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Studios OK Burning Movie Downloads

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the so-long-as-it's-paid-for dept.

SirClicksalot writes "The DVD Copy Control Association has released a statement (pdf) announcing that it will make adaptations to the Content Scramble System (CSS) used to protect DVDs. The association, made up of Hollywood studios, consumer electronics and software companies, licenses CSS to the DVD industry to protect content. The changes will allow home users to legally burn purchased movie downloads to special CSS protected DVDs, compatible with existing DVD players."

38 of 216 comments (clear)

  1. Further evidence... by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...that the MPAA and its members aren't quite as evil as the RIAA and its members. I don't think this will really help anything (what prevents me from making a DVD now?), but it's a nice gesture of sincerity. :)

    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    1. Re:Further evidence... by D-Cypell · · Score: 5, Insightful

      but it's a nice gesture of sincerity. :)

      Yes, it is a nice gesture of how sincere they are about making you pay twice for the movie. Once for the download and again for the blank media to burn it to.

    2. Re:Further evidence... by Daniel_Staal · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Nah. It's just that they've learned from the RIAA's mess. They realize they are where the music industry was in the mid-90's, with downloading movies just becoming practical, and they don't want to loose control of their revenue stream.

      Apple showed that people will pay for downloads, if they are presented with few enough restrictions. So, the MPAA is trying to pre-empt the P2P people by getting legal downloads in place before illegal ones take off.

      --
      'Sensible' is a curse word.
    3. Re:Further evidence... by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How does it prove that?

      The RIAA's members continue to sell unencumbered media for the most part. The DVD-CCA has merely announced a minor modification to CSS (actually probably to recordable DVD media) that will allow DVD-burning kiosks to be set up. These DVD burning kiosks will still end up generating discs that are illegal - as in jailtime - to play with an unlicensed DVD player.

      I haven't seen the RIAA pushing for jailtime against people who write audio ripping software let alone CD players. And while there may be occasional glitches in its current stategy, so far it seems to be aiming to punish only those who actually willfully infringe copyright (by putting copies of their member's music onto file copying networks.)

      Neither are perfect bodies, but the RIAA so far hasn't tried to micromanage how I listen to music. The MPAA really does think, very strongly, that you should only watch its member's content on it's members defined terms, and is willing to promote mechanisms with draconian legal backing to enforce this. They're a bunch of scumbags, and this article does nothing to disabuse me of that notion.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    4. Re:Further evidence... by PFI_Optix · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The obvious: you don't *have* to burn it to any media.

      It would seem a logical step that if this becomes a standard we might see network-capable DVD players that can play all this media without it being burned.

      --
      120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
    5. Re:Further evidence... by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Apple showed that people will pay for downloads, if they are presented with few enough restrictions. So, the MPAA is trying to pre-empt the P2P people by getting legal downloads in place before illegal ones take off.
      Which is what the RIAA members should have done in the first place. If they had, the world would have never known what "Napster" was. Unfortunately, they were too busy (and are still too busy!) protecting their tiny little empires to care about the actual business side of things.
      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    6. Re:Further evidence... by Yvan256 · · Score: 5, Informative
      The RIAA's members continue to sell unencumbered media for the most part.
      Because the CDDA specs were done a long time ago, when nobody thought that if would be economically viable to copy 600-700MB of data for a single 20$ music CD. When MP3 came out, it was too little too late to change the CDDA specs: they didn't want to break the billions of CD-audio players available world-wide.

      I'll also add a comment to your "for the most part" argument: look at how often and in how many ways they've tried to put (sometimes artificial) barriers to CD-ripping. With the iPod and other MP3 players being so popular now, too many people stumble upon those limitations, the RIAA can't get away with it.
    7. Re:Further evidence... by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Interesting
      According to TFA, they're changing the CSS spec, not creating special discs.

      1. Changing the spec will not retroactively change older players.
      2. The current discs simply do not have the area where CSS is written. If they change the spec to allow writing it to another location, we don't need a new kind of disc, but we will need new, next-gen-DVD-compliant players.

      As per TFA:

      To allow copies to be made, the DVD Copy Control Association will have to make "adaptations" to the group's encryption technology, which is called the Content Scramble System, or CSS, Larson said. The association, made up of Hollywood studios, consumer electronics and software companies, licenses CSS to those in the DVD industry to protect content.

