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Copy Protection Backfires on Blu-ray
An anonymous reader writes "The first two Blu-ray releases to hit the market encrypted with BD+ (an extra layer of protection designed to stave off hackers) are wreaking havoc on innocent consumers. As High-Def Digest reports, this week's Blu-ray releases of 'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer' and 'The Day After Tomorrow' won't play back at all on at least two Blu-ray players, while load times on other players (including the PS3) are delayed by up to two minutes. 'The most severe problems have been reported on Samsung's BDP-1200 and LG's BH100, which are both said to be incapable of playing back the discs at all. Less catastrophic issues (error messages and playback stutter) have been reported for Samsung's BDP-1000. The discs appear to play back fine on all other Blu-ray players ... Calls placed to both Samsung and LG customer support revealed that both manufacturers are aware of the issue, and that both are working on firmware updates to correct it. Samsung promised a firmware update within 'a couple' weeks, while LG said an update is expected in 3-4 days.'"
The players are probably programmed not to play shitty movies
...conceivably also create a firmware update to ALLOW playback? Or would this be too device-specific?
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Make movies so bad, nobody will pirate them.
The thing that's so darkly amusing to me is that if I was interested in viewing these movies, pirating would be zero-hassle. It's only when I try to view them legally that I get dicked over.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
From the head of the MPAA: "I KNOW! Lets put so much protection on the new discs that people can't even watch the movie! That'll stop those pesky pirates..."
This just in: Sony now says playing a Bluray disc you just purchased is pirating. More to come.
Obviously Blu-Ray DVD owners should have bought an Intelligent Chip and this wouldn't have happened. The "quantum material" would have upgraded and fixed all of their problems! :-)
Preventing people from having to watch Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer should be commended as a public service.
Why is this on the drive manufacturers to fix when all previous discs played? Isn't this on the shoulders of the disc manufacturers, to produce discs that are playable? By promising firmware fixes, aren't the player manufacturers both diminishing their brand value in the eyes of consumers and also opening themselves up to a lot of headaches when other discs don't play a month or a year from now due to even more envelope-pushing protection?
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
this week's Blu-ray releases of 'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer' and 'The Day After Tomorrow' won't play back at all on at least two Blu-ray players
That's awfully nice of them. Maybe they'll extend the service to the complete works of Uwe Boll next.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Use regular DVDs to subsidize the cost of selling Blu-Ray disks at the same cost as a regular DVD. In this newest format war, the first company to do this may end up setting the standard because they would have the cheaper movies. Right now, every next-gen DVD I've seen costs about $30 new. If all new Blu-Ray suddenly hit $20 through subsidies from regular DVDs, HD would probably be up shit creek...
Its bad enough that the AACS DRM is there, but to make it so strong many legit users can't use it, Inconceivable! Mandatory /. Link: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/10/1917210
Given the pace of these things being cracked, there's a good chance the torrents will be available before the new player firmware will.
No sig, sorry.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
I'm not familiar with how these new devices work. How does the firmware get updated? Are you required to connect them to the internet just to use a Blu-ray player?
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
A firmware update? For my bluray player? Yeah because the average consumer will know how to do this or even be aware of the possibility.
Another anti-piracy measure proving to cause more lost profits than it was supposed to prevent?
Samsung promised a firmware update within 'a couple' weeks, while LG said an update is expected in 3-4 days.'"
I'm sure that will be of great consolation to folks who rented the movies and have four "nights" (which most people refer to as three days) to have the movie back before getting hit with PMITA late charges.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
Many players are upgradeable. For both HD and Blueray, you should make sure yours has an online upgrade capability. We know they're going to mess with the protection continuously - that was a given when the general public accepted HD-DVD and Blueray as viable formats.
The Fantastic Four Silver Surfer Blueray version of the movie played back fine on my PS3, no delays or other evidence of handling problems. It was fine for a comic adaptation. Don't know what everyone is bitching about as far as the movie itself goes - it isn't like the Fantastic Four was either great art or great writing in the first place. This isn't a McFarlane production (i.e., not Spawn, which was a tour de force.)
I remember giving someone a really blank look when they said that "Dumb and Dumber" was a "dumb movie." Same thing kind of applies here. You don't get a Fantastic Four movie in order to broaden your critical faculties.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Geez, it's at least ten times that at my local theater!
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
I really like watching movies and was excited about purchasing a BluRay and/or HD-DVD player when they came out. But I decided to wait and see and have the companies work out the kinks. Well it's over a year later and there are still problems. When the main focus is not on enhancing the paying customer's experience, but on padding the pockets of the media execs, this is what you get. I should be #1 in their minds. After all, it doesn't matter how much DRM they put in their product if no one buys it.
So, these media firms have lost a faithful, paying customer. I refuse to buy all of their DRM'd HD crap. Since my HTPC upscaler looks almost as nice as HD, I'll just stick with regular DVDs until, if ever, the DRM crap is done away with. And since you can also record broadcast HD shows, there's no need to shell out another $30 to get the HD-version of a show compared to the regular SD DVD version.
Maybe I'm behind the times here, but how the hell do you flash an appliance to update the firmware? Do they have USB ports now or is it a special disc and some weird command from the remote?
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
... crap like this just might upset enough people that change happens. Waiting two minutes to watch a movie on a $600 PS3 is ridiculous by anyone's standards, and I'm sure it will continue to get worse. Things might, just possibly, get bad enough that the MAFIAA throttles back a bit.
