Sony Fixes Problems With New DVDs

An anonymous reader writes "Following up on reports that DVDs for some Sony titles were causing problems, Video Business is reporting that Sony has fixed the copy-protection problem on recent DVD releases, and will provide replacement discs to customers. The problem was with the ARccOS DRM system. The company issued the following statement: 'Recently, an update that was installed on approximately 20 titles was found to cause an incompatibility issue with a very small number of DVD players (Sony has received complaints on less than one thousandth of one percent of affected discs shipped)... Since then, the ARccOS system has once again been updated, and there are no longer any playability problems.' Customers can call 800-860-2878 to inquire about replacement discs."

Comments

So few complaints?

[Biogenesis]

0.001%? Did they even ship enough disks in the first place to get such a small number of complaints as one in 100,000?

*crosses fingers and hopes my maths is right* :p.

Re:So few complaints?

[BlueTrin]

I think most of the people didn't even report to Sony.

If a DVD was not working, I would just bring it back to the shop, the second time I would exchange it for another DVD (not the same movie).

My 2 cents on what probably happened is that they did not count all the returns for these titles, they just counted the people who sent emails complaints or called their hot-line and who told specifically about the DRM problem so they could minimize the problem, which is alot better for them from a marketing point of view.

Re:So few complaints?

[aadvancedGIR]

Maybe the only way to be heard by the SONY CEO when you are complaining is to be his whife or son.

Re:So few complaints?

[blackicye]

Yet another reason to not buy DRM ridden original movies, aside of course from the fact these movies were probably not worth watching in the first place.

Hey...maybe they're doing consumers a favor by not letting them watch said movie.

Re:So few complaints?

[GreyPoopon]

0.001%? Did they even ship enough disks in the first place to get such a small number of complaints as one in 100,000?

I can assure you that this is a gross underestimate of the actual situation. I'm guessing that Sony didn't get that many complaints because people were just beginning to track the problem back to them. I'm one of the people who was hit by this (with my Toshiba DVD player), and it was only three weeks ago that I was certain the problem was with Sony, as it was only the second DVD I had rented that had problems. I would guess that most people complained first to the video rental stores (like Blockbuster) or their retailer (Walmart), and then moved on to their DVD manufacturer (I know this was my progression). That would mean that most of the complaints have not yet really reached Sony, and they are just trying to sidestep the issue now.

Re:So few complaints?

[tekrat]

I guess that would work out to 1 complaint. One one thousandth of one percent would need to assume 1 complaint for every 10 million copies sold, right?

Does anybody believe that Sony sold 10 million copies of Casino Royale? Personally, I have a hard time believing they even pressed 10 million copies of that.

This is like their inflated Blue-Ray numbers as well.

You can't trust what Sony says. They are a bunch of ... not nice people....

Re:So few complaints?

[91degrees]

There were a few titles affected, and a couple of them were major releases.

But who complains to the publishers? I tried to find a number or email address ro anything to complain about the stupid anti-piracy ad at the start of DVDs but the contact details are pretty hard to find (Which is strange. I'd have thought they'd like to know when they're irrritating their customers). It's a lot easier to just take it back to the shop.

Re:So few complaints?

[LiquidCoooled]

Is shipped the same as sold?

They might have shipped 100gazillian disks but if they are sat in a distribution warehouse in each respective country then that could explain the difference.

Re:So few complaints?

[Ed Avis]

So what exactly was the defect with these DVDs? Did they carry the official DVD logo? Isn't that a guarantee that the disc follows the published standards?

I know that with CDs, crippled discs (with deliberate data errors to defeat computer copying) cannot carry the official CD digital audio logo.

Re:So few complaints?

[freedom_india]

Ya that's what Intel said about the Pentium bug...people should send in physical letters to Sony (not emails) by millions.
This will make them see light of day.

Re:So few complaints?

[mrjackson2000]

CD standards are set in stone
DVD standards seem to be set in jello

Re:So few complaints?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

CD standards are defined and policed by one organisation.

DVD standards are the product of a large collaboration between double-figures of large businesses originally, one of them being Sony themselves. There are now hundreds involved, and AFAICS there is no single group with the authority to take enforcement action is someone is abusing the "DVD" description.

Re:So few complaints?

[rucs_hack]

You can be sure they will have applied a minimising criteria to the complaints reported. Honesty does not usually mix well with profit in corporate land.

There's another thing too. They seem to be talking about a large number of dvd's. Have they all actually been sold yet? I doubt it. I reckon there's some large scale behind the scenes recalls going on.

This is yet another PR blow for sony involving DRM, that makes how many? Well I don't know, if you include mp3 players its barking huge is it not.

So who was it who thought drm would be great? Seems to be costing sony rather a lot. Ant this isn't even with it being cracked, it's just with it being crap.

Re:So few complaints?

[Selivanow]

"...complaints on less than one thousandth of one percent of affected discs shipped)"

The operative word here people is SHIPPED...says nothing about the actual amount of discs SOLD. Who knows, given the quality of movies lately it could be 50% of those sold :)

Re:So few complaints?

[Anonymous Coward]

Studies show us that 1 person complains for every 1 billion people affected. Sony must have got at least a dozen complaints to notice. So, that means Sony affected at least 12 BILLION people... Yes, That means kids you haven't even had yet are upset on this one!

I like how the worded it 'shipped' not 'purchased'. It must not be a big deal if the store did not call in once for each copy on their shelves!

Re:So few complaints?

[Dachannien]

The important message here is that (a) they flinched, and (b) they flinched bad enough that they whipped out some phony/misleading statistic to try to defend their failed policy of sticking DRM on everything.

Re:So few complaints?

[beckerist]

This is based on my own past work experience, but often times our corporate numbers were based primarily on a specific statistic. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if, in this case, "Sony has received complaints on less than one thousandth of one percent of affected discs shipped." really translates to "Sony has received complaints from registered users on less than one thousandth of one percent of affected discs shipped."

If a client of ours had failed to register their software, we would still process their claim but label it as an "external client." I never trust numbers anymore...

Re:So few complaints?

[Lumpy]

You are incorrect. they are a bunch of.....

Unko no neyoi kagu hito

oh yeah and they also are..

manuke

I knew learning insults in Japanese was going to be useful someday!

Re:So few complaints?

[Hatta]

*crosses fingers and hopes my maths is right* :p.

Your maths are right, but your grammar isn't.

Re:So few complaints?

[TEMMiNK]

Why are we not applauding them for biting the bullet, actually fixing the problem and replacing the affected discs which a lot of companies wouldn't do? Is everybody just so firmly strapped to the Anti-Sony bandwagon that it's impossible for anything sony does to be met with anything but derision and petty insults?

Re:So few complaints?

[Mr. Droopy Drawers]

Agreed. No mod points when I need 'em. Can someone mod this guy up?

I'm betting that Sony didn't understand the extent of the issue and it was a typical knee-jerk reaction to say, "you fix it" to the DVD manufacturers. Credit the Internet in rallying to this issue that helped Sony step up to the plate.

Re:So few complaints?

[johnlcallaway]

When Sony fixes the real problem so that I can copy their accursed DVDs to my computer and watch without having to dig through all of my DVDs to find it, then I'll stop vilifying them. Until then, I don't buy them, only rent them.

Re:So few complaints?

[ChineseStunna]

0.001%? Did they even ship enough disks in the first place to get such a small number of complaints as one in 100,000?

Sounds like they should consult Verizon on this as it just might be another $.002 vs. .002 cents mistake.

Re:So few complaints?

[powerlord]

The important message here is that (a) they flinched, and (b) they flinched bad enough that they whipped out some phony/misleading statistic to try to defend their failed policy of sticking DRM on everything.

And here I thought the important message here was that they (a) admitted there was a problem, (b) fixed that problem and (c) offered to provide replacement disks, complete with an 800 number to process those requests.

Gee, maybe they should just close down the company and provide torrent links of all their IP instead. :-/

Re:So few complaints?

[Alsee]

DVD standards seem to be set in jello

You're clearly an optimist.

-

Re:So few complaints?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Why are we not applauding them for biting the bullet, actually fixing the problem and replacing the affected discs which a lot of companies wouldn't do?"

A lot of companies wouldn't do? Just off the top of my head, I can think of two examples: When Back to the Future was released on DVD, the panning for the full screen version was messed up. The discs were recalled and re-released. People who purchased copies of it got a replacement. The Twilight Princess for the Wii had a bug in it that could cause a player to get stuck. Nintendo's now offering free replacements of the game. I'd bet that if I hopped on Google, I'd find more examples of that. But is that really the issue? I don't think so. They twiddled with copy restriction, which in reality has a harder effect on legit users than pirates, and some of their own players couldn't even handle it. Then they went on to claim there were dizzyingly few complaints about it. Bit the bullet? They're still using the scheme and claiming virtually nobody was really affected.

"Is everybody just so firmly strapped to the Anti-Sony bandwagon that it's impossible for anything sony does to be met with anything but derision and petty insults?"

*Sigh* Anti-Sony bandwagon. I love it. Sony racks up numerous complaints over the course of a year, but really it's just a fad. Right? You would think with all the bad PR, especially surrounding copy restriction, they'd pull back a bit. Instead they just keep getting into mischief. Yet there's always somebody who says "I don't understand, so you must be some group of crazy people." Whatever. The next time you stay up late one night pondering Sony's predicament, at least try to give everybody a little credit and assume they weren't born with S0N3 SUXX0Rs tattooed to their forehead.

Re:So few complaints?

[hackstraw]

I think most of the people didn't even report to Sony.

True. It was the geek recourse from us on slashdot and digg that got this thing known.

An interesting true story. Some company sold a relatively inexpensive paint sprayer or something like that, and a friend of mine got one as a gift for fathers day or something like that.

After storing this thing for some time, he then wanted to use it and found out it was a piece of crap. He called the manufacturer and after some poking around he found out that all of these sprayers of that particular model from the manufacturer are worthless because of a poor design, but the manufacter still sold them at a low price point because people would buy them (often as a gift), not use them for a period of time, and then if they used them at all, they would find out after it was too late or too lazy to return the thing.

The person said, that these things were a great product for the manufacturer because they were sold cheap enough that nobody really cared if they worked or not, and the returns were so low in number that it simply wan't worth the manufacturer's time to make a working model. This broken POS was profitable as is.

Sometimes capitalism has its flaws.

Re:So few complaints?