      If this paragraph is accurate, and changes need to be made, then as I said, these new-CSS-format DVDs will not play on old players without a firmware update, which will not be forthcoming for most of them.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    8. Re:Further evidence... by kalel666 · · Score: 5, Funny

      "continued to focus the bulk of its efforts on the people who are mass producing pirate movies"

      Run, Johnny Depp, run!

      --
      I HAVE CUBIC WISDOM THAT TRANSCENDS AND CONTRADICTS ONE DAY GODS
    9. Re:Further evidence... by Alsee · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The DMCA criminal DRM provisions have never been successfully upheld against anyone. And ironically, it is virtually impossible to get a law struck down on appeal as unconstitutional, ambigious, or otherwise defective, when you there is no conviction to appeal. It's rather interesting the way the RIAA/MPAA withdraw their case and actively force the issue out of court when some case poses a threat that the court might ruling against the DMCA.

      The closest any case actually came to enforcing the criminal provisons of theDMCA was in the Skylarov/Elcomsoft case. The facts of the case fell square under the text of the DMCA, and copyright industry commentators even said it was hard to imagine any more clear and exact violation of these DMCA provisons. The jury simply refused to vote to convict, unanimously.

      The jurors had asked US District Judge Ronald M. Whyte to clarify the definition of 'fair use' shortly after deliberations began. [JuryForeman] Dennis Strader said: "Under the eBook formats, you have no rights at all, and the jury had trouble with that concept."

      The DMCA is used to terrify corporations into compliance and to keep products off of the market, but the law itself is so unconcionable that an entire jury from the general public unanimously refuse to enforce it.

      -

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
    10. Re:Further evidence... by AKAImBatman · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Do you really mean that?
      Yes, actually. When MP3s first started appearing, they were REALLY hard to get hold of. (Usually consisting of secret FTP sites that a friend of a friend of a friend told you about.) At the time, it occurred to me that music producers could make money by selling MP3s. Instead, they started trying to shut down MP3 sites.

      It was at this point I realized that they needed to start selling the stuff or the "problem" would only get worse. As I told a coworker at the time, 'net surfers are going to take the path of least resistence. If they can get music more conveniently than dealing with ratioed FTP sites (I hated those things), they will happily pay a reasonable fee.

      Unsurprisingly, the RIAA members ignored the wonderful business opportunity that was staring them in the face. So then they had to contend with Napster. By the time the entire debacle was over, every person on the planet now knew about the convenience of online music! To get support from congress for their legal tactics, they actually started claiming that they would have a music store out Real Soon Now(TM). Of course, one never materialized. (At least the MPAA members were smart enough to launch MovieLink.) If it hadn't been for Apple, Lord knows what would have happened. :-(
      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    11. Re:Further evidence... by MBGMorden · · Score: 4, Informative

      CSS is an encryption standard, but for a player to *decrypt* that file it has to get the key off of the disc. That key is stored in an area that is not writeable on DVD-R's. So if you burn an encrypted DVD-R (or +R), it's just fine, except that your player doesn't know how to play it.

      Popular DVD "ripping" tools that make the ISO's actually decrypt the content first so that you can burn it to another disc in an unencrypted format.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
  2. How "nice" of them... by Teese · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...to allow us to use our legally purchased content. The movie industry sure is on our side! Maybe next year they will allow us to skip chapters! or fast-forward! Can you imagine how much praise and rejoicing there will be? I can't wait until we have earned their good graces!

    stupid

    --
    "I'm a Genius!"*


    *Not an actual Genius
    1. Re:How "nice" of them... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Frankly, I could live forever without their content. But I object very strongly to the idea that anyone, including them, should have a right to stop me passing on information if I choose to. I disagree with the idea that people "own" "information itself". Only copies exist. Only copies should be ownable. If they don't want stuff being redistributed, they shouldn't release it in the first place. Enforcement of copyright is used as an excuse for police-state building.

      Hence my support for the PIRATE PARTY. Go pirates! http://www.piratpartiet.se/

    2. Re:How "nice" of them... by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Funny
      Yea, okay. They take an official position on a matter that is 100% in agreement with the Slashbot position and you STILL bitch and moan about it.

