Slashdot Mirror
Give Your DVD Player The Finger
sebFlyte writes "Wired is reporting on some scary new DRM tech being developed. From the article: 'At the store, someone buying a new DVD would have to provide a password or some kind of biometric data, like a fingerprint or iris scan, which would be added to the DVD's RFID tag. Then, when the DVD was popped into a specially equipped DVD player, the viewer would be required to re-enter the data.'"
I like my idea for a bimodal hand geometry/voice recognition system better, me giving the MPAA the finger while telling them to "bite my shiny metal ass."
Zonk,
We all know you don't read Slashdot, but we assumed you were at least reading the stories you approved. I guess we were wrong!
RFID Tags for Digital Rights Management Posted by Zonk
Anyone who read Sunday's RFID Journal story and today's Wired story would realize they're about the exact same thing.
If you really did read the two stories, and your memory is this bad, maybe you should see a doctor?
"biometric data, like a fingerprint or iris scan, which would be added to the DVD's RFID tag."
Can I just use the finger that I found at Wendy's?
Seriously though, what if you wanted to buy a gift for somebody? This isn't going to work all that well.
How about on-line purchases? Would they take a 'sample' and keep it on file to encode something at a later time. Who is going to trust the security of that?
I don't see it happening.
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
I, for one, welcome our new finger-reading DVD-playing overlords.
A computer makes it possible to do, in half an hour, tasks which were completely unnecessary to do before.
that seems like a very user friendly system; way to go!
Couple quotes from TFA:
Unfavorable bovine comparisons notwithstanding, these two statements sum up nicely why this will never happen:
Add to all this the increased costs of manufacturing the 'specially equipped DVD players' mentioned in the article, and it's easy to see why this idea is a non-starter.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
such as this will never work. Because people will not buy products with this stuff on it.
I hope.
Meh.
And this is going to "save" how much money at the sake of convenience?
Looks like my collection of severed fingers FINALLY has a use!
So much hassle just to play a DVD? It'll never work. People are already used to the ease of using DRM-less DVD players already, they'll never switch to that.
I for one would go back to a VCR before submitting to this. Simply insane to think that I need to be treated like a thief when BUYING something they think I may STEAL later. (making available)
This is nuts.
No keyboard detected. Press any key to continue.
WHAT?!
if a disgruntled Wendy's customer severs my finger on the way home from the DVD store?
I sometimes think most people are sheep, but still I doubt they will put up with this.
Why not just use what they're already going to force on us. Make the DVD linked to your national ID.
"Please insert your ID card to play"
...what you are saying is you want to force another procedure on a wage slave who will, in all likelyhood mess it up royally ( because of being the affore mentioned wage slave ).
Right. You know, I'm all for worrying about my rights, but I think, at least in this, we are being far to paraniod for our own good. And in the process, giving your average walmart worker far too much credit.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
how could this be implemented in Emule ?
You'd have to keep running back to the DVD player every time they wanted to watch one of the 10,000 Disney and other assorted DVDs that they like to watch endlessly.
This is crazy talk, really, and really prevents the fair use rights we have now (loaning to friends, etc.)
Why don't they just sell tickets every time we want to watch a DVD? "They're $2 cheaper per viewing than going to the theater!"
So if I want to buy my cousin a DVD for her birthday, I'd either need to bring her with me or chop off her finger? Marvelous!
Then, when the DVD was popped into a specially equipped DVD player, the viewer would be required to re-enter his or her password or fingerprint. The system would require consumers to buy new DVD players with RFID readers.
The market has already proven this won't work.
Gadh said he could not reveal specifically how the system would work, as it is still in the research stage. A prototype will be available by the end of the summer, he said, and at that point, it will be shopped around to movie studios and technology companies.
Thanks for giving this company free advertising to the media conglomorates Wired/Slashdot, the market appreciates it!
When something strinkingly familiar was posted a couple of days ago here, I said almost exactly what I am going to say here: How does this product enable me to enact fair-use?
It doesn't.
I, for one, would never purchase a product that required this level of security for my home entertainment. The only time I would consider giving my fingerprint or some other biometric data would be for a HIGH security job.
I don't trust any person at electronics stores with my SS#, why would I trust them with more personal information?"Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats." --Howard Aike
Or optionally, if you happen to come across a finger in your Wendy's Chili, can you use that to watch their DVD collection?
I think I'd just give up watching movies completely, and read more. There's no way I'm providing biometric data for something I should have fair use rights to in the first place.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
This will be about as desired in the market as the DVDs designed to cloud over in 24 hours after being unsealed, or DIVX.
There's no compelling reason for consumers to agree to even more useless encumberance than we already face with CSS, Macrovision and region coding.
My kids have put about a million fingerprints on all my dvds.
Does it mean I would have to buy RFID tags for my old DVDs before I can watch them in this "new" player?
No matter the case. I wouldn't be buying DVDs or DVD players anymore.
I doubt it'll even get to market.
If I buy a teletubbies DVD for my kids I'll be damned if I have to demean myself to actually playing it for them!
I'd rather not be in the house at all when that sh*t is happening.
Pete
Won't they learn? people don't want players that have all this extra stuff on them.
Sure divx was a way to "rent" dvd's but it amounts to the same thing. People want to feel like they actually own a movie. Asking permission to watch a movie is not what the public wants.
Supplies!
I'm used to being able to do whatever I want with my current DVDs. I can take them to any region of the world and play them with no problem. If I want to fast-forward through the several minutes of commercials at the beginning of a DVD, no problem. If I want to make a backup copy in case the original gets destroyed, the movie companies have bent over backwards to make this easy.
DVDs have never been horribly crippled in any way in the past, so they shouldn't be in the future.
I'm a big tall mofo.
It's the sound of me not buying one of those DVD players. Woosh.
... until DVD Jon cracks this?
This would seem to be the same story covered here. It's been repackaged a lot in its passage round the news outlets, so I'm not surprised Zonk didn't spot it.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
So, after dad dies, I'm gonna hafta keep his finger around to view his pr0n collection? That's doubly creepy...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
i think using biometrics would be a little extreme, but if youre required to use a password, dont you think that the average use would just write it on the disc to remember it?
whats the point of this anyway?
I call Zonk's actions as an editor Flamebait. It's bad enough when editors don't read the site and post dupes, but it's a whole new level of ineptitude when editors can't be bothered to read the stories they approve.
it can be ripped. Give it up, people.
Talk about ways to make me want to buy a pirated disc.
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
This would screw over libraries. How sick.
this is getting ridiculous, what's next ? "ok sir, your credit card has been approved now please turn around, bend over and spread 'em" "Please press the 'play' button on your remote, then insert into rectum ...
Id accepted, please enjoy your movie."
God Curse America.
It seems like there are too many situations where it wouldnt work to actually be a positive thing. And what happens with blockbuster and netflix?
Sounds good. Should be at least as popular as DIVX.
The more steps you add to a intuitively simply process as popping in a CD and pushing play, the more annoyed end users will be. And the less likely they are to use your tedious product, on a subconcious level.
This will make the negative feelings surrounding systems like pay-per-view seem less so.
If they asked me to do that at the store, I can assure everyone its not my finger that would be brought out to be scanned...
I would think that would give a whole new definition to the phrase "pull my finger" when you want to lend the DVD to a friend to borrow. Ouch!
How ironic that www.boingboint.net linked to an article How to fake a fingerprint just yesterday ;)
It's not a practical technology. If the father purchases a dvd player for the family you can't reasonably expect that he'll be in the house every time somebody want's to play the dvd. I'm sure it's fun to work on such devices but it won't replace the existing systems in any major way.
-Tim Louden
the chance of this happening are about as good as the ipod and google disappearing in 5 years,
How about I give them a stool sample.
But seriously, how does this physical DRM safeguard actually do anything?
This only hurts the consumer by making the hardware and media more expensive. The common person that purchases DVDs isnt going to be the one that that copys them.
Just like CSS this new form of DRM will be cracked.
PRINT "Signature line broken."
GOTO 1
So, if this comes to pass, huge numbers of people will buy the DVD, take it home, enter their fingerprint ONCE, and rip it to a non-protected copy. Then, they'll just use the much-more convenient copy.
In other words, everyone will have and regularly use a DVD copier. And, once you're copying it for yourself, what's the difference if you make a few extra copies? Hey, while I'm sitting here, Aunt Martha might enjoy this movie too.....
"Hello?"
"Mommy, movie broke again."
"Honey, I told you that when I'm at work I cannot authorize, er unlock the movie for you."
"Mommy, I wanna watch my movie!"
"I know, sweetheart, but I can't come home until later. Please play with your toys until then, or let your older brother play one of his movies for you instead."
"Yuck! Hate "Kill, Kick, & Maim!" I wanna watch "Honeydumpling Sweethearts" again."
"I understand, but you'll have to wait."
"WAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
(Silently cursing DRM)
i really dont think this would fly. people arent going to want to buy a new player, plus what if you are going to a friends house for movie night? bring your player? yeah right.
always mosh clockwise
On a somewhat relative note, this will obviously be tracked to a centralized database and just think about the next time you have to get your security checked (for government workers) or background checked.
Employer : "I see you bought a porn last year, and you've been watching it everynight since the purchase date..."
nice, just nice.
This is horrible for sales. Mainly because giving a DVD for a gift is going to be a pain in the ass. Either you'd have to be there for them to watch it all the time, or somehow have THEM buy it... for their own gift...
...are you buying me another DVD?
"Honey, can I get your finger print before I go to the store?
My FINGER PRINT?
Uhh.... nooooo.... just uh...."
Ordinarily, I'm all for free scientific inquiry, but people like this really make me wonder sometimes. Does this kind of guy even think of the consequences to society before he starts assembling a new freedom-defeating device? I worry sometimes that RFID, biometrics, etc. researchers are going to usher in the true Big Brother era mostly through their own shortsightedness in only looking ahead to the next grant or journal article.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
Just buy a 6-pack of fake fingers with identical prints. Leave one next to each player, give them to your friends, etc. Time to trademark and register phakephinger.com
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
The requirement for fingerprints means that I no longer travel to the US, and they think they can require it in order to watch "Friends"? Barking mad!
Can I choose the middle one ?
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
How would this reasonably work for DVD rentals? I sense we have another divx (the bad kind of the later 1990s) here and customers will tell them which finger they can have: ..|..
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
Buy the DVD, hook it up to a VHS machine and hit record. Then transfer the movie from the VCR using a computer and burn your pirated DVD.
http://www.evolver.ca/
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
drm is dos = DOA my money, my way, or the highway - just ask my former cable company
That would be the last thing I'd waste my hard earned money on. I'd rather buy a DVD player/burner combo that supports multiple formats, is faster, DRM free, and based on open standards.
This would've been a great idea (for the MPAA) if they thought of this BEFORE everyone already owned a dvd player or two.
It was called DivX (not to be confused with the encoding scheme) circuit city was tried launching it at the same time as normal DVDs. In case you forgot, you paid around $10 for a DVD and old watch it for 2 days, if you wanted to watch it again you could pay $5 and watch it for 2 more days, o pay another $10 to unlock the video forever.
People hated it, the only remnent is a character on penny-arcade.
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
are not in the middle east, they are in the universities and companies of USA who think of fasicst schemes like that are acceptable
Mommy, Mommy, can I borrow your finger tonight, I want to watch all my new movies.
Quid Pro Quo, nothing more, nothing less.
No, not that DIVX, the old Rent-a-DVD-that-phones-home DIVX.
That was less intrusive, and it flopped because people didn't buy it.
I'll bet this new technology doesn't get even as far as DIVX did.
Trade Secrets, and screener movies possibly, but NOT comercial DVD movies.
Maybe comercial software activation.
Get a free ipod.
I'm sure the MPIA/RIAA are going to be all over this.
Perhaps this is being nitpicky, but it's worth pointing outh that "Fair Use" (and parody for that matter) are not "rights," per se. Only authors/creators of the work (not the public) are granted rights under the Copyright Act.
As a dotrine, Fair Use is an affirmative defense to a claim of infringement. This means the person claiming Fair Use has the burden of proving that their actions did not constitute infringement.
The obvious problem, if you are defending an infringement claim is that it is extremely expensive to succssfully raise a Fair Use or Parody defense, which, if it fails, causes the heavy hammer of infringement and all its penalties falls down upon you. Because of this, it's common to hear, "Yes, it's probably fair use. You will spend a billion dollars to get a chance to prove that." Just ask these guys .
Bush Lies On the Record.
this will never happen. it's not illegal to let someone borrow your dvd without you being there.
ill believe this a little more when we get iris scans in airports for HOMELAND security.
poor poor big companies need better security technology than airports.
"Freedom and Justice for All" is a registered trademark of The United States Govt Inc. Not available in all areas.
Well, it could be worse.
It could be an iris scan!!!
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
The idea is insane. It will never work. Among all the other reasons, is that they would hamstring their own industry. I believe that a significant margin of DVD sales are for gifts. I have only ever bought a DVD as a gift and all of my DVDs (all 4 of them) were gifts. If you need biometrics to play them then the gift system breaks down.
The notion will never gain traction. It's quite stupid.
I doubt it will be used for retail DVDs as it wouldn't be cost-effective.
However, it may yet be useful in securing workprints and pre-release copies. That would decrease bootlegging. A workprint of Star Wars III hit the BitTorrent networks yesterday. You can be sure George is looking to employ this technology when he makes his next Indiana Jones.
....there will be no way for anyone to pirate the DVDs, right?
So then the price of DVDs should drop to $5-$10 a pop, RIGHT MPAA?
YOUR NOT LOSING YOUR MONEY ANYMORE RIGHT? SO THE PRICE WILL BE REASONABLE, RIGHT YOU PRICKS?
Where's the Tylenol?
Vol~
Maybe there should be a .. erhm .. different biometric sampler for those.
A. When I provide this data, do I get a complimentary gun with each purchase, I provided enough data.
B. People leave their fingerprints all over the DVD's I rent, rendering them pretty unusable until you clean them, so they do not have problems with leaving their prints I would say.
C. Does this player also play my old DVD's or do I have to buy the DVD's I already have again just to be able to play them (paying double, or since I live in the Neterlands: Triple, they also charge me an amount on empty datacarriers just in case I might copy something, hum, does that not make it legal to copy, I already paid for it anyway.)
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
Me not having hands, will I be able to buy DVDs in the future?
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
This has already been cracked... With gelatin!
I can see it now: Street corner DVD pirates will be providing gelatin finger-keys with each DVD they sell.
Why is it though, that organizations made up of seemingly intelligent people will spend so much time and money coming up with crap noone will want?
Who in the hell is going to be willing to go through a fingerprint scan or whatnot in order to purchase a DVD? How about anal probes for people buying books while we're at it?
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
On second thought, I hope the MPAA does this, so a huge class-action lawsuit against the MPAA is filed on behalf of all the people who can't use it. And another class-action suit for all the sellers who loose business because of it. And another by the EFF or whoever on behalf of consumers in general. We could be looking at several billion dollars here, all told.
