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Blu-Ray Facing Delays Caused by DRM Squabbling
Tomo Hiratsuka writes "Disney, Warners et al, the companies behind the AACS content management system,
apparently can't get their act together to complete the standard they wish to impose on Blu-ray. The result? Pioneer has the first Blu-ray drive for PCs ready for market next month but is openly admitting the DRM issue may force it to delay." From the article: "The inability of the companies behind the AACS (Advanced Access Content System) content management system to complete their work has already caused Toshiba to put launch plans for its HD DVD player on hold. AACS is made up of a number of companies from the electronics and content industries. The group's founders include IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, Disney and Warner Bros."
I for one welcome our new indecisive DRM overlords.
Err, am I welcoming the indecisiveness of our DRM overlords?
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Now that these companies are actually producing products instead of touting them on paper, will they realize (falsely or not) that it's not worth pushing DRM? Or will they continue delaying a DRM release at the expense of new, otherwise helpful, tech?
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
You mean my ability to buy into an intentionally crippled format has been delayed?
Darn.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I know the excerpt mentions it but both formats will be delayed by this, title seems a bit misleading.
-or so you'd think
Maybe if Pioneer sold enough of them, there'd be such an uproar when the DRM'd players come out that they'd be rejected completely by consumers. Or, at least, it would wake up more people to the dangers of DRM.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
They should decide which copy protection system they want DVDJon to break and get it over with. Geeze.
Or they could skip the crypto crap and save everyone some time and money, but that just seems too obvious.
someone should sue them about patent infringments after they agreed on something.
I'd like to see something like it come out, but take the time to do it correctly. i.e. NO DRM!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The film industry has no real desire to jump into HD-DVD/Bluray. They won't be making much money until player costs drop significantly and the HD market is better established. They have the DRM leverage over manufacturers and will string this out as long as possible to get as strict as possible protection.
If we're welcoming our new overlords, does that make us doormats?
Anyway, I wish companies would realize that DRM is not the answer to copyright infringement, there is no "answer." The best way to lessen the problem is to lessen the cost to the end user, and don't introduce new formats!
A lot of people bought DVD copies of their VHS tapes because of higher quality and longer life spans, will BlueRay be enough of an advance?
I don't get it.
Both HD-DVD, and Blue Ray will be delayed until the DRM is done, so they'll both end up launching at the same time creating a split in the market that makes DVD+ DVD- elegant by comparison.
Can anyone say 2 stillborn products?
The simple solution - just don't use DRM ;)
They should've just said: "Whoops! You missed the deadline? We didn't even notice! Sorry, but it's already out on the market. Nothing we can do now.."
The group's founders include IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, Disney and Warner Bros."
l a.com
What is funny is what netcraft shows as the server OS; bet MS isn't happy; perhaps clueless. I guess those license fees are just a little to high:
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=www.aacs
Ok, I'm hungover and pissy.. But I'm just sick to fucking death of these profit-mongering fuckers pissing all over us. Fucking us over is one thing - keeping us cringing as they sharpen the blades on the serrated dildo they're about to ram into our asses is just the goddamn icing.
There's a reason I don't buy movies anymore. Shit, I haven't bought a movie or a cd in five fucking years. I don't even own a cd player anymore, and I'm sure as hell not buying either of these goddamn new techs. We have to produce an epic amount of pointless shit to fill the amounts of space available on existing portable media and somehow attempt to justify charging a freaking fortune for utter catwank like Freaky Friday.
And then the cunts will only be fucking happy when I give them money to watch the movie, then have the memory surgically fucking removed from my brain so I don't stad the chance of even potentially infringing on their piece of shit, rip off, 'IP'.
Stallman et al are fucking nuts too, but jesus, at least they look you in the face with their crazed eyes and spit flecked jaws when they're fucking your wife.
Burn my damn karma - you know I'm right. Except about Stallman banging your wife. Probably.
fortune -o
Err, am I welcoming the indecisiveness of our DRM overlords?
Indeed, the commercial mess that DRM schemes are now demonstrably causing around a promising technology should further convince decision makers and investors around the world that the business model of DRM is wrong. Reasonable pricing and value preserved DRM unencumbered media will do it. One new nail in the coffin!
You know an issue has been beaten into the ground when the first 20 posts are moderated at a best of +3... let the fruitless posts begin!
IMHO a lack of good comments would be caused by a lack of anyone's suprise by a delay in deciding competing consumer-unfriendly technologies...
(After re-reading this post it sounds a little muddled, my apologies for a lack of clarity.)
These large media corporations would realize that DRM isn't the solution to illegal downloading of songs, they would be much better off.
