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Microsoft Licenses Analog Anti-rip Technology

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the sharing-is-for-communists dept.

photojournaliste writes "CD copy-protection specialist Macrovision is to work with Microsoft to ensure their respective DRM and anti-rip technologies are interoperable, the two companies said this week. Sounds straightforward enough, but the deal runs deeper. Microsoft agreed to license a number of Macrovision's patents, in particular those relating to analogue copy protection technology and more recent extensions to that system that cover video-on-demand, pay-per-view content and support for the US 'broadcast flag', which determines whether consumers will be able to record digital TV broadcasts."

18 of 270 comments (clear)

  1. How long before ... by TheLogster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People hack their Tivo's to go "Broadcast flag - very nice - I'll ignore that and record it anyway"..

    Same for Myth TV etc

    TheLogster

    1. Re:How long before ... by Dayflowers · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, its not like that's really a problem. You can easily just publish the software online and claim to be from outside the US. US users will download and use it.

      The fact that it'd be illegal to use the software would not bother anyone...

      --
      I am a speak english. Do you not? - Saroto
    2. Re:How long before ... by Catbeller · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Are they really idiots? How else do you propose for them to finace their dubious content? If it is worth downloading for so many people it is obviously worth something. If they are dinosaurs, who will replace them and how?"

      Let's go all Young Republican: Who cares if they can't survive? They can get new jobs if they aren't lazy. Who said we owed them an industry? We haven't signed any contracts stating we must watch their commericals. If the Free Market says that we don't have to pay for the content, then they will go out of business. Sometimes a market really can be free. It's not the government's job to force people to watch TV commercials.

      Content will either dry up, or it won't. If it does, the market will have instructed people that downloading stuff for free destroys the golden goose, and they will self-correct. If it doesn't dry up, and the content creators thrive (which seems to be the case so far, manipulated RIAA figures to the contrary), then the dubious content providers were wrong and the downloaders are right: downloads don't hurt the business model.

      Either way, let them eat cake.

    3. Re:How long before ... by Catbeller · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "You have signed a sort of contract."

      No, I haven't; and there is no such thing as a "sort of contract" :)

      "More, you've accepted a license."

      No, I didn't. I didn't sign anything.

      "If they have it so in the license that you agree to by watching their content that you mustn't do the things Tivo does with that content, then you've agreed not to. "Shrink-wrap" licenses are still licenses."

      No, they are not. I always, as a precaution, chant "No, I do not accept your terms" as I open any package with some sort of sticker on it. It's not my fault they provide no means of communications with them on this matter :) The EULA is still not legally tested, and even if a pro-business Supreme Court eventually does uphold it, I will not abide by shrink wrap licenses. If I buy an object, I own it, by common law and hundreds of years of precedent. I'll do what I like with it.

      "It's their content and by watching their content, accepting their content, you must agree to a licence which they distribute it under for you. Enforcing those licences would be something that the government does."

      It's not "their" content. They own the physical media on which they store their masters. They don't own the "content". They possess copy rights, not property rights, on the content. However, I have fair use rights over the content, because I have such under law, and because the media is my property, if property rights are to enter such a discussion. I do not accept any licenses as to how I use a machine I purchase, and the government be damned if they are paid to violate my rights by breaking down my door to stop me using my own property.

      "Opposing libertarianism against this problem of your's doesn't work...because, sometimes, companies can get so rich they can begin to own the rulebook of the market itself, so to speak."

      You're absolutely right, and I don't mean to criticize you, by the way, merely the idea of these new "rights" these rich people have recently purchased. If the U.S. manages to inflict this new idea of property on the world, its all over for freedom as we know it. Copyright and licenses and property rights will be used, ARE being used, to silence dissent in the U.S. and abroad. Petty dictators are a horror, but they eventually die and become dust. This new regime is corporate, immortal, and unkillable.

  2. New Name by R0UTE · · Score: 5, Funny

    I hope Microsoft take over Macrovision, then we can have Microsoft and Macrosoft. Microsoft can deal with insecure software and Macrosoft can deal with securing copyrights, what a world it will be then!

  3. Interoperable? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Since when was interoperability a goal for access protection systems? Surely they mean inoperable!