Free MacMini
All that just to buy and watch a DVD? Certainly not. I'd sooner switch back to VHS than go with a system like that. It won't work, hopefully. I'll be damned if it does.
Should not be a problem in a few years time: just say who your are buying it for and the shop will look ker DNA up on a database and encode from that.
Maybe this is the real push for biometric data - not 9/11 and national security and that sort of rubbish.
How can this possibly work with Blockbuster or Netflix? The cost of shipping their clerk to your house with the DVD will be too high for them to make a profit. Have you seen how fat those movie store guys can get? On the other hand, I already have a huge idea to market. Synthetic fingers. You can pirate DVDs for free, but charge the users $100 to purchase the rubber finger that unlocks the movies.
/. ++
The only use i can think this is for is for limited releases, like the previews for the oscars. Not for ordinary home use i would think.
...since Negativland had never sold more than 15,000 copies of any release...
They are selling something. I'm just trying to backup my media, remove advertisements, and put it on portable media.
There are so many situations where this wouldn't work.
1) What if you have a family?
2) What if you die? (or no more iris)
3) What if you want to sell your DVD?
4) What if you forget your password?
5) What if...
There are millions of "what if" type situations. Also, while my grandmother is trying to figure out how to get the DVD player to work... a million kids will be downloading the movie via the internet.
To enjoy a movie these days, we got to put up with all kinds of shyt. As if those damn stickers being on all 3 sides of the case wasn't annoyance enough, now there's a push for this?
:(
Why don't we just start shooting the fking pirates instead of pansy-foot'n around them!?
Fking bastards. Should fking burn every one of them.
I wouldn't buy it.
It's time to return to my little library of books, which are light, were cheap, are deeper than DVDs or CDs, and don't accuse me every time I interact with them.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Every gives the same password. "00000"
No way in hell will a fingerprint check fly.
If that didn't sell, how in the hell do they think they can force this s***t down our throats?
How do they imagine this would work for rentals? Would you be required to give your fingerprint at the local Blockbuster in order to rent a movie, and if so, how are they securing that data? What about Netflix and other online rental schemes?
Their goal is to tie personal information to a DVD so if your caught copying it they can track you down. In order for that to work, they would have to cover all possible outlets and I just dont see how they can do that with the current market.
Entered the United States lately from a country not on the A-list? It's just your fingerprint, why are you worried?
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???
At the moment all people are hearing is that a few nerds are getting arrested for pirating dvds and music and that pirating dvds and music is BAD. 6 months ago I was talking to my girlfriends dad. He was harping on about how evil pirating music and dvds is, and that they should throw the book at them. 2 months ago I got him a mac and taught him how to use iTunes. Last night he asked me how he could share his iTunes with me so that we didn't have to buy the same disc/aacs twice, like he used to do with tapes. He didn't see the connection between doing that and piracy. Now he cares. He feels that his right to share music within 'the family' are being restricted. I also bought them a DVB-T box. He's annoyed that he can't watch one channel and record another, like he's always been able to... I wonder how long it will be until he starts to want to know how I do it.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
- my wife bought a DVD I want to watch, but she's already asleep. Now I'll have to wake her up, won't I? ... oh wait a minute ... ... and my DVD collection too ... ... and throw in the garbage bin cursing the RIAA
- I had an accident and my thumb is in plaster. I don't have to go to work now. I wouldn't be able to, would I? Huray! Now I have plenty of time to watch the 135 DVDs I bought last year but never had time to watch because I'm too busy at work
- I had an accident and lost my arm
- My uncle has deceased. He had a collection of 1000 DVDs (15,000 dollar) which I'm happy to inheret
Yeah, I'm positive this will work!
Tristan.
They're not altering the data that people are actually interested on the disk at all, so it's not going to make anything they don't want you to do any more difficult. I suppose with a little cryptographic craziness they could require the identification method to coerce a key out of the RFID tag, but it seems like the logistics of all of that would be something of a nightmare. Unless they're pressing each individual disc encrypted with a unique key, which is then loaded into the RFID tag, it just wouldn't actually get them anything more than what they have now. And unless manufacturing technology has changed wildly, it seems like that alone would greatly increase the cost of the actual production not to mention introduce a vast array of potential problems.
I believe this DRM will not last long. Why? Because it violates the First Sale Doctrine. As this system is presented now, it clearly is designed to deny the users to rent or sell their DVDs, which is a violation of the First Sale Doctrine.
-Valen
I would just take up reading or indi films. Maybe go out side:-) The funniest part of this is people would still be pirating them and selling them on the street in the city. All they would be doing is creating a better market for parates and once again burdening and invading the privacy of consumers.
=1000101
Forget about that even. Who will want to go through this trouble for buying it for themselves? If this tech gets used, it will no doubt be heavily boycotted.
Bullish Machine Tzar
Tinfoil hat aside ... remember when it was {of|by|for} the people?
Where can I pick up a hunting permit for lobbyists?
remember when it was {of|for|by} the people?
I'll scan my finger print, rip it to avi and post the torrent?
First they try to obliterate fair-use in the name of a wild chase to stop copyright infringement and now they are plotting to indirectly do the same again with the second-hand market.
In both cases, "pirates" will find a way around whatever barriers they try to put up, online infringement will still keep going nearly unaffected but now, legit end-upsers would have lost both fair-use right and whatever fair market value that would otherwise be associated with second-hand sales... with this, one could not even lend media to friends/family.
I hope enough people have enough commonsense to walk away from any such products to make these schemes into commercial failures.
And, come to think of it, what would give the lovely folks at the RIAA the right to require fingerprint ID from minors? Hmm. I'm going to be 17 for the rest of my life.
This reminds me of a story from a while back about HP's technology to blur faces in digital cameras ... provided by HP and specifically designed to accept this crippling instruction. If only specially equipped DVD players require this new level of authentication, why buy a specially equipped DVD player? (The possibility of this `special equipment' being required by law seems small (though maybe I'm being overly optimistic). If the broadcast flag was overturned, surely this can be too?)
How would blockbuster handle the rental of ANY DVD if this crap was allowed to pass?
Profanity is the language all programmers know best.
Up until now, the only thing that's been preventing the movie industry from ending up like the music biz has been the sheer size of decent digital copies and the bandwidth required to move them around. Eventually (within the next 5 - 10 years I'd guess), those hurdles will be gone and perfect (enough) digital copies will be freely available just like music is today, HD DVD / whatever nonwithstanding. An idea like this (ignoring the obvious inconvenience to the consumer for a minute) won't work once people get directly at the data and take the physical media out of the equation. It is inevitable -- just like has happened with music and photographs -- that video, print, and just about all other forms of communication move from physical to inherently more flexible digital formats. It's just a matter of exactly how soon that will happen.
Man, now all the torrent sites are gonna have to start offering bodyparts as well. Things are gonna get nasty.
All of this would change the ability of a consumer to resell an object they've legally purchased.
DVDs instead of being an object you'd 'bought' and own and can do anything will become something you've licensed like software and don't get to do anything with it when you're done.
I'll stop using technology and move to a monastery long before I'll give my )#$*% thumb-print to turn on a DVD or somesuch. This is patently absurd, and I really hope that the consumer market rejects any such plan.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Consider this: if you don't like what they're selling, then don't buy it. Instead of talking about how bad these people are, why don't we organize a boycott of DVDs for a month? How hard could it be? This would be the first step to telling Hollywood that we don't need to buy DVDs to be happy. There's more to life than DVDs and DRM.
``You can't watch the movie that Daddy bought you because he's still on his business trip and won't be back until next week.''
Oh, yah. That equipment will go over real big with the movie buying public.
One has to wonder whether most people developing technology like this have any clue whatsoever about what life in the Real World(tm) is actually like.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
At one time, people had alcohol. Then it was taken away. Normal, everyday people still obtained alcohol and it was eventually made legal, again.
People will not give up normal, uninhibited behavior for restrictions unless they believe there is a more valuable benefit to themselves, not an industry. I fail to see any benefit to the consumer here. This will fail... miserably.
They need to make things EASIER and more attractive to the consumer, not less!
If a restrictive, half-baked scheme like this went through, it'd be easier to buy the damn media, and then download a cracked copy off your favorite p2p so you can easily view the movie you paid for on your laptop.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Cheetos render the
night's entertainment futile.
Oh, this plan will fail.
If something like this were adopted industry-wide (admittedly HIGHLY unlikely) then people would be faced with the same three choices they have today:
1)comply - fairly Big Brotherish, but probably the majority response.
2)evade - break the protection to legally or illegally watch DVDs without oversight.
3)tune out - skip the whole deal and go back to reading... or maybe TV.
I wonder how far this stuff would have to go before people would choose option 3?
"Honey, I need your left eyeball, your left ear, and your left index finger. I'm going shopping for your birthday present, and I want to make sure whatever it is I buy matches your eyes, fits on your finger, and doesn't look too tribal." See? Nothing to it. No suspicions aroused.
I will stop watching movies at home first.
I think a lot of people will. I guess they just don't get it. If you make it TOO big of a pain in the ass those lovely boxed sets that you sell will stay on the shelf.
Hey I have bought boxed sets of shows I really liked just because I wanted them. I could have downloaded them but what the heck.
I guess it is time for me to get that TV card and start recording "King of the Hill", Futurama, Battlestar, and what ever else I want to keep.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
> Seriously though, what if you wanted to buy a gift for somebody?
That's a good point, I wonder if they've thought of that. I buy a few DVDs, but I receive more as gifts.
Or what about kiddy movies, little Junior wants to watch his Disney movie while Mom and Dad who bought the DVD are away and he's stuck home with a babysitter.
I take it that soon it should be illegal for me to lend the DVD I paid for at the store to a friend?
You're right, this is going to work out very well.
According to article you can give a password instead of fingerprint or iris scan. So you can add that password to your gift note. You can fall in to embarrasing positions though; "Happy new year! Here's password: sex"
Let's see here, Grandma buys the kids a Disney DVD for Christmas, but the kids can't play it unless Grandma comes over for a visit to have her iris scanned. Wow, these guys are really thinking.
Hmm... let's not be -too- paranoid. The practical uses for this are probably more along the lines of people who are sending out Oscar filmclips to be rated, or governmental video files that they don't -want- to be distributed.
Anyone with 1/2 a brain or a marketing degree can see that consumers would -not- put up with a product they can't give as gifts, and more importantly the impact it would have on sales.
Plus we can present the MPAA with our best face.
Listen, stories like this are more about selling technology to a frightened industry than it is about a valid technique to save that industry. These people are scared to death about losing money in the way the music industry has and, much like the music industry, will entertain just about every hair-brained customer frustrating technology they encounter. Needless to say the music industry is still around and is still being forced to reinvent itself in a way that benefits the consumer and artist more.
-_-
I simply wouldn't buy them.
The finger-in-the-food story about Wendy's was a scam. That lady has a history of suing fast food companies for putting body parts in her food. Please don't continue to spread this FUD that Wendy's doesn't deserve.
In order to fake a fingerprint, one needs an original first. Latent fingerprints are nothing but fat and sweat on touched items. Thus to retrieve someone elses fingerprint (in this case the fingerprint you want to forge) one should rely on well tested forensic research methods. Which is what's to be explained here. (Figure 1).
A good source of originals for our counterfeits are glasses, doorknobs and glossy paper. The standard method of forensic research makes them visible: Sprinkling it with colored powder, which sticks to the fat (Figure 2).
Another solution involves Cyanoacrylat, the main ingredient of superglue. A small amount thereof is poured into a bottlecap, which is then turned upside down and put over the fingerprint. (Figure 3).
The Cyanoacrylat gasses out and reacts with the fat residue to a solid, white substance (Figure 4).
The further treatment involves scanning/photographing (Figure 5) and a bit of graphical refurbishment (Figure 6).
The goal is to get an exact image of the fingerprint, for further use as mold, out of which the dummy is made. The easiest way is to print the image on a transparency slide (the ones normally used for an overhead projector) with a laser printer. The toner forms a relief, which is later used similar to letter press printing. Wood glue is suitable for producing the dummy (Figure 7)
A small dash of glycerene may be used to optimize humidity and workability. After thorough mixing, the dummy gets coated with a thin layer of the compound (Figure 8,9).
After the glue has dried (Figure 10), it is pulled off the foil (Figure 11) and is cut to finger size.
Theatrical glue is used to glue the dummy onto the own finger (Figure 12).
The new identity is ready!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
How about a biometric system that combines single center-digit/voice/ass-print recognition? That way, you could give them the finger, the "bite my shiny metal ass," and the shiny metal ass-print for their viewing pleasure? That would be more secure, right?
The whole thing is ludicrous...for a second, I seriously thought I'd been dreaming the last month-and-a-half and that it's really April 1.
picpix image polls. create - share - vote. fun!
1) everyone must buy a new DVD player.
2) only the person who purchased the DVD can play it, so forget buying DVDs as gifts or picking up the latest inane Spoogebob Squatpants for the kids-- they gots ta' buy it theyselves!
3) every DVD retailer is going to have to buy and maintain a bunch of MPAA approved RFID writer/biometric reader devices
4) WHOOPS! No way to record biometric data at home! DVD sales over the internet are impossible
5) "What do you mean, I can't sell this DVD on half.com?" Simple transfer of ownership is now IMPOSSIBLE!
Great idea, guys! People will eat it right up, I'm sure! "What? a large and onerous encumberance with no upside for me? Oh yeah, sign me up for that!" Buncha' freakin' tards...
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
This keeps them working on something the we know will not be accepted...which keeps them off the stuff that may be.
Error reading device 'Signature'. (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?
but but ... I was born without arms!
Tristan.
The proliferation of stupid uses of fingerprints is just going to backfire & render all uses insecure.
This article describes how easy is would be to make back up copies of all the fingerprints you would need to fool these devices. All you need is a relatively clean copy of a print...
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/05/16/gummi_bear s_defeat_fingerprint_sensors/
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
I can't see the public buying it. Do you remember DIVX? DVDs that automatically degrade after 48 hours? Me neither; they all crashed in flames, because the DRM was too intrusive. The public will put up with a certain amount of unintrusive DRM, like that in current DVDs, but when it gets in-your-face they reject it. And this is about as in-your-face as it gets: what happens when the kids are being baby-sat but Dad buys the DVDs? Every family would have to make a list of who bought which DVDs so as to know which finger to give the machine.
There is no way the public would touch this with a barge pole - I can see it being useful for oscar pre-releases etc. but if the firm that came up with the idea thought it had any mass-market potential they need their heads examining.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
...who are saying consumers won't accept this, I say bullshit. You or I don't want to accept it, granted. But most consumers take whatever they're given, and follow along like giant herds of little sheep.
It's an unfortunate fact, Jack.