On the other hand, two decades of DOS and Windows have taught most of the world that crashes, freezes, and data loss are just how computers work--when in reality, a properly-designed system will rarely crash OR lose data--and having one core on a 2-way system dedicated anti-everything software is normal, so who knows what the hell we'll see in the future. Maybe one day we'll be telling our kids how fucking GREAT it was to only have to wait through a few moments of unskippable warnings, trailers, and menus on SD-DVDs.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Is it just coincidence that the affected players are from Samsung and LG, two Korean electronics giants that happen to be among Sony's biggest competitors? I'm just sayin...that's all...
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
This is one of the reasons I don't care about this format war, they both are wrong headed... I want content delivered over the wire (or wireless, you get the idea).
Dominant Meme
Why not just let us play our legally purchased content?
That radical business method seemed to work just fine in the days of VHS and DVD (region encoding aside).
Yours truly,
Someone who pirates these days, because at least that WORKS out of the box.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Dear God, what the hell is this crap? Are we now to allow manufacturers to produce shoddy equipment and promise 'firmware' fixes down the line? That is totaly unreasonable. I should not have to patch my DVD player, update my receiver, or flash my TV.
I should be able to buy some equipment, plug it in and watch my movies. thats it.
I know this is slashdot, so if anything goes wrong we must blame any copyright protection schemes in place, but according to insiders, it's actually a problem with blu-ray's java, and the players that are having problems just need a firmware update. And according to people with ps3s and the movie, the ps3 plays them fine, note how the article says the load times are *up to* two minutes. Don't you just love it when people leave things nice and vague so you can make the situation sound much better/worse than it really is? Although I'm a blu-ray fan, I'm not really apologizing (problems are problems), I thought I'd clarify, especially the bit about the ps3. I wouldn't know anything first hand, I don't like either movie, and Fox tends to charge too much for their blu-ray movies anyway.
if you treat everyone like a criminal, everyone will become a criminal
if you make the lives of good decent people miserable, while not doing anything to effectively counteract the effort of pirates, then good decent people will resort to piracy, as the pirates are getting better more functional versions with less limitations of your product than good decent paying customers are getting
wake up morons
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I saw "the Day After Tomorrow" They're better off returning it. It would be more fun to put on snow shoes and walk from south jersey to New York City in sub-zero weather.
Simply because as soon as they start "revoking" keys, yours could be amongst them, so you have to be able to somehow "upgrade" your ... waitaminute, isn't that key one of those things that can't be flashed?
Say, what happens when a key from a standalone BluRay Player (or, let's play it out a little, the PS3 one) gets revoked? You have a rather expensive brick?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Why don't these companies BUNDLE the encrypted Blu-Ray discs with ANOTHER disc that ACTUALLY WORKS! but the customer has to SUPER SUPER PINKY SWEAR not to use that one unless the other one doesn't work? Then you could build ANOTHER chip into the drive that BLOWS UP the consumer's HOUSE unless he tries the ENCRYPTED disk FIRST!
:D
That sounds like a great idea! Somebody patent it, quick, and let's make some money!
*tries disc*
*scree scree scree scree*
*waits*
*scratches head*
*tries backup disc*
*scree scree scree BOOM!*
Please stop stalking me, bro.
I am a member of the general public and I have *NOT* accepted HD-DVD or Blueray as viable formats. I have been waiting for something else to come along that promises my ability to view HD movies that I buy on future players. Part of the DRM system incorporated into both standards will "bind" the discs to the players and play them at reduced resolution in any other player. What happens when my player wears out? Must I re-purchase my entire movie collection?
JSL
--
This space for rent.
"This isn't a McFarlane production (i.e., not Spawn, which was a tour de force.)"
It may have amazing character design and art, but come on, the story was written by a drop-out mouthbreather who wouldn't recognize a cliche if he was reading a wikipedia page called "List of Cliches in Literature". Face it, McFarlane is a dunce who can draw pretty.
Did the manufacturer even TRY to play the damned discs? I mean, I've had software that it was obvious the programmer assumed that every computer on earth was exactly like hirs, but crap on a cracker, what the hell is wrong with a little QA?
Oh wait. I know. I can see the sales manager yelling "SHIP IT, IT WORKED ONCE!"
The more they do stupid things like this, the better I feel when I pirate.
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
Considering the time you spend watching non-skippable anti-piracy ads and copyright notices on regular DVDs, two minutes of just a black screen would definitely be my option of choice.
well the Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer was the worst movie ever, so they are doing some people a favor.
Both the movies mentioned are long available as torrents all over the web. And HDCP protecting the transfer between various HD STB and HD TVs was broken before it was even finalized and small boxes decrypting HDMI signal on the fly are available in various shady places.
Meanwhile a paying customer cannot play the crappy, overpriced movies on his overpriced video player. And my national HD Sat operator's STBs still cannot authenticate via HDMI with my LG LCD. Which is not good, since HDMI/HDCP is a requirement for their VOD HD content...
Screw'em, gotta go and see what's new on trakcers...
Robert
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
You see, this is just as if a car manufacturer declared their cars can go only on a special type of road surface without publishing this first, and then told people that they need to have their cities upgrade the roads first...
Back in the days, the product would be simply sent back as defective and the manufacturers sued for false advertising...
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Hell, this is one of the reasons that I already gave up on Apple and their DRM laden music. When my wife buys an MP3, which would be joint property in a legal sense, and we can't have it on both our iPods simultaneously, that's just stupid.
Welcome to the wonderful world of DRM, where pirates watch everything with ease while you have to jump through hoop after hoop just to listen to/watch something that you legitimately purchased. Enjoy the show...while your player still works that is.
"Life's short and hard, like a body building elf." -- The Bloodhound Gang
My ass, their system is broken for sure. How do these people sleep at night, selling all that crap to consumers?