  4. song in your head by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm sorry but that song you can't get out of your head is in violation of copyright laws. We are going to install a little chip now to ensure we are compensated.

    1. Re:song in your head by klang · · Score: 5, Funny

      ..can't that little chip just turn off the damn song?

      Now THAT is a service I would pay for!

  5. What is this television thing by exnuke · · Score: 5, Funny

    What is this television thing anyway? Does it involve moving away from my computer?

  6. Protecting Analog? by malcomvetter · · Score: 5, Interesting


    from TFA:
    "An Internet-delivered movie, downloaded to a PC, can now be protected on analog video playback out of a PC"

    They're actually concerned with someone outputting a digital format (MPG, DIVX, WMV, etc.) to an Analog source like a VCR? C'mon ... who does that?

    I thought the purpose of ripping the media was to have a perfect (or near perfect) digital copy ...

  7. great wedding by imr · · Score: 5, Funny

    The master of the eye-killer blinking videotapes gets in bed with my unfair lady of blue screens of death.
    If there have any offsprings, shoot'em.

  8. There is always a way... by pdaoust007 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I find it amusing to see these companies invest millions in technology and licensing to fight a battle they know they are not going to be able to win.

    All it takes is one person to circumvent the protection (we all know how good macrovision has been in the past...) or to have access to source material to distribute it to millions using P2P.

    They need to change their business model, give us what we want (DRM free mp3 or similar) for a reasonable price or eventually suffer the inevitable... (which could be a good thing too, the music industry reborn)

  9. Re:Buy now, only legal until July 1 by gatzke · · Score: 5, Informative
    From http://www.eff.org/broadcastflag/


    The Broadcast Flag:

    The essence of the FCC's rule is in 47 CFR 73.9002(b) and the following sections: "No party shall sell or distribute in interstate commerce a Covered Demodulator Product that does not comply with the Demodulator Compliance Requirements and Demodulator Robustness Requirements."

    The Demodulator Compliance Requirements insist that all HDTV demodulators must listen for the flag (or assume it to be present in all signals). Flagged content must be output only to "protected outputs" or in degraded form: through analog outputs or digital outputs with visual resolution of 720x480 pixels or less--less than 1/4 of HDTV's capability. Flagged content may be recorded only by "Authorized" methods, which may include tethering of recordings to a single device.

    The Demodulator Robustness Requirements are particularly troubling for open-source developers. In order to prevent users from gaining access to the full digital signal, the FCC ties the hands of even sophisticated users and developers. Devices must be "robust" against user access or modifications that permit access to the full digital stream. Since open-source drivers are by design user-modifiable, a PC tuner card with open-source drivers would not be "robust." It's not even clear that binary-only drivers would qualify.

    Together, these rules mean that future PVR developers will have to get permission from the FCC and/or Hollywood before building high-definition versions of the TiVo. The products that they do build will be epoxied against user experimentation and future improvement. The rules mean that open-source developers and hobbyists will be shut out of the HDTV loop altogether.
  10. Re:insightful flamebiat, you pick. by Jane_Dozey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Regular users don't really contribute that much to piracy. Lets ignore the people downloading things for a moment and concentrate on the uploaders (the real problem). The people distributing most of the content are "hard core" pirates. They are the one's who will be paying lots of money for ways to get around copyprotection (or manually doing it themselves). I should imagine that as soon as a method of getting around the broadcast flag is published every single one of the main rippers nd distributers will be using it widely and carrying like they are right now. Sure, home users wont be able to record off of the TV/Radio until startups start offering the hacks for a small fee, which wouldn't take too long.

    "DRM never has been about absolute control. It has, from its inception, been about making piracy enough of an inconvenience that regular user don't bother to do it."
    And they usually don't. They just get the material they want off of somebody else who does bother.
    DRM schemes ONLY stop regular users (and even then, only until someone writes up an easy to use program/utility that the public can use) while they are a mild inconvenience to the professionals.
    It only takes one unscrupulous person to make one DRM-less copy of something (be it actual material or a box that ignores DRM) and distribute it and then everybody can have a copy.

    I'm tired of the industry trying to use technology to solve a social problem.