There are several comments about it only taking one person to break the system to make it essentially useless. No one has pointed out(perhaps I missed it) that it would also take only one company refusing to participate to break the system also. If I could buy at least some content that I was interested in on non-broken media, I would likely ignore all broken media. I imagine there are many people who would do likewise(there are certainly plenty of other people who don't care about broken media-see iTunes music store), and if there were enough of us, other companies might notice that company a was making quite a bit more money than they were, or at the very least had better margins.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I agree. Not gonna fly. Too much inconvenience for the user and not a large enough whip to make sure the consumer electronics manufacturers don't provide an unofficial work-around.
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
Good grief.. I find it very difficult to believe that anyone would be willing to subject themselves to a scheme like this, just to play a DVD. (Not to mention the difficulty of implementing such a scheme for discs bought from, say, Amazon.) The RIAA (et al) seems to be doing everything in its power to speed the acceptance, adoption and spread of technologies like BitTorrent and other P2P/darknet protocols. The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again!
While the people who manufacture most of this hardware, will be quite happy to sell crazy cripple-ware into the US market, there is no way that they will try and foist it on the Asian market, and probally not onto the Euro market, as people will not buy it.
Slashdotter's will also have no issues with importing and installing proper hardware for their personal and families use.
Asian manufacuters will make what people want to buy, and will maintain their healthy disregard to trying to enforce an outdated business model by technological means.
Someone needs to explain U.S. != World
These people so don't get it !
This is NOT a signature.
Aren't the checkout lines long enough as it is?
n -that-uniform-can't-get-laid-arrogant-bastard.
You have the guy trying to hock extended warranties at the register... after you get through that you have to hear about how you can save 10% on your purchase by applying for a store credit card at an ungodly 25%, and no I will not give you my phone number, and no I will NOT sign for my DVD you smarmy-hate-your-minimum-wage-job-lookin'-dorky-i
Bad morning. Sorry.
My sig sucks.
...all of 12 of these things.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
If my only option was to buy a DVD with this "feature" I'd rather be without the DVD.
The annoying parts that you can't skip, are already bothering me. So would the entire family have to be added to the DVD? And when you have some friends over to watch a movie, it has to be me who inserts it in the player, not a big thing but put all the things together and it is enough for me to not wanting it. I don't need any more stuff that requires password and other kinds of security.
I am not a big DVD buyer anyway, so I guess I would be happier with the dollar.
Walter Sobchak: You want a toe? I can get you a toe, believe me. There are ways, Dude. You don't wanna know about it, believe me.
;)
The Dude: Yeah, but Walter...
Walter Sobchak: Hell, I can get you a toe by 3 o'clock this afternoon... with nail polish.
Just had to think of that
Stop making that big face!
http://fud.slashdot.org/? tid=172&tid=97&tid=155&tid=158
It works, you can change your bookmarks to the correct uri:
http://fud.slashdot.org/it/05/05/19/1221226.shtml
Cmon, surely this is a joke.......
A large percentage of the movie industry's profits comes from rentals. They'd lose money on this.
Hey, that sounds good. I hope they do this.
Those are good examples. Like I've said before, DRM and other copy-protection schemes are good choices for those who can choose them. We should be not at all concerned when, say, a pre-released piece of consumer media is subject to DRM.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
I completely agree. Despite the tinfoil hat commentary of the poster, I think this would be remarkably good at securing data, and its use in military and industrial applications is actually not a bad idea. Like most security technologies, though, the downside is the human factor. No doubt the technology to strip this sort of scan will be developed, once it is reverse-engineered.
However, to think that the next DVD you buy or that next CD you purchase will require you to input a fingerprint scan is very far fetched. There would be an uproar from consumers.
I think the 48-hour DVDs failed more because people didn't like the idea of throwing away that much. Most people that I talked to said this almost immediately: "Think of how much additional trash there would be." The next thought was usually wondering about what happens if the seal breaks before you intend to open it, and then eventually they might get around to wondering about something related to security. A clever few figured it would be a cheap way to get the copies -- buy one of these legit, and then rip it/copy it.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Just out of interest, which countries are on the A-List. I went over to the US from the UK recently, and still had to undergo the full swathe of fingerprints, questions, and being watched by 4 armed troopers just because I had long hair.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Remember how successful Microsoft's 'Paladium' and 'Passport' intiatives were in the consumer market?
I give this about as much a chance of lasting as a snowball's chance in hell.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
And the authors/creators of the work aren't entitled to natural rights, only artificial rights the public bestowed on them in the name of public good. The system is abused now, it needs to change.
So at any moment in time we must keep asking: "Is it worth sacrificing this much freedom and privacy for the kind of creativity we receive in return?" When my DVD player asks me for my fingerprint before I can watch Monster-in-Law my personal opinion is that maybe we have sacrificed too much for the sake of 'creativity'.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
While I concur that this is a stupid plan, could you elaborate on the "treated like a thief" theme that I see so often on slashdot?
You treat most people like theives. More accurately, you treat them like they could be thieves. You lock your car and your house, because you don't trust people you haven't met. When you rent a car or a movie they go to great lengths to assure you'll give it back. You assume people are thieves because it's easier than getting your stuff back later.
When you say "treat them like thieves", the image is of throwing somebody in jail. That's not the case here.
I gotta admit, in this case the cliche looks perilously close to accurate. Taking fingerprints IS treating somebody more like a thief than a potential thief. That's a bit of a coincidence (just because it's one way to take an ID used in both processes, but they're not fingerprinting you like a thief gets fingerprinted.) But it's still incredibly, and overly, invasive.
My gist is that I don't think of DRM as "treating somebody like a thief" any more than I think of locking your house as treating people like thieves. This plan is stupid, and I'm sure not buying it, and it would never happen because the technology would be wildly inconvenient and insufficiently accurate.
But I've happily bought DRMed songs from Apple and I'd buy DRMed movies. When you buy a DRMed song you're giving them a "fingerprint", just one that's tied to your computer rather than a permanent part of you (which is the real stupid part of this plan.) I'd prefer non-DRMed ones, just in case I wanted to make a backup or use it in a different medium, but I sure understand why they don't want to see their material given away for free over the Internet, and go to some lengths to ensure it. Fingerprints are stupid, but I'm not opposed to a less invasive plan.
Most EU countries with exception of the UK are A-List.
...and in light of that new shit, I think I'll be investing in trackerless Bittorrent rather than a DVD player.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Tying biometrics with Copyright Material, with network verifications....
This assumes that ANYBODY who wants to buy material (movies) also has an "always on" internet connection.
Not true.
This assumes that the purchaser is the end user.
Not true.
This assumes the replacement of millions of DVD players.
Not true (unless extra features are supplied - eg HD DVD).
The assumes that First Sale rights will be eliminated, and people won't notice.
Not true (even Blockbuster "buys back" DVDs).
Schools, institutions and libraries won't be able to purchase the material -- it will be useless to them. Not even families (hey, *I* buy Lion King, but the *kids* load it and watch it -- and I am not even necessarily in town).
Individuals only.
The product sold (well, not sold in this case) has less value. It should cost a lot less. In which case it MIGHT play. Effective pricing? If I can currently purchase a movie for $20, and I can sell the movie to Blockbuster for $5, the new format can cost no more than $15.
Further, the inability to use as a gift item means it is purely a personal purchase (even the kids can't use it). My wife sets my "discretionary foolish purchase" limit at $10. So, it can't be more than $10.
Now, I expect them to subsidize part of my Internet bill. Knock off a couple of bucks for that, as well as an incentive to purchase a new player.
There you go; I am willing to spend $5 for a new movie in that format -- TOPS.
Will that play?
Ratboy
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
.. for a rival system which requires you to drop your trousers and bend over in front of the DVD player at which point the player inserts a rusty three-inch diameter metal probe up your anus. The purpose of this is not to take DNA smaples in order to enable you to watch the DVD but just so the MPAA can se how far they can abuse the public before they object...
They already have plans for a 5-inch model...
I think theres a great market for this type of thing. Give these special DVD players to the people who get the Acadamy screeners, then encode the screeners apropriately. Sure the video out can still be copied and recorded, but at that point it would be trivial for the player to watermark the video out with some identifying data for the legitimate owner.
I think this could work in limited distribution, protected content, non-consumer situations.
paul reinheimer
At present very few people are licensed to lend DVD's or CD's. That's a standard part of the "No part of this work may be begged/stolen/borrowed/lent/resold in a different cover without permission of the copyright holder, which is rarely granted (for full applications, complete correct forms available from basement toilet/store room guarded by the leopard)" line.
Point A.
Retailers will never deploy the devices needed to add biometric sigs at every retail outlet.
Point B.
Can you imagine what it would be like a t Xmas time with 2-300 poor schmucks lined up to get RFID'd.....
Point C.
Remeber what happened to DIVX.....
I mean, do they put out press releases like this one so that people like us can provide them with free insightful feedback? Way to get a free think-tank. "Hmm, wonder how the geek crowd will react to this? Should we pay a think-tank? Naw, let's just make sure we get on slashdot."
Seriously... if only some of your dvds are RFID-DRM'd, meaning your play will play non-RFID-DRM DVDs, then just disable the RFID tag in a DVD and viola, no thumb print needed.
There's a fantastic business model waiting for exploitation here.
I'm going to patent it and call it "Don't treat your customers like crap".
I'm going to corner the market! It's so obvious, and yet NOBODY is doing it!
"Can I just use the finger that I found at Wendy's?"
No, but for $9.95, I'll sell you a slip-on finger you can use to purchase your DVD and unlock your DVD player.
Since all of these fingers will have the exact same fingerprint, problem solved.
Seriously, this is the stupidest DRM idea ever. No, make that stupidest so far.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
Iris scanners arent cheap, atleast not yet. The store selling dvds with this kind of drm would have to train the personnel to use the new expensive gizmos, which costs money too. Some store owners are so cheap (applies atleast in !USA) they dont want to accept credit cards just because it costs them 1% or a bit more extra.
An interesting question is how is this supposed to work when buying on-line? Rentals? Libraries?
And the obvious: how long will it survive until it gets obsoleted by cracks and mods?
Waste of time and waste of money.
However, I think there's a market for bio-metric access control to DVD-RW media, especially if well done. "Well done" would include good key management, so that an access control list of authorized users and/or machines and/or time limits could be set up, and dynamically revised.
Imagine you're with Mega-Big Legal Co., and you're working with the New York and San Francisco offices of your client on the Big Case/Merger/Whatever. They're sending you huge sets of digital documents, and it would be really realy bad if the wrong people (like the opposing law firm in the building across the street) got access. Sure, everything could be encrypted, but then a disgruntled/greedy staffer/intern/paralegal could burn an image and grab the key that the administrative assistant writes down, and sells it...
The market is limited; encryption and secure databases will cover a lot of needs much better, but for things that have to cross organizational boundaries (or for the truly paranoid), it might be a Good Thing(TM).
Worst Idea Ever.... or, if you like, Hell Fuck No!
Logic is the beginning of reason, not the end of it.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha....
Iris scan? Ahahahahahahahahaha!
RFID tag? Bwahahahahahahahahha!
What, they're serious? This is WAY, WAY OVER my threshold for hassle I'll go through for playing DVDs. I cannot express in words just how much I don't care enough to go through this.
Let me put it this way. If the only way I could watch TV or films was by buying these DVDs, I still wouldn't even vaguely consider it. Not a bit. Nope, not at all.
I can't be alone in this feeling, right?
How is being forced to sit through 15 minutes of previews, many for DVDs that I already own, every time I insert a disc unintrusive?
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
...permanent marker around the edge, you insensitive clods!
If they're this paranoid delusional, then how long until they try biometrics that can't be fooled because they use DNA, thermal, and bioelectrics as well as print patterns?
"Sorry sir, but your DNA marks you as likely to copy this DVD and share it online. You will have to buy something in your allowed purchase group."
This is a king-size case of not getting it on par with Jack Valenti's take on the VCR, the recording industry's take on the cassette recorder, and the Internet industry's obsession with Portal Kombat in the late nineties.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
I'm happy with my unencumbered Philips DVP-642 player that cost me $59 USD from WalMart. It plays all the Xvid and Divx files that I can download. The macrovision and region coding didn't work because of an early firmware release, but that's Ok, I'll live with it.
I don't need to be fingerprinted every time I watch TV.
Not everything can be reverse-engineered effectively. As far as I know the latest DirecTV encryption technology hasn't been broken yet, and it's been out for a while. Then again, maybe it can be broken (or has been broken) but it's just easier for people to hack another provider's encoding/encryption scheme.
I don't know what these DVD-thing-a-ma-jiggies are, but unless they remove TV outputs from my laptop, or inputs from my TV, I'll watch movies and eat popcorn with or without my fingers or eyeballs... err... wait...
...Never.
That sounds like a pretty big chunk-o-change to throw out the window. Not even the MPAA is that stupid.
maybe.
-S
You've spelled out what record and movie companies *wish* were true.
No, when you buy a CD or DVD, you are legally entitled to sell it, give it, whatever. You just aren't allowed to *copy* it. Hence the word "copyright".
The basic property rights are that when I own something, I have the right to dispose of it as I wish, or resell it to someone who wants it.
How am I supposed to exerce my right to sell it if I cannot re-record easily new biometrics data for the buying party? And what if the buying party wants to offer the thing to some other third party? (this applies to first hand purchases by the way).
Looks like a dream that will never fly in practice.
Instead of limiting our rights and trying to make copying increasingly more difficult, why not make it less interesting for people to actually copy the thing?
Obviously, there is Demand for movies, but the price is set to high (so that the firm captures profit). Maybe reducing the price would allow demand and offer to meet and reduce copying to a marginal level. There would be less profits, that's for sure.
There are laws against monopolies because in a monopoly, a firm sets the quantities and the prices in such a way that it maximizes its profits. And since that is not good for society as a whole, anti-monopolistic laws exist.
Perhaps there should be laws against firms that try to extract more profit out of the goods they sell than the ones they should be entitled to in a normal competitive situation? Utopia, I know, but this is just to show that there is something that is not right in the way those businesses are run: they clearly have more power to make profit than the ones they would get in a purely competitive market.
Instead of a finger can I substitute my penis?
What if you don't have fingers?
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
my dad's *incenced* he can't fast forward through commercials. when he puts a dvd of cartoons on for his new granddaughter, they both have to sit through around 10 minutes of adverts and trailers before it starts - this is a *long* time to an 18 month old's attention span.
solution? burn an unencrypted copy using dvdshrink, and then they can fast forward to their heart's content - and also it doesn't matter if little'un scratches the disk.
This will not go very far considering it would destroy the DVD rental market. We are many, many years from everyone just downloading or gaining all video content on demand, so I can't imagine the movie studios will jump on a protection product that may destroy a huge portion of their revenues.
From a biz standpoint this just doesn't make sense for many other reasons, not the least of which is resentment by the population. This sort of thing gets legislation drawn up and passed.
http://killbill.movies.go.com/images/wallpaper/ell edriver_1280.jpg
I'll think I will believe the cops that arrested the bitch for filing a false report about the finger incident before I will believe your communistic BS.