You'd really think that, given they were releasing discs that work differently, they would test them out on currently available BR players. It's not like there's that many out there (to my knowledge). I wonder if there's any coordination at all between the software people and various hardware manufacturers (including Sony) in this area. What a stupid, stupid mess this HD crap has become.
DON'T SUPPORT DRAM WITH YOUR DOLLARS!
Fine, I'll go buy some SRAM instead - that comes in stick form, right?
What Sony desparately needs to know right now is whether BD+ is going to hold or fold. They are watching those torrents very closely.
BD+ was one of their main selling point to the studios. If it fails it can't be fixed, and they could lose studio support. That would be crippling to their format.
Don't call it until you can see it on your monitor. All else is rhetoric.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
BD+ is actually part of the BluRay standard, as is AACS. Just like DecSS was part of the DVD-Video standard.
It's a brave new world, son.
Incorrect. The sentence we were looking for was "a physical-media player shouldn't require a connection to the internet". Thank you for playing, may you have an interesting life.
You know, I understand how people complain that HD DVD isn't as open as DVD but to be honest, to me it is more open because I didn't have to worry about buying a region free player. On the other hand, BD is far more locked than DVD since there were region free DVD players available fairly early on but so far none for Blu ray. Until Blu ray is at least as open as DVD (ie can be made region free) then I will go with HD DVD all the way. Sure, it isn't currently as easy to rip them as with DVDs but it took years before DVD could be ripped.
I just don't understand why people are supporting Blu ray......
The other day I was looking at disc prices. The typical price for a BD here in NZ is close to $50. HD DVDs are about $35 and regular DVDs are $30 for comparison. Also, there are no discounts to be had on the PS3 and while the US looks to be getting a new SKU at $399US ($525NZ) we are expected to pay $1200NZ which works out at $910US. Think about that.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
Come on, average people have an attention span greater than 2 minutes.
You have to try harder than that, MPAA. Make it more like 15-30 minutes of 'loading'.
*cough* (while not secretly collecting private information and uploading via satelite unaware of owner's knowledge) *cough*
127.0.0.1
I'm not sure where you get the idea that disc would "bind" itself to a player... care to cite a source for that? In order for that to work, the BD/HDDVD player would have to have an Internet connection, and register every single time a disc is inserted in a machine... How else would one player know if a disc had been played in another player? If I remember right all HD-DVD players have network connections, but not all BD players do.
The degraded resolution has to do with the Image Constraint Token. I believe that ICT is implemented in all HDDVD/BD players, but content publishers have "promised" not to use it for a couple years at least. ICT would downgrade the resolution if the video output is not HDCP-compliant. This is bad, but it's not as bad as what you described, and it's not being used, at least not yet.
I'm not 100% sure here, but I think you're wrong. How would a disc get "bound" to any one player? Unless your player is networked it can't communicate with the other players to let them know that it is the chosen one for that disc, and even if it could that would be a ridiculously expensive thing to keep track of AND the player would have to be hooked up to the internet whenever you played a disc. For the disc itself to store that information would require that they be recordable somehow and that the player could then burn to that disc. Unless I'm missing something, you were misinformed.
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3675199/Fantastic_Four_Blue-Ray_MPEG2_Remux_1080P_DTS-HD__HDTV_CHINA
Then play it with VLC or Mplayer...
And you thought that setting up a VCR was difficult... now try patching a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Dear Sony:
... which isn't logical.
Let me explain this to you by way of a simple 3-party model, since you are too clueless to understand the actual technical details:
Encryption was designed to protect communications between Alice to Bob from the evil Eve. It was not designed to cope with the case where Bob and Eve are the same person. As a clueless DRM proponent, you are trying to give Bob access to an item without giving Bob access to the item
If you don't understand that then I have nothing else to say to you, and any brain cells you may have are entirely superfluous. I recommend eBay as a good place to sell them off.
Kind regards,
Joe Public.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Notice the "next-gen" preceding "DVD", thus implying HDDVD & Bluray movies.
If those fuckers didn't make us suffer this we wouldn't have to STEAL their shit. You're right. It is always the assholes...
Whether any of us agree or not, this is a legitimate argument. He is plainly stating that as a member of "the general public" he is has *NOT* accepted either of the current HD disk formats. He then makes a few more statements. None of those statements is flamebait either.
I hope this was a mistake. I know I've screwed up and hit the wrong selection when modding.
Someone with mod points please override the "Flamebait" moderation.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
He said "online upgrade capability"... he wasn't talking about an Internet connection being required, he was talking about being able to have an Internet connection... whether you actually plug it in is up to you, but having the option of online firmware upgrades is much better than not having the option, and having to wait for an upgrade disc to get mailed to you, or having to download an update on your PC and burn it to a disc before you can have the upgrade.
I guess the point that you're trying to get across is that we shouldn't have to have upgrades to get around bugs that are introduced by the crappy DRM to begin with, and I wholeheartedly agree with that. However, for people who already own players that won't play their legitimately purchased discs, they really should be able to ave the most convenient options for getting their players up and running. Especially since these players are still pretty expensive.
**Note #1: I think the Internet connections should be for the convenience and utility of the end user only. I know HD-DVD player manufacturers are required to include an Internet connection for the sake of using online special features on the discs, and probably for bug-fix firmware upgrades (but noone's forcing the end-users to plug the Ethernet cable into the box). I don't believe these connections should be used for disabling decryption keys or otherwise restricting how the user uses the player/discs, or that they should be used for reporting which discs are being viewed on which players. That said, I'm sure the connections do get abused in those ways... I just don't like it.
Note #2: I don't own any HD-DVD or BD players, and I probably won't for a long, long time.
I am not defending DRM or anything, but, according to Wikipedia (which links to the apple docs) you can have purchased iTunes tracks on an unlimited number of ipods
This is a BD-J issue, not an encryption issue. They usually fix BD-J issues quickly. Notice no problem with the Pioneer/Sony player.
That is the only way to let companies that we don't want DRM, that it doesn't work and that DRM cost them more money.
What power has law where only money rules.
The Blu-Ray release of Weeds Season 1 and Season 2 are priced identically to their DVD counterparts. So it appears at least one company isn't gouging next generation adopters.
[1] This one doesn't go in quotes, because it's surprisingly accurate in the current context.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It's a great thought, and I wish things were that way... but if you want HD, the only other player you're going to get is another BD/HD-DVD player that implements the same DRM. You can switch to the opposite format, but still face the same DRM, and you probably won't have the same movie available to you.
It's amazing how much the pro-DRM content providers have strangled our ability to watch movies in a useful way.
If I take a CD and I stick into my computer, it plays. That same CD plays in my truck, on my portable CD player, in my TV's DVD drive, on my various consoles, etc... I don't need an "update", there isn't a menu and I don't have to select a checkbox. It. Just. Plays. This concept has been lost in the music community now, and it looks like the MPAA is throwing it out the window too.
"Life's short and hard, like a body building elf." -- The Bloodhound Gang
Seriously, what is with Sony and copy-protection?
Why are they purposefully trying to stop me from spending money on their products?
Guess I'll have to go with another Japanese or Korean firm - and there are many.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
some sort of ego problem, huh?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Sure you still need a BD or HD-DVD player but if you demand a new playe, you need to demand player model x+1. Anything less money back or lawsuit.
Me, I'm happy enough with my DVD's. DRM Free MP3's (yeah emusic!) and get my television kicks from tvtorrents.com
What power has law where only money rules.
Those players contain a new feature which keeps you from playing movies that suck.
Odd, I distinctly recall paying $20-$25 for Blu-Ray movies at Wal-Mart. Still not far off from the $15-20 that was originally cited for regular DVDs.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Every time a DVD (Blu-Ray or other) fails, a new Pirate gets his wings.
BUZZ! Wrong answer! That was the right answer for HD-DVD, not BR...
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
Bah! My tv allows me to download firmware updates on my PC and stick on a flash drive. said drive then plugs into tv and update is applied.
wurd
slashdot needs a general understanding that we won't use the term "copy protection" or "digital rights management." if you are snarky you can call it "playback crippled", and if you want to be respectful toward the content producers you can call it what it is: "playback prevention." It stops you from playing the content under certain conditions, or at least attempts to. It doesn't protect copies (which is what copy protection would do, it would protect copies, not prevent them). It doesn't manage digital rights. It prevents media use. Call it what it is, playback prevention. Playback prevention is a morally neutral term to which no one should object. If you think preventing playback is okay, then you think playback prevention is okay. If not, not.
Totally catastophic dude!!1!!11shiftELEVEN!@@!1
Well, I don't want nor care for HD. If I ever do start to care, I will be pirating 100% of if until there IS NO DRM.
Yes, lookie there. DRM, which was intended to prevent piracy.... hmm, causing piracy?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Firmware updates!? To my DVD Player?
It's more likely than you think.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Good! If I had my way they'd also turn on downresing or blocking for non HDMI connections right away. That way they'd annoy enough customers that maybe we could get on to a more consumer friendly format right away after both HD-DVD and BluRay go the way of the Divx DVD players did. As much as BluRay is being touted as the probable winner of this format war, keep in mind that HD-DVD at least has managed copy in the spec while BluRay does not.
Many players are upgradeable.
No more than 640K should be enough for anybody. Firmware updates, a limit on installed memory, a limit on processor speed, and the ever increasing need for firmware to keep ahead of the pirates.. I see a dead end at the end of the upgrade path. The examples of never obsolete hardware pave the path to the junkyard.
The truth shall set you free!
Don't give them ideas! PLEASE don't give them ideas!
Fox put BD+ only on The Day After Tomorrow. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer has enhanced BD-J functionality which is the culprit for its problems, but had no BD+ stuff in it's filestructure like The Day After Tomorrow Does. According to this thread at AVS Forum, there are 3 specific BD players that have problems playing either one or both of these Fox discs: the Samsung BD-1200 says it requires a firmware upgrade to play, the Samsung BD-1000 plays F4:2 but stutters/skips, and the LG 100 dual format player must have the firmware updated. So far the biggest complaint has been slow load times for F4:2, but that is due to the enhanced BD-J functionality, and is very similar to the load times for HD-DVD on the Toshiba standalone players (I have both formats).
Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...
If you don't want to be forced to see this message every time you watch the movie you purchased, then copy this film and edit this out.
Or go to bittorrent - somebody has probably done this for you already. Otherwise, please wait for 30 seconds while we remind you (once again) not to copy this film.
I use mplayer on Linux. I use acidrip. One thing I found when not using a DVD player blessed by the DVD consortium, it the player just plays the movie. If I want to see the warning again, or go to the menu for the don't steal this video or other extras of the movie, I can always use the menu.
Or go to bittorrent
Use at your own risk. It's like the heyday of Napster. It's big enough to no longer be ignored. It's drawing too much attention.
Blu-Ray isn't supported yet because it's unstable, expensive and unreliable.
The truth shall set you free!
Honestly, I do not want a pirated copy of anything ripped from Blue Ray or HDD. Yeah Yeah its HD and all but my god do you really want to DL something that large for a whole 90 minutes of quasi-entertainment. The nice thing about most current rips is the quality is good enough to enjoy and usually comes in at around 1 gigabyte. You will need to invest in some serious storage for any kind of a decent collection of ripped blue ray flicks.
Maybe I'm just poor.. but the quality bonus to me is not even close to worth the space/time requirements.
No, that is a decryption key for the AACS encryption scheme. It is used by both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.
... It was not until unauthorized copying and distribution became mainstream that companies felt they needed to add copy protection to their products. You must be blind or a shill if you don't see where the real push of the music industry is targeted (so i guess i am wasting my time anyway). It is going one way only: perpetual copyrights, criminalization of the public domain (and thus potential competition), and developing technological solutions that make you pay incrementally for every time you listen to music. You know why? Because that is the most painless way to guarantee what the music industry has now -- monopoly profits, and multiply them many times over, by what economists call discriminatory pricing. incidentally, it means total control over the supply market as well. And why is it happening now, and not 20 years ago? Well, only one reason -- now they have the technology to do it (and due to the massive profits from the 80s and 90s -- the cash to finance the bribery of the various parliaments all over the world). The fight against downloaded music is an aside -- the music industry types, being the myopic idiots they are, simply had not expected the general public to adopt the same tools they use. They thought they were way too smart.Don't know where you got this idea, but the commonly distributed disks for both formats are read-only. There is no way for your standalone Blueray player to know you've played a particular Blueray disk in your PS3, for instance.
There is a mechanism to down-res the playback if the receiving display system does not implement HDCP (typically over HDMI or compliant DVI.) Some players implement the no hi-res w/o HDCP idea as an absolute refusal to output 1080p over component, for instance, which is wrongheaded. And, the copy protection mechanisms can be updated for both HD-DVD and Blueray on a per-release or per-manufacturing run basis; sometimes this may require a player's firmware to be updated, which was the basis for my suggestion that one make sure that the player is able to be updated, preferably online, the easy way (plug in ethernet, wait for update, then watch movie.) Updates also have the potential to be able to address player problems other then copy protection issues.
These are significant and annoying limitations and even outright insults to the consumer of the media, but they don't really relate to the idea of disks being bound to particular players.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
That was the *first* answer to AACS (see sig for the second, there may be a 3rd and 4th by now). Up until now AACS was used by *both* HD-DVD and Blueray. The same keys were used for both.
Now there are disks using BD+, which of course we don't have a key for. Or AFAIK even a working implementation.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
Right, because you KNOW that they didn't care...
/. even linked something recently wherein someone from Sony BMG said that they consider ripping your own CDs stealing.
Wait, what's THIS then?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._v._Universal_City_Studios Here's a little fact that's become blindingly clear; they don't WANT you to have ANY rights when it comes to their "content (if you can even call it that). They want to be able to make you pay for the content as many times as possible. Heck,
Face facts: the music and movie industry don't care about you. They care about their own pocket books.
My sig can beat up your sig.
Exactly. A device that plays physical media should not require internet access in order to function. Whether it be a direct internet connection to the device itself, or the use of a computer's internet connection to download and burn an ISO, Joe User should not have to be burdened with crippleware any time he buys or rents a flick and just wants to pop it in.
...yet...
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
1) Build an HTPC with an XBOD USB HD-DVD drive (cheapest drive available).
2) Install SlySoft AnyDVD to disable content protection and HDCP requirements.
3) Enjoy your HiDef movies
I vote with my wallet. The last I bought was a region free DVD player only because DVD was cracked. I demand the ability to make backups of my media, and if that means doing something arbitrarily deemed illegal by some bigwigs with deep pockets, then so be it, and fucks fly out to BR/HD as long as they aren't well and truly broken.
The more firmware-pushing-screw-ups the better. Every firmware upgrade released into the wild is another chance to take a peek under the hood of these blue-ray players. This is just another vector pirates can use to get inside.
I hope more screw-ups follow.
If the entertainment companies made something worth looking at people might pay money for it.
I mean that both in the sense that the DRM lowers the worth of the product and that the product itself is crap.
FWIW I don't pirate any music, video or software.
meh
It should not be up to the product manufacturers to fix Blu-ray's problem. When you create a standard, you make sure it's completely finished BEFORE you release it. You don't go and add extra stuff to it once you've released it, and then expect everyone else to catch up to you.
This is an understandable mistake, but, the real issue is Jessica Albabot's acting unit firmware, and THAT will be updated as well.
I read the script, and I think it would help my character's motivation if he was on fire. -Bender
There is no per player DRM. What you all are talking about is HDCP. In its simplest form, it only allows the full resolution output to an HDCP capable device, which is intended to prevent a capture device from grabbing the full picture. If you hook up to a non HDCP HDMI connection, you'll get a scaled down version. So if you shell out a few hundred bucks for a black magic hdmi capture card, you're SOL.
Of course, no one would ever think to crack the encryption and write some software and rip it straight from the disk.
I'm sure I could have a much nicer car if I stole one.
They understand that unlocked media is worth more, and I'm sure they would sell it unlocked if they thought they could make the same amount of money doing it.
Why is it that supporting anti-piracy automatically gets you labeled as being blind or somehow in favor of perpetual copyright. I happen to think our copyright duration is far to long and also think that we should not allow someone to maintain copyright on a work that they are not actively producing or promoting. But that has nothing to do with the point.
History shows that prior to the easy of unauthorized reproduction that we have today there were no explicit copyright protection mechanisms. Yes copyright was protected by the simple fact that copying a phonograph or a written work was difficult and/or cost prohibitive, but even when it first became easy it was no threat to copyright holders. Having been in the scene that caused the need for copy protection, which were the software hackers of the 80s if you really wanted to know, I understand where the copyright holders are coming from. And guess what, the copyright holders are not only large corporations, and even the copyrights controlled by larger corporations where voluntarily granted to them by the original artists.
I don't like DRM any more than most of the anti-drm zealots out there, I just happen to understand that the blame should be placed squarely on those producing and distributing unauthorized copies of original artistic works.
If you don't like DRM I support your decision to not purchase DRM'ed works, but I do not support acquiring unauthorized copies of artistic works just because you can't get them the way you want. If you want free unencumbered artistic works then make them yourself, or purchase from those that release their works that way, or start your own production company, just don't bitch about companies attempting to make the most money they possibly can, unless you are ready and willing to stand up against capitalism as a whole, which I doubt your are ready and willing to do.
Personally I agree with you that it's not worth while, and this has been true of every single artistic work that has been encumbered by explicit DRM, but obviously somebody thinks it has enough value to violate the law to acquire it.
I obviously do not pirate artistic or copy protected works either, I don't even buy used works if there is another option, but I will purchase directly from the artist if possible.
Gee Wiz, I almost gave credence to your comments, but then I realized you don't even understand the basics of greed.
Your entire argument was based around the MAFIAA only putting in copy-protection to stop piracy, and stated that they might be willing to remove such restrictions if piracy was eliminated.
The TV, music, and movie industries have shown time and time again that they want to charge you over and over again for the same content. If they remove the copy protection, they couldn't force you to do that.
DRM doesn't exist because of piracy. It exists because of overly greedy corporations that want to sell you the same stuff over and over again. Sadly, when a fake article popped up about the MPAA wanting to charge people for watching movies together on a home theater system, many people fell for it simply because it was close enough to what they've already said to have an air of truth.
My sig can beat up your sig.
No, my point was that the media industries were not attempting to get people to purchase content repeatedly until unauthorized copying became common place, so common that some claim you can't find someone that has never used an unauthorized copy of some media. I'm not saying if I agree with the media companies or not, only saying that if we don't stop the escalation of power between copy protection and piracy we will end up with out the ability to purchase media at all, but rather license it for limited time and use. If you really want to go down that path then feel free to support piracy, drm or both. But if you actually want to put an end to the escalation of power then stop supporting either side, by not paying for DRM encumbered media and not using unauthorized copies, that do not fall under the fair use clause, of media.
EVERY TIME A NEW RECORDABLE MEDIA FORMAT HAS SHOWN UP, THEY HAVE FOUGHT IT TOOTH AND NAIL.
When cassette tapes showed up on the scene, they didn't like that. When Betamax showed up, they fought that. Neither one introduced widespread copying. So when you said it shows that you're completely uninformed on the subject. They didn't have copy protection 'cause they COULDN'T. Now that they CAN, they DO. Not because of piracy, but because they want to make people pay more than they are now, for the right to do same things you can do now.
My sig can beat up your sig.
And they'll be breaking the law while helping the companies who want to sue them. Makes more sense to simply not buy DRM-laden shit and simply support those who don't cripple their wares. Might mean less movies, but that gives you more time to enjoy other stuff.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
actually now is the time to buy up the first run players with poor DRM implementations. Then it weighs the format down with baggage so the "cool" features to the execs don't work and can't be relied on in the future. The formats are pretty stable if you don't give them quarter to turn up the DRM without upsetting customers.
Personally I think Sony is throttling Blu-ray for just that reason. Microsoft is pushing the cheapest possible HD-DVD everywhere which means build up of features that don't work as well as missing features from customer machines will slow it down. Blu-ray is almost always full-featured burners being sold. They cost more, but they're out there and getting more reasonable by the day. Also for content providers, the slower adoption will let Sony "fix" the DRM.. because how many people are really going to get bit by this.
It also keeps the cheap Chinese manufacturers away by introducing bugs they don't have channel to fix. Sony can easily afford to roll out 5 million patches as they have high capacity servers runnign all the time... what Chinese "sweatshop" company can do that? Being as there's almost no HDVDVD burners out there, adding HDDVD read-only to blu-ray writers is really cheap...and the playback software is the same. HD writers are outlandishly expensive and probably discouraged for "piracy" concerns.
Actually both, but it's the old key. I'm not sure where one might find the new key...
455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
You miss part of my point. With the DRM removed it becomes a better product, one that is more worth "looking at". It isn't just that the content isn't all that good, it is that content isn't all that good and is restricted. Even content that isn't all that good has spikes of quality.
meh
Okay, you're not blind. You dislike the drive for extension of copyright terms and DRM, and believe those are primarily there to protect copyrights, not limit consumer choice and eat consumer surplus. Fine. Now, two questions.
Why has the drive to extend copyrights started long before there was even tcp/ip, not to mention file sharing?
Why has the music/movie industry consistently opposed limited, fair-use sharing "even [though] when it first became easy it was no threat to copyright holders"? Why would they sue the makers of VCRs at the time, when copyright abuse wasn't a threat?
If what you say was true, any of these would be very difficult to explain, don't you think?
If "Welcome to The Scene" has shown anything it's that the general mentality of the sources in The Scene is that being first to distribute something makes you the best. Regardless of whether someone wants it or not, having it first is what matters.
I think it's that mentality that drives most piracy - especially when it comes to getting something out before it's "out."
It's the people that download it that decide whether or not it's crap.
grey wolf
LET FORTRAN DIE!
really? which media industry would at the time let me exchange my tape for a CD at the cost of the media? why would i need to pay the licensing fee again, if i had a tape with the same music? not one? i wonder why that would be.
can i swap any movie DVD i now have for a hi-def media without repaying the license again? i am not against a small markup for the work the studio has done to improve the fidelity of the original work, but the _whole_ license again?