[Miamicanes]

Of course, the ultimate irony would have been for it to have lead even people who'd normally not care about ripping DVDs to go out learn how to rip & decrypt the Sony DVDs so they could re-burn them to work on their own players. And for a half-dozen new ARccOS-ripping apps to appear as a direct result.

There's nothing like buying an expensive disc that HAS to be cracked/ripped to run on your system to make you swear to god you'll just pirate it outright next time and spare yourself the grief of having to crack/rip it yourself from the original...

Re:So few complaints?

[Ansoni-San]

lol, Poop sniffing fools? hahaha.
I would say:

Sony ga nani ka tsukuru toki ni atotte doko mo kashiko mo kusakute kyuujuu mitai!
(Whenever Sony makes something the whole place always ends up smelling, kind of like shit ^_^ )

Re:So few complaints?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, since maths is a colloquial shortening of mathematics, the GP's grammar is just fine.

You wouldn't say "I hope my mathematics are right."

Re:So few complaints?

[orgelspieler]

What hot-line? I spent quite a while trying to find the right contact number on the Sony website, only to have my online complaint sent to the wrong customer service department. They gave me a 866 phone number that was for yet another wrong service department. After that I gave up. I'm sure they have received many more complaints about DVDs being filed than they even know about, thanks to their idiotic mis-routing of online complaints.

Re:So few complaints?

[Hatta]

Yes I would.

Re:So few complaints?

[Anonymous Coward]

The new Sony titles create a series of disabling errors in DVD Decrypter. Yet another Sony DRM success story. Sayonara, Sony!

Re:So few complaints?

[dgatwood]

Agreed. Sony has behaved reprehensibly on so many occasions that it is hard to give them any credit anymore. They're like the kid caught with his/her hand in the cookie jar. Do you praise the kid for putting the cookie back? Not if you don't want your kid to end up thinking he/she can get away with anything and never get in trouble....

After all their shenanigans, I personally feel that we shouldn't cut Sony ANY slack. We've cut them WAAAAAY too much slack already. Every time they screw up, they should be smacked down hard. That way, they can serve as an example to others who would abuse their power.

No, we should praise Sony only after they go for five years without a single sign of abusing their power. The day that happens will probably be either five years after the sun goes Nova or five years after they go out of business, whichever comes first.

Re:So few complaints?

[PeelBoy]

Plus the complaints should be compared to discs sold not shipped. What if they shipped 500,000 but only sold 5,000. less than one thousandth of one percent just got much bigger.

Re:So few complaints?

[rtechie]

Actually, they almost certainly counted almost all of the returns because almost all of those returns were sent back to Sony. The retailers do not soak up the costs of defective merchandise. I suspect a fair number of these discs were getting RMA'd and that's the main reason for this recall.

Re:So few complaints?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's like saying "Why don't we thank that thug for stopping hitting people".

Sony created the problem, it's their job to fix it.

If they think piracy is a problem maybe they should stop producing DVD recorders and blank DVD disks?

Re:So few complaints?

[dal11]

Thats exactly what happened with my roomate.He has a Samsung DVD player\recorder set top. He returned Casino Royale 4 times before listening to my suggestion to see if it played on his pc. It did, I told him that the copy protection was what fubar'd it probably. Needless to say he's not a real happy camper, it's not bright to piss off your customer base. I gave him the number to call, will be interesting to see what hoops he has to jump through to get a movie that will play on a less than 2 year old equptment that has no was to be updated to my knowledge. Poor guy still hasn't seen the damn movie and it been a few weeks.

Re:So few complaints?

[Anonymous Coward]

You might be interested in something called "Rip it for me" which launches on its own, identifies protected sectors, and then will launch DVD Decrypter to rip the disc. Once it is done ripping you can also then launch DVD Shrink if you need to compress it to fit on a single layer disc. Another thing it can do is remove blank cells and other junk designed to screw up Decrypter/Shrink. It has really helped me with discs that DVD Decrypter and/or DVD Shrink have not been able to process do to disabling errors on the disc.

Re:So few complaints?

[Anonymous Coward]

See, that's what I hate about this forum. Sony zealots like you. How can you possibly deign to excuse Sony's behavior in this? It's people like you that help make it possible for corporations to just run rough shod over consumers' rights. No matter how many people have been duped into buying these "DVDs", despite your transparent attempts to minimize the numbers, it's just wrong. Do you feel some sort of self-righteous sense of fulfillment by bowing down to your corporate masters? Take a look in the mirror; you're a pathetic person.

And, in true Slashdot spirit, is that you, Mr. Kutaragi?

Re:So few complaints?

[NaturePhotog]

Sony hasn't heard our complaint yet, because I only just found out that the DVD was lost on the return trip to Netflix a week and a half ago. It wouldn't play in our Toshiba SD4700, but the DVD drive in my PC read it just fine. My screen is too small to watch a whole movie on (well, besides "Dark Side of the Rainbow" after a couple of beers :-), so I debated about trying to make a copy that our DVD player would play. Speaking in an entirely hypothetical manner, Sony's added layers didn't prevent Magic DVD Ripper from, um, seeing it ;-) I'd never used it before, so I don't know if it was any slower or anything, but it didn't have any problems.

After I figure out things with Netflix, I'll put "Casino Royale" back in our queue and see if we get a new version and if it works any better. This is the first DVD we've had a problem playing on our player (besides ones that were scratched and/or dirty, that is).

Hooray for DRM! Keeping legitimate customers from their media since, well...I dunno. Did they have piracy problems with wax recording cylinders? :-)

Re:So few complaints?

[jensen404]

I rented the "Stranger than Fiction" DVD from Blockbuster on the DVD release date. I could not see any flaws on the physical surface of the disc. One portion of the movie wouldn't play correctly (horrible artifacts, skipping around). A co-worker who rented it the same day had problems with the same part of the movie.
I ended up skipping those 5 minutes of the movie.

Will Sony send me a coupon for a free rental for the hassle they caused me?

Re:So few complaints?

[Trogre]

Okay here's another example. Lucasfilm released the Star Wars Original Trilogy DVD set in 2004. There are numerous problems with the release that are solely due to the DVD mastering process (ie not historical problems); these are well documented at the Home Theater Forum. Lucasfilm have not addressed these issues at all (instead claiming they are intended features). To boot, all their DVDs still have CSS (ie DRM) and are not region 0. Are you going to boycott them too?

While we're talking about Wii games, did you know that they are region-locked, while evil Sony PS3 games are not? What do you make of that?

The *only* Sony act that stands out (that they've been caught at) in recent times is the infamous rootkit fiasco, and that was clearly them only taking the DRM that every major media company is pushing to the next logical level. Yes it was badly executed and went horribly wrong but please don't make the mistake of thinking that every other studio wasn't watching *very* carefully and now working on how next to force-feed us DRM without being caught. I re-iterate: Yes Sony BMG is evil, but absolutely no more evil than their significant competition.

If you are still not convinced, then I'm afraid I cannot help you, and the GP was correct in his bandwagon assertions.

Re:So few complaints?

[Anonymous Coward]

And you would be correct. So would the first AC.

dictionary.com says "mathematics" and "maths" may both be used with either a singular or plural verb. The American Heritage dictionary says "maths" takes only a singular verb. The OED says...something, I'm sure, but it doesn't say it for free.

Re:So few complaints?

[Workaphobia]

> "If a DVD was not working, I would just bring it back to the shop, the second time I would exchange it for another DVD (not the same movie)."

I never knew there existed retailers that would allow you to exchange for a non-identical movie.

Re:So few complaints?

[BlueTrin]

I dunno about where you live, but here under the EU law it is mandatory to provide this service (although most of the shops here in the UK will say otherwise).

Re:So few complaints?

[Workaphobia]

Ah, that explains it. Here in the US the consummers have no rights. Any digital product that has been unwrapped from its packaging is often unreturnable and unexchangeable, except for another copy of the same exact product. This is of course to stop Best Buy from turning into Netflix, but it sucks nonetheless.

Re:So few complaints?

[swissfondue]

I had the same problem with Casino Royale but solved it within 30 minutes with the help of my 10MB line :)

Re:So few complaints?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"While we're talking about Wii games, did you know that they are region-locked, while evil Sony PS3 games are not? What do you make of that?"

It reminds me that Sony got Lik Sang shut down.

"The *only* Sony act that stands out (that they've been caught at) in recent times is the infamous rootkit fiasco, and that was clearly them only taking the DRM that every major media company is pushing to the next logical level. "

No, that is not the only act. You've missed a good deal of stuff, especially over the last year. I find that amazing considering Slashdot's own involvement in getting the news out there.

"If you are still not convinced, then I'm afraid I cannot help you, and the GP was correct in his bandwagon assertions."

You could help me if you were to put up a convincing argument. And, no. GP is not correct. Sharing his ignorance doesn't mean he's right.

Re:So few complaints?

[Raenex]

It reminds me that Sony got Lik Sang shut down. Nintendo has sued Lik Sang not so long ago, for selling "backup" hardware.

Sony has had a horrible year, and deserves all the bad press they get. And Nintendo has definitely done lots of stuff right recently. However, companies like Nintendo are out to make a buck, and should never be given a free pass. The region locking by Nintendo is a good case in point -- not very consumer friendly, is it? The lawsuit against Lik Sang wasn't, either. I also think they're being stingy with their Virtual Console.

Re:So few complaints?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Nintendo has sued Lik Sang not so long ago, for selling "backup" hardware."

That's true. I love Nintendo, but that sucked.

"The region locking by Nintendo is a good case in point -- not very consumer friendly, is it? "

What's funny about this is if you go up a couple of posts, the argument is that Sony's using DRM like everybody else. Heh. In any event, okay, point to Sony. So what now? Sony has a lot to do to recover their image. Nintendo turned it around, Sony can too. Heck, Sony even has the benefit of seeing what works. Now if only they'd decide to think about it. Instead, we get BS like this.

Re:So few complaints?

[Raenex]

Sony has a lot to do to recover their image. Nintendo turned it around, Sony can too. Heck, Sony even has the benefit of seeing what works. Now if only they'd decide to think about it. Instead, we get BS like this. I agree, they haven't learned from their mistakes, despite what Phil Harrison talked about in his interview.

I got a more reliable fix for such problems...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called the AVI file format...

Re:I got a more reliable fix for such problems...

[Selivanow]

AVI is not a file format. It is a container format.
Sorry...I had to; can't let misinformation be spread on Slashdot....what would the world think?!

Re:I got a more reliable fix for such problems...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... because I never have incompatibility problems with avi container files. ;)

Re:I got a more reliable fix for such problems...