Bingo. Dish is hacked right now. When Dish gets their shit together, DTV will be hacked again.
The satellite fuckers WILL NOT WIN.
For Oscar copies of movies and pre-releases I personally don't see a problem with it; in fact it makes good business sense. If this shit gets dropped on to the consumer market though, I think I may just walk away from the entire movie industry. I believe companies have a right to protect intellectual property within reason; piracy should not be allowed to run rampant but the consumer also has a right to that properpty because we paid for it.
What really cracks me up though is the fact that if the MPAA intends to push this sort of DRM on consumers, it's only going to affect people in countries were piracy really isn't a big deal. The countries were piracy is really an issue will just ignore the MPAA because it's a meaningless organization.
Maybe it's a bit utopian of me but hopefully with the advent of digital technology and pioneers like Steve Rodriguez [yeah the Spy Kid movies were lame but the guy consistently has said I'm going to make X movie for Y dollars in Z time and everyone tells him it's impossible...and he pulls it off, and Sin City was great film-noir despite the fact that it was digital; in my mind the ambiance was stunning] we'll see a shift towards more creative freedom, where people have the balls to tell SAG, the Directors Guild folks and the MPAA to go suck it.
This technology is discriminatory twards people who dont have hands (like vietnam vets) or who are parylized. MPAA- you good for nothing bigots!
Seriously though, what happens if you cut your finger, or you are paralyzed, or you burn your finger? how far will the MPAA go? Big brotherism? Beyond?
This needs to be stopped.
-ND
And the authors/creators of the work aren't entitled to natural rights, only artificial rights the public bestowed on them in the name of public good. The system is abused now, it needs to change.
Remember that the next time somebody runs roughshod over the GPL. The copyright that the GPL is protecting is just an artificial right.
UFIA?
'Go for the eyes, Boo, go for the eyes, aaarrrrrrrr!' -- Minsc
Unintrusive? No. Effective? Apparently.
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
Analog hole
Analog hole
Analog hole
If you are allowed to give it a selected password, how about we all agree on "password" as our passwords.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
Get real. An RFID tag in no way is going to stop the ripping of this kind of stuff. All you need to bypass it is a DVD player that doesn't read the RFID tag.
Giving our movies away is not one of the rights grantned to you by the license you agreed to when you bought it. You do not own the movie, therefore you cannot give it away or resell it. We do not sell movies, we sell licenses to view movies and we provide you access to them through DVD and VHS media that we give to you free of charge when you purchase the license.
You may be wondering at this point where this license is that you agreed to. Our license is a trade secret and we are quite dillegent in our protection of it. You did not purchase rights to view this license and such rights are not for sale. If you choose to default in the agreement you entered we will of course sue you, and we will win. Basically, screw you, we can do whatever we want and you can't stop us. You have to do what we say or we take everything from you and put you in jail for years and years.
Have a nice day.
What if I wanted to borrow a friend's DVD of a movie to see if I liked it?
What about the pre-owned movie business? It would suck if you couldn't watch a movie you bought that had somebody else's bio data (but it would be great if you could extract taht I bet).
Also, why would we want to buy a DVD player that forced us to press our thumbs against it when it played a movie. Doesn't that kinda ruin the purpose of remote controls?
END OF LINE
While this is an obviuous non-starter, it points up a collision of two trends. First, a limit, the public won't hand over their hard-earned money for an overly intrusive DRM scheme (the original DIVX proved that). Second, the now mature and highly effective P2P distribution infrastructure, which will quickly cut through all non-intrusive DRM.
I don't believe there is a level of DRM, strong enough to work, that the public will tolerate. I don't believe that the *AA will be able to strongarm the market into adopting blu-ray or whatever - they'll just lose so much money trying that they'll have to surrender and release on DVD. I know that politicians, bought or not, don't dare push the public too far.
Sooner or later the only option is going to be: let people copy, because you can't stop them.
What will the *AA do when they realize their bind?
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the people who give out the Oscars, has an internal piracy problem with its members, who get pre-release DVDs of the Academy Award nominees. They've had to resort to making slightly different tagged DVDs for each member. It's quite possible that Academy members would each get a special DVD player with very restrictive DRM and fingerprint authorization.
That device will be the next Hollywood status symbol.
I wouldn't consider that DRM though.
Hell YEAH! Soon those pathetic alternatives to our monopolistic cable plants will be bankrupt and we can get back to offerering minimal services for maximal prices.
Slashdot for one will welcome their new cable provider overlords!
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
Will there be an option to give urine sample instead? I'd like the idea of pissing in my local Blockbuster.
Bigger question: What about rentals? I don't have any hard figures, but I would imagine Blockbluster, Netflix, et.al. are the largest single purchaser of DVDs around.
How is THAT going to work?
Sounds like some one needs to stop smoking whatever it is they are smoking.
to unlock p0rn?
--- Pork is not a verb.
It looks like copy-protection on music CDs (and quite possibly movie DVDs too) might be outlawed in Sweden.
The minister of justice threatened to make it illegal to sell music with copy protection that prevented making copies for personal use, such as CDs for your car or MP3s for your MP3 player.
I'll be watching this development with interest.
Perhaps I should submit this as a story...
We should just give Hollywood the finger and start cranking out our own open content movies. No DRM, CSS, region codes, etc required. There is absolutely no reason why we couldn't make community-built movies. Do movies need big name actors in order to be good?
Give the consumer some options and let them choose. It'd be healthy for the movie industry the same way that opensource has been healthy for the software industry. Don't let them sit on their ass, with ever shittier products, collecting ever increasing amounts of money..
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Protected CDs have quite a few problems on computer drives, MP3 cd players and they absolutely won't work on many car audio systems.
Oddly enough, some people are still buying them. And above all, so many people aren't aware of this fact, until they try to put that CD in their car audio player..
I have no comment on your opinion of DRM one way or the other, but I would just like to point out that your sig file ("You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.") is the smartest goddamn thing I've seen posted on Slashdot in months.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Maybe if such a DVD would cost about 1, I would think about it, but otherwise...
Privacy is terrorism.
Someone clearly hasn't thought this through very far. How an RFID tag is going to get written for every sale via Amazon, Play and every other mailorder/online retailer out there is a mystery.
I don't pirate films because ordering the real thing is significantly less hassle. Waiting hours for a download, then leaving the box overnight encoding it to a DVD-R is pretty annoying, but it beats having to go into town and wait while they encode my fingerprint for the disc, and then have to be around if anyone else wants to watch it would be a nightmare.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Do what we do for NYT registration: if the authentication is 'something you know' rather than 'something you have,' (eg, a password) just use a publicly-shared password.
As proposed the system would never work. If I buy a DVD for my wife will I have to authorize it every time she wants to watch it? Or will I have to give the WorstBuy cashier a password to encode on the DVD?
A more realistic implementation would have the DVD player check the RFID tag and get a list of DVD players on the DVD's "authorized" list. If the current DVD player was not on the list, it could add itself if allowable.
Once the DVD player can "write" to the DVD you can dream up all sorts of restrictions. Want to add a new DVD player, call this special number and for $19.99 we will give you the activation code. Want to watch the extra content, get an activation code. Opps, looks like this DVD has been watched too often, call to reactivate.
And let's not forget the one of most scary uses of such a technology. A parent could password protect an individual DVD so their children would be protected. Of course the government would have to mandate that all DVD's sold only play on the new DVD players so the children would be protected. It is the government by the people, for the people after all.
-----
When should a government by the people be allowed to keep secrets?
Under that scheme, to get a hold of someone's biometrics you would just have to steal one of their DVDs!
no...not the codec, the other thing that limited your viewing.
Look, the thing is, people buy movies and such so they'd have the convenience to watch it any time, at any place of their own choosing, and as many times as they want. Certainly, MPAA et al can put in the restrictions, but they are just slapping us in the face at the same time they are robbing us. Why would we pay for something that will be less convenient? Let them put these things out and let them lose their money on it.
What the hell ever happened to "the customer is always right" anyway? Why have we gone from being customers to being cattle? Why is it that the people who are NOT pirating the movies, etc., getting more angry about these things? Why do we think $25-$50 for a DVD is a reasonable price?
And while I am at it, how could the MPAA claim it's losing money that it's never made?
if we all didn't purchase any cd/dvd's for an entire month, i think they'd get the message. PS i hate anyone related to RIAA and MPAA, its now personal.
If the word "sex" embarrasses you I would hate to see what would happen to you if the password were "dirty sanchez" or "santorum".
It is when you can skip it and it is against the CSS license for a player to let you skip it - and if they don't license CSS but use it anyway, they are liable for DMCA and patent violations and if you make a crack which lets you skip them your are liable for a DMCA violation.
It is DRM enforced by technology with the LAW backing up the technology - so if the technology is overridden, you could find your behind being "overridden" by a big man named Bubba in the Federal pen for the next 5 years after which it will be illegal for you to have many jobs in the tech field (either directly or because your boss doesn't want a court to take and redistribute all its assets to satisfy a "negligent hiring/retention" suit if you do anything in the future). You could probably still work at a burger joint though.
DRM - it sure is.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
It's part of CSS
IMHO, this goes back to the "greed is good" binge of the 1980's, which was really an economic transformation of the US. (and beyond) Prior to the transformation, GM/Ford/etc was in the business of making cars, and sold those cars to make money so they could go on making and selling cars, and reward their employees and stockholders. The ??AA were in the business of making music and movies, and selling/showing them so they could go on...etc.
After the transformation, it seems that every business is first and foremost in the business of making money. The products they market are mere incidentals, necessary evils in order to further their primary mission. Witness that GM revenue is divided 1/3 - 2/3 between selling cars and selling financing. (forget which third is which) They're making a significant amount of their revenue dabbling in what used to be banks' business. Or consider that a sizable part of Microsoft's revenue comes from playing financial games, and that their multibillion dollar war chest gives them a lot of ability to do this.
There's a more subtle shift here, too. Prior to the transformation of the 80's, employees were valuable resources, especially those with experience. Now employees are annoying expenses, and a drain on profits. Customers used to be valued, hoping for return business. Now, at least in some industries, they're "thieves."
I had a discussion with my son about this last night on the way home. He received several downloaded songs from friends of a European group called, "Nightwish." He now has 5 of their 6 CDs, and my daughter has 2. (and as soon as my son can find the 6th, actually their first, he wants to buy it.) I asked how likely he would have been to plunk down $17 for a CD never having really heard their music, and of course he said, "not at all." A few downloaded songs have translated to 7, potentially 8 sales, in my immediate family.
Oh, some time ago, after he had begun his Nightwish collection I sternly cautioned him about any trading in downloaded songs.
The ??AA is also more than a little STUPID in counting every downloaded song or movie as a lost unit of revenue. Case in point, me. I think long and hard before plunking down $15 for a CD. If CDs (that I like) were $7.50, I'll bet I'd buy more than twice as many. If they were $5.00, I'll bet my purchases would more than triple. At some point, I'd reach my limit of storage and clutter.
But for the guy the RIAA is suing with 10,000 songs, or whatever, he NEVER HAD the kind of money to buy that much music. Even if he had a good income, when it costs real money, you balance your music against food, rent, clothing, gasoline, eating out, going to the movies, going to concerts, etc. The only reason he would have that collection of 10,000 songs is because they were (at the time) effectively free, costing only bandwidth and space.
Choke off ALL downloads, filesharing, etc, and I suspect the ??AA wouldn't see more than even a 10% increase in their sales. Lacking the "free" source, I'll bet those people would simply choose not to buy, most of the time.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
...They just need to change the technology so that it requires urine samples...
Next you'll say something about "people who spill coffee shouldn't get $2 million" is FUD, because McDonalds' PR skillfully spun that story all out of proportion.
Just to straighten out the facts, the settlement was for $160k in compensatory damages plus $480k in punative damages, a large part of which must have gone to doctor's fees for skin grafts.
i was cheesed enough when they started putting tape on each side of the openable parts of the dvd case as well as wrapping it in cellophane on top, because it takes forever to open the dvds which adds up if you buy 10+ at a time like i often do... but if they (MPAA) start pulling this crap i guarantee i will NEVER purchase another dvd again not to mention what it would do to the whole video rental industry. i will then start to pirate all of the movies i watch because you know within weeks the cracking community will have come up with a way of bypassing the system!!
Think of the cost to the retail outlets to install and train thier staff to use the biometric scanner.
The retail stores would screem bloody murder if the distributers don't take on the cost burdon{sp} of the devices.
Beyond that there would have to be some way to insure that the staff at the retail outlet acctually encoded the data on the RFID.
Not to help out the researchers but a system of first play setup might be do able. But then you face the problem that half the people I know have never figured out how to set the time on their VCR.
This strikes me as a lot of the media will be returned or attempted to be returned as faulty. I can't see this getting any farther than the orginal DVIX (the DVD system where you had to pay every time you watched the DVD not the codex.)
JACEM
DOC Disinformation Obfuscation and Confusion
The carrot to FUD's stick
and it's been distopian as often as not.
Looks like Gattaca is coming. "Just a drop of blood, sir, and we'll have that Mastercard verified!" Since I'm a hemophobe, they'll have to deal with me passing out a lot.
Just how fuckin' stupid does the MPAA and RIAA think people, err, their customers really are?
1) First you sue the shit of of your customer base.
2) Then you cripple the product you're trying to sell them.
3) Now they want to link very personal biometric data to a movie or music purchase.
4) Oh and I almost forgot... profit!
Yup that'll get'm on your side.
There is no way the public would touch this with a barge pole - I can see it being useful for oscar pre-releases etc. but if the firm that came up with the idea thought it had any mass-market potential they need their heads examining.
Let'em know about it! Email Gadh: director@wireless.ucla.edu. This is what I sent...
I believe that when addressing someone with a widely diverging opinion, tact and composure is the best strategy. But I'm going to go against that strategy for a moment and be utterly blunt: if you believe that biometric technology is the answer to DVD piracy, you're a boatload of fools.
I'm not saying that it can't be sure-- it surely can. I'm saying that doing so will be entirely against the consumers interest, to the point where DVD sales will drastically decline.
I will outline a few scenarios. Presume that you use fingerprint scans. The Wired article mentioned that the fingerprint would be initially scanned at the store. What does one do for online stores, such as Amazon.com? Do you now need to take your purchase to a "authorizing facility"? If I purchase a DVD for a friend, do I need to explain to the clerk that it's not for me, and no, I can't use my fingerprint for the purchase? Must the gift recipient then go to the store to activate their purchase before being able to enjoy it? The only system I know of that's akin to that is firearms purchase-- is that the kind of association you're interested in?
Let's presume that you have the initial fingerprint scanning issues worked out. I suffer from a slight skin condition where if my hands are exposed to hot water for extended periods of time (say, washing dishes), my hands will dry and crack, and the skin on my fingers will peal away, leaving me with little or no fingerprints. Am I just supposed to say "oh well, I guess I can't watch my DVDs for the next week while my hands heal"? Shall my mother, who has the same problem as I, bear the same problem? And should I have children, they too?