    --
    Silly rabbit
  11. Same old story by Anonymous+Writer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They're focusing on how to prevent consumers from accessing material when they should be focusing on making it easier for consumers to pay for material. In the days of Napster's popularity, if the record companies decided to integrate a payment subscription system with high-speed downloading servers, then they wouldn't have to worry about piracy. People would pay to be able to download MP3s with no proper tags and no errors at the maximum speed their connections could handle rather than unreliable and unstable P2P sources. They could have worked on producing software for ISPs to use for automating the billing process. They could have bought into Napster during it's popularity and turned it into a subscription service, and even if other P2P applications were around, Napster had brand-name recognition that people would go for. But instead on focusing on how to use the technology's potential, they sent in the lawyers to block it. Brand name has more pull for consumers than cost-effectiveness. Just look at sneakers- people don't try to buy the cheapest ones around but go with expensive brand names instead.

  12. Best Move Ever! by Luscious868 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This would be the best move ever ... for open source that is. The minute my friends can no longer rip their CD's to mp3's, they'll ditch Windows and move on to something else. I'm serious. None of my friends are techies. They use their systems to browse the web, write email and the occasional word processing document and to manage their music and photo collections. If Microsoft ever were to cripple their OS in such a manner, they'd jump ship in a heartbeat. Especially if the alternative OS and supporting software is free and can be installed on their current systems.

  13. DRM and Star Trek: TNG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    You know, I just realized why, in TNG, they never listened to anything but classical music and never watched anything other than plays.

    Copyrights and analog locks trapped all modern culture in outdated media that ended up being lost to the ages.

    And people say that series lacked foresight.

    All I needed to know about digital rights, I learned from Star Trek.

  14. Dumb... Da Dumb Dumb! by webzombie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ok so these things called the PC were created and over time consumers really started to dig the FREE, or mostly FREE things they could do with them...

    Eventually this PC thing found a way to communicate with other PC things and then something wonderful happened... they all got connected and the internet was (re)born...

    Some new things were a little too close to breaking the law but were mostly tolerated because the big players... Microsoft especially were making and continue to make insanely gross amounts of money...

    This internet thing really started to catch on and consumers found LOTS of really cool uses for it. Email, games and sharing. Sharing jokes and greeting cards eventually became photos and music... in the meantime lots of folks realized that they didn't need big guys like Microsoft and they unleashed alternatives and Open Source software was (re)born... its mascot quickly became Linux.

    Back to the big guys... Most big guys missed the many opportunities the internet could offer their business models and instead turned to the "wise" politicians to see if this "sharing" thing could be stopped... The politicians thought long and hard and after a significant amount of cash-for-thought was spread around the DMCA was born.

    Ah the DMCA... pure genius... this gem makes tinkering, copying, sharing and most fair uses illegal... its pretty broad in scope and isn't well defined in intent but the big boys loved it because now they now had the perfect club to start smacking down any innovation that even appears to be threatening their empires.

    Well... all the money in Washington was just a bump in the road for free use, sharing and innovation so now the big boys have decided that everything must be locked down from start to finish... back to Washington for more spreading of the cash-for-thought and voila... the broadcast flag is born!

    This things is even more genius then most of the other road blocks to innovation any of the big boys could have thought of. The flag (required by ALL recording devices) will be controlled by whomever has the rights at the time... movie guys, software guys, distributors... hell even the cable guys can turn off recording access. Of course the cash spreaders assure this is NOT going to be the case but history proves otherwise. The flag will eventually bring us to the era of pay-per-recording at home... now how fuckin' sick is this concept. Oops... hope the charma cops were blinking!

    In the end what the legislators and big boys don't seem to realize is that without free and FAIR use and yes sharing, the internet would not have grow to its ginormous size and influence, without free and FAIR use and sharing the big boys like INTEL, Microsoft, game companies and even the movie boys would not have grow to such seemingly unstoppable empires... so if they take away the free and FAIR use of these technologies consumers will either find or create free and FAIR alterntives despite what laws these robber barons of the 21st century buy from those hopelessly corrupt legislators in Washington.

    There just doesn't seem logical that business is going to continue to grow by locking consumers out their right to fair use and by restricting access.

    In my country, copying and sharing for personal use is very much LEGAL and we still have BILLIONS made from the consumers herds. Yes, unfortunately there is still and large majority of the herd that doesn't realize the feed is free. Oh well... MOO!