[maxume]

How does the fact that it specifies how to write media streams to disk not make it a file format? It isn't a video format, but it sure seems like a file format.

Re:I got a more reliable fix for such problems...

[baadger]

AVI should die. Now. This container format is already stretched beyond it's original intent and abused to house things it shouldn't (VBR audio, H.264, MPEG-4 with B-frames). It's a horrible container format, switch to Matroska (mkv) already.

Re:I got a more reliable fix for such problems...

[Maltheus]

Amen, for the love of Christ. I would also like to see XviD go away as well. It has it's uses (preserving grain), but only at ridiculously high bit rates. Give me mkv with h.264 and is it so freakin' hard to include chapter stops and subtitles while you're at it? It's kind of the whole point of using mkv over avi. Those two features are the entire reason I'm finally converting my entire DVD collection over now whereas I wasn't willing to do that before mkv. I just wish the uploaders would do the same already.

I have the solution!

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of calling the 800 number, consumers can visit their local torrent site and download the movie for free long before the replacement disc reaches their door.

Have a great day Sony.

Re:I have the solution!

[Rik Sweeney]

Instead of calling the 800 number, consumers can visit their local torrent site and download the movie for free long before the replacement disc reaches their door.

Don't download the ISO though, otherwise you'll be straight back to square one...

Re:I have the solution!

[VanessaE]

At which point you proceed not to square two, but straight to square three and just rip/encode that ISO into an AVI or something else you can easily play.

Seriously though, I recognise that there are problems playing these broken discs on hardware players, which have a high probability of honoring every little DRM-related flag the DVD author sees fit to use, but what exactly what would prevent one of these broken discs, or an ISO of it, from working under XINE or other such tools which happily ignore the control-freak BS found on some discs?

Re:I have the solution!

[fishdan]

The problem is that the raw data is unintelligible to a conventional read -- without the ability to understand/organize the data you cannot play the dvd. Assuredly there are program out there that will let you do that, but your vanilla DVD playing software wont understand the data at all.

Re:I have the solution!

[argStyopa]

IANAL, but according to the MPAA's 'take' on things (that you're not buying a copy of the film, but instead merely buying a license to view the film) wouldn't that be ENTIRELY legal?

Re:I have the solution!

[terrymr]

Actually the MPAA's take is weirder than that:

You are not buying a license to view the film. You are buying a physical media containing the film. You are granted a license to view the film each time you insert it into a properly licensed DVD player.

learn to count

[squidinkcalligraphy]

1 percent is 1/100. One thousandth of that is 1/1000 * 1/100 = 1/100000
Or one out of a hundred thousand. Your argument still stands, though.

Re:learn to count

[mishac]

As an off topic aside, you spelled "Gandhi" wrong in your sig :P

Re:learn to count

[daeg]

Maybe they can't work with decimals, ala the Verizon $0.02 vs. 0.02c debacle. (Slashdot won't let me post a real cent sign, sorry.)

Re:learn to count

[Anonymous Coward]

you spelled "Gandhi" wrong

How do you misspell a transliteration?

Re:learn to count

[bilbravo]

Confused here... didn't he say 1 in 100,000?

Re:learn to count

[Anonymous Coward]

His name has an accepted English spelling (English being one of the national languages of India), and "Ghandi" would be a inaccurate transliteration.

Sony...

[muffen]

Anyone surprised this happened to Sony?

Contradiction?

[catxk]

there are no longer any playability problems

So, the update consisted of removing the DRM? Not even Sony can deny that the soul point of DRM is to create playability problems...

Re:Contradiction?

[aadvancedGIR]

Since I read on different places that an easy solution was to rip the disk (apparently, many different easily available tools were capable of this task despite the new protection), the purpose couldn't seriously be fighting against piracy.

Re:Contradiction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who exactly are they fighting? The people who buy their products?

Re:Contradiction?

[pandrijeczko]

Yep.

As a fan of "The Simpsons" who buys the series boxed sets when they're released, I emailed Fox about the logic of putting their "Piracy Is A Crime" video at the front of every DVD (a video which is impossible to skip through) when the first thing any pirate will do is remove that same video on any copied disks.

I also told Fox that I considered it fair use to rip those DVDs to AVI format to store and watch on my media PC and that the anti-piracy video was contrary to what I bought that product for - namely the ability to use the "Digital Versatile Disk" format as and when I chose to watch Simpsons episodes, without having that blasted video popping up every time.

That was over a year ago and despite two follow-up emails, I have never even got any acknowledgements from them, let alone a reply.

Re:Contradiction?

[91degrees]

I emailed Fox about the logic of putting their "Piracy Is A Crime" video at the front of every DVD (a video which is impossible to skip through)

Phone their anti-piracy hotline to complain.

Don't know if it will help, but the way I figure it, if they want to waste my time, I'm going to be petty and waste theirs.

Re:Contradiction?

[Anonymous Coward]

I had trouble with DVDDecryptor on a Sony DVD

Re:Contradiction?

[Hyperhaplo]

Erm, I hate to say this but.. stop buying them?

I have the entire Farscape series on DVD.. and I love watching them. If they had that message I would be sickened before getting through series one. I have one (1) DVD that I know of that has this message. After seeing it on a disc I purchase I stopped buying DVDs.

As a footnote, after going to the movies 3 times and sitting through the useless mpaa ad about 'stealing is a crime' I don't go to the cinema any more. (yes, I know what stealing is, and what a crime is, and I know what mpaa do to people in the US through the courts). Besides not having my ears blasted, other people ruining the movie and a whole list of other reasons not to go.. I find myself with 1/2 hour of my life NOT spend watching ads and short versions of movies (which they pathetically call 'trailers'.

Re:Contradiction?

[ofcourseyouare]

On the whole I agree, but pirated disks don't remove the intro video about piracy; on the contrary, Chinese pirated disks I've seen faithfully reproduce the packaging, complete with dire warnings about piracy.

The fact that this text obviously doesn't work makes it all the more bizarre that DVDs punish customers by making them sit through often not one but two legal screens -- one about piracy, the other about how any interviews do not reflect the views of the corporation. Couldn't they at least put these on one screen? Imagine if a magazine or a website always forced you to read the legal small print before you got to the content...

IANAL but surely this legal text is irrelevant anyway? Surely no pirate could defend themselves by saying "there was no legal warning against piracy on the video so I thought I could copy it." So why bother?

Re:Contradiction?

[j00r0m4nc3r]

That was over a year ago and despite two follow-up emails, I have never even got any acknowledgements from them, let alone a reply.

Don't worry, I'm sure you're on their watchlist now.

Re:Contradiction?

[aulou05]

IANAL but surely this legal text is irrelevant anyway? Surely no pirate could defend themselves by saying "there was no legal warning against piracy on the video so I thought I could copy it." So why bother?

The warning isn't targeted at the people actually making the copies, they are meant for those that might consume them. As you've already pointed out, the pirates don't bother to remove the warnings, and even if they did it's still likely that people will see the ad anyway at some point.

Think about it. Just like Homer, most people are the "easily suggestible type." They know that DRM will ultimately be unable to save them so they go for the brainwash method--it's like the weaklings telling the vikings that there going to hell if they don't stop burning down their village. Sadly, historically this has worked out fairly well.

Re:Contradiction?

[AtomicJake]

As a footnote, after going to the movies 3 times and sitting through the useless mpaa ad about 'stealing is a crime' I don't go to the cinema any more.

Better: "Bouh" the mpaa ads. Cry loud: "I am not a criminal". It has a quite nice effect in the theater (I know, because I do so).

Re:Contradiction?

[Inda]

Rip the warnings out. Burn to a DVDR. Send them back with a letter.

If I bought DVDs, that's what I'd do.

Re:Contradiction?

[hackstraw]

I emailed Fox about the logic of putting their "Piracy Is A Crime" video at the front of every DVD (a video which is impossible to skip through)

I find tons of box sets (or even regular DVDs) to simply not be worth their price because of "features" like this. Non-skipable commercials for other products, propaganda, threats that I will be fined, jailed, or worse if I don't watch the thing correctly, and all that.

Personally, I find that "pirated" TV shows and DVDs are simply better than the ones you can buy in a store because they are more versatile and they don't come with the annoyances that the "legal" versions come with.

Sure, piracy might be a crime, but supply and demand will always prevail so long as the punishment and liklihood of being punished for said crime is low enough. See alcohol prohibition and the current "war on drugs" as a reference.

Re:Contradiction?

[Anonymous Coward]

AnyDVD plus DVD Decyptor. I own all my media, but most of it I have never watched directly from the DVD. I open the box, rip everything, and put the originals in a storage tub.

I never even see the advertisements or anti-piracy warnings.

Re:Contradiction?

[Maltheus]

I think this crap has a lot more to do with piracy than the media companies can imagine. I'm in the extremely long process of converting my DVD collection over to mkv, primarily so I don't have to fiddle around for five minutes, just to get the DVD playing. This is especially bad when trying to watch a TV series and having to deal with it once or twice a day (Fox is the worst). The slow, complex animated menus are a large part of the problem. But the FBI warnings are the ultimate head scratcher. It can only have the opposite effect as intended.

I don't upload stuff cause it ain't worth the risk to me, but I'm quite proud of my collection (high quality, subtitles, commentaries and chapter stops) and I would love to share it. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who've done the same thing, for the same reasons and aren't really concerned with legal risks of sharing. Restrictions are always going to lead people in search of alternatives. Being a staunch capitalist myself, I can never understand why corporations these days, seem to always be in a state of conflict with their customers. If you disrespect your customers, they will disrespect you.

Re:Contradiction?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, I bet you're a real "life of the party"!

Phuttt... there goes the last trust for Sony

[Anonymous Coward]

So Sony once again swapped discs for DRM'd version and didn't tell anyone.

That's a pity, there comes a point where a company gets bigger than it's customers, and it looks like Sony have reached that point. Well the PS3 was only a discretionary buy anyway, I was torn between a Wii and a PS3, now that decision is a lot clearer.

Then there's my camera update, I'll opt for the Canon Ixus now over the Cybershot.

Knock yourself out Sony, really, I can avoid buying your stuff till the cows come home with no inconvenience to myself.

Re:Phuttt... there goes the last trust for Sony

[CRCulver]

For not much more than you'd spend on an Ixus, you could get a Powershot with vastly more powerful features. I got a Powershot G7 and am very happy with it. I thought the Ixus line was targeting people who need cameras that are fashion accessories and which complement clothing. If your needs are travel photography or just taking family photos around the house, Powershots are better economy.