      You must be an MPAA shill, because their position is not, repeat not 100% in agreement with the Slashbot position. In particular, they are using css. The "Slashbot position" as you call it is that both CSS and region coding are objectionable, and should never be used. DVDs work just fine without any CSS at all, and CSS does not prevent copying, so why do they use CSS? Purely legal reasons, and poor ones at that, designed to prevent us from exercising our fair use laws, through application of the DMCA.

      You fail the test! Hand in your geek badge on your way out.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:How "nice" of them... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Interesting
      They take an official position on a matter that is 100% in agreement with the Slashbot position and you STILL bitch and moan about it.

      Well, I'm not sure what the 'Slashbot position' is - sounds faintly kinky - but my view on the matter has not changed:

      If you want to sell me your content, then do so without DRM. I have a lot of devices that can play audio and video. I reserve the right to choose which one I use to play back content that I have bought. I reserve the right to play a movie backwards. I reserve the right to format shift it to play on a mobile device, optionally with more lossy compression. I reserve the right to chop it apart and create derived works, although I understand that I will be required to pay royalties if I distribute them, as per copyright law. I reserve the right to do absolutely anything I want with the content that does not contravene copyright law (i.e. anything other than distributing modified or unmodified copies). You, as the copyright holder, have the right to control distribution. You have no other rights related to your content.

      If you want to try putting restrictive DRM on your content, then I reserve the right not to buy it. I also reserve the right to keep proposing to my elected representatives that copyright protections only be extended to works distributed without DRM.

      In the UK, you are allowed to lock your doors. If someone breaks in, you are allowed to use reasonable force to protect yourself and your property. If you shoot someone because you think they might break into your house, or even because they did break into your house, then you will go to jail. Our legal system does not condone vigilante actions in other areas, and I see no reason why copyright should be a special case.

      that's all you whiny babies really want, and nothing less is going to make you cheap bastards happy.

      Do you hear that sound? That was your credibility flying away.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  3. "special" discs? by lordkuri · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Anyone want to take a guess at how much these discs are going to cost? I'd wager just about the same price as an actual dvd of the movie itself.

    Besides, haven't these morons figured out yet that CSS is borderline useless?

    1. Re:"special" discs? by DarthSkippious · · Score: 4, Funny
      Besides, haven't these morons figured out yet that CSS is borderline useless?


      Useless? Useless? Are you kidding? The hack of it made a great t-shirt!

    2. Re:"special" discs? by AndyG314 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Besides, haven't these morons figured out yet that CSS is borderline useless?
      Of course they have, why do you think they are willing to let us use it. They look less evil, and they are only "letting" us do something we already could.
      --
      If it's dead, you killed it.
    3. Re:"special" discs? by Mr2001 · · Score: 4, Informative
      From the PDF (emphasis added):
      Under rule changes now in the works, commercial vendors could create protected DVDs on kiosks and in small custom runs. Individual consumers could legally record a variety of selected content. Both would require special blank DVD discs that will use the Content Scramble System (CSS) for encryption and will be compatible with the millions of existing DVD players in the marketplace today.

      This isn't just a software change. See, the whole reason CSS is effective (to any extent) is that DVD burners and blank DVD media are designed to prevent you from writing CSS keys to a disc. The media comes with the key area pre-burned with zeros (or physically embossed, for RW discs) and the burners refuse to write there anyway. Even with the expensive DVD-R for Authoring format, you can't burn a CSS protected disc today, AFAICT.
      --
      Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
    4. Re:"special" discs? by b1t+r0t · · Score: 3, Informative

      Even with the expensive DVD-R for Authoring format, you can't burn a CSS protected disc today, AFAICT.

      As I understand it, that was the whole point of DVD-R for Authoring. They did let you burn CSS to Authoring discs ("authoring", after all, means making an exact image of what is going to be pressed at the factory), but they made sure that Authoring discs wouldn't be burnable in regular drives, and (for some reason I can't comprehend), Authoring drives wouldn't burn regular discs.

      The original intent was that the only people with Authoring drives and using Authoring discs would be the few pros who needed them. And they would pay big bucks for what was esentially a drive with different firmware, and a blank disc made with different header info, further limiting use to pros only.

      --

      --
      "Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
      "Open source is evil." - Microsoft
  4. Are customers finally winning? by HoosierPeschke · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Did we finally get a message through that the majority of us aren't criminals? It's nice to see at least part of the entertainment industry keeping up with the times. Does anyone know the pricing for these movie downloads before I get too far ahead of myself?

