DSL Gateways to Fight Piracy by Marking Video

Stony Stevenson wrote with an article about home gateway devices being set up to identify video pirates. The article reads: "Home gateway manufacturer Thomson SA plans to incorporate video watermarking technology into future set-top boxes and other video devices. The watermarks, unique to each device, will make it possible for investigators to identify the source of pirated videos. By letting consumers know the watermarks are there, even if they can't see them, Thomson hopes to discourage piracy without putting up obstacles to activities widely considered fair use, such as copying video for use on another device in the home or while traveling to work."

Comments

I'm not buying.

[Harmonious Botch]

Suppose I recieve a DVD that I honestly believe is legit. And - due to my error, or someone else's error or someone else's falsehood - it is not. Or the baby- or pet- sitter makes a few copies on my machine while we're away.
So copies go out with my ID attached? No, thanks. I'll buy brand X. Or Y. But not Thompson.
A tool is supposed to do things my way. Not the manufacturer's way.

If Thompson wants to help prevent copyright infringement, there are better ways to do it, such as financial support for civil lawsuits against pirates.

Re:I'm not buying.

[Dunbal]

A tool is supposed to do things my way. Not the manufacturer's way.

      What you fail to understand is that it's so much easier to find a way to screw you over than to actually come up with something new and useful.

      I started getting pissed when I found out the video card that I had bought specifically with a TV-Out port wouldn't let me watch DVDs I had purchased on my TV (despite this being fair use) because surely I was a pirate and wanted to copy that DVD. Well fuck them, now I rip movies that I rent and/or download movies, and watch them anywhere I want in my house. Call me a thief. They are bigger theives - I don't remember a label on my video card saying "Hey, the TV Out port you want and paid an extra $100 for won't actually WORK due to something called Macrovision".

      Come and get me, no DMCA in THIS country. Let's see, which movie should I download tonight?

Re:I'm not buying.

[cduffy]

Suppose I recieve a DVD that I honestly believe is legit. And - due to my error, or someone else's error or someone else's falsehood - it is not.

Huh? This isn't reporting you when you put a black-market DVD into your hardware; it's allowing a mechanism for investigation when you put a movie or show this hardware rips up on BitTorrent or YouTube.

Personally, I think this is an outstanding compromise; it leaves legitimate fair use rights in place, but provides a means for large-scale-distribution violations to be prosecuted. It's certainly a far better deal than mandatory DRM, which in all seriousness is the other contender. I'll take watermarks over DRM any day.

Re:I'm not buying.

[cduffy]

There is only one reason that a third party would want to get involved with this bullshit -- kickbacks from the MPAA and other media conglomerates.

No, no, no. The reason for a hardware manufacturer to get involved (and I think it's a damned compelling one) is avoidance of contributory infringement suits.

Re:I'm not buying.

[mrchaotica]

Personally, I think this is an outstanding compromise

Compromise?! Who decided the copyright cartel deserves even that?

I'll take watermarks over DRM any day.

And I'll continue to demand neither, thankyouverymuch!

Re:I'm not buying.

[DeadChobi]

How does watermarking remove functionality from a product? You can copy the DVD all you want, go through the analog hole, whatever. Hell, you could post your entire library on bittorrent. The only thing watermarking does is allow for a convenient method of tracking you should you actually use the technology to violate someone's copyright.

This is definitely an acceptable compromise between copyright holders wanting control and the purchaser of a copy of a work wanting control. I'd stand behind watermarking because it restores good faith and trust to the system, which is what I'm really complaining about whenever I bitch about DRM. I just want the copyright holder to trust me so that I don't have to deal with their rights "management." If I wanted their management I would've hired one of them as a consultant.

What the watermark does is skip all the easily broken DRM and go straight to a method by which the copy's origins can be determined. This returns some form of personal accountability to the process of piracy.

To the GP and anyone else who suggests that watermarking is unacceptable because it also reduces functionality, I've got a question. How, exactly, does a watermark with no other DRM prevent you from doing whatever you want with what you buy?

Re:I'm not buying.

[dgatwood]

But the courts have already ruled repeatedly and conclusively that manufacturers of VCRs cannot be held liable for contributory infringement. I fail to see how "on a digital device" should suddenly change the way the law handles things, and if it does, the law should be changed. Contributory infringement is no more valid for a PVR than "on the internet" patents are for common everyday activities, and for precisely the same reason.

Re:I'm not buying.

[cduffy]

Hey, Dave -- it's been a while. Look me up if you're even in the Austin area, 'kay?

Back onto topic... the Betamax case is no longer so sweeping as it once was; the breadth of its holding was significantly reduced by Grokster, and there are ongoing attempts to legislate around it entirely. A simple PVR is safe for now, but once one starts adding any kind of network functionality to it (even functionality clearly intended for space-shifting within a household), things become significantly less clearcut.