But anyway, turning this somewhat on topic: even choosing a Canon camera involves supporting a not entirely blameless company. Remember, Canon is a company whose RAW format is proprietary and undocumented, and offering a third-party way to open it may be treading into dangerous legal waters. It's better than Sony, sure, but it seems like corporations have sunk to such lows that all shopping these days is choosing the lesser of evils.

Re:Phuttt... there goes the last trust for Sony

[clickclickdrone]

Canon is a company whose RAW format is proprietary and undocumented, and offering a third-party way to open it may be treading into dangerous legal waters.

Do you mean the way Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, DXO, Bibble Pro, Breeze Browser, ThumbsPlus, Capture One, RawShooter, Silverfast, Silkypix etc do? No idea if they've just used an off the shelf Canon API or written their own based on specs supplied but given how all the RAW convertors each have their own unique look with finished results, I doubt they're all using a standard Canon supplied package under the bonnet.

Re:Phuttt... there goes the last trust for Sony

[monsted]

/cry

Sorry folks, I really want that Bravia 46" LCD. At least that'll support their legitimitely good hardware business, not horribly evil Sony Entertainment...

Re:Phuttt... there goes the last trust for Sony

[LordKronos]

The reason output from all those photos looks different isn't because of how the programs read the data, but rather how they go about image processing.

For one, raw files don't contain RGB pixels. They contain pixels that consist of a single color. The entire image is a mosaic of red,green, and blue...sort of light looking at a TV screen up close ( http://farm1.static.flickr.com/9/68984572_93b0b72f 71.jpg?v=0 ). It's up to the program to demosaic it, and for that, there is no official way. There isn't even a "correct" way to do it. Then each program has to apply white balance, and again, there is variation here.

After that, it's a free for all of what each program chooses to do & how it does it, in terms of levels/curves, color toning, saturation, adjusting for lens distortion and chromatic aberrations, etc. Finally, each program has to apply sharpening, which is a huge field on it's own.

Re:Phuttt... there goes the last trust for Sony

[clickclickdrone]

I know what RAW is and how it works. The point I was trying (and clearly failing) to make is that the OPs comment that Canon's RAW format is undocumented anc clearly from the number of third party programs that work with Canon RAW, it isn't.
A developer will either have the RAW format documented in which case they will be doing the decoding you describe or they'll be using some sort of Canon supplied toolkit where they'll be calling a function that returns the data from the RAW file for further processing.

Re:Phuttt... there goes the last trust for Sony

[senatorpjt]

AFAIK, the RAW format isn't really a "format", it's just a "core dump" of the CCD. If the CCD data outputs are documented, it should correlate with the RAW file.

Re:Phuttt... there goes the last trust for Sony

[clickclickdrone]

Pretty much right - it's a straight dump of the sensor but it also has details on various camera settings for the shot to act as hints to the decoding of the data - white balance etc.

Cynical?

[Obvius]

So as soon as this story started to gain momentum, they issued a fix and a statement offering a replacement disk. Well, full marks to Sony for learning from recent public relations disasters, but I doubt I'd be so impressed if I was one of the people who had experienced this problem, and I had been complaining left right and centre to no avail for several weeks. Seems as though Sony only back-pedalled on this issue once they feared another DRM PR-storm was the brewing up.

Re:Cynical?

[anotherone]

You doubt you'd be impressed if you'd gotten what you'd been asking for? Would you rather Sony say "Yeah, sorry guys, you're right, we're just going to shut the company down now. Feel free to download a copy of Casino Royale in ogg .mkv from our website!"?

If the disc plays...

[DrXym]

What's to stop me whipping out DVD Decrypter and just stripping this copy protection? If need be, I could then fire up Nero Recode and do my own menus too. How does any copy protection scheme work on a format that doesn't expect one or have any way for a player to enforce it? Seriously I wonder if Sony HQ shouldn't muzzle Sony BMG and tell them to forget about retro DRM schemes because it seems to be fuckups all the way. The whole company is getting a bad reputation because of one small part - a part which in truth should be subservient to the rest, and not the other way around as it seems to be at the moment.

Re:If the disc plays...

[91degrees]

Uhm. Apparently nothing stops you. All the ripping tools seem to work.

I'm not quite sure what the improved DRM does to protect them. Maybe it means that if someone does a bit-for-bit copy it isn't going to work or something but cracking these is so easy I'd be surprised if anyone does that. Most of the pirate DVDs I've seen are either cheap DVD-R copies, or are so well presented that the extra work of decrypting them would be trivial.

Re:If the disc plays...

[DrXym]

That's my point. I can easilt rip a DVD and produce a perfectly acceptable single or dual layer DVD+R with about 90 minutes work. I don't see any point at all in Sony or anybody else attempting to copy protect DVDs or CDs since the measures are trivial to circumvent. So what if it prevents bit-for-bit copies? I expect the first thing most pirates would do is run the disc through DVD decryptor or similar first to strip out macrovision, region encoding etc. anyway.

Re:If the disc plays...

[Anonymous Coward]

What's to stop me whipping out DVD Decrypter and just stripping this copy protection?

Nothing, other than the fact that DVD Decrypter hasn't been updated in several years and can't read Sony protected discs.

Re:If the disc plays...

[karnal]

DVD Decrypter doesn't work on these affected DVDs by default - you'll need something like "ripit4me" to actually get DVD Decrypter to get the right info to rip. My unintelligent thoughts are that the .ifo files that describe the disc are screwed up a bit, but normally DVD players don't get hosed on those...

Also, dvdfab seems to work even better; I haven't found a dvd it can't read...

Re:If the disc plays...

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

What's to stop me whipping out DVD Decrypter and just stripping this copy protection?

The fact that DVD Decrypter hasn't been updated in well over 1 year if not 2 years (I don't remember which it is) would stop you. The last release of DVD Decrypter, if you can find it, doesn't understand anything but the very earliest release of ARCCOS. Whip it out if you must, but you will get nothing but errors when it hits the bad disc sectors and doesn't know what to do.

Let us know how DVD Decrypter works for you with these discs. We won't be holding our breath on that one.

It must suck to be a DRM engineer

[pembo13]

When your stuff works too well, you have to "fix" it. When it doesn't work well enough, you have to fix it. And in the theoretical scenario where you get it to work just right, you'll be hated, and likely out of a job.

Re:It must suck to be a DRM engineer

[suv4x4]

When your stuff works too well, you have to "fix" it. When it doesn't work well enough, you have to fix it. And in the theoretical scenario where you get it to work just right, you'll be hated, and likely out of a job.

Most DRM technology providers so far were clueless idiots capitalizing on the greed of the media companies.

Granted AACS is actually well designed (but due to implementation flaws and nature of DRM, not perfect), but everything else I've inspected is just hack upon hack creating the illusion of protection. No wonder it's failure prone.

Re:It must suck to be a DRM engineer

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey stop talking bad about my lock(object DVD); I have 8 children to feed you insensitive clod

I have a simpler fix.....

[blankoboy]

STOP buying SONY media all together. First they plant rootkits on the PC's of their loyal customers and now this headache. I vote with my wallet plain and simple. Any company that is going to be a pull these sorts of antics simply won't be getting any $$ love from me. People forgive and forget far too quickly and thus the big monster doesn't learn it's lesson.

One lesson here: Vote with your Wallet and don't give your money to prick companies.

Re:I have a simpler fix.....

[pandrijeczko]

Whilst I agree with your sentiment (and I myself do not buy anything by Sony), most people just want "something that works" and don't care about DRM as long as they can see their hi-res movies and play their protected CDs on their hifi.

It's not a case of "forgive and forget" - far too many people are too damned lazy to keep themselves well informed which is precisely what the DRM-supporting corporations are banking on to get DRM in quietly through the back door.

Re:I have a simpler fix.....

[Anonymous Coward]

First they plant rootkits on the PC's of their loyal customers and now this headache.

Not to mention that their first fix for the rootkit made the problem worse. Why would we believe we weren't being slipped some other evil in this new iteration and fix?

Re:I have a simpler fix.....

[Bueller_007]

Just make sure you--and anyone else who chooses to boycott Sony products--e-mail them and tell them that the reason you won't be purchasing any more of their products is their copyright protection schemes. Otherwise, they're libel to blame decreasing sales on piracy and up the ante even further.

Re:I have a simpler fix.....

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

It's not a case of "forgive and forget" - far too many people are too damned lazy to keep themselves well informed which is precisely what the DRM-supporting corporations are banking on to get DRM in quietly through the back door.

And what else should I be keeping myself informed about? The latest proposed abuses of drivers to extort more money, and the latest stupid "pro-cycling" legislation that makes cycling more dangerous? The relative morality of the food sourcing policies of the four major supermarket brands with stores near my home? The levels of customer service of my ISP and telephone company? The details of the different extortionate charges levied by all the banks with branches in my city?

There are two big problems with your argument. Firstly, no consumer has the time and experience to know about everything. Secondly, even if they did, since it's common for most or all of the big name businesses to cut the same corners in the name of increasing profits while keeping competitive prices, while the smaller or more ethical businesses can't compete on price and are essentially a niche market for dedicated "ethical consumers".

This is why a completely free market is often not a good idea, and government should intervene with regulation/legislation where markets fail to act appropriately without such incentives. No-one else has the time and resources to monitor diverse consumer markets and keep the big boys in line.

Re:I have a simpler fix.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't thing the anti(?) warez d00dz @ Sony are stupid by any means. They know that piracy isn't the only reason for decreased sales (if a reason at all...). They (the industry) are on the verge of losing their "single vendor lock-in" (i.e. the cycle of movies first going to theatres, then DVD, then broadcast TV), and are fighting by any means to keep the golden egg laying goose alive. These means probably even include lying (!) about the received amount of email. No it is not Sony you should mail, but someone else...

Re:I have a simpler fix.....

[ThirdPrize]

Amen. I gave up buying sony gear years ago. Its expensive and the extra money hasn't necessarily gone on quality control.

Re:I have a simpler fix.....

[JesseMcDonald]

Just make sure you--and anyone else who chooses to boycott Sony products--e-mail them and tell them that the reason you won't be purchasing any more of their products is their copyright protection schemes. Otherwise, they're libel to blame decreasing sales on piracy and up the ante even further.