How about, instead, they reduce the cost of a standard, new CD to ten bucks? Or thereabouts. I would rather drop 10 dollars on a new CD, which is burned at high quality with all the songs of the album on it, then download all the songs, and burn them myself, most likely at a lower quality because I can't find the right bittorrent file.
How do you get to be the CEO of a large corporation if you're stupid?
The prisoner of hope is sustained and encouraged by his hope, even as he is confined by it.
And add county codes instead. You will have to buy new media and a player whenever you move.
If it can be read, it can be copied...
Sadly, I really don't think DRM will bother the unwashed masses. Why?
-Most people have been trained to buy their information. Along the way free information is derided as just that, "free" and all it suggests.
-It will "just work."
-If the quality is good enough, they'll gladly lose what freedom is left in exchange for a prettier picture. Most have gladly done that already with iTunes. So the audio battle is over and DRM has won. Your video is next.
-Even when someone breaks it, it just won't put a big dent in the corporation's bottom line.
-The Entertainment corps get to drag the poor guy through court as an "example to all." Thereby reinforcing the mindset that information should be owned, lock, stock and barrel.
While I understand that DRM and OSS are idealogically polar opposites, there should be an OSS DRM. Then there would at least be some transparency. Not to mention a generally better system.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
According to the article:
"IBM has accused Sony of failing to complete a portion of the code responsible for decryption of the video stream. 'The code they delivered for factoring the product of two large prime numbers is [extremely] slow,' said a spokesman, 'but we're confident they'll come through with a solution soon.'"
Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
What a great, succinct way to put it.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
Nobody cares how much money and effort and merketing they put into DRM.
As soon as the first hardware appears and DRM (of course) fails - many people in these fabulous global-player-companies will lose their jobs because they turn out to be just stupid controlfreaks who fucked a whole industry in the ass with their penetrant DRM enthusiasm and everyone will return to good old, reliable, uncensored, and country-code-free P2P.
Nothing to see. End of story. Pass along. Thank you!
The really sad part is that these companies have now wasted millions of dollars and months, if not years bickering about a DRM system that will be cracked by bootleggers within months of its public release.
Is that they've got to convince people to switch.
As sony has found out, asking people to give up a non-DRM format for something with DRM is a tough sell (as in SACD replacing Audio CD).
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
What a waste of time...
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Can't they just sell me the drive now and then send me the add-on DRM module once they get that sorted out? I promise that I'll hook it up right away.
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
This should make it more embarrassing when their DRM is cracked within 90 days of release.
Not that the media mafia really cares or anything but at least we'll get a laugh.
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow
It's a lot of stress for them.
They just FEEL that whatever they end up with for AACS it'll be hacked and dismantled the week it's out, and are frantically trying to prevent it.
It's of course funny to see how the minuses of DRM pile on top of each other (now delaying manifacturing and entering the market), while the benefits are yet to be seen (if ever).
This presents a wonderful opportunity for what the conglomerates would call a renegade and consumers would call a visionary company to get its act together and put out an unregulated standard that would be adopted by all the technophiles out there. Once they take the lead, the masses would follow. Sure it would take a massive amount of brainpower and organization, but I'm sure the necessary human resources could be found right here on /.
http://www.stockmarketgarden.com/
I am quite ill.
But I'm just sick to fucking death of these profit-mongering fuckers pissing all over us. Fucking us over is one thing - keeping us cringing as they sharpen the blades on the serrated dildo they're about to ram into our asses is just the goddamn icing.
I am quite exhausted with these media corporations trying to eliminate our basic rights to fair use. Would they please try to consider some basic principles other than their profit motives? I understant that they have fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders - maybe my 401K is invested in one of them, but please, consider the above.
There's a reason I don't buy movies anymore. Shit, I haven't bought a movie or a cd in five fucking years. I don't even own a cd player anymore, and I'm sure as hell not buying either of these goddamn new techs. We have to produce an epic amount of pointless shit to fill the amounts of space available on existing portable media and somehow attempt to justify charging a freaking fortune for utter catwank like Freaky Friday.
I disappointed with the quality of today's media output.
And then the cunts will only be fucking happy when I give them money to watch the movie, then have the memory surgically fucking removed from my brain so I don't stad the chance of even potentially infringing on their piece of shit, rip off, 'IP'.
In their overzealous attempt at promoting their profits, are they going to start erasing our memories so that we have to keep paying for the same content over and over? I feel quite used and over-charged!
Stallman et al are fucking nuts too, but jesus, at least they look you in the face with their crazed eyes and spit flecked jaws when they're fucking your wife.
