality will pretty much require that the signal stay digital as long as possible, so there will likely be plenty of opportunities for grabbing the unencrypted digital stream as well.
Copy protection will never work very well, or for very long.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
No, that's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that the abilities of general purpose CPU's continue to quickly overtake what required dedicated hardware only a few years ago. The security of this system rests in its ability to only operate with a dedicated, secret chip. What requires a dedicated, affordable hardware solution today will soon be equally possible with your desktop system.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Here an "sufficiently uncrippled format" should be a format that allows users to enjoy the work in perpetuity, with no further obligation to the publisher, possibly by using backups and/or software (not applicable if such things are precluded by DRM, patents or whatever). For example, software in ordinary CD-ROMs without timebombs in them is included, so are paper books (you can scan them) and non-crippled music CDs (you can rip them and backup them forever, and you will always be able to play the PCM data). DVDs should also be included, especially when related patents expire and DeCSS is legalized, so that you can rip the bits and play it on the computer anytime in future, when hardware DVD players and DVD-ROMs may be no longer available. In contrast, any time-limited or player-limited versions, such as those using that SVP technology mentioned here, will not count (unless it can be legally hacked), and the publisher had better make it available in some other less-crippled format at the same time. This rule can be loosened for new kinds of copyrightable works for which no such perfect backup mechanisms are available yet, but these should be special cases.
As for a "reasonable" price, I think up to twice the normal price would be acceptable at first, for example up to $40 for a DVD. If the publisher want higher prices, they should make every buyer sign an agreement with them promising that they will not copy the thing they have bought, i.e., it should no longer be of the copyright law's concern.
And if movie publishers want to stop people cameraing their movies and making bootleg copies, they'd better either release the thing in DVD at the same time, or sign an agreement with everyone watching it (no children allowed).
In short, I want to respect your copyright, but if you make your thing public (i.e., not a trade secret or privacy-related stuff), and you don't want to accept my money, you still have no right to prevent me from enjoying it.
they stole television from Farnsworth,patented technology that they took from the color consortium,sold their consumer division to thomsen in the 90's and moved the jobs from Indianapolis to Mexico and other offshore places,
Now they are back in the "video" business making encryption chips.
What's New?
... All those previews at the beginning of the DVD that you cannot skip past: "This Operation is Prohibited By The Disc."
After all, the player is the hardware and the disc is the software.
They are merely increasing their commercial intrusions; there are more "previews" on recent releases than I used to see.
It's gotten so I am afraid to invest any more than $9.95 in a DVD, because higher priced DVD's usually are more recent titles, hence have a greater chance of showing advertisements for other current releases.
Norm
Copy protection blocks both legal and illegal copies. There is nothing wrong with copying a DVD, especially for backup (or active use in the case of backing up or archiving the original).
Really, it's the distribution of the copied DVDs which is illegal, something which the movie companies (and music companies in regards to CDs) generally leave out when mentioning the "terrible hackers" and their circumvention of copy-protection.
till somebody loses an eye... From Don Freed's "Live ARR"
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I wonder if all those people do not have principles. What are they seeking for? World domination? I think people with such invasive ideas should be publicly humiliated until they learned.
Usually I feel compelled to follow the rules and not copy stuff, but this kind of protection makes me kinda think about doing the oposite, not because I need, but because of their intentions to limit my freedom, 'cause I HATE to be forced!
I like to be told what the rules are and what can happen if I don't follow them, but I also appreciate my freedom to choose not to follow them if I wish.
Those thieves BLATANTLY STOLE THE TERM, and probably didn't pay the originators of it for the use of their linguistic properties. It's plagiarism at the very least - why next thing you know, people will be appropriating the narratives of Brothers Grimm and claiming their fairy tales are now "intellectual property".
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The term "pirate radio" usually refers to radio stations operating without government permission near countries where the government has nationalized the airwaves to prevent the people from using it. Usually pirate radio involves ships and lots of drinking...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The issue of copying music isn't IF you can copy it, it's HOW WELL you can do it. No matter what you do to protect your media content, it has to be playable on your standard TV, stereo, or whatnot. I mean, I can easily copy any movie you give me with a camcorder, right? :)
;)
The industry would be better off figuring out how they should be selling their products instead of how to gouge the general public. Ventures like this have always proven to end in failure, and always make things more inconvenient for the people who actually pay for it (usually the less technically-savy too)!