If I were them I'd probably blame the "necessity" of the copy-restriction schemes on the "pirates" in the first place, and thus account any "lost sales" due to copy-restriction issues as part of the "loss" due to "piracy". It's a halfway-reasonable argument, for one -- it's at least difficult to dismiss out-of-hand unless you're willing to discount the "lost sale" argument itself -- and it makes for more impressive statistics.

Re:I have a simpler fix.....

[Bueller_007]

And yes, I realize I misspelled "liable".

Re:I have a simpler fix.....

[NoMaster]

And what else should I be keeping myself informed about? ... no consumer has the time and experience to know about everything

So don't try to know about everything. Just know about the organisations and businesses that piss you off, and never ever deal with them again!

Neither of the 2 big supermarket chains around here will see another cent from me. Ditto Belkin and D-Link. There is one single real estate agent in my local area who hasn't cold-called me - guess who's getting my business when it comes time to sell? I no longer give money to the Guide Dogs or the Red Cross, for the exact same reason. Advertise a program with a banner over the top of the one I'm watching? Sure-fire way to make sure I'll never watch it on that network.

And yes, even though I'm very happy with my Sony widescreen CRT, I'll never buy another Sony product. Ever.

For hardware, there are alternatives. For everything else, there's bittorrent...

Re:I have a simpler fix.....

[aibrahim]

Just make sure you--and anyone else who chooses to boycott Sony products--e-mail them and tell them that the reason you won't be purchasing any more of their products is their copyright protection schemes. Otherwise, they're libel to blame decreasing sales on piracy and up the ante even further.

Wrong.

There is nothing you can do to the anti information freedom crowd at Sony et al. that will make them take a more reasonable stance other than f*#k with their money.

To this end, you have to boycott, and explain the reason why. It is certainly appropriate and polite to inform Sony directly of your choices. Just don't expect it to have any impact done that way.

Instead you need to get organized. Collect a list of fellow boycotters. Make sure that the fact that you are boycotting- and why of course- is brought to the attention of as many people as possible with two goals in mind.

1st you want to inform the general public about the situation in easy to understand terms in order to generate more boycotters.

2nd you want to reach investors with the fact that a huge, and hopefully growing, block of consumers will not be buying from a publicly traded company.

The end goal is to drive sales and stocks of your target way down into the toilet. That will make shareholders want to hold the board accountable, and eliminate funds for any performance based bonuses and generally get executives making these decisions fired.

To accomplish these tasks you have to control the media outflow from your organization. You have to generate press releases, and put them in the hands of sympathetic reporters. You have to create "news" out of what is literally a non-event.

A secondary objective can be met by effectively managing media reporting of the situation: You can take the media initiative from Sony, or whomever your target may be. If you do this well, you don't have to worry about how Sony will characterize these "losses", because you will have already characterized them. The target's PR department will start off in damage control mode. You will be free to use your media efforts to amp up the pressure rather than countering the target's self serving lies.

Once these guys have to do without their six and seven figure bonuses and see their friends getting fired... only then will things really start changing.

Re:I have a simpler fix.....

[fyoder]

If I were them I'd probably blame the "necessity" of the copy-restriction schemes on the "pirates" in the first place, and thus account any "lost sales" due to copy-restriction issues as part of the "loss" due to "piracy".

Unfortunately it's a bit circular as well. Because I consider them to be a bunch of evil bastards, if I want something of theirs I'll look for it using means that don't put any money in their coffers. It's hard to believe, but I was once something of a Sony fan some years ago. Over the years I've actually shelled out a fair bit of cash on diverse Sony products. No more.

Re:I have a simpler fix.....

[Bueller_007]

I'm not disputing any of that, all I said was that if you want to have an effect, you have to tell them WHY you are doing it.

If they don't know the problem, they can't fix it.

I have no problem with a boycott itself.

You can say a lot about Sony

[MadJo]

But this 'fix' came a lot quicker than their debacle with the broken CDs.

On the other hand, this fix would not have been necessary, had they not used DRM in the first place.
And it doesn't leave the fact, that I'm still not buying anything that Sony makes.

Re:You can say a lot about Sony

[Random BedHead Ed]

Therein is the reasoning that still eludes Sony, even after this event and the rootkit. When the security feature is designed to guard against the customers, and the real security threat can get around the security feature anyway, then we're all wasting time and money. Sony is probably still looking at this as a PR issue, rather than as a bad security and technology decision.

Awaiting arrival of clue ... error: clue still absent.

Re:You can say a lot about Sony

[jedidiah]

It's like the anti-copying ads that come in front of movies at the theatre. They start out good generating some sympathy for the poor working schmuck from LA but then deteriorate into tiresome preaching. They take what could be a decent idea and ruin it.

Commercials in general seem to be like that these days. Ad men have forgotten about the art of persuassion and think instead that it's their jobs to annoy us by any means necessary.

Re:You can say a lot about Sony

[ScottSCY]

Unfortunately this isn't really a great fix. What about

1) DVDs already on the shelves. Will they be removed and replaced or are potentially damaged DVDs just going to keep getting sold?
2) What about people who have the DVD and it works, but then they buy a new DVD player and it stops working?
3) Are netflix, blockbuster, etc going to replace all of their discs for these movies?

The statement about how little people apparently are affected by this (which is laughably ridiculous) shows they aren't taking this seriously enough yet.

Fuck Sony

[Anonymous Coward]

I've said it before and I'll sayy it again (and again, and again)

Fuck Sony.

Seriously. Those bastards do not deserve to stay in business.

ARCcOS DRM?

[cortana]

Hm, what's this then? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARccOS says,

The system deliberately creates a number of sectors on the DVD with corrupted data that cause DVD copying software to produce errors. Ah, so this is the corrupted audio CD debacle all over again. Thanks Sony, for making products deliberatly designed to malfunction. Truly Defective By Design.

Re:ARCcOS DRM?

[1010110010]

Just yesterday I tried to backup my DVD of Underworld: Evolution and I couldn't because mplayer was spitting out 'CRC fail' errors. Bad sectors all over as copy-protection. Hurray for Sony.

Seriously that was the last straw for me, and that was before I saw this story too. I'm now actively avoiding Sony anything. I suppose the real test will be to see if I can keep myself from wanting a PS3 once FFXIII comes out.

Re:ARCcOS DRM?

[cortana]

Make sure you write to Sony to tell them that!

BTW, I wouldn't worry too much about the PS3. I think it's not unethical to buy them (and their games) second hand.

Re:ARCcOS DRM?

[Anonymous Coward]

I cock my leg and fart in the face of SONY.

Re:ARCcOS DRM?

[Anonymous Coward]

they have to resort to this because of the tens of thousands of people who blatantly copy all their music and never pay for any of it. If you want to moan, moan at the pirates that got us into this mess, not the companies try to protect their million dollar investments in new bands.

Re:ARCcOS DRM?

[cortana]

Clearly not, since the corrupted audio CDs, and now these corrupted DVDs has made not one iota of difference to the amount of music and video that is copied without a license.

Re:ARCcOS DRM?

[drew]

Ah, so this is the corrupted audio CD debacle all over again.

It didn't start with audio CD's. Software companies (mostly game publishers) were doing this with floppy discs back in the 1980's. There's a reason this practice was abandoned in the software industry long ago, and it's not because they stopped caring about piracy...

I wouldn't be too sure...

[SanityInAnarchy]

Look at the way their DRM currently works:

The system deliberately creates a number of sectors on the DVD with corrupted data that cause DVD copying software to produce errors. Normal DVD players never read these sectors since they follow a set of instructions encoded on the disc telling them to skip them. Less sophisticated DVD playing programs do not follow these instructions and instead try to read every sector on the disk sequentially, including the bad ones. Slysoft's AnyDVD, Fengtao's DVDFab Decrypter, RipIt4Me + DVD Decrypter + FixVTS + DVD Shrink, MacTheRipper (freeware), along with VLC media player[1] and MPlayer/MEncoder (for Linux) are usually able to overcome ARccOS protection.

Which really, really makes me wonder exactly what players it was intended to kill...

I think I've seen these before, incidentally. But it seems that the whole point is to fuck up their disks exactly enough that they won't play on certain players (God knows which ones, if mplayer can play it), but not enough that they won't play on real players. Thus, it's based not at all on actual standards (like CSS), and entirely on existing DVD players.

They could be calling it an "update" meaning an actual removal, as a marketspeak word. Or it could really be an update, basically figuring out exactly how the cheap DVD players play discs, and making these DVDs playable in that, but still a PITA for something like dd.

Re:I wouldn't be too sure...

[jimicus]

I think I've seen these before, incidentally. But it seems that the whole point is to fuck up their disks exactly enough that they won't play on certain players (God knows which ones, if mplayer can play it), but not enough that they won't play on real players. Thus, it's based not at all on actual standards (like CSS), and entirely on existing DVD players.

IOW, a variation on the copy-protection used on some CDs. And about as useful, purely because (as we've seen before), it is not physically possible to break the specifications a little bit and in doing so accurately target a subsection of the number of players out there. That's the whole point of standardised specifications.

Note that BluRay/HD-DVD accounts for this by design. (I don't think it will do a jot of good, because sooner or later a means of avoiding the issue altogether will appear, but that's by the bye.)

Re:I wouldn't be too sure...

[bilgebag]

Or it could really be an update, basically figuring out exactly how the cheap DVD players play discs, and making these DVDs playable in that, but still a PITA for something like dd.

I think this is exactly what they will have done. Most likely they will have moved the defective sectors further away from the real data the players ought to be reading, so they don't get caught up in the read-ahead buffers of the simpler players.

Eventually all that will be frustrated is someone trying to copy the .VOB files as a whole, as you say.

Re:I wouldn't be too sure...

[klx]

out exactly how the cheap DVD players play discs

Revisit the article from Monday and you'll find that the problem wasn't related to price or age -- some late-model Sony players were affected, as well as several Toshiba models. One person reported a problem with a Pioneer player, but someone else said their older Pioneer wasn't affected. The Amazon discussion did not (when I read it, at least) mention Coby, Shintom or the like.

Re:I wouldn't be too sure...

[hackstraw]

I think I've seen these before, incidentally.

This kind of copy protection scheme was used back in the days of the Apple I/II and Comodore computers (possibly early IBM and compatibles as well).

Back then, software companies actually sold defective disks, but when the disks were "played" normally, they would skip the defective parts on the disks, but disk copying software would just copy the disks byte by byte (or sector by sector) and the software would fail when they hit the defective part of the disk.

Same crap, different year. Different PHBs saying the same thing, and we geeks keep saying "If you can play it, we can record it".

