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DRM Flub Prevented 3D Showings of Avatar In Germany

Posted by timothy on from the token-of-our-appreciation dept.

Fraggy_the_undead writes "According to German IT news site heise.de, yesterday several 3D showings of Avatar couldn't take place (German; Google translation to English), because the movies were DRM protected such that there had to be a key per copy of the film, per film projector, and per movie server in the theater. The key supplier, by the name Deluxe, was apparently unable to provide a sufficient number of valid keys in time. Moviegoers were offered to get a refund or view an analogue 2D showing instead."

22 of 386 comments (clear)

  1. Defective by Design by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just keep trying to micromanage everything, you DRM-loving assholes. Best-laid plans of mice and men ...

    1. Re:Defective by Design by loren · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Some interesting points to think about:

      • You make a film called "The XYZ Picture"
      • Millions of people download "The XYZ Picture" and see it for free without paying you a dime
      • Most of these millions of people wouldn't have paid to see in the first place. Lets say a few thousand that would have paid to see your picture don't because they found it for free yes, this costs you real money
      • Some of these millions decide to see it in theaters for various reasons:
        • it's more fun to go see it in a large groups with their friends
        • The prefer a big theater viewing experience
        • or maybe they just like the over-buttered movie theater popcorn

        and many of these people wouldn't have even known about your movie unless they found it online for free This is money you got from movie piracy that you wouldn't have gotten if it couldn't be downloaded

      • many of these millions tell the friends about it, and they go to the theater to see your movie. again more money you got from free movie piracy as advertising
      • Many of these millions decide that your movie isn't good enough, or worth the time / effort to go see in theaters, but they really liked it or want to see all your behind the scenes stuff, so they decide to buy or rent the movie on DVD when it comes out These are even MORE sales you can attribute to free movie piracy as advertising

      And here is the very delicate and sensitive philosophical question

      • Do the few thousand movie tickets you lost in sales to piracy cost you more than...
      • ...the many thousand more tickets you sold because of the free advertising that movie piracy provided?

      I honestly think this comes down to those movie makers who make really mediocre films being afraid that they'll loose their shirts to those movie makers that produce quality content that thrives on word of mouth advertising.

      What do you think?

      --

      Loren Osborn

      Software isn't software without source code. -- NASA
    2. Re:Defective by Design by besalope · · Score: 5, Informative

      # Digital:

      • 720×480 (520 lines): D-VHS, DVD, miniDV, Digital8, Digital Betacam (pro)
      • 720×480 (400 lines): Widescreen DVD (anamorphic)
      • 1280×720 (720 lines): D-VHS, HD DVD, Blu-ray, HDV (miniDV)
      • 1440×1080 (810 lines): HDV (miniDV)
      • 1920×1080 (1080 lines): D-VHS, HD DVD, Blu-ray, HDCAM SR (pro)
      • 10,000×7000 (7000 lines): IMAX, IMAX HD, OMNIMAX

      # Film:

      • 35 mm film is scanned for release on DVD at 1080 or 2000 lines as of 2005.
      • 35 mm original camera negative motion picture film can resolve up to 6,000 lines.
      • 35 mm projection positive motion picture film has about 2,000 lines which results from the analog printing from the camera negative of an interpositive, and possibly an internegative, then a projection positive.
      • Sequences from newer films are scanned at 2,000, 4,000 or even 8,000 columns (line measured the other directions), called 2K, 4K and 8K, for quality visual-effects editing on computers.

      Wiki Source
      So.. 6,000~8,000 lines instead of 1080p (or 7000 for digital IMAX). It's VASTLY superior.

    3. Re:Defective by Design by jbezorg · · Score: 5, Funny

      -- so the viewer's experience of digitally-projected movies can, in fact, be superior to that of traditional film.

      ... provided, of course, you have the DRM key.

      --
      I've lost all my marbles except one & It's fun to test angular & centripetal acceleration in my skull
  2. not surprising by meerling · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe now some of the rank & file will begin to understand the evils of pervasive DRM, even if only in Germany.

    1. Re:not surprising by Sir_Dill · · Score: 5, Insightful
      How is this off topic?

      Infact it couldn't be more ON topic.

      The biggest problem is that people don't understand what DRM actually means and how it can impact them.

      Things like this shed light on the pitfalls of DRM.

      I am not a proponent of piracy, however I have had more than my fair share of DRM related issues in my home theater and as a result I vehemently oppose DRM schemes.

      Snafus like this really opens the eyes of the public and hopefully informs a few of them while we still have a chance to understand the problem and vote with our dollars(or euros).

    2. Re:not surprising by maxume · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The rank and file, for the most part, will be mad that the projector was broken.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    3. Re:not surprising by Yvanhoe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I began to consider piracy when I bought a DVD with non-skippable ads on them.

