Macrovision Wants Old DRM to Work Forever

Grv writes "Macrovision's best-known form of copy protection inserts noise into analog video signals to make it difficult to get a good copy of the DVD or VHS recording. A company named Sima has products that eliminate this noise when digitizing such video, as any good digitizer would do. Macrovision argues that this is a violation of the DMCA, and a court sided with them in June. Now the injunction is being reviewed, and several organizations are siding with Sima and Fair Use, including the American Library Association, the Consumer Electronics Association, the Home Recording Rights Coalition, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. If it isn't overturned, this decision could make it illegal to develop products for making copies of commercial analog recordings." This story selected and edited by LinuxWorld editor for the day Saied Pinto.

Comments

Re:One Fine Day In The Not So Distant Future

[BalanceOfJudgement]

Ultimately, the way DRM and DMCA is going, you will not have owned DVDs, CDs, LPs, 45s, etc. You will merely have rented them until the march of technology locks you out of enjoying the content any further.

Telling my friends and family this have gotten me accused of everything from lying to fear mongering.

They really sincerely believe that people won't stand for it and that the government will stop the content distributors from doing this.

It's sad how much faith they have in people who are genuinely trying to screw them.

Re:Not good

[nmb3000]

"How we feel" is the central tenet of a democratic society. If a law is unjust, it is our duty to defy it.

As long as you are willing to face the consequences of such actions, yes. Defy away; however, a more reasonable and responsible citizen might suggest that if a law is believed to be unjust, they have a duty to try and get it overturned through legal and ethical means first. If that doesn't work, then I think you have a tea party :)

Re:Digital, eh?

[farrellj]

Well, if you have an ATI TV Wonder card, you can simply modify a value in the source code that will eliminate Macrovision "interference". I do this on my home system so that I can watch my DVDs and Video Tapes on my 17" monitor. I don't have a lot of room where I live, and I sold my TV a while ago. So I have a dual monitor setup, with one being used as my "TV".

I don't see why modifying said value could be so hard for the other drivers...but it probably works on all BT8x8 based cards.

ttyl

Re:Mostly correct

[ars_inveniendi]

Wow, I can't believe it took this long for someone who actually knows what they're talking about to post! You're right, Macrovision messes with the AGC--you can see the "pulses" outside the legal range on a waveform monitor.

Now, the really troubling point in all this to me is that a time base corrector, without which you can't edit analog tapes, removes macrovision as a matter of course. How are the courts going to "protect" macrovision without making time-base correctors illegal? And if time-base correctors are legal, then all Sima needs to do is start marketing time-base correctors.

Re:Digital, eh?

[babbling]

How does the DMCA define "technology"?

If the GPL could be considered "technology", then anything that prevents copying (DRM systems) could be classified as a "circumvention device".

Re:A better solution

[ajs318]

It's just crap in the vertical retrace interval. The VCR doesn't lose sync, but since the noise exceeds the normal signal level it causes the AGC to reduce the gain, thereby making the picture go dim. If you did not know any better, then you might suppose it to be a mere artefact from the mass-production process {since it is conspicuously absent from home recordings}. If you shorten the AGC time constant on the recording VCR {by unsoldering one capacitor} you won't get the dimming effect. You can also use an op-amp hard limiter circuit {similar to those cheesy guitar distortion pedals everyone was building in the 1980s} to clamp the spikes.

A more thorough way of defeating Macrovision is to use a 1881 sync separator, 4066 quad bilateral switch and some assorted logic ICs {or a microcontroller}. You need to discard about 30 lines from the top of each field, clamping them to no more than 0V but pulling them down to -0.3V with the line sync pulses. If you can manage to leave in the colour subcarrier burst, then so much the better.

As long as you're making fair use of material, which you have an inalienable right to do, then the use of an electronic circuit to remove this copy protection would be classified as Reasonable Force in pursuit of your Statutory Rights.