Even the older Macrovision is similar to the HDCP crap we have today (which is basically the same as the defective disk crap as well). Macrovision used to inject high frequency crap into the signal that was detected by a recording device and that recording device would record a noisy copy of the signal. To defeat Macrovision, one must just use a low pass or notch filter on the signal to get rid of the garbage that was injected by the Macrovision.

I seriously doubt that any of this stuff ever has any significant effect on decreasing pirated copies or increasing sales, but someone keeps thinking this stuff is important, and people think its worth their time and effort to get around these things for many reasons. These reasons vary from proving that it can be done, to simply wanting to make backup copies, to outright piracy. All three will always exist, and someone will always find a workaround to satisfy their needs. Legal/illegal, moral/immoral, right/wrong, this is just how it is.

Re:I wouldn't be too sure...

[innocent_white_lamb]

The C64 used several copy protection schemes. Many of them involved bad or weak sectors on the disk. Some of the simpler schemes just put an error on a sector and forced the drive to attempt to read that sector. If the error was returned, the program ran.
 
The simplest one that I ever saw was when they put a bad track on the disk, but didn't actually have the program refer to it. If you tried copying the complete disk, it would error out. If you just copied the prg file from one disk to another, it was fine. (This was in the very early days of the C64.)
 
I head a rumour (but never actually saw) about floppy disks that had a hole punched in them. Theoretically, the program never sent the drive head to that track; if your drive head went to the track it would fall into the hole and be torn off. I never understood how they could guarantee that my drive head wouldn't be at that track before I attempted to load the program, though.

Re:I wouldn't be too sure...

[Firehawke]

"EARLY" IBM? I was seeing bad-sector based protection throughout the entire lifespan of floppy software and WELL into the CD era with a number of *common* CD-based protections using specially damaged spots of the disc.

Think about this

[ninjafirepants]

Sony pays people to find a way to have a perfectly good product not work. And they're not the only ones, either. Almost all the major movie and music industries are paying people to design a way to stop their products from working. Their goal is to redefine what "works" means by taking away all the innovation required to create such glorious things as DVDs or CDs and limiting everyone to a subset of the original features, and continuously do so until we forget that the original set existed.

Vote with your wallet, and your geek-conscience. Don't put people in power that support bullshit like the DMCA. See if you can find a candidate who thinks selling products that don't work should be illegal. Write letters to companies telling them WHY you're not buying products designed to not work. Fight the man!

Re:Think about this

[tomstdenis]

I like the way you explain the situation. I think if more laypersons thought of it that way they might not buy into the hype of things like HDCP "enabled" TVs and monitors [etc]. Usually I explain it as "they want to control what you can do with your own machine" but people think I'm making it up or being alarmist...

"defective by design" certainly is a catchy saying too ;-)

Tom

Re:Think about this

[Anonymous Coward]

It takes less work to search google and crack whatever they put in than to write a letter. Seriously, I haven't run into anything that took me more than 5 minutes to work around in years.

Great attitude...

[SanityInAnarchy]

Now if only we could all be so bold when it comes to Microsoft?

Re:Great attitude...

[Shifty Jim]

Perhaps... But why would you need to release a fix or replacement due to a 'feature.'

Re:Great attitude...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more fashonable on Slashdot to bash Sony these days than Microsoft. MS-bashing gets a little old after doing it for about, oh, 15 years?

And remember kids, Nintendo is the new Apple. Don't say anything bad about the N.

Re:Great attitude...

[IceDiver]

I, for one, have decided to do so.

My next computer will be running Ubuntu, with my old copy of XP on it so I can dual-boot or run it in a VM. No Vista for me!

They'll do it again....soon...

[budword]

This bunch just doesn't learn.

That's nice

[iminplaya]

Let me tell you a little story. When I was a child I used to yell FUCK YOU!! at the top of my lungs at any given moment. Needless to say my parents would get very upset. So they sent me to one of those "etiquette schools" to see if they could break this horrible habit. What they would do is to encourage me to say something else. It worked pretty good. So now when I think of cussing I just say, "That's nice".

Re:That's nice

[Archangel Michael]

From now on, I promise to re-code "That's Nice" into FY. You've forever changed how I look at things. Thanks! That's Nice!

See, its already spreading .... .

Sorry seems to be the hardest word

[Andy_R]

We've only got a report about this not the actual Sony statement to go on, but it seems to me that there's a total lack of apology here, just a blatantly absurd claim about how few complaints there were. Come on Sony, at least have the guts to say you are sorry... if if it's only 'we're sorry we got caught'.

Sony's PR department really don't seem to understand that they have a monumental image problem. A bit of humility in their press releases could have won back some respect for free, but instead they sent out something that reeks of arrogance.

Re:Sorry seems to be the hardest word

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Sony's PR department really don't seem to understand that they have a monumental image problem.

Many Slashdot posters really don't seem to understand that most consumers don't care about DRM and company image. They just want to watch Casino Royale or whatever, and as long as it works, they'll be happy.

Sony, however, do understand this, which is why they keep trying this sort of crap without much fear of the consequences. Until DRM becomes a high-profile issue with the general public (which basically means until the majority have been directly and adversely affected by it) Sony's PR department probably don't much care.

Of course, when DRM does become socially unacceptable, which may finally start to happen as a result of the major changes in the on-line music market over the past few days, Sony's history of abuse may well become a PR headache for them. But it's rare for any corporate PR group to think that far ahead, because often consumers just forget or don't care enough by the time the issue comes up.

Re:Sorry seems to be the hardest word

[Kabuthunk]

Sony arrogant? Why, that's obsurd!

Re:Sorry seems to be the hardest word

[Kabuthunk]

Aaaand it appears to have stripped out my [/sarcasm] at the end of that line.

Sony global boycott

[rhyre417]

After the PS2 class action, the rootkit DRM fiasco, and now this DVD DRM fiasco, how many more times will it take for the public to wake up and realize they have ALL of the power in this situation?
Check out http://defectivebydesign.org/ for details on how DRM hurts consumers.
If you don't buy ANY of their stuff, including movies, you can't get hurt. The last Sony product I purchased was a movie ticket to a showing of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.
As for Microsoft avoidance, that's what GNU/Linux systems are for.

Are Sony people morons ?

[unity100]

Really ? After ALL they did to consumers, (rootkits and other crap) gamers, (swg anyone ?), other small shitty stunts like this one, one would think that they would come to their senses by now.

At this rate, sony is going to be the first mega corp to bite the dust out of arrogance.

Re:Are Sony people morons ?

[elrous0]

No, you would think that people who buy Sony products like the PS3 and blu-ray would have come to their senses by now.

SONY: Time to take your medication

[BillGatesLoveChild]

" Sony Fixes Problems With New DVDs"
Customers ordered to only watch movies in cinemas.

"Recently, an update that was installed on approximately 20 titles was found to cause an incompatibility issue with a very small number of DVD players" .. Thus the global announcement.

"(Sony has received complaints on less than one thousandth of one percent of affected discs shipped)..."
We've put this sentence to you in brackets as subtle acknowledgment that this a lie. Our public relations disaster recovery team wanted to use a ;-), but our lawyers disagreed and we thought the brackets were a good compromise.

"Since then, the ARccOS system has once again been updated, and there are no longer any playability problems.'
'Or else!' sneered the SONY spokesliar, shaking his fist and the audience,

" Customers can call 800-860-2878 to inquire about replacement discs."
Customers can also call the same number for replacement rootkits.

War is peace. Ignorance is strength. Freedom is slavery. SONY are a respectable and much-loved corporate citizen.
Could SONY be any more unpopular? Why don't they branch out into genocide and sell ballistic missiles to North Korea?
I can honestly say it wouldn't hurt their stock price.

They should dig up Morita-san and prop him up at the boardroom table. He couldn't do a worse job that Howard "Eat your damn Rootkit and love it" Stringer

There's not a single movie in the world

[Anonymous Coward]

worth all the DRM hassle. I know that if I bought a faulty movie I would either try to return it, or throw it in the trash. Anyone else feel like me?

No no, it's OK

[cheros]

I'm fine with them fixing this rootkit. That means it only has to be broken once, not twice.

And God help them if I find it on any Windows system I'm working with - if there is as much as a hairline crack in the legal statements made on the DVD they'll be in court again soon. That is, of course, if any of the systems I work with gets near a Sony produced DVD because there will now be an absolute ban of them.

I can't believe that a company that on one hand can make such excellent equipment can on the other hand screw up so completely that it simply defies belief. I mean, are clues too expensive? Did someone have a brain transplant? Is there nobody at the top actually *using* their head?

Hello?

A question of volume

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if they got more complaints that PS3s sold. I mean since they have magical numbers and all, I'm not really inclined to believe what they claim, but on some level, they either understood the complaint volume to be substantial -- or just started taking some sort of fiscal impact due to return volume.

That being said, now I wonder if they had more DVDs returned than PS3s sold.

Oh but I do...

[Anonymous Coward]

I may be locked into Windows, but the rest of Microsoft products are very easy to avoid and I do that with remarkable ease....

Tom Tom GPS vs Mio? Mio runs CE, so go for the Tom Tom, turns out to be the best choice in later reviews anyway.
Run the servers on Windows 2003? Or Fedora? Fedora, easy one that, cheaper, more secure, easier web interface... it's proved to be a solid server for over 3 years now.

When I get the chance to walk away from Windows, I'll be even happier.

Re:Oh but I do...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'll run my servers on Linux when I want to start losing money. Get the facts, people.

Re:Oh but I do...

[jedidiah]

I'll run my servers on Windows when I want my company to go out of business.

No, I don't have a convenient link to a bunch of abused statistics. I just have the
personal experience of myself, my friends and the companies I have worked for.

Unix is what you run when Windows falls over.

Linux is just a cheaper version of Unix.

Re:Oh but I do...

[Kazoo the Clown]

I may be locked into Windows, but the rest of Microsoft products are very easy to avoid and I do that with remarkable ease....

The funny thing about this is, most of the "rest" of Microsoft products aren't actually all that bad-- it's just the OS that is crap, primarily. In fact, IMHO the non-OS products is what got Microsoft the desktop in the first place, as nobody buys a computer system for the OS it runs, but for the apps it runs (or at least, that's how they buy their *first* computer system). The first OS Microsoft had wasn't really much of an OS at all, just a sophisticated loader that could get their apps into memory and run them. Unfortunately, all subsequent OS products of theirs were arrived at by evolution instead of revolution, dragging all the junk DNA of it's hackneyed past with it.

