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Pact Not to Use Image Constraint Token Until 2010?
Devlin C. writes "Ars Technica reports that many major movie studios and several consumer electronics companies have an unofficial pact not to use the controversial Image Constraint Token in movies until at least 2010, presumably in an effort to spur early adoption. As the article at Ars notes, this would explain why both
the low-end PS3 and the Xbox360 lack HDMI. The companies think it's not necessary to have right now, and they would rather shave costs than sell future-proof hardware."
This is why it's important to not buy DRM-crippled hardware NOW, even if there is presently a workaround available.
Anyway, this is anti-piracy crap and the problem with anti-piracy is that it only hurts the non-pirates. It has already been shown that the next generation copy-protections for movies can be broken. There are some mighty clever people out there who get a thrill out of doing this and not all of them live in countries that could give a shit if some hollywood studio claimes it looses billions.
Back to silly console business. The Wii is not HD and that is defended because not enough people will have HD tv's for this console generations lifespan. The low end PS3 does not have HD and is slammed for not being future proof?
This is one reason I stopped reading game reviews, because I started to notice that reviewers never heard of consistency. They would slam game A for being X and then slam game B for not being X.
Is the computer industry that immature that we can't at least attempt to judge all things equally?
Either HDMI is important or it isn't. Make up your mind. No I don't get the low end PS3 move either. Yes I am familiar with the way fastfood places offer small medium and large so that the medium looks like the better deal. However the PS3 ain't being pushed as a McD coke. At its price it is supposed to be a fine cuisine served at a top restaurant. One way to tell a good restaurant from a fast food place is the lack of supersizing.
Oh well, lets continue the endless console debate. Were we slam the console we don't like for not having the features the console we like doesn't have either.
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If you shell out $500-$1,500 today for an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player, then I think you're going to be pretty pissed to only get 540p when a $50 DVD player can put out 480p. The entire reason you shelled out the big bucks was to get the higher resolutions, and down-sampling is pretty screwed up.
Can you imagine buying a $100,000 sports car and having a regulator that won't let you use half the cylinders in the engine? I don't see why you defend this practice.
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That's how the drug dealers round here work, and they're making good money. Should work for the movie industry too.
They'll be hoping that, by 2010, there won't be any of the old non-DRM hardware still in use.
This is exaclty the tactics drug dealers use to hook addicts. First you let the idiots have the stuff at near to no cost, and try yo make sure they won't find out what the real cost is until they are well and truly hooked. Then you can do what you like with them, make them pay any price you like, make as much profit from them as you like.
They know you won't go for this if you see up front what the final cost will be. They are dishonest, dishonorouble and decietful. And in my opinion illegal, as they seek to remove your fair rights. I don't advocate copyright violation, but I do oppose the draconian restrictions that these overlords are trying to impose by stealth.
960 x 540 will be more than adequate for private bittorent trackers distributing pirated media.
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Realistically, if few players are going to support this interface anytime soon, agreement or no agreement, they'd be shooting themselves in the foot to release videos that downgrade video that doesn't go over the interface.
My guess is that people buying videos won't know anything about he technologies involved just like now, but they *will* notice if some of their DVDs look like crap. A studio that puts out crappy looking videos is going to hurt their bottom line. People will figure, hey, why not just get the DVD cheaper instead of the HDDVD since it doesn't seem to be much better quality?
All this noise that the studios make about implementing these technologies with end to end encryption is pretty rediculous. The market at large is not concerned one way or the other with their anti piracy initiatives, but they do notice when the their equipment isn't compatible. There's already so little incentive to buy some new expensive DVD player that only makes a difference on HDTVs that no one has anyway that the industry fiddling with the standard at the last minute like this might kill HDDVD and HDTV altogether.
The public at large could easily forget about upgrading to the next generation. The current tv format has lasted a long time and could last much longer. That really doesn't seem like the worst thing in the world to me... I'm really pretty iffy on how dropping a couple of grand on the new equipment would improve my life in any measurable way.