Stallman et al are somewhat eccentric. And I assume that they may be having relations with your spouse.
Burn my damn karma - you know I'm right. Except about Stallman banging your wife. Probably.
I have strong opinions about this, and I am not concerned with your modderations.
BSD isn't dead, it was Stillborn!
Apple is for unimmaginative wannabees who want to be cool and not have their own style or consider what works for them.
I'm panting now, I have to quit.
I have no problem with them putting copy protection software on to prevent the discs being copied, what I do object to is the silly REGION CODES
Most DVD players now days are multi-regionable in a few clicks, and to be honest the only people who win with the region coding is realy the pirates. The codes were originally there for marketing and control purposes, which helped make a hash of the whole situation.
If they released a film to DVD simultaneously in all countries piracy could be reduced.
We have the case where DVD's are released in the USA 6 months before the EU, the net result, people import the discs or get pirated copies.
A lot of people I know dont even buy DVD's anymore, instead download the movies via P2P either from copies of DVD screeners, or from piracy of the movie at theatres.
If Disney etc cant agree on DRM, why cant they agree on a less restrictive DRM rather than one that has all the bells and whistles on that (supposedly) meet all their requirements.
Given the large collection of DVD's I have, I wont move to Blue-ray for Films for a long while (for data I will as the capacity is better)
I hope a few of these units leak out into the marketplace before being neutered with DRM. It would be easy then to compare the difference between them and figure out how to remove the offending bits. Hmmm. Now that I think about it, is the DRM really an add-on to the point where you could manufacture them and ready them for shipment, awaiting only an easy DRM plugin? Is the DRM merely firmware or is it somehow embedded more deeply into the electronics?
...large scale piracy continues unabated.
Techies have sold these people a load of crap if they believe anything they can do will stop determined pirates.
It will only take one company to release blue laser DVD technology that does not have DRM (Even if it is against the law in the USA). The consumers will vote with their dollars. And thus DRM will lose the battle again.
Jiminy, I don't give three-quarters of a rat's ass about movies on BluRay. I want these turkeys to go ahead and get their consumer market rolling along so I can get a writable BluRay drive and start burning spindles full of data DVD-R's to a handful of BluRay discs.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Or you could ship it now without DRM and flash update the BIOS later on when the children have quit throwing food at each other while complaining about who got more than they did.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The real question is: Will Sony delay the PS3 if the DRM isn't worked out? Or will they ship with what they have at the time?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Something I missed: now both formats seem ready to begin manifacturing but both are waiting for AACS.
HD DVD was supposed to benefit from earlier launch, but since both wait for the same thing, it seems whatever benefit there was is going as days pass.
So this means they will largely start manifacturing and release at the same time, expect the Format War to continue for longer than predicted.
Dunno for Sony, but Toshiba should be definitely pissed off.
After the whole thing with Sony's music CDs, I wouldn't be surprised if they've had to change some aspects of the copy protection - namely removing stealth copy protection mechanisms. Because you know it was on their minds, and probably already coded.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
33Mbps? Where did they find a one bit wide, 33MHz ATAPI interface? Perhaps they meant 33MBps? The question is, where did the error come from? If it's from IDG, that's pretty sad.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Someone bulding a next gen dvd player out of parts and breaking at least some of the DRM that way. As I understand it some information will be contained in tracks that can't be read by the player (well they can but you can't see the result of that read). Surely a home built player could just be made to read that info. Now I realize that building a DVD player is not a trivial task but most of the parts are already available. In fact surely all you would really need to build is a new control board just without all the DRM. The read head, trays, drive motors etc etc are already and waiting.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
They're squabbling over which DRM standard will cracked 24 hours after it's released? What a waste of time.
LK4
"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts", Earl Weaver - Legendary Coach of the Baltimore Orioles
Yep. Not only is Sony in the movie industry they also are going to produce the first mass blu ray player called the Playstation 3. Whatever Sony decides goes. Is Japan lax on anti-trust legislation? Sony's position of being both in the content industry and producing media players is abusive and gives them an unbelievable leg up on all competition.
You think that's bad, you should try working a project with EDS. Then you'll learn what "delay" really means.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
DRM threatens our children in the same way nuclear threatened us - we all die, so take the piss as much as you can - like nuclear, DRM kills us all as human beings.
Heh HTH
--
Note to self: stay off the absinthe and wine and herion.
Heh. Only joking.