Re:Oh but I do...

[Anonymous Coward]

But if they hadn't done that, all of their non-OS products would stop running, and we'll be bitching on Slashdot about how M$ tries to milk more money from customers by forced upgrades. You just can't win around here.

Already Fixed It

[segedunum]

I used Ripit4me.

Casual copying

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Presumably the point is that it's a disincentive to casual copying. Of course pretty much any current DRM scheme can be broken fairly easily by geeks with the right kit... but most people who buy those DVDs aren't geeks with the right kit.

Re:Casual copying

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is these were still rippable with DVDShrink, which has got to be the most used DVD ripping program on PC, even if it is ages old. Searching for it on Google doesn't take too long either. It is not like we needed some new fangled tool to rip the DVD that wasn't available before this came out.

Also, these things should not be going after casual copying, because most casual copiers are not the ones uploading things to Torrent sites. Casual copiers are the ones trying to make backups for when their disc becomes scratched or otherwise unwatchable. Or for encoding the DVD into a video format playable on your portable device. These should both be covered under Fair Use (something the industry hates), but they want to stop this so they can charge you three or four times, for each possible use of the item. Trust me Sony and the rest of the MPAA (and RIAA) members lose far more money from large pirates then they ever would from the casual copier.

Re:Casual copying

[jedidiah]

It only takes one cracker to break any DRM scheme and then distribute the results to the rest of the planet. This was true 20 years ago. Nothing has happened to change this condition.

People speak as if running some Windows program isn't a casual activity.

Squeezing blood from a stone

[tedgyz]

If I bought a legit DVD that didn't play in my DVD player, I would never buy another Sony DVD again.

These corporations are so stupid. They think that piracy == lost revenue. Sure, there is SOME lost revenue, but a lot less than they probably think.

Re:Squeezing blood from a stone

[tomstdenis]

They probably spend more on licensing DRM and other nonsense than they lose to copyright infringement anyways.

Fundamentally the problem is the execs are [or have been] absolutely convinced that DRM is not only the solution to the problem, but that the customers actually don't mind the problems it creates. I don't know how in this day and age people still propose and want to develop DRM "solutions," as it seems like more and more laypersons are becoming aware of just how detrimental and annoying it can be.

As for never buying a sony DVD, well I'm sure the others aren't peachy clean to. What I'd do is just rent the movies, if they don't play ask for a refund on the rental. If the movie both plays and is super neato fantastic, then and only then, buy a copy. So far 99% of all recent movies fail to meet the "I'd like to see this once, let alone twice" test.

What!?

[Dread Pirate Skippy]

They fixed the copy protection problem? Woohoo, no more DRM! Oh, wait...

Warning Label

[91degrees]

DRM will always cause problems with some older players that aren't designed to handle it. The industry has decided that they should warn their customers with a clear label that the DVD may not play on DVD branded equipment. The label looks something like this

Cybershot or Olympus

[Hyperhaplo]

Funny you should mention that... the camera purchase I mean.
A friend of mine recently (last weekend) asked me for help in purchasing a new camera. It came down to a cybershot (the upgraded version of the one I have, which I quite like btw) or an Olympus model. The guy behind the counter was good to do a deal on either and in the end he asked me which one I'd buy.

My response? 'Do you know what Sony did with the rootkit fiasco a while back? Right? Yes. Ok. Do you REALLY want to plug *anything* made by Sony into your PC? Even if it is only a camera that connects via USB so you can upload. Your choice.'

He bought the Olympus. (yes, for other reasons than that 'it's a Sony! Yuck!'. Still)

Yes, it is only one sale. Yes, it is only one cheap ($300) camera. However, it is one less Sony product sold, and one more person who will seriously think about *anything* branded with Sony in the future. And his family. And his friends. And anyone else who asks me if I'd reccomend a Sony product.

Back to the article. I'm shockd that it says that it is 'fixing problems'. I thought that it meant that they were going to remove the DRM :)

Re:Cybershot or Olympus

[networkBoy]

I'm responsible for a refresh on a complete video editing system, complete with a couple cameras.
Guess what brand is conspicuously missing? Sony.
Management wanted sony and I told them no. When asked why I explained the rootkit and how that would compromise our operation, and showed that Sony had a history of these antics. I won out, the gear is now Canon and JVC

Main page unreadable thanks to adverts

[Anonymous Coward]

Thisarticle appears on the main page at the moment.

Amazing that a Sun advert overlays the article text.

Or ot amazing at all.

Talk about aggressive advertising...

PGCEDIT

[RMH101]

plus DVD Decrypter and DVDShrink will rip all the ones I've seen. PGCEdit automates the use of these and strips out the dodgy Arccoss stuff...Takes me about 30 mins to rip a DVD and burn a new one.

Re:PGCEDIT

[Phisbut]

plus DVD Decrypter and DVDShrink will rip all the ones I've seen. PGCEdit automates the use of these and strips out the dodgy Arccoss stuff...Takes me about 30 mins to rip a DVD and burn a new one.

Is there a DVD-Decrypter/DVDShrink equivalent for Linux? While those are nice tools, they seem to be Win only :-(

No, Sony has the math right

[Posting=!Working]

Sony has the math right. Only one out of 100,000 discs sold had a complaint, you just don't understand their logic behind it.

They sold 200,000 discs. Complaint #1 was from Wal-Mart, and #2 was from Best Buy.

You didn't really think they include what consumers think in any of their decisions, do you?

Re:No, Sony has the math right

[91degrees]

You didn't really think they include what consumers think in any of their decisions, do you?

I've bitched about this earlier. You're quite right. They don't care. this is Sony pictures' Web site.

Can you see a "contact us" link? An email address? A telephone number? Any means to contact them to tell them what you think? There's a support email address buried in the help section but that's all.

A more consumer oriented company like Apple have a contact us link on the main page. Gives corporate address, a feedback form for the website, product feedback, technical support contacts and corporate contacts.

But I don't understand it. Companies pay a fortune for market research, and here are people willing to go out of their way to provide it for free. they should be listening.

DVD is not an acronym

[TPJ-Basin]

I have to nit-pick. 'DVD' doesn't stand for Digital Versatile Disc. It never has.

Ah - but what do you THINK?

[cheros]

If they got you to THINK "that's nice" you have maybe a problem :-)

But seriously, I agree with the underlying tone (at least, that's what I sense), being rude and obnoxious may offer a bit of short term relief but is hardly going to help change the situation. Staying cool and examining the facts for loopholes is far more effective :-).

Secondary Market still affects Primary

[Benanov]

Buying something second hand still influences the primary market--people on the edge will buy it if they can resell it when they tire of the device.

Analysis?

[HTH NE1]

So what exactly was the defect with these DVDs? I too am interested in exactly what the defect in the version of ARccOS copy protection was that prevented it from working in consumer players such as the Sony Disk Explorer 400. I'm hoping someone is purposely acquiring these damaged titles before they all get recalled and we get a follow-up story with a breakdown analysis of what went wrong.

It would be good to know what the enemy is up to.

Re:Analysis?

[GreyPoopon]

It would be good to know what the enemy is up to.

I'm not certain that it was really a vile trick. On one hand, it could just be another attempt to put a roadblock in front of casual copyright violation (although we all know that hill isn't worth the effort to climb). On the other hand, it could have been a well-timed attempt to sully the name of their competitors in the HD space. Toshiba (Sony's HD competition) was one of the players that couldn't handle the new format, but I'm not sure who the others were. At any rate, I'd like to know whether what Sony did violates written specs (if they even exist) for DVD.

Usless statistic

[Gription]

0.001%? Did they even ship enough disks in the first place to get such a small number of complaints as one in 100,000? I think it should be instantly apparent that Sony's numbers mean nothing. I am surprised that Sony could get any reported complaints.

Think about it. You go out to the store and buy a DVD and have this problem. Say that you have the persistence to play with the problem and somehow figure out that it is the formatting of the disk that causes the problem.

How are you going to "contact Sony"? This company has a billion contact points and none of them are labeled "call here when your DVD disk has a problem". The likely course is that you return it to Circuit City or Best Buy and the pimply kid behind the counter certainly isn't going to call Sony and report it.

Basically there is almost no chance that Sony will hear a thing because they are structured so they don't have to listen to customers.

UN comparison

[bagofbeans]

Not really. Sony was acting autonomously here. One problem with the UN is when they pass treaties by democratic standards (negotiation then voting), larger countries who don't like it fail to ratify it (pass it into their country's law). In other words, its a bully problem. We won't even get into the hypocrisy of the Security Council.

The UN's useful function is to make it clear to other countries when one country is behaving badly; just like in a schoolyard, it is difficult to constarin a bully.

Props

[Anonymous Coward]

Well at least Sony fixed the problem. That's good for the consumer, right? That was the honorable thing to do, right?

I won't say that fixing an error (which shouldn't have happened in the first place) even begins to atone for the lengthy history of consumer-hostility that Sony has, but I will at least go so far as to nod my head in approval at this specific action.

Passive Weasels

[Doc Ruby]

'Recently, an update that was installed on approximately 20 titles was found to cause an incompatibility issue with a very small number of DVD players (Sony has received complaints on less than one thousandth of one percent of affected discs shipped)... Since then, the ARccOS system has once again been updated, and there are no longer any playability problems.' Customers can call 800-860-2878 to inquire about replacement discs."

Every verb in their acceptance of responsibility is in the "passive voice". Sony didn't do anything - things happened. This is the kind of weasel words that we hear from leaders in government and industry all the time these days. They say "I take full responsibility" to deflect criticism that they're not taking responsibility. Then they don't say " I did (X wrong)". They say "Mistakes were made."

And the pool of resentment that they did something wrong, but refused responsiblity builds up with nowhere to go. Which means they just did something else wrong, in addition to X, that they avoided responsiblity for, by weaseling out while pretending to take responsiblitiy.

Active Sorry

[Doc Ruby]

I made a mistake: I didn't close the "B" tag after "Mistakes were made." I should have used the preview button. Sorry.

There, that wasn't so hard.

On Apology

[poindextrose]

On Apology is a great reference on the matter, for any interested.

So if EVERYONE asks for replacements...

[Nonsanity]

While this problem only affects some small portion of the people that purchased the 20 or so titles, I think it would be highly educational for Sony if every single one of those discs was turned in for replacement...

Why not reward good behaviour

[SuperKendall]

STOP buying SONY media all together.

That's not going to help anything.