      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
    4. Re:not surprising by digitalunity · · Score: 5, Insightful

      By far, this is the most annoying thing about DVD's. So-called "acceptable user operations". The DVD decides what you get to do or not do, including watching a bunch of previews for movies you don't want to see. I could understand this happening once, the first time you watch it. But really, its an insult to avid movie fans with movie libraries. Forcing them to watch ads for movies that came out 10 fucking years ago is ridiculous.

      --
      You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
  3. Obligatory by Yvan256 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ha-ha! - Nelson Muntz

  4. DRM by amicusNYCL · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's a good thing that they allow us to manage our rights like this.

    --
    "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
  5. Why do I think this will just add fuel? by ground.zero.612 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Somehow, I believe the studio will twist this story to sound more like "See! Piracy is causing us to lose money!"

    This despite them putting in the DRM, and despite them generating $10B revenue in 2009.

    --
    "Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
  6. Keygen by Inda · · Score: 5, Funny

    Once again the pirates solve a problem that shouldn't be there in the first place: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=avatar+keygen

    --
    This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
  7. No Fate But What We Make For Ourselves... by d474 · · Score: 5, Funny

    James Cameron was right when he said Avatar is the FUTURE of movies to come: DRM'd to the crippling point.

    --
    Authority questions you. Return the favor.
  8. Wait... by TaggartAleslayer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't want to be the one modded to hell and back for saying it, but isn't this an issue with the company not purchasing the proper licenses in the appropriate amount of time rather than an issue with DRM?

    I understand this wouldn't exist if there were no DRM, but then the theater would still not have paid for the rights to show the movie. I'm just unclear on how that makes this a noteworthy "DRM is bad" case.

    1. Re:Wait... by FrostDust · · Score: 5, Informative

      Reading the Google translation, it seems to say that the theaters had purchased enough licenses for their showings, but a glitch, or technical ineptitude, prevented the DRM from validating all of their copies of the movie.

      I think it's a big leap to go from that, to where the submitter says that the supplier was unable to provide enough keys.

      The most persistant argument against DRM surfaces here: because of the intricate technicalities involved in DRM systems, legitimate customers were denied access to material they payed for.

    2. Re:Wait... by SoTerrified · · Score: 5, Informative

      ,,,isn't this an issue with the company not purchasing the proper licenses in the appropriate amount of time rather than an issue with DRM?

      The issue with most DRM is that it a) Does not actually stop pirates (at best it slows them down) and b) Does impair the ability for legitimate owners to use their purchase as intended.

      This is a perfect example. The DRM was broken so quickly, keys were available online http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=avatar+keygen so pirates were not inconvenienced, but the legitimate customers (the theatre who was showing the movie) were unable to use the item they had purchased in a timely manner.

      So I would disagree, this issue is indeed with DRM

    3. Re:Wait... by Noonian+Soong · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, it is not a licensing problem. I read the German article and it clearly states that everyone paid, but the company providing the final keys (it is a process with several stages) could not produce the correct key. It was due to technical difficulties, not licensing issues.

      Here is my non-Google translation of the important part that explains what went wrong technically (sorry for the slightly unidiomatic English; I tried to stay as close to the original as possible so that the text would not become my interpretation of the original):
      Apparently, the DRM-keys for the film files were the cause of the problem. The distributor of 20th Century Fox sends the JPEG2000-encoded and AES-128-encrypted movies on external hard drives via courier. After that, the data (in the case of Avatar 150 GByte) needs to be copied to the theater server. Each digital projector/server combination generates a different certificate and transmits it to the DRM service in charge. The DRM service creates an individual key for each movie and sends it back to the theater. The key is always only valid for one copy of the film as well as one projector and can be limited to specific time periods and times of day.

      Yesterday (Wednesday), the transmission of the correct keys for the 3D screenings did apparently not work in several cases, though. Theater technicians tried for several hours to decrypt the gigantic pile of data, but apparently the service responsible for the digital distribution of the film, Deluxe, could not provide valid keys yesterday.

      --
      The strength of a civilization is not measured by its ability to fight wars, but rather by its ability to prevent them.
    4. Re:Wait... by Mr.+Freeman · · Score: 5, Informative

      Alright, just a minute. Providing a link to google "avatar keygen" is complete bullshit. 95% of that is automatically generated nonsense. You can type in "any_string_of_characters" and "keygen" and get literally thousands of results for supposed key generators. They're usually just links to places that want you to pay to download some nonsense, or more often, they're malware downloads.

      Here's evidence:
      http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=asdfasdf+keygen&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

      --
      -1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
  9. Re:Hah! by illumastorm · · Score: 5, Funny

    Except in Soviet Russia.

  10. Re:Good thing, too.. by DeadPixels · · Score: 5, Funny

    Not actually showing the movie is the DRM of the future! You can't film it if you can't WATCH it, right? :D

  11. Similar problem happened to me by xav_jones · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While watching the latest Batman movie the screen went dark and stayed that way for about 20 minutes. Speaking to the attendants afterward, they said their projectors had lost the internet link which authorized the movies to be shown. All projectors in the cineplex went down since all were digital (theatre was in Riverside, CA).