Isn't it funny how you can copy an Aerosmith CD and steal from Sony Music, with your Sony CD burner and CD-R and support Sony Electronics? Who really loses?
The loosers will be commercial free to air players. A short term boost in cable offerings will devalue existing free to air licences. Murdoch can buy the others out, once the legislation goes through after the election to abolish media holding restrictions.
The obvious intention is to marry the scrambler to PVR players, then get the law changed to say if you have a PVR, it must carry the chip. After the market rejected region protected players, it is extreme optimism that they should want any other crippled junk.
What these buffoons miss, is that the outputs are NOT end-to-end, and technology , even programmable ASIC's, don't cut the mustard, and get cracked over time.
The proliferation of WiFi, means rolling codes are widely broadcast, and a wireless USB dongle is only a few bucks.
Ok, let them spend a shitload pushing out new cards. Shave the chip, a touch of lithium nicobate, and a few probes on the bus and its all over.
Nothing is foolproof, there are no guarantees, plus if you make cable scrambling harder, there will be more DVD swapping between friends. Every DVD PVR recoding watched is 3 hours of unwatched commercials.
Coming soon: Commercial skipping is a crime.
This is exactly the attitude that will destroy our civilization. Until the early 20 century noone would have gotten such a (then) absurd idea. Whole cities were built using similar house designs depending on what was en vogue at the time. Copying and improving is good and is the way civilization has advanced. Preventing this and redirecting creativity into reinventing the wheel and suing instead of evolutionary improvement is what will bing our fall eventually :( :(.
It makes me very sad to see such a horrible opinion posted even on slashdot.
Since I have seen the (digital) lcd displays of apple, and compared them to analog lcd displays, I have been hoping that the digital ones would catch on. I mean, it saves a DAC in the video card and an ADC in the display, and it creates a much stabler display.
Ideas like these are only delaying this (because the digital signal can be easily copied without analog noise), so once again they have come up with a plan which is bad for the people. Too bad the people will probably not realise it.
I have a TV, I just bought it, fsk am I buying a new one for a 'DVD'.
So thier SVP player comes along, wow. So my TV can get a signal. Surely my PC TV Card can too?
So surely I can just rip the converted signal? With not much loss?
*blinks*
Unless they intend on keeping the signal encrpted until it hits our implanted optical nerve SVP chip.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
If this becomes a standard I believe that a software that emulates the chip will be developed. With that software you can either watch the movie with your computer or decode it to something playable in a DVD-player (a MPEG-2 stream for example.) So much for those millions...
Here in Brasil smart cards run for R$10 (US$ 3) apiece. In the 100's scale. Probably far less in the millions DTV scale.
Maybe you're importing the cards from the wrong country or something? Or they sell the tech for different prices according to the wealth of the costumer?
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
As previously mentioned, with each copy-protection system tried, they are broken, worked around, or otherwise caused to fail. The recording industry (and collective associates) have spent big money on bigger/better ways of troubling their coustomers... I can't imagine suing all of your [potential] customers is good for business? Personally, I could see myself downloading a song that I might have heard a bit of on the radio or something, likeing it, then buying the CD... but if I were to be sued for the mentioned download, fscked if I'm gonna give them any *more* money. I really wonder how long it will be before this industry spends all it's money on troubling their customers and none on actually producing/marketing worthwhile media, and simply dies.
Mak'tal shree lok'tak mek'ta sa'tak Oz! - Daniel Jackson
This new scheme will fail in market. There's no real incentive to use it for the end customers, and manufacturers of player devices will see it as an additional cost with no real advantage to counter-balance it.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
unfortunately, many parts of the entertainment industry, including parts of Hollywood, are engaging in what can only be characterized as greedy practices. There is a certain degree of price fixing going on, not to mention that the media would be less expensive if they stopped wasting money on copy protection technology.
I understand that it costs lots of money to make CGI and other things, and this is also part of the problem, part of the lack of any real choices for the consumer.
It would be better if it were acceptable to make movies on lower budgets; it would be better if more talented artists, directors, producers, etc... could have an opportunity to express themselves to a wider audience, and if these types of things were to take place, naturally, the price of a DVD would go down somewhat. Maybe not a whole lot, but somewhat - and it might also vary from movie to movie.