    --
    Mr. Universe: "They can't stop the signal, Mal. They can never stop the signal."
    1. Re:Are customers finally winning? by Kimos · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Of course we're not winning... This system stops you from breaking the CSS.

      If you copy a DVD by breaking the CSS and re-encoding it, you've got a completely DRM free disk. You can do whatever you want with it, and copy it with any burning software. It becomes clean data. This new system will let you burn copies of that same disk, except they re-encrypt it for you and re-apply the DRM. Isn't that nice of them?

  5. If it works with existing DVD players... by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...then it probably involves some revision of the actual writable DVDs rather than CSS. The problem with burning a writable DVD at the moment with CSS encoding is that you have nowhere to store the keys. These are kept in a part of the DVD that has deliberately been unwritable on writable discs.

    The articles I'm reading suggest the service will be limited to kiosks. This makes sense, as any consumer based DVD burner that can burn CSS discs will be ultimately possible to modify such that it can copy regular DVDs too.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    1. Re:If it works with existing DVD players... by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This makes sense, as any consumer based DVD burner that can burn CSS discs will be ultimately possible to modify such that it can copy regular DVDs too.

      you mean like how I can copy any DVD right now without effort?

      BTW, I can make CSS "protected" DVD's right now with DVD-R media and a old Pioneer A-06 DVD burner. I did it last month for a client that paid for their CSS key and I used Scenerist to creat ethe DVD structure and apply the CSS encoding key.

      Plays in DVD players nice and DVD decryptor and my other tools for ripping DVD's shows it as having CSS protection.

      I am unsure as to this special area you are speaking of but it's not needed to make your own CSS encrypted DVD's. (although CSS is 100% useless for protection of any kind.)

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  6. Special media? by winnabago · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I thought it was proven that consumers won't purchase particular media in advance back when it was tried with audio CDs. I am beginning to think that a cursory attempt at digital distribution is all they want, making it appear that they are defending their rights while supplementing income with civil lawsuit extortion. Nothing new, but it gets clearer every day to me.

    --
    Dammit Otto, you have lupus.
  7. Sadly encouraging, but.... by Utilitygeek · · Score: 4, Informative

    While, sadly, it is encouraging that the MPAA is trying to find ways for end-users to have fair use of the media they purchase, I still have to wonder what sort of DRM and restrictions they will place in/on this new technology. Will I be able to burn multiple copies? Watch without burning? Or, if I misburn myself a coaster, am I simply SOL?

  8. Why Bother? by Bistronaut · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why are they going through all this trouble? Don't they know that CSS was broken years ago? Haven't they ever downloaded Handbrake?

  9. Countdown to crack by mistersooreams · · Score: 5, Funny

    Crack coming in 3... 2...

    What's that? CSS got cracked years ago? Look, behind you - a three-headed terrorist! Think of the children!

    *runs*

    --
    apterous.org
  10. Don't run that! by patio11 · · Score: 3, Funny

    You might think in context that it is deCSS, but it actually prints "Just another perl hacker" unless an obscure race condition happens, in which case it instructs Google to become sentient and begin the elimination of the human race.

    Friends don't let friends execute perl scripts they didn't write.

    --
    Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
  11. What am I missing by szembek · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I can burn stuff to a DVD and play it in a regular DVD player with no problem. Does Nero use illegal tech to make this happen? I understand that bypassing DRM might be illegal, but how is the encoding of the disc to play in a DVD player illegal right now?

    --
    nothing
  12. Misquoted by sjonke · · Score: 5, Funny

    It actually said, "Studios OK Burning Movie Downloaders".

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    --- What?
  13. The simple summary - encryption must live on by Overzeetop · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There's clearly a big market for video on demand, and the ability to burn movies at a kiosk would greatly reduce the up-front warehousing, shipping, floor space, and back catalog storage. This is a masterful win for potential sales and increasing sales outlets.

    Fromt the desciption and my palty knowledge of the DVD format, it seems like they're simply going to make everybody capable of burning in the key area with approved software. The end user part is to allow electronic distribution through a pay-per-download scheme. That scheme can also be used to digitally watermark the downloads and monitor infringing uploads, which is a bonus for them. More people with bigger pipes will be necessary for that to really take hold.