I don't think Average Joe cares about that.
He just can't play his DVD right now, and next time will buy a pirated copy.
Or, if lucky, get it for free.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
You'll be waiting a long time since the chances of studios selling non-DRM encumbered movie (or TV) content is close to zero. I expect you will see H264 HD capable DVD players though. So if you can find HD content somewhere you'll be able to encode and play it from a burned DVD.
Since it prevents people from playing the movies it's obviously a playback protection mechanism. I haven't really seen any proof that this actually stops copying, so why call it "copy protection"?
Installed the Bubblemon yet?
The whole DRM brouhaha looks more like BDSM to me ;)
SCPRedMage wrote as part of a post:
I think another reason that the record and movie companies have recently put up a much stronger fight against copying: Digital allows you to make a perfect copy of an original. This was one of the reasons they fought so strongly against DAT (and eventually killed it for the consumer market): with DAT you could make a perfect bit-for-bit copy of a CD.
When making an analog copy, the copy is always a little degraded from the original. Each generation is more degraded from the original and this puts a natural limit on the number of usuable copies that can be made from an original. Added to this is the fact that each time you play the analog original you damage it. This is a natural limit with analog and meant that each original recording was self-limiting: Each play of the original damages it and will lead to it having to be replaced.
CDs don't have this limit, playing a CD doesn't damage it. The 5,000th play of a CD will sound the same as the first. This has lead to what I think is one of the main reasons that record sales have dropped (more than piracy): You only have to buy a recording once.
I, too, have decided to stay with DVD and pass on both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. I will wait until 2 or 3 years after the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD war ends before I even consider going with either of the two (if either of them actually emerges as a winner).
Unfortunately, the movie industry didn't learn from one of the main factors that made CD a success: there was only one format. As a result of their choice, they have stopped me from going with a high-definition format.
Before we realise what good news this is - let's take a moment to realise that everybody (including all the irritating GPL nerds) have the right to protect their work any way they want. When all the house thieves are gone, Yale will go out of business. When all the video pirates are gone, Macrovision (etc) likewise. That fact aside. This is good news. One of the things that stops a large propotion of the hacking community is getting a copy of the firmware from which to start. I am not the only software techie who is scared off by SMT soldering (heck, DIL worries me enough) - the release of an upgrade disk not only tells the hackers exactly how to replace the firmware, but also gives them a file from which to start. Thanks to Samsung (etc) failing to implement the BluRay standard properly, they will now be handing out the keys to their backdoors. Keep up the bad work guys :)
BC
or maybe Apple are a bunch of liars.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
It could have been a mistake. Or it could have been a Sony employee/fanboy making a vain attempt to crush negative opinion.
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
I don't know where you heard this. One option that is available, but noone has put the money forward to implement, is that connected blu-ray players can catalog a movie when it begins playing and check an online service to determine if that particular disk has been played in any other non-authorised players.
You can authorise as many players as you want on your account, including those already authorised on other accounts. The system supposedly also cross checks not to see if you're playing a copy of the movie at multiple locations, but if it's insterted into multiple players "at the same time" at which point it was supposed to determine the movie was pirated and lock down ALL copies of the movie from playing in any player.
Unfortunately, to do this, every copy of every movie stamped needs an individual serial code, and all the players would be required to be network connected. This was unreasonable to the consumer and extremely expensive for the industry, and as yet is not implemented in any fashion that I am aware of or that I could find a reference to. This was a reccomendation the industry (or some designer) made when the platforms were up for standardization, but I can not find proof that this made it into the final product.
The only restrictions (as of this week) currently in use are: 1) advanced encryption in the disk to prevent copying (which won't last a week) and 2) HDCP which prevents movies in HD from playing through non-HDCP compliant equipment (to prevent stream copying by intermediate devices).
For those of you with PCs with aftermarket blue ray or HD players, keep this in mind: even if you have a DVI or HDMI connected display, if your OS, motherboard, video card, and display (as well as a few chips inbetween) don't support and are certified for HDCP, then any disks that require it (just 2 so far) will not be playable on your system. For those of you with HDTVS, not only must you have a proper player (with a functional BIOS) but your TV must specifically implement HDCP, and so must any swith or stereo amplified inline between the 2 points. As of Christmas last year, less than 50% of TVs being sold supported HDCP. CHECK WITH YOUR VENDOR BEFORE BUYING A PLAYER TO MAKE SURE IT WILL ACTUALLY WORK!!! Many of you already experienced this when hooking up your PS3 to unsuppoprted hardware...
If you're buying a new PC, Stereo, or TV, make SURE it has native HDCP support. This is most important in computers. Only DX10 video cards support this so far, but your motherboard must also be HDCP certifies as well.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
or in other words:
1) load gun
2) aim gun at foot
3) pull trigger
4) ???
5) loss!
This is the movie industry not understanding that with DRM you actually push people towards this so-called 'piracy'.
Why would I bother with that crap, when I can download the movie for free, without DRM? It's not as if DRM has proven to be helpful against 'piracy'. In fact all it has done is annoy paying customers.
80 CC D8 AF AE D3 AB 54 B7 2E CE 67 C7
with all these key problems why don't we just call a locksmith :-)
actually that begs the question if a "cracker" could claim his profession to be a digital locksmith? lol
"Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" ~Frank Zappa
EdelFactor
JSL
--
This space for rent. Well, I got something on my clipboard which I used against my Apple fanatic friends waiting for their master to ship HD movies on iTMS.
"Dear Ilgaz,
You have just purchased Sanctuary: E01 (HD) for $2.49 from Vuze."
It is open source Azureus based, file is non DRM and it is HD. The only issue (OK,not being picky) is the use of WMV format for some weird reason I can't understand.