I cannot help but to think that there is greed occurring on the part of the entertainment industry - that greed is just as unethical as what is called "piracy" today. Of course you still have probably some areas of the world where people make illegal copies and sell them - that's something else entirely. These days, piracy and copy protection are really aimed at the consumer. That's greed - it's greed because it's unnecessary to aim it at the consumer. Maybe Spock would say, "Greed isn't logical."
So circumventing the copy protections is nothing more than bringing the greedy companies to justice - in a way. Circumventing copy protections is a necessary evil, so to speak. But of course it would be better if it wasn't necessary at all. Perhaps many people wouldn't even mind purchasing two copies, in case one gets scratched up or something - it's just that they are too expensive, so no one does that.
You want your precious "intellectual property" to remain unique and artificially scarce? Then keep it a secret! Information, once unleashed, naturally spreads from mind to mind like a virus; the vast majority of people are OK with this natural state of ideas because at a gut level it just FEELS RIGHT and it promotes progress.
You want to get paid for the fruits of your labor in the face of the new reality of millions of 'dirty, envious, spoiled pirates'? Then get paid UPFRONT for the scarce (and often not-so-scarce) act of original creation, just as a plumber gets paid for a job well-done, rather than getting royalty payments for an artful and propietary pipe fitting his grandfather did in 1930 that no other plumber could dare build on...
--
Power to the Peaceful
manufacturers of player devices will see it as an additional cost with no real advantage
We thought the same about Macrovision, yet it caught on.
It's not the market that will prevent such schemes from being efficient. It is the inherent impossibility to keep an encrypted path from the media to the brain. At one point, the data WILL have to be decoded, and you can bet all you want that competent hackers will do it and once decrypted, the data WILL also leak out, so that everybody can make a copy. It's that simple, really.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
What are you, idiots? Why do I even ask? Of course you are. You have internet access and the will to read news sites, so if you're ignorant enough to think the previous post was a joke it's because you want to.
I bet the same idiots who modded it funny are voting Bush, with their heads up their asses.
So we put the key on a smartcard. Again, the channel between the card and the processor is subject to interception or manipulation. Again, not trivial.
In the end, we can't really stop someone with a player recoding the output for something else.
See my journal, I write things there
Yes, it was a name for sega's technology, and i think was registered trademark already.
:
Back in the days, it was a cheap, but high performance DSP with onboard ram. Idea behind it was having an additional 3dspace-to-screen coordinate conversion and polygon drawing chip installed on Genesis carts.
The chip was a sore joke about what chips sega had in their arcade machines (like Daytona). SVP Technology could have survived, if it wouldn't be that crappy.
Technology behind Secure Video Processor
imho, it doesn't differ from satellite receiver boxes too much. Interception and faking the codes will be piece of cake, as anyways -- You have that piece of hardware at home, where you can peak inside it.
Its all about marketing, in order to get the support of the masses.. If they believe its preventing evil, they will support it in their homes.
Same for congress.. if you use the big, complex and bad words, ( and have the bucks ) they will pass laws for you..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Even if this SVP is within the actual TV, I'm assuming this will only decrypt the signal into another digital signal?
//on the side
Then what's to stop someone from taking that and recording?
Unless, of course, they include a DtoA converter within the chip. But then wouldn't that kind of be bad since the preciseness of that conversion is what differentiates one TV from the next?
And what of purely digital TV's? There will be no DtoA conversion, and so it will be possible to tap into the digital signal.
I hate the whole "lock down" companies are doing with their "property." All it seems to me is a money making scam since someone will own the patent to this technology in every single DVD player. (I'm just waiting for Microsoft to flip out a patent on DRM once everyone gets all cozy with it. Oops! Looks like every single DRM enabled chip manufacturer or anyone using DRM owes Microsoft money! Considering they "patented" sudo, I wouldn't be surprised.)
What really matters is
... highly contrived construction that the prosecuter has put upon the facts ...after successfully having a lot of other
1) what a judge says the law means
2) how the judge says this law applies to the...
3)
4)
facts "excluded" from the case
The only good defence is good publicity so that the scheming can be seen. A bit of daylight and a few watchers helps folk behave.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
"What good is an analog hole if one is unable to see?"