Instead, why not reward a company when they do soemthing right? How are positive actions going to be repeated without positive feedback? When your only tool for behavior modification is the cudgel, your target grows mean and angry and only transparently obedient.

Write Sony a letter thanking them for resolving the issue early, then continue to buy what you normally would. Eventually the bean counters at Sony are going to wake up as to the cost of recalls like this, that is the best way to finally convince them. In fact what works especially well would be to buy one of the affected discs and phone in asking for a replacement, because that costs them real money they can measure.

A boycott on the scale you are suggesting will never be noticed. So either you are not serious about wanting change, or you simply want to punish Sony. That's fine but you should be more open with your motives instead of cloaking them in the guise of altruism.

Re:Why not reward good behaviour

[The PS3 Will Fail]

"Write Sony a letter thanking them for resolving the issue early, then continue to buy what you normally would."

Because the problem is DRM and that has not been solved. Sony, as usual, just screwed up the implementation.

"That's fine but you should be more open with your motives instead of cloaking them in the guise of altruism."

Based on your constant apologies for Sony and the anti-MS slant to many of your comments, I would suggest that you should be more honest in your motives.

It's just market economics

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

People speak as if running some Windows program isn't a casual activity.

For a lot of people, running a Windows program... wait, what's Windows?

Seriously, a lot of the world knows little or nothing about computers. As long as they can read e-mail, surf the web and play their games, they don't care what else is on there.

Sony's actions are simple market economics, and as much as we hate it, I would guess that they've done their research and concluded that the income lost from vocal anti-DRM geeks and less vocal just-shop-somewhere-else people they annoy incidentally is significantly less than the income lost from casual infringers who will be dissuaded from copying the discs with DRM.

Re:It's just market economics

[jedidiah]

...except DRM measures don't do squat to the market.

They don't stop the bootlegers.
They don't stop the geeks.

They just annoy the paying customers.

It's always been this way and there's no sign it's going to change.

The difference between selling 50 thousand copies and selling 5 million is still the quality of your content. Rampant piracy is just a distraction and serves as a convenient excuse for losers (like Gilman Louie).

Re:It's just market economics

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

They don't stop the bootlegers.

That's true.

They don't stop the geeks.

So is that.

They just annoy the paying customers.

And that.

...except DRM measures don't do squat to the market.

But that doesn't follow, because the entire black market is not bootleggers and geeks. You're ignoring the vast numbers of people who simply borrow media from a friend to rip it, but don't really have a clue what they're doing. You're also ignoring the unfortunate reality that while paying customers may be annoyed by this stuff, right now most of them don't care enough to stop paying.

Re:Ripping Disc not necessarily a solution

[IceDiver]

I tried ripping my copy of Casino Royale so I could watch it. The ripped copy wouldn't play either. I tried 3 times using 3 different methods. Same result. I returned the movie, and will not buy another DVD unless I am assured there is no DRM (beyond the mandatory but useless CSS) on it.

ehhhh

[unity100]

some people like it hard, and thorough&through down their throat, if you know what i mean.

DRM=failure, Sony=great HDTVs, and game systems

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a hardcore gamer (Atari 2600, Atari XE, NES, SNES, N64, GC, Wii, and PC), Nintendo fanboy, and hate the entire Playstation brand...my brother bought me a PS1 as a gift, so I could play Final Fantasy and Metal Gear...they are the only two games I have ever owned for any PSX-branded product.

My only complaint about the Wii Virtual console is that when I save the classic console games on my SD card and take them to a friend's house, we can't play the games (Nintendo put over-restrictive DRM on the Virtual Console games...BOOOOOOO!!!). Since people already paid for these classic games in the past, I would argue that "fair use" should allow us to legally copy those Virtual Console games

I agree that Sony does make GREAT high-definition televisions. Their LCD and LCoS/SXRD sets receive the best professional reviews for their image quality. I bought a big-screen LCoS/SXRD in October 2006 and LOVE IT!!! My Wii looks great in 480p over component and sports events and movies in 1920x1080 are amazing over HDMI (supports 1080p, but Cablevision only sends out 1080i boxes at the moment).

DRM is a failure. If I want a pirated copy of a movie, I don't download it...I buy it from a bootlegger on the street for $5. That saves me time, effort, and storage media (well worth the $5 bucks). The only time I have bought a legit DVD is when I am stuck at an airport, waiting for my flight (LOVE the inMotion DVD and music shops). I don't have a DVD player in my living room...I use my laptop to play them (connected to my SXRD).

I'm no fan of Microsoft either, but I do want a high-definition DVD player and am contemplating the XBox 360 Elite, if HD-DVD wins (my TV only does 1080p over HDMI)...I would also buy a 360 Elite for the games, but it is too expensive. If Blu-Ray wins, I will probably buy a PS3. Either way, I am not going to spend more than $250 (after taxes) for my DVD player, so the price of both will need to go down significantly before I buy. I am not going to buy a high-definition DVD player that does not play games...that's just a waste of hardware and space as far as I'm concerned.

My guess is that by the time the 360 Elite and PS3 go down far enough in price, DVDs will be useless because all of the content will be available on demand in HD and I won't ever have to buy a high definition DVD.

I voted with my wallet...

[NetHead026]

I voted with my wallet, and Canon is now about $1,000 richer.

I was in the market for a decent new videocamera. In the end, it came down to two products--the Sony HDR-HC7 and the Canon HV20. The Sony had some features that the Canon didn't, but seeing the original yet-another-DRM-scheme story on Sunday pushed me over the edge. As a result:

• I am not stuck into a proprietary memory format. The Canon will take the same PQI miniSD card that I use in my HTC phone. The Sony won't even take the same memory that my Sony digital camera takes.
• About that digital camera... I am not supporting the company whose screw-ups led to a recall of over 150 camera models from 10 different companies. I got bitten by this.
• Batteries, rootkits, etc.

The Sony product may have been technically superior (arguable), but you know what? This is the only way they'll begin to feel the pain.

It's been said before, I'll say it again: Vote with your wallet and with your voice.

I can't believe it

[jbrandv]

Why does anybody still buy Sony DRM/Rootkit infested crap?
Boycott Sony!

Why would I care?

[tacokill]

Ok, so they up the ante. Now, why would I care about that if I am boycotting?

You see, that's the point right there. When I say "boycott" you are not hearing what I am saying. A boycott means I just plain don't care what they are doing anymore because I am NOT going to buy their product for ANY reason.

So, let them up the ante. If you are serious about your boycott, you shouldn't care and you darn sure aren't responsible for telling Sony why. Let them wallow and figure it out themselves. The idea behind a boycott is that sales decrease so the company has to take notice...

Re:Why would I care?

[Bueller_007]

You don't see a conflict between these two statements?

Quote: "A boycott means I just plain don't care what they are doing anymore because I am NOT going to buy their product for ANY reason."
Quote: "The idea behind a boycott is that sales decrease so the company has to take notice..."

Why would you want them to "take notice" if you "don't care what they are doing anymore" and are "not going to buy their product for ANY reason."

And anyway, as I said, your "boycott" is pointless unless you spell out the reasons for it in no uncertain terms.

To offer an anecdote, I used to be a vegan. I didn't go to any restaurants that didn't offer vegan-friendly dishes. I never explained my choice to the owners of any restaurants to which I refused to go. They simply *never knew* that they had lost my business, and not a single restaurant in my neighbourhood made the change to offering vegan dishes. Had I simply explained my relatively simple request that they buy the occasional $1/block of tofu, I'm sure it could have been accommodated.

In the end, *they* lost my business, *I* lost a lot of good eating opportunities, and my point didn't even get through.

This is a great opportunity

[Milikki]

This is a chance for all of us to return our discs, working or not, to where we bought them and cause massive losses to Sony for all the crap they have done.

Maybe if we can get this to cost them a lot of money, they would drop the whole useless DRM thing?

Kevin

NZ release of Casino Royale

[grolschie]

....was just released yesterday. Plays nicely on my Philips DVD/Divx player. So far, no problems backing it up with DVD Shrink or Smart Ripper 2.41. Maybe the New Zealand release doesn't have said DRM?

Not understanding the technical nature

[SuperKendall]

Because the problem is DRM and that has not been solved. Sony, as usual, just screwed up the implementation.

Actually, just as in every post we see from you, you have that totally wrong. What Sony did is not a form of DRM, but instead a form of copy protection (altering the discs physically to try and stymie disc duplication progrrams - read the threads). They had to reverse it, which pretty much means that attempt is gone.

If you paint every problem with the same brush no-one will take you seriously. Save your ire for REAL DRM issues. I do.

Based on your constant apologies for Sony and the anti-MS slant to many of your comments, I would suggest that you should be more honest in your motives.

I apologize for nothing and no-one. I simply point out when blind zealots such as yourself (see your userID latley) go for yet another attempt at making as complete a fool of yourself as possible. Given the degree to which you have discredited your userID there's no need to respond further to your own self mockery - I'll let you complete the job as you wish.

DRM! Man, you zealots are just so inept. Can you even brush your own teeth? Or does you mom do that for you?

Re:Not understanding the technical nature

[The PS3 Will Fail]

"What Sony did is not a form of DRM, but instead a form of copy protection (altering the discs physically to try and stymie disc duplication progrrams - read the threads). They had to reverse it, which pretty much means that attempt is gone."

Digital rights management is a vague enough term that I believe it covers copy protection. We can argue about that if you like. Regardless of the terms, the implementation of ARccOS was faulty. The fix wasn't to remove ARccOS scrambling, it was to update it. I'm going to ignore your personal attacks. Let's discuss this. My point was that ARccOS is still there - so the problem is not fixed. The discs are still defective in that there is an attempt made to prevent them from being copied. I have a right to make a backup copy - thus, Sony has not fixed the real problem.

The many faces of Sony.

[^_^x]

Actually it's because Sony is organized into what they call "silos" - each department is mostly independent from bottom to top without contact from others.

That is, Sony BMG(?) music (the rootkit villains), is not Sony Pictures (ARCCOS), and neither is Sony Electronics (gadgets, appliances), or Sony Computer Entertainment Japan (Playstation) or its closely related cousins Sony Computer Entertainment Kobe, US, and Europe. In Japan there is equally unrelated Sony Cosmetics, and Sony Life Insurance.

Although they're not part of one, to boycott "Sony" is like boycotting a whole Keiretsu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu).

So yeah... I love their AV equipment. I'm a fan of their game consoles though the PS3 is still a bit weak for me, I love my PSP. Their music and movies? I wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole.