Slashdot Mirror
RFID Tags for Digital Rights Management
mathemaniac writes "RFID Journal is running a story about a group of researchers at UCLA working on a new RFID application that would provide consumers a means of watching DVDs of movies as soon as they hit the theaters. It could also be used to address one of Hollywood's biggest concerns: piracy of digital content. The group is researching a method of using RFID as a tool for digital rights management (DRM), wherein technologies are employed to protect media files from unauthorized use."
I'm surprised that movie industry is not following up how pr0n industry can be so successful and profitable.
Being sophisticated and innovative in member management is one thing, but more importantly is the undeniable fact that pr0n industry actually produces something that viewers want to watch, maybe that is why people are paying to watch it. Pr0n is probably one of the most pirated product known to mankind, yet it's still a feasible business living through printed to digital materials.
There's a story about movie slump, the article mentioned that the industry needs something that can get people excited about going to the movies.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Hopefully, they'll use 40-bit encryption and rely on a proprietary algorithm as the principal means of ...
What do you mean it's already been done?
Oh well, back to the drawing board.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
RFID and DRM? Are they trying to send every geek on the planet apopleptic or something?
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
Release the movie on a regular DVD as soon as it hits theaters. There's a guy down the street from me who is already using this business model, and it seems to work.
"Rajit Gadh, professor in UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and director of WINMEC, says that the research going into the project is targeted at determining whether the concept is technologically feasible. `We're in the very early stages of this project--the first research stage'"
Someone care to explain to me how putting a RFID chip in a DVD could prevent a computer from reading the raw content of the disc and cracking that? I think it's been shown time and time again that DRM will be cracked, especially when the new technology can be attacked with conventional hardware.
Basically, reading the article this both seems technically impossible and a far way off.
On another note, if the MPAA really wanted the DVD to be available when the movie was in theatres, they'd just make it so now. But they're smarter than that; they know people won't pay twice for the same movie if both options are available at the same time.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
In 25 years, when either a large asteroid or WWIV decimates civilization, we will be back to caveman times.
You have a laptop with a manual which explains how to operate the local fusion power plant...but, you cannot authenticate with a Media Protection Regime server.
Ditto for the manual on agricultural methods, repairing that '69 Chevy, treating that bacterial infection, et cetera.
And besides that, all of society is headed towards renting everything: your home, your car, your movie collection, your books, even your underwear.
You buy Star Trek: TNG with RFID. You go to let your kids watch it in fifteen years, and guess what: Paramount decides that you thieving bastards watching those old episodes are cutting into the ratings of Star Trek: Braga Does Not Suck so they shutdown the authentication servers thus rendering your $5,000 collection of Star Trek history worthless.
Ford is really hurting in 2010, so, they stop authenticating the ignition sequence in your 2006 Ford Craptang that you have kept in spectacular shape.
Fruit-of-the-Loom wants you to buy new underwear, so, they turn off the authentication for your year old undies. Now, your washing machine will not run with these undies present.
You have been warned.
All this DRM technology will fail its intended purpose because the MPAA companies are trying to protect a 20th century marketplace that is fading ever more each day.
20th century film marketing was based on the pay-per-view model where a central facility (the movie theater) charged each person a fixed fee (the box office admission) for each showing of the film. It didn't matter which film was showing; customers paid the same entry fee. Unpopular product would not collect as many fees as a more-popular title.
In this model there is no price flexibility for the consumer. It's strictly take-it-or-leave-it. This model works when there is a limited number of viewing openings available (the seats in the theater) and limited product (one print of the film per theater and only a dozen copies of the film in the metro area).
This model fails when there is nearly unlimited product (all film titles from the past 50 years) on DVD or unlimited view openings. What happens in this type of market is that the consumers get to bid on what they will pay and the terms that they will pay for the product. The new technology has changed the marketplace by removing most of the previous restrictions. The new technology is not going away.
DRM is an attempt to force the previous market conditions onto the new business environment. The MPAA companies (the film studios) want to have the highly profitable previous marketplace conditions with the greatly expanded marketplace made available by DVD. Beaucoup bucks if you can make it happen.
But it won't work. What will happen if the MPAA companies actually get DRM to work is that the market for film product will shrink to a small percentage of what it is today.
Successfully integrating DRM into film industry product is not going to bring back the old way of presenting film entertainment product. It's just going to drive the current film consuming public into some other form of entertainment.
One of the reasons that parents are encouraged to read fairy tales to their children is that it is an effective way to get the collective wisdom of the ages passed on to the adults of the modern age who are too vain to listen to good advice coming from any other source. The fairy tale that the MPAA should pay attention to the story of the goose that laid golden eggs. This goose would lay one egg a day of pure gold. The villagers got greedy and decided to kill the goose, cut it open and get all the golden eggs that must be inside. This they did. And they found no gold inside. And they never got any more golden eggs.
Like the villagers, the film studios don't understand the new film market. Adding DRM to the product that is providing their golder eggs will be like killing the goose.
The real question is, how much is someone's work worth, in purely economic terms, to the person writing the check? If I were a producer and thought that Brad Pitt's name on my movie would be worth an extra $50 million in revenues, I'd be happy to write him a check for $10 million (numbers are pulled out of the air; I don't know what Pitt typically gets paid).
Yes, the $35,000-a-year teachers who teach kids to read are making a far greater contribution to society, but the fact is, their jobs aren't generating any "cash flow."