Or you will probably be able to just access the "secret" service-menu and disable the stuff all-together.
*knows the thompson service-codes* :)
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Their are two problems with the SVP technology that I see.
1. Straight copies: It seems to only affect the playing of the DVD. It does nothing about the ability for the computer to read physical bits on a computer. Why couldn't someone just burn a direct copy of the DVD. Or copy the data to a disk image and share that with someone that owns a computer with an SVP processor. I mean they explain in their propaganda that their technology that they are stopping piracy, bullshit.
2. The MPAA and RIAA are backwards luddites. They aren't operating in a mindset of using technology to further competition. If they came out with better products then we would buy them because they are better. If we don't want the better product then they need to come out with a new product. If they spent the same amount of money on advancing the state of viewing devices(lcds, dvd players, tvs and monitors) and delivery methods(higher capacity dvd, video on demand...) then we would be satisfied customers and buy their products. If we are not satisfied then they need to lower the prices. It is capitalism and they are operating in a monopolist bubble.
My 2 cents
-b
-b
I've already developed antipurchasing technology.
It all boils down to what are consumers buying?
Are we simply buying a license to use content?
Are we simply buying media that contains content?
Are we buying both?
This is important, because different laws regulate them.
If I'm buying a license to use the content, then I am bound by the terms of the license. Under most circumstances, my right to use is typically disconencted from the media on which it is distributed (consider computer software.) How it is distributed or stored really becomes irrelevent. I could purchase it on DVD media, multiple CD media, DAT tape, on a Hard drive, or I could download it from a sales site. In any case, it is still typically illegal to copy it for re-dsitribution, but it is not illegal to back it up. And this is what many consumers want to do because of the "fragileness" of DVD media. Of course, the "industry" views ANY copying as illegal, which, if we are simply buying a license, then this could and should be challenged.
If, on the other hand, we are simply buying media that happens to contain content, then what we do with that media is really different from what I do with a toaster or a lawn mower when I buy it. Of course, you can't simply copy a toaster or a lawn mower, so it gets a bit stickier.
Which leads me to believe that I'm buying both. In that case, then the media is mine to do with as I want, but I a limited by the license to use. In any case, the DVD industry was very smart in their implementation because DVD's are typically encrypted, so even making a "fair use" backup requires circumventing the encryption which violates the DMCA.
We keep going around and around with this issue, and the problem is that no courts or legislation (that I know of) has really defined just what we are buying and just what we can do with what we bought. The closest is the DMCA that says it's illegal to circumvent the encryption, but it's so broad that it doesn't address the actual issue.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
In the future, modding hardware or capturing video without a license will be Illegal.
Yeah, right.
Its un-official as hell !!! But it works ! http://cambuca.ldhs.cetuc.puc-rio.br/xine/ ... and I am not typing this from the continental US.
It's almost like they want people to pirate stuff.
As a maniac, heavily involved in FPGAware and ASIC development (+radio frequency realtime digital signal processing) i will try to present as much as possible help to guys working on cracking these stupid SVPs and crap like that.
No need to do brute force atack. There are very many other ways of cracking those protections. For example doing autocorellations with progressive ciphering in realtime, as you get into the SVP-equipped box with a good FPGA. This helps in cracking running codes of many thousand bits in length in notime.
At least the "copy tax" is more sane than tacking on law after law because it short circuits the whole legal process and says "you pay for it - it's legal". No, I don't agree it's the best way to handle it, but I haven't got a brilliant idea waiting in backup, either. A lot of my taxes go to things I don't support (religiously funded private schools, weapons programs, propping up eventual terrorists under the guise of freedom fighters, etc.), but the "copy tax" would be a better use than some of the others.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
PART ONE
Copy prevention which permits legitimate use whilst denying "other" uses is impossible. Not just supremely difficult, actually impossible. That is not a limitation of present technology that will be resolved by a sufficiently clever invention; it is a limitation of the Universe, like nothing being able to exceed the speed of light or a system never being able to put out more energy than is being supplied to it. Human beings will walk naked upon the surface of the Sun before copy-prevention is made to work.
