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Decryption Keys For HD-DVD Found, Confirmed
kad77 writes "It appears that, despite skepticism, 'muslix64' was the real deal. Starting from a riddle posted on pastebin.com, members on the doom9 forum identified the Title key for the HD-DVD release 'Serenity.' Volume Unique Keys and Title keys for other discs followed within hours, confirming that software HD-DVD players, like any common program, store important run-time data in memory. Here's a link to decryption utility and sleuthing info in the original doom9 forum thread. The Fair Use crowd has won Round One; now how will the industry respond?"
Just by figuring this out hasn't the DMCA now been violated and soon the people who made the discovery will be violated as well in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
Yes, DRM is likely to be a failure. But the result isn't going to be "free entertainment for everyone" - the result will be no digital distribution of entertainment. Period. How is a company supposed to make a profit when they sell one copy in one place on the planet? Answer is, they aren't going to make a profit. Investors are watching this pretty closely and companies aren't going to get started unless an investor says "Go for it!"
New business model based on advertising? Do you want your DVD with 33% commercials? I don't think so.
New business model based on rich people paying and the rest getting a free ride? Possible, but unlikely.
New business model based on government-supported entertainment or rich people-supported entertainment? Again, possible but unlikely to work in the US. Maybe Europe.
I see movie studios giving up on DVDs, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray DVDs and everything else before they will give them away. Maybe there will still be music videos (which are really just ads for the music) but as broadband penetration increases and P2P sharing is uncontrolled, what choice do they have?