Not having the flag enabled now is going to make it much harder to start using it later. After 4 years, when millions people get used to watching high resolution movies on their crippled PS3s, having a DRM flag on a movie will no longer be some technical rubbish about how they can copy it, rather it will mean they wont be able to play it at the resolution they have become accustomed to. If people are still willing to pay for a movie with this ICT flag enabled when they can't watch it in HD then the whole HD format change has been a waste of time, and pirated low resolution copys will also be good enough to pay for.
Studios are going to have to decide between selling blurays to people without HDMI hardware and losing sales through piracy. Perhaps they'll stop bitching about piracy and give up on DRM.
I remember back during the DVD John DeCess trial the lawyers were having a field day describing to the press the amount of damage he may have done. They bandied about numbers in the ten figures and above. And how this facilitates organized crime.
However, bootleg DVD's were on sale on the streets of NY long before the encryption was cracked. How? Simple. They just made a bitwise copy. They copied everything, copyprotection included, so it ran perfectly fine.
If nothing else, DeCss was just there to ensure that device manufacturers paid their fees. I assume HDMI is there for a similar reason.
The ______ Agenda
The main objectives for movie companies with the new digital distribution formats and HDMI are:
1) Get consumers to re-buy their whole movie collection again in a new format
2) Move all or at least the vast majority of their movie sales for home use to a beter protected format so as to defend themselfs from what they currently percieve as their main competition - sharing of movies via the Internet.
3) Monitize or increase their profits in existing markets (for example: video/DVD rentals) and open new markets (internet distribution) while maintaining or extending their ability to control prices.
4) Increase their share of movie publishing.
DRM is the chosen mechanism by which movie publishers aim to remotelly control, enforce and even change (if an internet connection is available) any rules of their choice on the allowed uses of the movies contained on the media that consumers aquire.
Businesses being businesses, they will naturally use those remote control abilities (pun not intended) to maximize their profits - given their behaviour up to now, this will most likelly include maximizing the amount that consumers pay, up to and including pay-per-single-view.
At the same time, the bigguest part of the movie industry (as measured by sales and also, quite likelly, by lobbying power) consists of old-style, long existing, entrenched businesses - they are aiming to remain dominant beyond the next 5 years and certainly have long term strategies in place to ensure that it will be so.
It is clear to all that, before they can achieve their objectives, massive user adoption of DRM supporting hardware is necessary. Assuming that the main players in the movie industry are indeed engaged in a plan which is only expected to give fruit in a medium to long (5+ years) term, it's hardly surprising that they will start by visibly refraining from exercising the remote control that the newest DRM hardware allows them, if they believe that this will accelerate the transition from the current generation of hardware to the new (strong DRM enabled) generation of hardware.
It should also be pretty obvious, that since they haven't actually signed any contract with any consumers by which they [movie publishers] are obliged to not enable their DRM, this announcement of theirs still leaves open to them the possibility to, at any time and with no penalty to them, change their minds if they believe that the market penetration of the newest DRM enable hardware has passed the point beyond which said hardware has become the de facto standard.
In other words, their promises are as worthless as the paper they are written in.
It's very simple - they learned that people don't want DRM, won't buy DRM. So, sell them something without DRM. Don't mention DRM. Then, years down the road when the tech is intrenched, when it's the standard, flip your little secret DRM switch.
This is literally an industry that has decided to screw its customers. Fuck them.
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OTOH, most (non-fanboi) people buy hardware for what they can do with it, not for what it is. If you just want to play games, Wii or 360 or is better value than something that makes you pay for HD movie hardware too. If you want HD games and movies, the low-end PS3 is a good option - but only so long as the studios stick to their "gentleman's agreement" - if it even exists - and leave off the ICT flag.
Fact is, unless you get a high-end PS3, then at the whim of the MPAA you could suddenly find your "value" games+HD-movies PS3 becomes good for games+DVDs only, and not such good value as you thought.