Or, as another individual noted, what of the situation where a parent is at work, and a young child wishes to watch a DVD at home. Presumably, the parent authorized the DVD with their own fingerprint, shall the child be prevented from watching "Sesame Street: Learning About Numbers", and instead flip on the TV and watch eye-candy like "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers"? When the child has called the parent at work for the tenth time saying that their DVD is "broken", the parent will be very pleased with your system.
There are, of course, other biometric devices, such as eye scans. So, do people who suffer from, say, cataracts or other diseases which cause a cloudiness in the eyes just not get to watch DVDs?
Perhaps a blood sample? A simple pin-prick, and the DVD is ready to go, right? There had better be sufficient clean needles in your authorization system to share between members of a household who have blood-born diseases such as HIV.
I'm not an expert in biometrics. Perhaps there are easy answers to all the above situations. But I can tell you that no one is interested in living in a 1984-like society, where you have to produce identification to enjoy legally purchased media. If you treat us like criminals, we will become criminals. Do with this what you will, but know that I will purchase no DVD player or DVDs with this system. I will happily take my roughly $500 annual elsewhere, and I'm certain that millions of other consumers will do the same.
Unless they use some kind of CSS like encryption, and your fingerprint decrypts the key to decrypt the movie. What then?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Nonsense! He wouldn't be on /. if he was a cute girl!
Yes, it's good when a society doesn't go frantically passing laws whenever something bad happens. Laws shouldn't be passed unless they have a good chance of actually solving the problem.
Then you hook the Video-Out on your DVD to the Video-In on your computer and hit the "record" button.
The mpaa needs to learn from Star Wars. Hey you fucking bastards, the more you tighten your god damn grubby fingers the more son of a bitches are going to be giving you the finger.
Was that close enough? Let me translate that for you. The more restrictive you make the DRM the more people will be looking to circumvent it. People put up with it now because it's not in convent enough. But once it get to intrusive the more people will be looking to get around it.
No, they won't be simply living with it or doing with out. They are getting smart enough to realize if they ask the right people they can find away around it.
I personally now know several ordinary people its the first thing they do when they buy a new dvd is copy it. They make a backup and strip out all that shit you piled on to the front of the dvd.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
Anyway, there was a disc that did degrade after 48 hours from opening it. It used ink that degraded from light or air or some such thing. Sure you don't have to return it to Blockbusters, but what about the trash? I'm sure the article was here on slashdot but I don't feel like serching for it.
So maybe this is a moot point since both were a bad idea and both are gone because they were bad ideas. But I also suppose we should lay the blame on the right pig.
--- Tolerance is the axiomatic "virtue" of those without convictions ---
It's not just a restriction, the disk won't be able to be decoded by the player without proper authentication.
It'll be like trying to play a regular DVD using a DVD player without DECSS.
It's not a matter of the format of the DVD. It's simply a matter of changing the encryption key for the data on the disk.
Now part of that key would be your fingerprint or something.
Work Safe Porn
"I can't see the public buying it."
I can't see why making DVDs harder or less interesting to use won't result in a mass exodus to bittorrent.
"Derp de derp."
It will be an interesting demonstration of technical abilities, but who is going to pay more for player that's harder to use?
Until the players are widely adopted, what movie company is going to release their product exclusively in such a limited format? So we have a chicken and egg problem.
Requiring the buyer to be present kills off all mail order and gift sales. Bye bye Amazon.
This encoding equipment would need to be at all retail locations. Hello higher prices! And don't forget lost sales when the equipment fails.
No more rental market. Bye bye Netflix and Blockbuster.
And the real secret agenda here: No more used DVD sales! Every viewer has to buy a new DVD!!
While the last part is an MPAA wet dream come true, they'd have to virtually end their highly profitable DVD sales until they could force consumers to buy the new players. Then it becomes a tug-o-war over will the consumers buy new, much more restrictive, players just to keep watching movies, or will the movie studios lose their immensely profitable home market DVD sales.
My guess, this is another DIVX fiasco in the making. A system that works, does what it is intended to do, and will never sell. There really is a limit to the stupidity of the consumers, and I think this exceeds it.
Even if the government mandates all new player have this feature (and survives the next election after doing so), they can't force you to buy them.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
...for many, many reasons that have all been listed above.
In addition, if this were implemented and someone broke into your home and stole your DVDs, they'd also want your finger too. Great. So now human fingers become a commodity on the black market; beautiful.
A clever few figured it would be a cheap way to get the copies -- buy one of these legit, and then rip it/copy it.
Actually, these failed for one very simple reason: price. They cost more than a rental (and a lot more than NetFlix, assuming you maximize your turnover rate) but provided basically the same level of service to the customer.
However, you do accidentally raise a REALLY good point - Legality.
"Time-shifting" remains as one of our few well-established fair-use rights. If you "bought" one of these discs, and ripped it (and kept the unplayable original, of course) under the pretense of time-shifting it, how would the courts view that? You have made use of a repeatedly-upheld-in-court right, to get around the entire reason you would (otherwise) buy a time-sensitive disc in the first place.
Curious.
Well, no doubt the courts would side with Hollywood on this one. In the case of time shifting, all the legal precedents involve companies-against-companies. A mere living, breathing human has no chance in court against a soulless legal-fictional entity, after all.
Only 57 years left until the Tycho Uprising.
Seriously, it's amazing how low would those Indian engineers sink in order to get their mess of pottage. I guess, 65 years ago Rajit Gadh would probably be working in Germany for a system of tagging Jews with RFID tags.
Disgusting. I wonder why corporate whores like Katie Dean never ask these "researchers" if they are not ashamed to look in the mirror. The world makes me sick. Now please excuse me while I go read something by Richard Stallman and listen to Chomsky's lectures.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Boss (at cubicle): "Um, Susan - please come with me, there's a situation..."
Susan (getting up and walking): "Sure - what's going on, Bill...?"
Bill (walking down hallway to entrance with Susan): "The police are here, and they want to speak with you - is there a problem...?"
Susan (confused look on face): "Uh, no - Bill, what is going on...?"
Susan and her boss get to the front desk, where there are two uniformed officers and a unidentified man in a gray suit standing. One of the officers approaches Susan...
Officer (reaching for handcuffs): "Ma'am, please come with me - you are under arrest for child endangerment and abandonment."
Susan (frantic): "What! What do you mean?! Let me go! I haven't done anything wrong! My children are at home..."
Officer: "Ma'am, if you don't cooperate, you will also be charged with resisting arrest..."
By this time, some of Susan's co-workers have stopped and are watching the scene, but are otherwise oblivious to what is really going on - but they now think she is a bad mother...
Susan (to her boss): "Bill - what is happenning...?"
Bill shrugs his shoulders, obviously just as confused as Susan is...
Unidentified Man: "Ma'am, I am with Child Protective Services - I was notified by the DVD-CCA that your DVD player was registering repeated accesses to a locked DVD by a non-adult sized fingerprint, thus possibly indicating that no adults were present in the residence. We immediately dispatched one of our social workers to the residence to verify the presence of an adult..."
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Yes, it's obvious this new DRM method is highly restrictive, and we won't be able to buy gifts, let the kids play the movies themselves, etc...
The question being, what is the point?
How in the world does this benefit the movie company?
How does requiring me to use my thumbprint to activate the playback process prevent me from recording it?
This seems like the most useless and backwards copy protection scheme I've ever heard of.
Pretty simple solution to this nonsense: don't buy anything that requires any sort of ID. The market will take care of the problem.
Simple answer: I wont buy any DVDs that require personalized authentication. Instead, I will just wait until the next time I goto the Orient, and buy them for $3 on the street corner.
The only PT Boat Journal on the web: http://www.PT171.org
We have social security in crisis, the educational system in shambles, we need to move to IPv6 quickly, there's terminal illness rampant....
Instead we're spending time developing something so that the kids can't watch Toy Story because I bought it and used my fingerprint.
This is the stupidest piece of crap yet...frankly, I'm embarrassed for the entire human race over this.
Wait until someone cracks it?
DIVX DVDs didn't degrade. That was a different marketing attempt.
The DIVX player allowed playing of a DIVX DVD a given number of times, and then would play it any more unless the consumer purchased unlimited play rights. It had a telephone connection and an internal memory of which discs were authorized for unlimited play. Aside from the many problems associated with the format (can't sell or loan a disc you've purchased, what happens when your player breaks or is stolen, more expensive), even the carrot of cheaper discs for limited play and the stick (threatened, but never happened) of DIVX-only releases couldn't convince the average consumer to support the format. It's gone, dead, and not missed.
What is missed here is this lesson from history.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
this will only result in more innovative hacking..
this is just another way to accumulate biometric data on the populace..
the data-dealers are trying to find a tolerable way for you to cough up your data for them..
this has nothing to do with hacking/pirating movies and, or music.. it's about getting your permanent data, nothing else..
it would seem paranoid, but when you give up your data to the retailer.. where does it go?? where is it stored?? what is actually done with it?? who is it being sold to??
i hate microsoft.
Wouldn't this make impossible, or at least impractical, the right to sell the DVD as used to another party?
The DVD is a physical object, and anyone in possession of it should be able to view it, right?
Or have we gotten to the point where the physical distribution medium is irrelevant, and we're licensing the right to view the contents? In which case, why do I need to buy the physical object int he first place?
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Am I the only one reminded of The Right to Read, by Richard Stallman?
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
If it came down to this, I would stop
watching new movies all together (including in
the theater), and just buy the old discs without
this crap (or gasp...VHS tapes). Some people
would just download/buy pirated copies of the
newer movies.
Remember DIVX? (not the codec). It flopped badly
because consumers don't want to go through shit
like this.
I almost never buy movies, for me. I do often give them as gifts. Which would be hard with this scheme. I bet lots of revenue from people like me will be lost if they do this. Haha, then they will the pirates.
Yes, here on Bizarro Earth Americans are well known for their concern for the environment. That's why President Gore was re-elected, nobody drives SUVs, and Americans no longer produce more trash per capita than any other industrialized nation. And that's why DIVX failed--on Bizarro Earth.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Sure, and how many people wash their hands after using the bathroom? DVDs will become the fast track to illness if this takes off.
No matter what you do - you still have to output the signal somwhere...
Are you going to make everyone buy new encrypted TV sets as well?
HDTV sets are already out - you cant just add it into them from here on out - so you can bet the MPAA and the likes are pissed about the pending standard.
But I think I have a better one. How about I give the *AA the finger, and they stay the hell away from my fair use rights.
I can't decide if this post is interesting, funny, insightful, or flamebait.
Hmm well how about recording the output from a DVD player with a computer after it's decrypted?
Who said you have to use a finger when you hit the finger checker? I foresee a market for a universal fake fingerprint that you could buy or make - like a rubber stamp. It would be easy to recerate and you could leave it by the machine.
..........FULL STOP.
I for one would go back to a VCR before submitting to this.
While this sounds great in theory and it would be great to say "F you Mr. Man!", I severely doubt this kind of action would become a reality. Would you REALLY go back to VCRs? Losing your ability to skip forward or backward to certain spots on the DVD? Video stores are all making the transition to DVD anyway. I doubt you'll be able to subscribe to Netflix and have them send you a VHS tape.
Plus, are people saying "I will not buy all this DRM-stuffed music" and going back to audio tapes? CDs are starting to have it...and let's not even talk about all the online music that is nothing but DRM with some sound files on it. People aren't dumping iTMS and Napster and moving back to audio tapes.
It's a nice thought...it just simply won't happen.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
That would be cracked, here is how:
buy dvd
find out how encryption works (using your finger)
write software to decrypt dvd (using the key [value of your finger])
extend software to write to an MPEG from video
distrobute MPEG
Once the software has been written, it can be distrobuted from france and anybody who buys a dvd can use the software to create an mpeg out of it (although it would cost as much as a fingerprint scanner for the initial uploaders first upload)
...throughout the chain to protect from leaked copies.
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! I would feel sorry for the reviewer who gets into trouble, because someone else in this chain leaked the DVD with the reviewer's watermark in it.
Here's a thought: How about we don't buy the products we don't like, and let those products die on the vine. I mean, it seems more effective than panicking and pi55ing ourselves on /. everytime some "scary" new technology is whispered about.
.. as in, invest their $$$$$$ into this, only to have marketplace give them the finger (or two).
Obligatory Simpsons quote:
Hmmmm, burgers...
It will happen.
1) As someone else pointed out, the end of mailorder DVD sales. Amazon, are you listening?
2) The end of DVDs as gifts. How are you going to provide the recipients finger print at purchase time?
3) The ultimate parental control. If daddy buys the DVD then the kids, and the wife, cannot watch it unless daddy provides his fingerprint.
4) The end of high end home theatre systems that distribute content throughout the house. Do you really want to pick a movie from the comfort of your bed and then run downstairs to the player and provide your finger to print?
5) Forget leaving your media library to anyone in your will, if you don't will them a finger then they will never be able to use them.
6) What about injuries? If you crush your hand you're going to get sent home from the hospital in a cast with a bottle of pain killers. What better way to recover than to lie in bed and watch old movies -- except your finger in now innaccessible!
The issues are already starting to enter the market but most people haven't figured it out yet. Your average iPod user won't really understand Apple's DRM until their device is outdated and they buy a different one and then learn they have to re-purchase all of their favorite music for the new device. The content should be required to clearly print the types of devices that it will work with AND the devices that it won't work with. Unfortunately non-tech savy people are never going to understand these things until they get bitten by them.
What really needs to happen to slow the content owners down is to make it ILLEGAL for them to charge for the same content twice. If someone purchases a movie on DVD and the studios want to release it in another format then the studios should be required to provide a copy of the content in the new format to anyone that has legally purchased the original version. If someone buys a portable music player that is not compatible with their iTunes music then the music studios should be required to offer an exchange of their iTunes music to the new format free of charge. This is not a perfect solution (it doesn't ensure that music purchased for the living room will play in the car) but it should at least give the content owners pause before introducing new technologies.
If a new DVD player has to be online to verify that the certificate in the player is still valid and the content can be played then if that certificate is ever revoked the company that manufactured that DVD player should be required to replace the player free of charge. If they choose to fix it instead then they should have a week at most to fix it. If anywhere along this chain the content won't play on the purchaser's preferred playback device the content owners should be required to provide the content in the format that the consumer wants. Period. If the content owners refuse then the retail outlets that sold the content should be required to provide a no questions asked refund. It should be made easy to win a lawsuit against the content owners and/or the retail outlet that sold/produced the movie/music for breach of contract if any of these things are violated. It needs to become more expensive for the content owners to screw their consumers than it is to the consumers who are getting screwed.
Sadly, this will never happen. The content owners have purchased too many politicians for any laws of this type to
Restore America: Dr. Ron Paul for President!