    As for the end user burning a CCA encrypted disc, thay pretty much have to keep that part in order to retain much in the way of legal protections. Consumers keep crying "fair use" as a way to format shift, and to them format shifting is pronounced "lost sale". If drop the encryption, it's just like a CD, and there are already services which will format shift your CDs to MP3. All legal through fair use and unencrypted content. By encrypting the content, they keep their DMCA protections - it's not legal anyone else to help you format shift, in any way shape or form. For the vast majority of the population, that means format shifting is done via additional purchase.

    Everyone here seems to think that the MPAA is trying to stop pirates, and we bubble with exhaspiration over the fact that the encryption has been broken and is useless. The MPAA doesn't really care about big time pirates all that much - it's a small market, mostly in asia, and mostly in places where the disposable income isn't high enough for the average person to afford a price that would turn a profit for the member organizations. No, the pirates the MPAA is concerned about are the casual ones - the guy next door who will burn his also-tech-unsavvy neighbor a quick copy on his consumer DVD recorder. That's more likely to be a lost sale than some chick dropping $1US on a pirated Malasian jewelcase on a street corner or a pimply faced 14 year old downloading a torrent. They won't admit it in public, but they know its true. Keeping Jim and Billy Bob from swapping discs will generate more revenue than stopping a dozen teenagers from getting an image off the eDonkey.

    --
    Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
  14. Re:"Special" DVDs by z0idberg · · Score: 4, Funny

    You will actually have to buy a specific blank DVD for each movie you want to download and burn. For example if you want to watch "Weekend at Bernies" you will have to drive to WalMart and by the specific "Weekend at Bernies - Blank Edition", then drive home and download the movie, then burn it to the blank, then and only then will you be able to play the movie.

    To compensate you for your trouble "Weekend at Bernies - Blank Edition" will be between $1.23 and $1.56 cheaper than "Weekend at Bernies" original that will be on sale right next to "Weekend at Bernies - Blank Edition", and between $1.56 and $1.93 cheaper than "Weekend at Bernies - Directors Cut" and "Weekend at Bernies - Now in HD", which will be the next two DVDs over.

  15. WRONG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    According to TFA, they're changing the CSS spec, not creating special discs. So you should be able to take the DRMed movie you legally downloaded, and burn it to a standard DVD. The only difference is that the DRM would not be "broken" to create the disc as Music DRM is when a CD is created.


    YOU need to read TFA:
    http://www.dvdcca.org/data/css/DVDCCArecordrlsFINA L.pdf
    "Both would require special blank DVD discs that will use the Content Scramble System (CSS) for encryption and will be compatible with the millions of existing DVD players in the marketplace today."

    If you had a clue about what you're talking about, you would know that CSS keys cannot be written existing DVD blank media, which is what makes CSS semi-effective in the first place. Otherwise, you wouldn't need to decrypt a DVD to copy it; you could just copy the whole encrypted disk, including keys, which would kinda defeat the entire purpose of CSS.
  16. Screw'em by Randseed · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Fuck them. I'll continue to burn DVDs to whatever the hell media I want. Or save it on my HDD. Or whatever.

    See, here's one way to look at the problem. Let's say I subscribe to HBO. HBO plays "Tears of the Sun," to use an example. I record it on my VCR. That's legal. If I take an A/V output from the satellite box and record it, that's fair use as well. If I then convert the VCR or whatever recording and convert it to a DIVX so I can play it on my PC, that's legal. But if I skip the work myself and grab a copy off the Internet, that's illegal.

    The person who is effectively breaking the law by default is the guy who is uploading the movie, not the person downloading it. That isn't to say that the guy downloading it isn't breaking the law as well, but there are plenty of legitimate ways that he could have obtained the same exact result, legally, making the entire argument stupid.

  17. Major(s) costs saving by olahaye74 · · Score: 3, Informative

    The aim of this move is simple: costs saving for the majors:

    - They don't need to edit a DVD structure with bonuses and such
    - They donc have to create the media, the jacket and such
    - They don't have to manage media storage
    - They don't have to manage media transportation

    But you pay the same: They earn 35% more.

    Same for downloadable manazines and news papers: same price, but the company saves paper, printing costs, transportation, unsold idtems, ....

  18. Slashdot position by Kadin2048 · · Score: 3, Funny

    BTW, what is this "Slashdot position" you speak of?

    It's kind of like the Missionary Position, but without the other person.

    --
    "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."