Personally I'd rather wait a while, and buy a standalone player in whatever HD format eventually wins. Prices will be cheaper then anyway, so I'll save money, there'll be more movies available and I'll feel a lot more secure about my purchase too. Putting oneself at the mercy of the MPAA is just begging for trouble.
BTW, buying a PS3 as a cheap Linux homebrew media box I can understand - but not until when/if those homebrew media apps actually exist. Until then, it's just a box of spare parts.
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From TFA In the meantime, it appears as though Hollywood is playing it safe, hoping to keep the boogeyman of HDMI at bay while consumers weigh their options. Whether or not the strategy is ultimately about keeping users happy or lulling them into a false sense of security remains to be seen, but we're fairly certain that ICT was designed to be used, and used it will be.
It seems to me that the issue isn't any of those stated, its about sales. First most 'consumers' don't know the differences between the standards, and any improvement seems good enough, so they are buying the cheapest improvement they can - that only makes sense. The standards are not in play enough to enforce a change across the buying public. The US government is still working to force all users to switch to digital television. Until that happens, joe public won't give a damn. There is only a small portion of the unwashed masses that even cares. Many of them think big screen == high definition still.
My experience is that if it says HD on it, joe public thinks its the shiznitz, they really don't care, and don't want to earn a EE degree to figure it out. Sony et al are cutting their own throats until they can convince the FCC and joe public that the 'thing they want' is 1080p and BR or whatever they decide on, as if they will ever be able to decide on something.
That may well be a cynical view, but it is the impression I get from various encounters. I have a SideKick phone, and the number of people that don't even know what it is (is that one of them blueberry's?) or what it can do is totally amazing. Trying to get even the technically savvy to understand that buying HD is difficult decision is crazy. One friend told me of spending 2500 on an HD setup (and he's happy with it) and I asked him what resolution it was.... he wasn't sure. What most people know about the technical details of what they buy is what they learned from the 18 year old salesman... who makes a commission on the sale... ya, that's working out well.
Any gentlemen's agreement is about setting the marketplace up so they can make money on the formats, and not kill their bottom line with product that isn't selling because of misinformation on the part of joe public. There is no technical reason, its all about the money. If HD products were selling, LALAwood and DVD/TV makers would very quickly work out any details in a short but sharp format war. This is all about sales, and no content provider is getting on board until the hardware makers "show 'em the money". 14 million copies of a DRM'ed movie are a liability if there is nobody to buy them. Hell, 14 million copies of a movie is a liability if there is nobody buying them even if they don't have DRM.
How may people here (raise your hands) have the capability to do more than 5.1 surround? There are better/improved sound systems... but what's the point, if your ears can't tell the difference in the money you spent? Its going to take some real education to get joe public to understand what the difference is, and then to get him to appreciate it enough to spend the extra money. Its all about the money.
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I think you woefully overestimate the intelligence and market sway of the average consumer.
What the whole ICT issue is going to do is create an extra upgrade cycle: everybody will get on the HD bandwagon now, and in a few years they'll roll out HDCP, and in order to watch new content, people will get new televisions.
This works well for the electronics manufacturers, because they get another shot at replacing a good chunk of the public's equipment in a few years, and although it slows the studios getting total content control by a few years, they'll still get what they want in the end.
Particularly because I don't expect the MPAA et al. to be idle in the meantime before the ICT rollout. On the contrary: I suspect they'll be watching the non-HDCP HD rollout very closely, and tallying up ridiculous numbers of dollars lost to "piracy" and "home copying", so that when HDCP comes, it won't just come from the studios, it'll have the full weight of Congress behind it.
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Here's the deal - the whole pact assumes that by 2010 most consumer equipment will support HDMI, thus allowed them to enable this flag...
But if that is not the case they WILL NOT enable the flag or risk loosing many sales. That's why it is important if you are going to buy the PS3 to buy only the $500 model, to send a signal that you have no interest in HDMI. The fewer people support HDMI the longer it will take to turn on this flag, and if the timeframe is long enough no-one will ever enable it because there will be no need.
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