I wonder if they have finally figured out that DRM makes the ultimate monopoly tool. If your device becomes the first to get up and go, no one can ever compete. You would think this would be good for them but think Itunes, even if it is not now it will prevent new innovations from taking hold via this medium later. No company wants to be the odd man out, yet they must now pay whomever the owns the rights to the DRM flavor of the month which sucks if they happen to be your competitor in other areas. They also have a pricing problem because only a very few manufactures will ever be let in on the DRM code prices will not fall naturally and mass production will always be somewhat less effective. The product also is not for most people the huge leap it was from VHS to DVD. DRM issues have slowed the HDTV and monitors transition too much. Then you add on the loss of versatility and consumers slowly developing an awareness that DRM is taking something away from them and you have crated a good old fashion square in a curvy hip world. They might have sold this in the days when they were worshiped but that was a long time ago. Suing your customers just does not earn you friends. I think at some level they must realize the fiasco but they do not have the will to break themselves out it. I hope they get what they deserve.
With digital media it is much harder, because you don't need to process the information in order to read it. With analogue, the two steps were the same. Thus, copy protection at the data level is completely useless. If you can read the data, you can indeed copy it.
Copy protection is NOT, however, totally impossible. You just have to approach the problem differently. Instead of protecting at the logical layer, you need to protect at the physical layer. One way to do that is to have disks that can be written to and read on conventional equiptment, but exploit some additional property that is physically added to hold more data than could be stored otherwise, where that property could not be trivially added by pirates.
For example, have a physical masking plate over the disk, such that when the laser burns data onto the disk, only half of the normal area is marked. You then lay down another set of data, marking the remainder of the disk. Finally, you etch the surface in such a way that the laser is focussed onto the half you're wanting it to read at that time.
Your disk can be read on a normal system - the optics are altered only on the disk itself, not in the player - but there's now twice as much data on the disk than can be written without that masking plate. So long as the data is compressed enough that another 50% loss would be unacceptable, the medium becomes readable but effectively uncopyable.
"Effectively" is important, here, because of course the medium is perfectly copyable. You just use the same method as used to create the disk in the first place. The problem would be purely one of obtaining masks capable of giving you the effective density, then obtaining etching technology capable of giving you double-density reads. This is so far beyond Joe Average that piracy would simply not happen.
The "normal" things that concern "real" people - backing up, reading on unsupported OS', etc, would be completely unimpaired by this method. You're not altering people's ability to read the data, you're only altering their ability to duplicate the disk as a disk.
Why isn't something like this being done? Because piracy isn't the issue. It never has been. As 98% of desktop machines run Windows, 98% of piracy on the desktop is going to be under Windows. Yet interviews with the MPAA have always implied that it was DVD readers on Linux and other (relatively speaking) minority OS' that were their concern. Bit-copiers and frame-grabbers have never been at issue and (through pricing) have been over-compensated for anyway.
The best thing that the F/OSS world can do is to exploit the time gap between now and when Blu-Ray and HD-DVD come out, to do something better. There are not enough blue-frequency players out there to make a difference, right now, so the market can be effectively regarded as open. Since there are no movies long enough to take advantage of the extra capacity (other than LoTR), such disks will only be of interest for data storage anyway, for now.
It should not be hard to produce a read/write optical disk with greater capacity than either of these schemes propose. Flat lenses, polarised light, diffraction gratings, three colours of laser (red, green and blue) - there's got to be something trivial enough to tag on that would nonetheless make the system unique enough not to fall foul of patents AND sufficiently better to make Blu-Ray and HD-DVD too primitive to fall back to, when they do come out.
The best way to pwn the market is to define the market. You're never going to convince the RIAA and MPAA, so don't involve them in the first place. If they're runners-up, then they'll have to make do with what YOU choose to provide.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
They are trying to come up with a DRM scheme with an algorithm complex enough to not fit on the front of a T-Shirt. They want us to have to use the front AND back of the shirt this go-around.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
Jim Taylor in DVD Demystified explained that DVD's were ready to go (technically) 18 months before they were formally launched. The holdup: Studios wanted encryption. Finally, someone sold them CSS, convincing them it was *very* secure.
Noting new here. Same old IP concerns holding up innovation and the progress IP protection was meant to promote.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
The hardware will allow new encryption schemes to be carried by the disk.
From here....
http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/08/10/blu/index.html
"BD+ appears to be Blu-ray's version of a concept previously under consideration called SPDC, which enabled the method for encrypting a disc's contents to be included on the disc, rather than on the EPROMs of the disc player. One of the perceived failures of first-generation DVD was that its encryption mechanism of choice, called Content Scramble System (CSS), was spectacularly defeated, with the result being that the industry was forced to permanently and irreversibly support a now-worthless encryption scheme. With SPDC, new encryption algorithms could be adopted as old ones are cracked, enabling successive generations of high-def DVD to be stronger than earlier ones."
