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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?"
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...
" 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.
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?
the day it becomes pay per view is the day I stop buying.
make things a hassle for me (the legitimate customer) and I won't bother any more.
lets see who needs who's money the most shall we?
I find Robin Hoodinism to be a much better term than piracy. Steal from the Rich, give to the Poor!
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."
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...
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.
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
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]I always thought the "reason/excuse" for piracy is simply the discontent of a large number of people with the cost of the BS that the media producers insist on shoving down our throats. To make matters worse, the erosion of fair-use rights caused by increased efforts to combat piracy serves only to devalue the product even further. These companies should really be working to make the general population *want* to give up their money by giving them something at a fair price rather than trying to resort to mob tactics by attempting to eradicate the "competition".
For a lot of people, piracy is only a supplement to a healthy media budget. Some simply cannot afford to purchase all that they are interested in, and if prices don't drop, piracy seems the way to go. And no, copyrigt infringement is not stealing. No one is losing anything but a potential sale, and if "random pirate" doesn't have the money to buy that movie/game/whatever, there really isn't any harm done.
Great! The more incompatible "standards" there are, the less likely this stuff will catch on.
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
Most of us know its wrong, but the whole problem with the current system is this.
1. All copy-protection will get broken. Sooner or later.
2. Media companies are unwilling to find alternatives to stop this (such as altering business model).
3. Media conglomerates in an essence are trying to control Tech industries, which pisses a lot of people off.
4. I personally don't believe ANY group of people DESERVE more power. Especailly not RIAA. I believe power in the individual (unfortunately, many are not responsible enough).
Note: Anonymous Coward, if you're not willing to stand by your words by signing up, your voice does not deserve to be heard.
In US, you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.
like the poor have DirectTV, PVRs and DVD recorders. the pirates here are privileged middle class students and adults. who steal for themselves and give back nothing.
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.
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.
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
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.
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!