Nothing to see here. Just a trial baloon from a some dude trying to maybe sorta sell an idea. "Gadh said he could not reveal specifically how the system would work, as it is still in the research stage. A prototype will be available by the end of the summer, he said, and at that point, it will be shopped around to movie studios and technology companies." "I don't know quite what is going to work in the real world," Gadh said.
Relax Relax everyone.. as soon as the RFID comes out som one will hack it with a sharpie and a razorblade... The MPAA.....they will never learn.....
And how are you supposed to buy a dvd as a gift for someone?
Uh.. Here's a great dvd for your birthday - Just give me a call everytime you want to watch it and I'll be right over.
I don't think so!!
what if you wanted to buy a gift for somebody? This isn't going to work all that well.
Some copyright law ammendments might be necessary to bring the law "up to date" with the technology.
Couldn't giving a DVD as a gift be construed as a copyright infringement? After all, you are transferring a copy -- to someone who didn't pay (an MPAA member) for it. You paid, but somebody else's eyeballs got to see the content.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
That isn't DRM. And, curiously, it doesn't happen on any of the UK (region 2) DVDs I own. Maybe I just got lucky with the titles I've bought, or maybe they figured Europe was less tolerant of such crap than the US. I don't know.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
I dont see whats the point of this crap. Sooner or later you will have to sign a form before to watch a fucking movie.
And everytime you will have to validate with your damn and payed player.
Please someone tell me who the Bush has this great idea??
My bad phrasing. s/DIVX\?\ DVDs/DIVX\?\ Or\ those\ DVDs//
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
No parent will ever buy a DVD like this - imagine having to authorise playback every time your kid wants to watch a moive. Mine sometimes changes her mind 4 or 5 times over the course of an hour. She can swap disks fine herself...
Maybe you should cut that back or show some more control on that issue. It sounds like your kid's got the early warning signs of ADHD if she can't focus on one program for more than an average of 15 minutes. Cutting back the TV might help. Studies have shown a direct correlation between hours of TV watched and likelihood of having ADHD.
From someone who has ADHD, this could become a problem for her when she gets in school. Having such a short attention span makes learning difficult when your daughter will inevitably hit some subject that she can't sail through with her eyes closed. It may take as long as college to hit, but it will happen. A short attention span may also lead to behavioral problems. I'd seriously recommend talking to a child psychologist about this, and I'd seriously keep talking until you find one whose recommendation isn't just to stuff her full of Ritalin.
Kids need to learn to deal with boredom and to focus on tasks for a long time. A kid who can't do that isn't prepared for school much less the real world. Take it from someone who's been there himself.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Oh, like I have time to do all that. If that were really true, how come people aren't framed for crimes with this methodology all the time? Or maybe they are! Where's my tinfoil hat?
I think they should just prosecute the babysitter who is playing dads movies and ruin her life to make an example to the rest of the bootlegging trash, like Apple does with their tiger pre-releases.
You could still buy films from hong kong and other film producing nations.
Stop intellectual property from infringing on me
No, here is what's gonna happen.
Instead of DVD rentals there's gonna be a new distribution medium for renting films. It's gonna be some sort of NVRAM and allow you to watch the film once over the course of say an hour longer than the film. This will let you pause for mugbus or whatever. The box with the NVRAM will be reset by the video store when you take it back. You won't need a player because the box will do the playing. It's only gonna have a output connector and the movie store will need a specialized bit of hardware to reload the boxes through this connector. It's sort of a one way valve at your end or perhaps it might have two one way valves. One for loading and one for watching. What's the output gonna look like. Well the HDTV folks have already succeeded in fixing the landscape so that it's damn near impossible to record the broadcast and cable stuff. So, the video box will put out an HDTV RF signal that sits on one of the cable channels, or at baseband if that's popular for HDTV(I don't know what with no more than a 13" and rabbit ears).
It's a no-brainer to get into the market place. Just make the films available on the box a couple of weeks ahead of any other home playable media.
The biometric things a dead end because it means either new players now and new players later for HD rentals or waiting until later. The market place won't accept new, non-HD players at this time so it's wait. If it's wait, then why not something totally different?
> Finegrprints are easily fakeable, another reason to reject biometrics. If someone else uses your fingerprints..
A welcome side-effect for criminals would be to get a job as music shot clerk to get ahold of lots of finger print samples. You know, the same kind of criminals that used to hire at gas stations in the early 90s, just to grab credit card data of all the drivers who stopped by. If finger print scanning becomes ubiquitious, it will be very easy to get ahold of lots of prints. And this doesnt even require taping them off of bar glasses like in CSI.
The finger in the chili was a scam.
The finger came from a friend/co-worker of the woman's husband (the husband happens to be in prison now). The co-worker lost the finger in an industrial accident, had some money problems, and gave the finger to the woman's husband to settle a $50 debt.
The woman stuck it in the chili and tried to take Wendy's to the bank.
The upside is, last weekend Wendy's gave everyone free Frosty's to say "thanks for the support" (and come in and buy our stuff again).
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
Go ahead and mod this down, the truth is ugly. They aren't trying to do anything illegal or underhanded, it's self defense from all the piracy. Personally I hate to see it happen but I blame the piracy and not the companies. No free lunch guys and either they find a way of protecting their investments or they will stop distributing music. It's the real world and welcome to it.
In the case of a one time (48 hour) disk, I think the courts would decide in Hollywood's favor. So long as it is made clear that you are getting the disk for 48 hours only that is.
However for the more general case where you own an unlimited disk and make a copy they are likely to decide for you. Actually if you made a copy of a limited use disk, and destroyed the copy when the original self-destructs you are likely to decide in your favor.
the first amputee w/out hands (and fingers) who wants to buy a DVD and sues the movie industry for elevendy billion dollars for accepting this silly technology that makes it impossible to watch. Disabled people get ANYTHING they want. (Hrmm, except the ability to conduct a normal life, perhaps...)
.nfo ;L
Anyway, if there is a password you enter when you buy it it'll just be included in the
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
Can someone tell me what password we should all be using?
Insightful! WTF? The least you could do is give us a link to the .torrent.
I quit buying CD's, from a three to six disc per week habit for years, simply because of the price gouging that started in the mid nineties. I've bought about six since 1994 or so.
Now, I will not ever buy a CD again if they have any copy protection scheme on them. Simple. The artists, the labels, the whole criminal organization of it can bite me. Don't even try to explain the food chain of that business to me, I used to work in it, they can bite me.
With DVD's, I've been buying quite a few of them, as the prices are generally a pretty reasonable value. Now this crap...
Simple enough, they can bite me again.
They come out with nonsense like this, it will be the day of my last DVD purchase.
This is the way to get the message accross, bankrupt the entire slimy industry, let it cave in.
Hell, I'd be better off going for a walk in the woods (still marginally free) than watching another movie anyway.
Zardo, all I have to say is... read the sig below.
You are all a bunch of idots.
1) See the article preceeding this one "YRO: Software Piracy will get worse"
2) When you treat your customers badly enough, they'll stop being your customers.
When this sh*t gets too onerous, something else will arrive and steal the customers away. Piss people off badly enough and they go back to VHS, or switch to copies on DAT. Or the MPAA and crew will just put themselves out of business. One way or another, people will find their way around it to the point where it becomes moot. When the average person (like my mom and dad, etc) gets fed up with it, the MPAA will either get lambasted in Congress or lose their customer base. I'm ready for them to finally go over the top and bring their empires down around their heads so we can move on.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world - Ghandi
You have the right to hire a lawyer to defend your right to do this.
Replying to myself, but its really for all those replies that say the same thing basically.
Yes, there is always a way to record the DVD as it plays, but there would be no -easy- way to just cripple the RFID chip and give the disk to someone. I wasn't thinking about mass distribution, actually.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
but if the firm that came up with the idea thought it had any mass-market potential they need their heads examining.
That sounds good in theory, but how many psychiatrists have a proctologist on call?
I've copyrighted my fingerprints. So now, if they want me to give them my finger print, they're going to have to pay royalties. I'd be willing to listen to cross-licensing offers... but they're really going to have to make it worthwhile. My fingerprints are one of a kind and therefore worth a shitload of money -- far more than these DVDs that are a dime a dozen.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Perhaps this is being nitpicky, but it's worth pointing outh that "Fair Use" (and parody for that matter) are not "rights," per se. Only authors/creators of the work (not the public) are granted rights under the Copyright Act.
Incorrect. The right to copy some form of media is included in the natural rights we are all given (under "pursuit of happiness" if nothing else). Remember, the Bill of Rights is not an enumeration of all your rights, it's a list of specifically protected examples - but in general, ANY power not granted to the govt by federal or state constitutions are reserved to YOU, or rather we, the people.
Copyright law is such a specifically granted power that LIMITS people's natural right to {whatever makes you happy}, in regards to the copying of certain media. The Fair Use doctrine is a limit on those copyright laws, and as such, what you are allowed to do through fair use is just exercise your natural right to do what makes you happy - and be that making a backup copy of a DVD, that's just fine.
The Fair Use doctrine effectively says, "the law specifically does not disallow these actions, so they are still within your rights." The double negative leaves you with your default positive rights.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
From TFA...
Gadh said his research group is trying to address the problem of piracy for the movie industry.
I have some useful advice for them. They need to change the direction of their research.
Axiom: If you can see or hear (ie. "detect" or "perceive") the content with your own eyes and ears (ie. your "senses"), it can be copied.
Corollary: If you decode the DRM outside of the body, it can be copied.
Therefore, the DRM content must NOT be decoded any earlier than the brain itself. The decoding must happen somewhere between the sense organs (eg. ears, eyes) and the brain.
They need to focus their research into this area. Any other attempts at DRM will be futile.
It may be possible to get venture capital money from Microsoft. This would probably require giving up some rights, but you would be a part of some greater good.
Introducing: the new Microsoft Palladium Brain Implants!
New Microsoft Brain Implants augment your natural senses with new capabilities, including the exciting ability to see and hear encoded audio and video content! Whenever you see or hear anything that is encoded according to our protocols, our DRM brain implant will automatically decode it for you and automatically charge your credit card appropriately for the use of the copyright material you perceived.
Since Microsoft's brain implant may not interoperate with other inferior brands of brain implants, you would be well advised to choose wisely which implant you have installed.
The next logical step would be to simply have these implants installed shortly after birth. A minor routine operation, like circumcision. Legislation would be unnecessary. Everyone would want the implant.
In the past, I have only suggested the brain implant idea as a joke. But now, after this article, I see that it really can be given as a serious suggestion for Rajit Gadh's research group to pursue.
Oh, yeah, almost forgot...
3. Profit.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised since most Americans are sheep who would bend over and get an anal probe before buying something they wanted, especially if someone in authority told them to.
"Land of the free and home of the brave" Hah!
Land of the brainwashed and home of the gutless punks.
All of whom are loudly proclaiming how America is the Empire.
George Lucas, now we KNOW you can't write because you just wrote down what's in the papers every day.
Bush would equal Palpatine IF he wasn't such an inarticulate boob - and he didn't have AIDS (ever notice the recurring facial edemas on Bush) from his gay boyfriends like Jeff Gannon. (It would help if he could throw lightning, too.)
Nonetheless, he's trying.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
"How is being forced to sit through 15 minutes of previews, many for DVDs that I already own, every time I insert a disc unintrusive?"
"Unintrusive? No. Effective? Apparently."
Forget that, I just pop the DVD in my player about 10 minutes before I am going to watch it, then i change the input to the video source of the DVD player when i am ready to watch the movie.. at that point the previews and legal notices are done and it is waiting on the menu section of the DVD (play movie, scene selection, setup, etc..)
I don't know about the feasability in terms of workprints, though. Often they DVD's are mailed and getting someone in New York to send biometric data or come in for a finger print so they won't steal from Skywalker Ranch is ridiculous.
This is really easy, and I can make money on it. I hereby exclaim my intent to patent "The Electronic Thumb" which will be a rubber thumb printed with the exact same thumbprint on every product. The consumer then uses "The Electronic Thumb" whenever they want to purchase a DVD. They keep another thumb at home, taped to the "Prole Identity Authenticator" on their telescreen. This way you can lend someone your DVDs to watch and your "The Electronic Thumb" acts as a replacement for you.
That's why this is stupid. Eventually there'll be a bugmenot.com for DVDs, where the community selects one universal token for identification.
Of course!
As it stands, I find it easier already to watch movies downloaded from the internet than to get them from the rental shop. Takes a bit of time, 4 to 48 hours to get one, but not any actual work, and it's easy to find one that you would like. You have your directories of torrents, you just right click on the movies name and context search(Firefox) them through imdb and allmovie to read about them: can't do that at the movie store either. Then just click on the torrent and it starts downloading. Usually ready for you at the end of day; and you just click on it and it starts playing right at the movie without any menu with some annoying clip it plays in repeat and without any FBI warnings or previews that are impossible to skip.
If they start implementing DRM technologies that make it even harder to watch movies the legal way, than the people who are watching illegal movies primarily have even less reason to go legit.
Yeah, gift cards are kind of a cop out, especially when it's somebody you should know as well as a wife. But if you REALLY love her you'll use your own finger-print to buy the DVD, crack the DRM, burn it region and DRM free onto a DVD-R and give her FREEDOM for Christmas.
changing your mind != not paying attention
sup
mbbac
At least you didn't ask her for her left nut!
What about libraries and rentals? This would totally wipe out the market for used DVDs....
Just me speaking, but this would be the end of my DVD buying....
Could I get something like this for my wandering girlfriend? Some kind of RFID chastity belt?
When I let a particularly nasty silent fart go, I wait three seconds, and then say "Mmmmmm, smells like someone is baking cookies." This results in those around me almost pavlovianally taking a deep breath through their noses- and enjoying my sphincteriffic emenations...."
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
Or we could take the same approuch as the $20 bills and just microwave them to disable the RFID.
Although this might encumber the disc a little.
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." [Thomas Jefferson]
Exactly how does one fuck a satellite?
1. Obtain Space Suit
2. Obtain orbit
3. Locate the "docking port"
4. Fuck away
LOL! I remember the last time I could get new release LD's from Ken Cranes - it wasn't too long ago. All my DVD buddies laughed at my 12" multi disc sets for one movie. I accepted all that fun loving teasing. Everyone blindly followed the DVD movement because it was so much better than LD. Well, I for one can tell you the worst two things I remember about LD was A>B (in the middle of a scene) and putting side three in. No region codes, no (horrable) compression, no encryption, no DRM, no unskipable parts...etc. Next time new technology is being offered, maybe we will all be a little wiser.
"What I need is an exact list of specific unknown problems we might encounter."
Cool. I was wondering when reading books would finally come back into fashion.
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
Who are you going to believe? Some nice, benevolent corporation, or some stupid person who drinks shit coffee?
That's a good point - it has to be that hot so it'll burn off your tastebuds so you can choke it down. The more often you drink it the less objectionable it (or anything else) tastes.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
But I've got a better one.
How about I give you the finger - *the finger* - and you give me my DVD?
"Mr. Anderson, tell me, what good is a DVD if you are unable... to watch?"