As you say, the law should be changed for the better (and ongoing attempts to change it for the worse should be resisted) -- but if I were a hardware manufacturer in that line of business right now, I'd want to cover my arse for the event that it changes for the worse.

Re:I'm not buying.

[cduffy]

That's not a problem with watermarking; rather, that's a problem with the courts, and properly a legislative issue. In some cases SLAPP laws might be used to counter any such baseless assertions of infringement -- they can make bringing a lawsuit against a private individual very expensive indeed.

Re:I'm not buying.

[Chandon Seldon]

It degrades the quality of the video by inserting useless noise into it.

More generally, it's a feature that isn't beneficial to the owner of the product. If it's my video encoder, it should do things that are useful for me - a feature that serves no purpose except to allow others to track my behavior doesn't belong in my stuff.

This isn't unlike the unique tracking patterns that laser printers output on printouts. Sure, I'm less likely to use a TV encoder in the process of producing an anonymous political message, but embedding insidious tracking codes into all of our electronics just isn't something that should be considered even slightly socially acceptable.

Brilliant!

[Telecommando]

Brilliant! Just Brilliant!

Now all those nasty, evil video pirates will suddenly be forced to... to...

Buy someone else's gateway???

Well, it'll give the hackers something to do.

[glittalogik]

How hard is it to understand that if your product does something your customers don't like, they'll either circumvent it, or go elsewhere?

Way to alienate the general public, guys.

Can we

[iminplaya]

just wrap the file in a zip archive or similar?

This is *ALMOST* the right thing

[zappepcs]

The trouble comes when someone 'borrows' your recording and then puts a copy of it on the Internet... there is still no accountability in the correct manner.

When you buy a car (yes, car analogies might not be perfect) you have a title and registration that you keep with the car for proof of ownership. When you buy a CD, you have the physical media as proof. The entertainment industries need to have something as simple, and usable as these examples.

Sure, as an idea there are holes in it, but the premise is good. DRM is not a registration that works as it is too limiting, just as the EU! When someone steals your CD, you just go without it and have to buy another one unless you have insurance that covers it. If they steal your car, same again. If either is used to commit a crime, you are not complicit but that is not how the current music industry is looking at things.

Individual watermarks in the content might sound good, but they can be stolen, and if its anything like DRM, it will get cracked in no time. The only sound answer is to make it not worth pirating by making the cost reasonable, the usefulness of the media robust, and the ease of use to the consumer no more difficult than toasting bread in an electric toaster.

Time again to mention that a CD sharing club of you and 20 of your friends can pirate music and videos indefinitely without being caught in order to reduce the cost of music and videos to a level that is acceptable. Its the Internet part that gets people caught. The entertainment industry is hell bent on fscking the consumer, and those people will continue to take back from the industry as long as they are being ripped off, or feel that they are.

Even opportunistic piracy is going to continue, has always been around, and cannot be stopped. They only thing they can stop is the online wholesale piracy. This 'watermarking' won't stop you and your CD club from your activities as long as nobody posts a copy to the Internet and gets caught.

Until they get these criteria right, people will pirate music and videos because they have enough reason to dismiss the minor chance they will be caught. The 'industry' will simply have to figure out how to make money while providing what the consumer has overwhelmingly demonstrated that they want... or just go out of business.

Personally, I vote for them going out of business. Let newer, better business rise from the ashes of the current entertainment industry!

A better solution than DRM

[for_usenet]

I've wondered and bounced the idea off a couple of other people that would water-marking be a better solution than DRM ? With the watermark and no DRM, you can do as you please with your music/movie/media, and if it gets out onto the file-sharing networks - you'll be responsible ...

I know it's not a perfect solution - but I personally would not mind such a scheme, if it lets me do what I want (personally) with digital files I purchase and record.

You people are absurd

[mr_matticus]

After all the DRM warpaint and hysterical tirades about fair use, a company comes along and says "fine, we can protect our content without putting usage restrictions on it." What's the result: a handful of rabid Slashdotters attacking the idea.

Wake up and face the fact that fair use is dying, and if you want to save it, you've got to stop the tide before you can reverse it. All the fantasizing in the world about "starting from scratch" is never going to happen. If you continually indicate that you're not willing to work with content providers at all, then don't expect content providers to have any consideration for your interests. Of course, this is Slashdot, so maybe correcting problems is less desirable than bitching about them (but Slashdotter hypocrisy protects us from the same derision we give to politicians and executives for doing the same thing).