The Secure Player is designed to render digitally-encrypted content into a form that humans can appreciate. In other words, analogue audio and video. Such signals can always be copied and re-recorded in an unencrypted form, and there is no way for the Player to be certain what is happening downstream of itself. Any form of distortion applied to the signal in a blanket attempt to prevent recording must be imperceptible to humans watching the signal. Any attempt to detect the presence of a recording device {time domain reflectometry?} can be defeated, since we have the advantage of knowing what measurements are being made.
PART TWO
The publishing industry -- and whether that be books, records, movies, CDs, videos or DVDs, the rules are the same -- has always depended for its very existence upon a simple idea: that the initial cost of the wherewithal to package-up content in a form that will be acceptable to consumers is great enough to prevent anybody from entering the industry. It should have been obvious that this situation would not persist forever. The moment that the printing-press had been invented, someone had already begun work on making a portable version.
Now let us compare and contrast the situation of the publishing industry with two other almost universally disliked industries: the fossil fuel industry, and the meat industry. The fossil fuel industry continues to extract coal and oil from the gaping wounds in the flesh of Mother Earth. One day there simply will not be any more oil or coal left down there. Even before that day dawns, there has to come a time when non-fossil fuels are the cheaper option. At least the meat industry has the foresight to breed enough animals to replace the rotting corpses upon which its supporters gorge themselves. There is nothing inherently unsustainable about feeding an animal and using its body to rearrange amino acids. With careful management, it is perfectly possible to obtain a supply of meat which is limited only by the amount of fodder available; and turning plants into burgers this way is less wasteful of resources than artificially texturising proteins (though it does rankle with the prevailing creed of mortality-denialism).
It is my contention that the publishing industry today is in the situation that the fossil fuel industry will face very soon. Everything that the publishing industry depended on for its business model to function has been annihilated. Today, the cost of the equipment required to manufacture DVDs, CDs, books and so forth is close to negligible, and entry into the market depends only on the willingness of customers to buy the wares you are selling.
PART THREE
Copyright violation is not the same as theft. If I steal a CD from a store, the store no longer has that CD to sell. If I make a copy of my friend's CD, my friend has their CD back once I am done. The store cannot sell that CD to me, because I already have another copy of it; but so what? There might be a million and one other reasons why a store might lose the ability to sell me a CD, not the least of which is that I might not even like it.
I see a CD recorder as being somewhat analogous to a breadmaker. I buy my own blank CD-Rs [flour, yeast, salt, sugar and water] and use my own effort, together with electricity I have paid for with money I earned by my own graft, to make bread for my consumption [CDs for me to listen to].
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Piracy Report:y _report.asp
http://www.iccwbo.org/ccs/imb_piracy/weekly_pirac
I guess I just don't understand why the MPAA's members would rather sit around and piss and moan about piracy instead of trying to defeat it. It's not like it's impossible to make a good deal of extra money off of it.
Control. They would rather have 99% of a market worth $10 billion than 50% of a market worth $100 billion.
Piracy is an international crime, and can only be commited in non-territorial waters. Otherwise it is just armed robery on the water. Actually, there is almost no piracy left going on in the world, but all kinds of armed robbery taking place on boats in malysia and africa.
Try again... Plenty of high-sea piracy are going on in the south pacific where 200-miles territorial waters cannot touch or reach.
Approximately 200 people die every year due to piracy and many more probably undocumented.
If you think otherwise, feel free to sail the water yourself there, but I suggest a rotation-crew on 24 hour shifts armed with automatics.
I, for one, will never agree to have this SVP implanted in my brain because-- What? It is meant to be used in the hardware and the signal will be eventually decrypted before it hits my retina? And they are spending millions on this technology? Morons... Bloody morons!
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
"My God! He never took middle school hygiene. He never saw the propaganda film. It's just lucky I keep a copy in the VCR at all times!"
He presses a button and a film title appears on the screen:
DON'T COPY THAT FLOPPY!!!
As a matter of fact, I believe you should also watch young_girl.mpg.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
I believe it is time for the entire Slashdot community to stop laughing at Richard Stallman becuase he has been "bitching" about avoiding the term of "intellectual property" for bloody decades. It is not unlike The Right to Read when back in February 1997 all of us were foolishly laughing how ridiculously paranoid that essay was, and now we are all screaming bloody murder and wetting out pants because suddenly we have DMCA. Such a moronic behaviour only makes us look like idiots. Maybe this is time to stop and think about it.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."