I think the 48-hour DVD, and many restrictive forms of DRM, fail because they violate the trust relationship that is necessary for a consumer to fork over money for a product. When I buy something, I want to be sure that I will be able to enjoy it, legally, but without hassle. For example, I once bought some songs from the Real.com store and after a while these songs (that I paid for) stopped playing on my computer for reasons unknown to me. I had to jump through a lot of hoops to "re-authorize" my computer. That really put me off and I never bothered with DRMed music again.
I've purchased, like, a million 'licenses' to view/play/listen to media that is incidentally contained in a storage device of some kind (Per EULAs, etc.). OTOH, I never recieved any record of owning any licenses, and there's no chance that a media company would honor one anyway. I would really dig it if the media companies, instead of all this DRM crap, would actually sell people licenses that they could file. then the user could have full access to that movie (for example) in whatever format he could find it in. He could copy it, divx it, or whatever and could legally distribute it to anyone who had a license. The companies could then keep a database of people's licenses somehow (maybe a customer could create an account and enter a serial # like what's on software). As long as they offered a slick and intuitive API, I see no reason why sites wouldn't be willing to authenticate downloads through the "Media Companies' Licensing Database". They wouldn't get people repurchasing all their old vinyl on CDs, for sure. But I, for one, would be a lot more likely to buy media under the setup I've described. Honestly, there is no way I'm going to buy all of my music again when CDs go out of style. Of course, it goes without saying, that the media companies aren't out to make there customers happy or to make their lives easier (take the way they sue their customers, for example). They're all about more money. Anyway, yeah. This was my first post. Sorry it's so long winded :)
Christmas sales are far too important to prevent people from buying gifts.
This will not prevent piracy, just resale.
At least you won't be required to jack off in into a sequencer staring at the RIAA logo.
At the store, someone buying a new DVD would have to provide a password or some kind of biometric data, like a fingerprint or iris scan, which would be added to the DVD's RFID tag.
People still buy DVD's at STORES?
Does that people buried in the next few years will be missing a finger or two? How would this affect 'rare' DVD's and their value in the future?
I must now include in my Will "And to my children I leave my 800 DVD video collection with my index finger and left eye for access".
How soon until they inject a movie into my brain cells so that my brain must be kept alive to view the last available copy of "The Planet of the Apes part 8"
I, as a consumer, will -never- purchase another product from the companies that support this. That may not sound like much, but I can't believe for a -second- that I'd be the only one.
Enough said.
I am not sure why vandon's post was not moderated up, but I think this is a good point. This is exactly the sort of thing Real IDs are for. The bill has been signed into law. Of course since the Real IDs are going to be universally readable it will be easy to make copies for your friends.
The Wendy's finger is a fake, as pointed out by other users. This however, got me thinking: What if someone were to invent a universal artifical biometric finger?
We could all buy one for a couple of bucks, then stamp all our DVDs and players with the same biometric stamp, and then loan DVDs to our friends like we always have.
THe finger could of course be a middle finger.
hick1: "Whuts that there on yer movie playin box?"
hickette1: "Paws Finger"
hick1: "Yer Paws finger! Howd he losed it?"
hickette: "He didn't, we-uns cut it offen him"
hick1: "Cut'sd it awf. Whyin tarnation ya do that fer?"
hickette1: "After he upt and died on us we's needed this hair finger to be ables to watched are movies."
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
Well, except maybe the porn industry.
Become obese enough to have your own gravitational field? Then just reeeaaccccchhhh out a hand ...
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
And then on Bizarro Earth Americans invent the technology to turn trash into crude oil.
Wait, you mean necessity breeds invention? Good Lord, what an idea. I thought that technology always stayed static until the sky fell.
Man, what next? Capitalism generally ends up taking care of problems? Nah, that couldn't be. I'm sure socialist countries that "care" about the environment had these problems solved a long time ago.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I assume this is an attempt to stop the sharing of DVDs or something. However, it does not do anything effectively other than make DVD sales and DVD use more cumbersome.
I need a password to use a DVD? Well, I'll either use a common one used only for DVDs that I don't care about giving out and/or print the password on the DVD.
Gosh, what would happen if you forgot the password? I mean, working on a help desk, I know no users ever forget their password but what if they did. How would they reset it? What would be the security measures required to reset it? Chances are this would have to be made trivially easy with no way to monitor who bought what where when unless a region wide database was kept of all sales. Privacy issues any one?
The biometric idea, if enforced, would instally kill all online DVD sales which I am sure counts for a large amount of DVD sales. This is not something they are going to do.
The obvious gaping holes in this type of proposal make me think this is likely typical media FUD.
As we all know, the media industries have tried over and over again to profit and stop piracy and other crap. This is no different. We all know that it will only take a matter of days, maybe a couple of weeks, until a countless amount of hacks, cracks, and mod chips are released over the internet and black market. So really, this is nothing to worry about. And that's assuming they actually they follow through with this idea, which i doubt, due to complete lack of practicality for many of the reasons stated previously.
They can kiss the fattest part of my ass. The desperation of MPAA is never-ending.
If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it. -- Calvin Coolidge
I'm just not getting it.
Security is a game. Raise the bar just high enough that the cost of getting over it exceeds the value of the target.
For most (US) consumers, that's a very low bar. We're talking a single copy. At $10-15 a pop, DVDs are pretty cheap entertainment compared to $20 (not including parking and food) to go see a movie. Good video games are better - cost more but longer lasting.
For the real pirates (distributors); you can't make that bar high enough. Many copies = worth the effort.
Sounds like a poor solution to a problem that doesn't exist (or hasn't been correctly defined).
Of course, the world is scattered with the remains of such companies. I figure they'll spend their VC money, get a couple of interested companies that will study the tech and (correctly) conclude that it won't fly. The company will get desparate; try to make itself into something else then finally disappear into the obscurity of bad ideas.
TS for them.
There are no natural rights. Rights are bestowed upon by a governmental authority. The people who are subject to that authority collectively agree to respect such rights, and usually some body exists to enforce such respect (i.e. the police).
All the legal fictions you have spouted today are just that, fictions. The government can and does make whatever law suits it. the constitution is irrelevant. If there is one thing that history has shown us, it is that legalism is a dismal failure. The more people attempt to improve and define their society by laws that more it stagnates and decays. This, more than anything is why representative forms of government, as well as outright democracies always fail. They lack the decisive and dynamic leadership of a select few.
That said, there is no right to pursuit of happiness in the constitution. That is in the declaration of independence.
The constitution grants the federal government the explicit power to regulate copyrights. That is what this is all about.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
It is being nitpicky. Just because something is implemented as an affirmative defense does not mean that it is not a right. Few would argue that you have a "right" to defend yourself for example and self-defense is an affirmative defense.
The finger-in-the-food story about Wendy's was a scam.
But it's funny! It's a contemporary way of retelling the "mutilate the person instead of stealing their wallet/card" mugging strategy.
The "No officer, I didn't mutilate no ones! I founds it at the Wendy's, sir! I's swears! I didn't tell them because they'd just say I brought it with me to scam them..." defense will one day join the Chewbacca Defense in infamy...
FUD that Wendy's doesn't deserve.
It's the price to pay for the publicity. Look how many times we have spread their name on this page! And it's getting past adblock, too.
You can't take the sky from me...
Yes, here on Bizarro Earth, a single example of a few Americans caring about the environment easily trumps the counter-example of the vast majority of Americans--and is a logically valid argument too!
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
No, the logically invalid argument here is assuming that "caring" means "deprivation", that somehow you have to prove how much you care through some puritan "ethic of pain" (and I can't think of many things more painful than voting for Al Gore).
"Caring" means solving problems, not closing your eyes and pretending that the world is going to go backwards and conserve anything. Environmentalists almost universally distrust technology. They would rather wring their hands and "care more than thou" instead of actually doing something (e.g., the antinuclear nuts).
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Well, of course not. They have to spend all their money getting up into space where they can fu... Oh, that's not what you meant, was it. Never mind.
That is all.
We should be praising her creativity in her chosen profession. I mean, if people did not try to defaud others, where would we as a society be? Prosecutors, defenders, detective, insurance companies, all gone! Not to mention the news and entertainment businesses. My God, think of the economy before you castigate the poor woman like the OP did!
That is all.
your joke was too complicated for the people recieving moderator point to understand, fortunately funny moderation doesn't boost karma, so it's probably better that moderators didn't understand your joke.
Such laws are usually--but not always--designed around, "What would have prevented this specific event?" and then marketed as, "This will keep this from happening again."
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Or you could just buy a DVD player that lets you skip through all that crap.
cardboard......
In other news....why does RoadRunner Internet service suck veg.
It doesn't really have to be broken, all that has to be done is duplicate the unlock signal.
The real problem is unless the biometric player is built into a display it'll be copied after it leaves the player.
I suspect this will be about as successful as DVD-Gold where you'd buy rental discs
General Psychology, freshman year. Too bad to see such a useful psychological technique being used for such evil means...
MPAA: Want to accept this Big Brother DRM scheme?
Consumers: NO!
*door slams in MPAA's face*
MPAA: How about this?
*door does not slam in MPAA's face*
There is no way the public would touch this with a barge pole
That may be because most of the public doesn't have a barge pole, and the ones that do are probably somewhere where they aren't any dvds to touch with it.
-- If we don't stand up for our rights, now, there will be no right to stand up for them later.
There is no real financial loss from piracy, because the people using the pirated software either can't or won't pay for it in the first place.
They estimate pirated copies and assume they could've gotten the cash for them if they had been protected well enough...well they wouldn't have gotten the cash for the reasons stated above.
All there doing is making the case for moving to open source even better.
Why pay?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
For the avarage movie it would be more appropriate to give a urine sample.
I'd love to get a job where I get payed for thinkin up stupid things like this.
Learn to separate truth from illusion. Because in this world, it's the hardest thing to do.
If they do something like this, I won't be buying it. It's pretty simple.
I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my pants
Too many of us gladly hand over our rights to fair usage for the sake of a nice shiny new box - that's the reason why this stuff gets thought of in the first place.
The solution is very simple - DON'T BUY IT!
These companies are there to provide us with goods and services we consider value for money that we hand over our cash for - not the other way round.
People need to get their heads out of their asses, stop falling for the pretty advertising and the hype and just not part with good money for poor quality goods.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
That's OK; I'm sure the pirated versions won't require this.
Seriously, when are the DRM-supporters going to realize that they're just making piracy more and more appealing? I don't buy (or pirate) movies, but if I ever wanted to, I certainly wouldn't consent to giving up biometric data. The scary thing is that most people probably would, no questions asked.
holy moderator abuse batman
There are no natural rights. Rights are bestowed upon by a governmental authority.
You've got that backwards. Naturally, every person has the (legal, if not material) power to do whatever they please. Governments are composed of people, artificial entities created specifically to combine material powers in order to curb other people's powers for some supposed greater good. What powers are not curbed by the government are your "rights", i.e. those actions that are not held to be wrong by the government, and thus OK (or "right") to do. If it's not explicitly said to be wrong (illegal), then it is within your rights.
Governments did not create people and endow them with certain rights; people created governments and endowed them with the power to curb others peoples' powers for some collective good. The power of a government derives from people, not vice versa.
Sometimes it's a small number of powerful people, who together (as "the government") curb the power of large numbers of other people; other times, it's many people curbing the powers of a few. In both cases the result can be good or bad, but in both cases, the power wielded by "government" ultimately derives from some set of people.
As for "pursuit of happiness", I'm aware that that's not explicitly stated in the Constitution (and it would be an awfully imprecise way to say it, so that's a good thing). I meant that as illustration that this point of view (government derives power from the people, not vice versa) was held by the founders of our government. As for what is in the Constitution, I refer you to the 10th Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
One last bit...
The constitution grants the federal government the explicit power to regulate copyrights. That is what this is all about.
Here's how that works, start to finish:
1) In the beginning, the people can do what they want, including copy things.
2) The people allow their government to limit that right to copy.
3) Government limits that right to copy with copyright law.
4) The Fair Use doctrine limits what copyright law can limit.
5) What's acts of copying are not made explicitly illegal by law (those allowed under the Fair Use doctrine) remains as your legal RIGHTS.
The mindset you exhibit is why many of the founders did not want to enumerate any rights in the Constitution, and they were only later tacked on in the Bill of Rights. They felt that whatever was not explicitly disallowed was within your rights, and that if they said "these are your rights", people would think exclusively instead of inclusively and believe those rights were ALL of their rights, instead of just a representative sample of specially protected, very important rights.
I believe such exclusive thinking in the general public (including lawmakers and lawyers) is why, as other responses to me said, the term "right" now means in legalese a specifically enumerated thing that the govt says you can do, and not as is commonly (and correctly) meant, anything that you are not expressly forbidden from doing.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
How is being forced to sit through 15 minutes of previews, many for DVDs that I already own, every time I insert a disc unintrusive?
Strange, not a single DVD I own (and I only have about 10) has a signle preview on it in anywhere other than the special features.
(These are all regiaon 4 - Australia)
not paying attention != ADHD
If Apple wanted your fingerprint to activate Tiger, you can bet some hard-cores would consider it some kind of compliment or rite of passage.
Activation, ie giving M$ name, rank, serial number, is a big reason I never plan on getting a M$ OS after Win2000. If they want my person info forget it!!! The ONLY thing that should matter is if I paid for it, they don't need to know anything else.
FalconShould there be a Law?
A form of ID loses value if the information is stored insecurely.
The finger-in-the-food story about Wendy's was a scam. That lady has a history of suing fast food companies for putting body parts in her food. Please don't continue to spread this FUD that Wendy's doesn't deserve.
That's correct. However, as a former employee of Wendy's for over 4 years, and knowing how they make their chili, I'd still recommend against eating it.
I'd be interested to know how this would hold up in court since you have fair use of the movie as long as you own it. Is there any guarantee that you are allowed to transfer ownership?
One article I read a few years back that fits very well her is, what does the consumer gain by adding this restriction? Much like SuperAudio, I don't feel like I'm gaining much for the increased limitations so I'm not going to buy this new DVD player. If that means I can't buy the newest movies, then I'll just survive without them.
I guess a good overarching rule is that in any transaction the consumer and the producer must gain. A person isn't going to pay a large quantity of money for the next shitty blockbuster and a movie company isn't going to spend millions of dollars on a film that's just going to get pirated over the internet and not have any return. In the end people will either provide content for cheaper/free and people will d/l it for free, or companies will produce content for a fee as long as it's profitable.
I simply will not cross that one. I'll walk away from gaming. I'll walk away from books. I'll walk away from magazines. I'll walk away from fishing licenses, hunting licenses.
You might get me on my drivers license.
I will walk away from my cell phone. I will walk away from my internet connection . And it's no big deal. It's just a plain no. It's not a "HOLY CHRIST JESUS ALMIGHTY WHY? WHY?"
Just no.
Of course, the decryption process will watermark your biometric data into the stream, so they'll be able to track distributed copies by biomark. Then should you ever be picked up or suspected for any reason (say, they subpoena your ISP or something) they can prove you did it.