Enjoyed the piss and vinegar. "Catwank" was the icing on the cake. Not sure if I'd want to actually eat a cake iced with catwank, but it's still a worthy creation.
... and then they built the supercollider.
The better it is for us. And, you know ...the Pyrates.
This is like one god damn ayatollah squabbling with another ayatollah. As long as it's fucking dead sheet-heads, the entire rest of the god damn world comes out on top, so fucking go at it. I say arm each side and make money off the middle. Just like Switzerland.
Hey, speaking of Switzerland. Do Sony employees have gold in their teeth?
Early attempts at SATA were not considered a roaring success...
It's a Sony!
Hmmmm. Think they could cook a rootkit into the firmware so the drive will poison your box?
Or what about a nice rootkit embedded in all blank media. Yummy.
No, sarcasm aside, I am not too keen on Sony these days. They have content to protect so they dare not build any hardware that gets in their own IP pocket. It's a conflict they lack the balls to resolve.
Remember the copy protection craze in the 80s? Microsoft blew it off and became a giant due, in part, to viral spread. Hopefully HD DVD (which Redmond is supporting) will win because it is more open. People do not want and will not buy hobbled hardware. And HD DVD is backwards compatable...always a plus in my book.
I think I'll try HD DVD or maybe wait till the holographic discs hit the market. No way to Blue Root.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
The group has declined several requests for comment or interview regarding when the first version of its format will be completed.
Players are ready to roll, and they haven't produced the first version yet?!
"VHS wasn't DRM'd"
Hello? McFly? A call from Mr. Macrovision for you...
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Months? My money is on 48hours. If things are difficult, maybe a week or two. I would laugh my butt off if information/code on the DRM scheme is leaked by some means to the cracker community.
Personally I will not tollerate any DRM that limits my ability to seamlessly and fairly play the media on any device, medium, OS, or media player. So far no DRM falls into this category IMHO.
Only the player manufacturers were forced to keep supporting it. There's absolutely no need to use CSS on DVDs. In fact, there are commercial movie DVDs out there that aren't CSS encoded.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
take the DRM out... nothing to fight over. *shakes head* Now, why can't they think of that?
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game
I found this article, the transcript of a speech about DRM, I realize that this is preaching to the choir, but the points raised and the reasoning make lots of sense. http://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt
And I still see VHS sold in stores. Not as many anymore, but you can still get pretty much every new video on it.
I think it would be hilarious if they end up without DRM at all. Probably sell better as well.
I don't read AC A human right
Guess what the "D" in DRM stands for, dummy!
can't wait for that to come to "market" from some russian site
HarperCollins demands for some sort of 'DRM' in its books?
All of these companies even hate the idea that we would lend DVDs and CDs to our friends/relatives. But how many of those CEOs have lent a book to someone?
Unauthorised lending is a big part of piracy, but I would imagine that a larger proportion of the profit from a book goes to the author, than the profit on a CD to the artist. God knows what they think of libraries these days.
If this were really happening, what would you think?
I, for one, enjoyed the whole "winding" aspect of VHS. It was nice to have something so simple that I could stop it, walk off and do something else and then come back later -- possibly on a completely different player -- and resume from exactly where I left off. It was DVD's other benefits (quality and longevity in particular) that got me to finally switch.
I run some club nights at a local venue in which we often put some silly visuals on the televisions just to give people something to ogle and perhaps create a talking point for my patrons. We experimented with all sorts of "clever" ways to present this stuff, the most interesting being a modded XBox playing video files from its hard disk with a USB bluetooth thinger plugged into one of the controller ports so that I could control it remotely.
In practice though, these fancy modern solutions are terrible in the face of failures and just give me more to worry about. I now just prepare a four-hour VHS video in long-play mode with the stuff I want to play (still using that XBox, in fact) and just use a VCR on the night. VHS is so simple that there's not much that can go wrong. If we have a technical problem with the AV equipment we can just carry on from where we left off rather than having to screw around with a DVD player or an XBox when I've got more important things to be doing. Fortunately, the quality/longevity thing isn't too important in this scenario because these things are generally just used once and then recorded over, and no-one really gets close enough to the screens to notice the quality anyway.
Yes they Where!!
I just hope they actually come to to a consensus before the HD format becomes obsolete.
Thank you! I love it when people express themselves, no matter how: "Troll"ish, "Flamebate"ish, or not in /. group think, it is! I really wish the mod's and others here on /. wouldn't take themselves so fucking serious!
Take care, so good work, and Happy New Year!
IAAP