If you are sick of Blu-Ray, HD-DVD the answer could be paying for HD content in digital form... I mean, what if the "Vuze" (or similar,non DRM) guys report 10x more sales of a comparable movie which is also shipped on DRM media? Imagine the suits face while they are staring at some 5 figure receipt by AACS or Macrovision.
Sadly, I don't think it will happen. There are people asking "Why should I pay if I get it via p2p protocol" even on tech sites. Paying for "information" or "arts" sounds stranger than paying for plastic and eventually I will be called "stupid".
When waiting for a cinema feature to start, maybe rather than rail us about how we shouldn't steal they should give us instructional videos on how to flash the firmware on our devices? I mean, come on, how many average people know what that even means??
When I buy a display, I check with my vendor to make sure it doesn't include licensing fees paid to the HDCP thugs. The day I feel I need an encrypted digital video source device, I'll buy an HDCP stripper.
Getting back to the topic, it seems like Blu-ray and HD-DVD are both losing so far. DVD sales in a week dwarf total all-time HD disc sales combined. Better than I could have hoped for. A tiny thrill of satisfaction goes through me every time I read an article like this about heavyweight DRM shooting itself in the foot again (and again and again).
I'm pretty much of the same mind as you (anti-piracy, but also anti-copyright extension & anti-DRM). However, I don't think it was simply unauthorized copying -> DRM. I think it's just that the technological advances that enabled easy copying coincided with the technological advances that enabled DRM. If DRM was technically feasible when CDs were introduced, I'm sure it would have been implemented.
Slashdot: where repeating an article in a post is "+5 Insightful"
Me three!
In fact I'm avoiding every form of physical media, because in this day and age we shouldn't even need a disc at all. We have networking technology that can ferry movies, music and anything other digital data in real-time, anywhere on the globe. There is no good reason why North America can't have hyperfast internet access. To hell with these greedy telecoms!
I don't have Blu-Ray, nor HD-DVD, and I play all my movies on a media center PC. I've been doing this for years now, it's not the "way of the future", it should be the way of today. The main thing holding us back is the financial interest of a petty group of media tyrants and their senator friends.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Shouldn't it, you know, just work?
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
I don't know... looking at your UID, /. now has over 1 million registered users. How many more are not registered? At what size does a population need to be to qualify for "general public"
/. would make you not "general public". But we have all sorts here, not just the tech heads.
I would agree that actually becoming motivated enough to post on
How many different BluRay players are out there? 100 for sure. What would it have taken to test the discs before selling them? It's not that the market is swamped with el'cheapo players. No wonder they loose customers.
I don't pirate video, so I've not much to worry about, but if I did, I'd rather there be a definitive encryption system that I know I could crack, and know I have done so completely because I can see or hear the difference between encrypted and not. This is far better than the watermarking technology they're hinting at implementing (and rumor they're leaking into peer to peer networks as we speak) in downloaded music and movies. Each watermarked file is unique, and because the watermark containing your personal information (or the person who didn't know any better and uploaded the file) is buried in the digital layer and imperceptible to your eyes and ears, and even to the h264 decoder playing the file, it's impossible to identify watermarked files. It takes comparing dozens or even hundreds of copies of the same file to determine the specifics of the watermark in order to strip it, and each file released can use a unique schema for the watermark data, meaning you'd have to have a crack tool with a database of millions of watermark keys to clean files, something you really can't develop. There's no single key to unlock a watermark like there is for AACS, and worse, it's impossible to tell if it's unlocked or not.
Personally, I'm skipping blue/HD. In 3-5 years they'll have 2.8:1 true widescreen at 2-4 times the resolution of current HD max resolution. DVD is fine for me now. HD vids ripped from HBO are even better (and I get dozens of them per month for $8.99) Sure, I have to wait an extra few months for it to air, but if I wanted to see it that bad, I'd see it in the theatre.
I've got a few TV shows I love too that I'm not only ripping, but first I pass them through a scene detector and strip the commercials. I also pack 2-6 episodes together and insert new scene cuts (titles) before ripping it to DVD. Sure, it takes about 2 hours to prep and rip a disk, but I'm getting free complete TV seasons, commercial free, on DVD for not much more than my time and the cost of blanks.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
... and you must be under 14, since you express yourself so eloquently, and your statements are so mature and supported by so many arguments. btw, where have you seen or heard me doing all the stuff you alledge above, anon shill?
Blue ray doesn't work. Film at 11 .... or maybe not.
If only i could persuade my wife to let me get rid of the TV. I lived without it for a decade and never missed it ; now it sits there, cluttering up the living room and costing nearly $50 every month. <SIGH> WOMBAT : Waste Of Money Brains And Time.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
They implement copy protection because they can. There is nothing the industry would like more than to be able to demand payment every single time you hear their content playing.
I can use the same argument for the industry: If they hadn't attempted to double- and triple-charge for their content, maybe people wouldn't have supported wholesale piracy?
It's the same argument. Maybe people would pirate for free no matter how reasonable the industry were? Correct! Just like the industry would charge whatever it could get away with no matter how reasonable their consumere were.
A computer is a machine built for manipulating information and Internet is built for sending information across the globe. If your product can be represented digitally, it will be consumed by the information behemoth we call the Internet. And you should not control it.
Should not. Because you can control it. The only problem is that when you can control one form of information, it becomes much easier to control other forms of information. Oppressive regimes would love an Internet where every piece of information had a key, and you could just reach in and remove the pieces you didn't like.
And it's really the same thing. IT doesn't care if you're using your computer to upload illegal music or upload illegal political texts. Control one, and you control the other.
I lost my sig.