"Wired is reporting on some scary new DRM tech being developed. From the article: 'At the store, someone buying a new DVD would have to provide a password or some kind of biometric data, like a fingerprint or iris scan, which would be added to the DVD's RFID tag. Then, when the DVD was popped into a specially equipped DVD player, the viewer would be required to re-enter the data.'"
... unwise ... to be watching and/or listening to their current material, I still have movies I can watch on a Saturday night.
Fuck OFF!
I cannot believe anyone would suggest such an INVASIVE method of securing a damn dvd, just for the 15 bucks the movie executive figures they're owed. It boggles the freakin' mind that anyone would be stupid enough to even think this is a good idea.
I knew there was a reason why I was building up my dvd collection; so that in the future, when the entertainment industry makes it
My thoughts exactly. I build up huge collection and have industrial accident. They're all no longer usable? I can't buy a gift? Say I'm a family of two adults and two children. Everyone has to purchase their own copy of a movie they want to watch or the purchaser has to be there for anyone in the family to watch it? Gee, sorry all... I'm going out of town on business. you can't watch your DVD. Sorry kids, we have a lot of movies but you can't watch any until I'm home from work or back from the store.
I think the big one pits the industry against itself. There goes Netflix and Blockbuster. You wouldn't be able to rent DVD's. And how much do they spend on purchases from the studios?
This definitely fits in the truly absurd category but you can bet your bottom dollar the guy is on his way to the patent office. This is so laughable the MPAA will probably actually try and latch onto it. (And I'm BIG anti-piracy person, but this is outright lunacy.)
People don't like throwing away things THAT DON'T LOOK BROKEN.And those dvd's were still shiny!Now if you could make it self destruct like on mission impossible-Hell,I'd buy one just to watch it go Boom!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Dosn't first sale apply to DVDs? With this I will have to sell my "Biometric Data" with the DVD if I ever sell it.
Blockbuster.
If they did this, I think I would be even less apt to buy DVDs than I am now. DRM is keeping me away already, I've bought 10 in the last year, and I predict far fewer in the future. If I can't download it, or find a friend with it, then I simply won't watch it. Ever.
... It's just disgusting that this would ever be mandated.
Seriously, current DRM can be cracked, which I do, so I can make backup copies and rip the DVD video to my computer so I can do with it as I please (Usually compress it and burn VCDs)
You paid, but somebody else's eyeballs got to see the content.
and if this is indeed the case, do the Feds arrest you for infringement after you receive corrective eye surgery to replace the lens/cornea/et al? =)
Any one wanting to purchase anything that is owned by the one corporate head will have to have a special genetically engineered mind worm inserted into his or her politically correct ear. And if they haven't paid for the work then the worm comes out and goes 'tisk tisk tisk' at them, wagging it's finger like something from a bad acid cartoon about Alice in Wonderland.
But seriously, if they want to sell their products they have to make a reasonable attempt to collect revenue. How about just asking for people to pay for it honestly?
I don't bother with the dvd product if it is too much work. If it won't play on my Linux box, then I don't want to use it or see it.
Seriously could happen and will even if it doesn't. You'll see.
Oh, trust me, as an ex-employee, I can ASSURE you that Wendy's truly, richly, completely deserves the finger-in-the-chili story. It's a little like the neighborhood drug dealer getting busted for a bogus speeding ticket.
Our local joint's been nicknamed "Chilifinger's."
Didn't someone sue after his finger was super glued to a credit card reader? Some prankster had put epoxy on the machine.
Wait, that didn't really happen. But it will even if it doesn't. You'll see.
This absolutely, positively will not work:
Q1. Where's the key? "Umm attached to the disk
on that RFID thingy". Ok so the key and the
lock get shipped together - no security
there.
Same problem as the CSS system - the keys
were shipped with every product.
Q2. Is the key strongly encrypted? "Umm not
with current RFID tags"
Fact is RFID don't hold a lot of data, and
*don't*, _do_ _not_ have the processing
capability to scramble or hide them.
Q3. How hard is it to read and/or rewrite the
key?
Dead simple. You can make your own RFID
writer for something around $20. If you buy
professional manufactured models in bulk,
you'll pay less.
The answer is simple - take away the RFID,
fingerprint smoke-screen/snakeoil and this might
as well be a licence number like on any retail
software pack.
And no harder to crack
Get your hands on titles from the Criterion Collection. They don't do any of that mumbo jumbo advertising. And they only distribute the best titles they can find. They're extremely picky.
After all, I am strangely colored.
There must be ways of applying recorded fingerprints to surfaces by now -or is that still tin-foil hat territory?
This has been possible for a long time. It's just a major pain in the ass to do. Basically, you want to make an optical representation of the finger print (in black and white), use that to make a silver etching, and use the silver etching as a mold for a latex "fingertip." There are a ton of things to look out for, but it's not too hard.
Makes one wonder whether they're thinking about tying this sort of DRM into the proposed "smart cards" that they want to introduce over there. Weren't they proposing biometric info and RFID in the new ID cards? If they do then they could easily jump on that bandwagon.
Just imagine going to the video store... You have to use your new National ID card to get out the dvd. It's locked to your ID. You get home and have to swipe your ID card in the DVD player to then play that DVD.
Like everyone else says, if they make it too intrusive it won't work. The moment the majority of people refuse to embrace a technology (even if it's good) it's doomed. Just look at the whole Beta -v- VHS story. And that was a good technology not an awful one...
Or, write an application to strip the watermark (i may be way off here, but doesn't apple watermark downloads from itms? also, aren't they removed by playfair or whatever that drm-remover is called)
The 'Singing Frog' cartoon comes to mind.
Surely it's only a matter of time before some 'Terminator' from the future turns up to terminate Professor Gadh with extreme prejudice, as it were. And by doing so this 'Terminator' nullifies its whole existance, thus it never could have come back to kill him. The consequence of this is that Rajit gets to deveop this tecvhnology giving rise to a 'Terminator' that can go back in time to terminate him, meaning almost instantly the universe dies as its stack and its heap collide. And we're back to square one again.
I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it
Human beings are lazy and greedy. Buying a DVD is far less hassle for your average person than downloading and burning. You pick it up, pay and play. So you have the lazy part down pat. This is where buying will always beat out downloading. So now why do people download it, because they are greedy. They want more for less. So reduce the prices down to the cost of a half price movie ticket (say AUD$6). So now you can get anything for $6 (Just think of all the people who come back from Indonesia with hundreds of DVD's they bought for $6 each or whatever). So we know they will buy them at that price - and lots of them. The industry cries havoc and lets slip the dogs of war and raises prices because piracy is eating away at their revenue, but a guy in Indonesia is making money at $6 a pop (or he would not be selling them). In actual fact by raising prices the demand for the product drops and people seek alternate means of procurement. The industry will say that the films cost millions to make, but then so does research, development, staffing, advertising, etc on most products that cost $6. If toothpast cost $30 a pop I would just use my brush as is. These companies spend millions on development, advertising and distribution and they can sell their products and make a good profit at $6 or even less. Not every film costs $300 million to make, most will probably average out to about $20 million. That's cheap compared to manufacturers of a wide range of international products that cost significantly less than DVDs. People will still copy them, but it would seem so silly to your average person to go through all that effort to get something that only cost $6. However at $30 it is worth it and that is obvious. The argument would then swing to the fact that people won't go to the cinemas. Cinemas used to be dirt cheap and the opiate of the masses, now they're defined as being for an affluent market. If movies cost AUD$3 I would probably go 10 times more often (and so would everyone I know). Most families can't afford to take Mom Dad and two kids because it costs almost as much as a Playstation game($60 tickets + $40 on goodies) if it was $22 all up you'd have queues out the doors and the cinema experience would be revitalised. $3 per ticket ($12) and $10 for 4 cokes and popcorns. These are not unrealistic prices $10 for 4 poured cokes and 4 popcorns and $3 per ticket if you increased your customer flow by 10 fold (which is also not unrealistic based on the fact that families don't go to the cinemas as much now because it is to expensive). Advertising revenue would be much higher because there are now 10 times more people in the seats, which makes it far more attractive. Seeing as cinema is basically a giant advertisement for DVD sales (a try before you buy) people would see more and buy more, increasing DVD sales (Sweet Home Alabama made a modest $20 to $30 million in box office earnings, but dragged in 10 times that on DVD). More films would be produced to meet demand, increasing the stability in smaller industries like Australia. So by lowering prices the industry will actually do more good than harm and piracy will disappear through lazyness.
You're absolutely right! Wendy's chili is awesome with *and* without severed fingers.
"which lets you skip them your are liable for a DMCA violation." Just curious...If I plug my ears and close my eyes while it's playing do I go to jail? After all, doing that would allow me to skip watching it. (I'm sure the MPAA would like to say yes.) When I think of DRM I (and I bet most people) think of something designed prevents copying.. (To manage the studio's digital rights.) not something that forces me to watch something.
I think that's why people re-master and burn their netflix immediately and only watch the backups..
" Or you could just buy a DVD player that lets you skip through all that crap."
Well I just found out that my DVD player (Sony NC615) is able to be "modified" through IR commands to unlock region codes and possibly macrovision protection also.. so i'll be trying this in the days to come...
This could still work with rentals. But Blockbuster, etc. will need retina or fingerprint scanners as well. RFID is not just a read only format. So the rental store clerk can scan your biometrics and store the signature on your dvd when you rent it. Then they just overwrite it for the next customer.
Something similar will also work if you buy a dvd as a gift. The dvd is purchased unlocked. You give it to your friend. They cannot play it in their dvd player until a biometric is stored in the RFID. I imagine retail stores will offer this service for free. Your friend takes the dvd to Best Buy and has their biometric placed on the RFID. Now it will work on their dvd player.
This will not prohibit a friend from lending their DVDs to you. The DVD player will be able to store a limited number of biometrics, say 10 or so. This would generally be more than a family would need. But you can also store a guest biometric. This can be overwritten as often as needed. The catch is that your friend needs to be at your home at least once so they can initialize the player.
Thanks, considering I find good stuff on /. weekly. My sig has sparked love-it-or-hate-it comments every so often, and is in Google (my 15 microseconds of fame, I guess). I'm never changing it. :^)
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
And since the claim I was replying to was a claim that DIVX failed because people wanted to converve resources and not throw away DVDs unnecessarily, you are presumably in agreement with me that Americans don't give a crap about conservation, and that the original claim was nonsense.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Americans care about reasonable conservation, hence the widespread recycling trash cans. What doesn't typically happen is going backward to driving tiny little deathtrap cars.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
You're aware that SUVs are far more dangerous, both to their occupants and to other people, than those "tiny" cars, right?
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
You're aware that SUVs are far more dangerous, both to their occupants and to other people, than those "tiny" cars, right?
-sigh- I don't feel like going through this yet again, but dig out the raw statistics yourself. This "SUVs are far more dangerous to their occupants" bullshit is a perfect example of how you can prove anything by manipulating statistics (and another reason I generally hate environmentalists (but I don't hate legitimate environmentalism)). On the other hand, it probably is more dangerous to other people (that's simple physics), but since I'm a safe driver and they aren't, I'd rather not get taken out by joe zippy in his econobox driving like a maniac.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I was going by the raw statistics of those Communists at the NHTSA.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
No, you were going by a biased analysis of NHTSA statistics. Look at death rates of heavier cars. Like I said, I don't feel like dredging this up again, because even if I prove it beyond any doubt that heavier is safer (which ought to be a big DUH moment), you won't believe it.
If you legitimately want to be educated about this (which I highly doubt, you WANT to believe that SUVs are evil planet-killers), then go find the stats yourself.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/regrev/evaluat e/809662.html
Prorated Fatal Crash Involvements Per Billion Miles:
Mid-size car (e.g. the Prius you mock): 9.46
Mid-size SUV: 13.68
So, the chances of being in a fatal crash are about 30% higher for an SUV, on a per-mile-traveled basis.
*plonk*
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Since you apparently didn't even read the report, Let's pull the important quotes, shall we?
"In MY 1991-99, and earlier, heavy vehicles had lower fatality rates per billion miles of travel than lighter vehicles of the same general type."
"As curb weight decreased by 100 pounds, fatality rates increased by 2.5 to 3 percent in rollovers and fixed-object collisions."
"As curb weight decreased by 100 pounds, fatality rates increased in every crash mode - although the observed increases in collisions with pedestrians (1.24 percent) and with cars (1.13 percent) were small and not statistically significant. In rollovers and collisions with fixed objects, heavy trucks or other (usually heavier) LTVs, fatality rates increased substantially (3.15 to 6.98 percent) as the weight of the "case" LTV decreased."
Also make sure you read the part where pedestrian fatalities increase ("The strong increase in pedestrian fatalities for the lightest cars is surprising").
I think I'll resist further quoting to save you further embarrassment.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Look, your original rant was about SUVs versus fuel-efficient cars.
I took the statistics for the first--SUVs--and the statistics for the second--mid-size cars such as the Prius.
I took the *relevant* measure, which is fatality rates per billion miles of travel, and compared them. SUVs turned out worse. End of story.
That SUVs might not be so bad compared with other classes of vehicle I didn't even consider, that SUVs might be safer the heavier they are, that fatality rates might be worse for lighter cars of the same class--all of that may be true, but is utterly irrelevant to the point of contention, which was your claim that SUVs were safer than fuel-efficient cars. Nice attempt at smokescreening, though.
As to the statistics being old, feel free to post more recent statistics if you can find them. Ball's in your court.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Didn't Jack Valenti say going to the bathroom during commercial breaks is theft?
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Not end of story. I called you on manipulating statistics because you did... you selected only the one that made your case. Why midsize SUVs? Why not the big ones?
Let's look at this way... The largest SUV has a rate of 10.03. The smallest, fuel-efficient cars have a death rate of 15.73. So the small cars are 57% more deadly than the big SUVs. Did I just prove my point? Exactly the same as you did.
The problem here is defining the "classes" of cars. We simply don't know what goes into a class. We could have one particularly bad SUV design pulling up the death rate of the "mid-size 4-door SUV" class. And what the hell is an SUV anyway?
What we do know is that HEAVIER IS BETTER, and that's the central point.
That SUVs might not be so bad compared with other classes of vehicle I didn't even consider, that SUVs might be safer the heavier they are, that fatality rates might be worse for lighter cars of the same class--all of that may be true, but is utterly irrelevant to the point of contention, which was your claim that SUVs were safer than fuel-efficient cars. Nice attempt at smokescreening, though.
What the hell? Read the thread. I talked about "tiny little deathtrap cars", YOU brought SUVs into the conversation, with "You're aware that SUVs are far more dangerous, both to their occupants and to other people, than those "tiny" cars, right?" And that's clearly a false statement.
Heavier is better, lighter is deadlier. We may have some variation based on design, model, etc, but there's no arguing that if you want safety, big and heavy is the way to go.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.