I know, I know, "they" started "it." Whatever. If you can't endorse someone taking a positive step toward a fair and equitable compromise between content providers and consumers, at least recognize the fact that one of those "evil corporations" is reaching out, even just a little.

And before the privacy nutjobs come out of the woodwork, do you think that your cable box and/or ISP don't already have the capacity to track what you do? Having watermarks is no more an invasion of privacy than having a Safeway club card or a commercial DVR. All that matters is what you DO with that information.

Re:You people are absurd

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a few words from a "privacy nutjob". If the Internet was presented to the public in its current form back when it was new, it would fail miserably, just as every other marketing-inspired controlled network and data service did before it. It became popular BECAUSE people like the idea of being able to do what they want, when they want.

Corporations love the internet because it is, for the most part, free to them. At least, it's several orders of magnitude below the what the cost would be if they actually had to pay for their own infrastructure to send packets around the planet. Those of us unfortunate to live in towns with taxpayer-funded stadiums know full well that a corporation will gladly get someone else to pay for their fixed costs. It's no different with the Internet. They didn't build it, didn't think of it, and didn't think much of it when it came into popular use. So, they were late to the party and now they want to write the rules. They put up insecure e-commerce apps and complained when they got hacked. It wouldn't be possible for "hackers" (their definition) to cause "damage" to corporate assets if they didn't connect those assets to an inherently insecure network in the first damned place! Well, fuck them! Ditto for government, which does at least deserve credit for laying the foundation for the Internet. However, then it occurred to them the "damage" that can be done by people sharing information freely. (I'm not talking about pirated DVDs, either. I don't steal or even buy movies or music because it's all such crap these days it's not worth paying attention to.) Now government does everything they can to discourage anonymity, to make people think they're constantly being watched, and to generally discourage anything but online shopping also. Oh, and be sure to pay your taxes online so some corporation can charge you a "convenience fee", while we're at it.

Well, when the net is turned into a safe, locked down haven for commerce and everyone watches what's sent to them for their montly content subscription fees and nobody can do anything they're not "supposed" to do, people will get bored and drop off. Hackers, real ones, will have moved on to more interesting things anyway. Want to stop this? How about mandatory data destruction laws? ISPs should be able to retain logs only for a brief period of time and then only for the purpose of network maintenance and security. They should be prohibited by law from sharing this information with anybody without a court order. How about laws that put the same kinds of protections on your private messages that corporations bought and paid for concerning their "intellectual property"? This isn't about what's technically possible, it's about what's legal. That your government (pick one, they're all doing it) is currently trying to go the exact opposite direction shows what they think of you. Remember that well.

Oh, and never use frequent shopper cards. If you don't have a choice, at least never use them with your actual name and address on them.

Oh, brother!

[xigxag]

I hate it when the editorial team tries to sound smart but totally messes it up. This has nothing to do specifically with "DSL Gateways." It's about videos coming through your cable or slingbox-like set top box (STB) being watermarked as they are being played or displayed. So that if you attempt to record said video, it will go out with your box's personal watermark on it. This is to discourage people from uploading TV shows or stuff they get off cable. It won't do jack shit to stop you from bittorrenting DVD rips or files you've gotten from other people.

That's especially ludicrous...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

You know a few weeks ago at Blackhat in DC some guy from a RFID card company, HID, came out to tell the crowd why they had sued one of the presenters off the floor. He got up in front of a podium and told everyone that America is founded on patent law.

That's especially ludicrous since American industry was actually founded on the VIOLATION of English IP law - breaking the mercantilist system that attempted to limit the colonists to producing raw materials for, and buying finished products from, British companies.

Re:Hammer, meet nail.

[cduffy]

Ahh, but here's the thing: Part of the point of these watermarks is to be robust enough to be detectable even when you've tried to use the analog hole to get around it. So, if you use your camcorder to record a DVD playback, the watermark applied by the DVD playback is intended to still be detectable given a large enough sample -- and the folks making this equipment do in fact claim to be able to do precisely that. To put it a bit differently: You don't watermark the recorder, you watermark the playback.

So if the watermark applied by the PVR does its job, there isn't any need whatsoever for an additional one provided by the camera.

Yes, it's about control.

[twitter]

Suppose that I send my family home video. Does it watermark that?

I imagine they can add their evil bits to whatever you do. The ISP is not going to ask you, they are just going to do it. When I say evil, I mean it.

This is not about "piracy", it's about control. Real copyright violations happen in places where people set up DVD printing presses and make exact copies of works. As soon as these devices are everywhere, the AAs will redefine "piracy" to get the pay per play they want out of you. Suckering you for entertainment cash should be the least of your concerns, though. Imagine a world where nothing can be done anonymously ever again. The modem is a computer and it can be programed to track your communications. Whistleblowers and activists, beware.