Warner Bros. Accused of Pirating Anti-Pirating Tech

psycho12345 writes "German firm Medien Patent Verwaltung claims that in 2003, it revealed a new kind of anti-piracy technology to Warner Bros. that marks films with specific codes so pirated copies can be traced back to their theaters of origin. But like a great, hilariously ironic DRM Ouroborus, the company claims that Warner began using the system throughout Europe in 2004 but hasn't actually paid a dime for it."

Comments

Re:Novel?

[Cee]

I'm pretty sure all color printers 'hide' something in each print, and I wouldn't be surprised if digital cameras did too.

Yes, they do (well, actually just laser color printers).

Re:Novel?

[Ephemeriis]

I'm somewhat surprised this is allowed. Making a mistake is one thing, but purposely falsifying information that someone is paying you for (perhaps even specifically for the accuracy!) is another.

Is this one of those things that is actually allowed by law or just unenforceable because they can claim it was a mistake?

I assume you're referring to the maps thing...

This is generally done with street maps, where the information should be pretty much identical from one manufacturer to the next. If you can steal your competition's map, you save yourself all the time and effort of actually going out and looking up all the information. And everyone is going to show the same streets in the same places, so how do you prove that they stole your map data?

The answer is that you put in some crappy little 1-block dead-end streets here and there.

Nobody lives on those streets, because they don't exist, so you don't have to worry about incorrect address information showing up. You don't have to worry about giving people bad directions because they're dead-end streets, so nobody will route down them. Nobody is going to be hurt by these little streets in any way.

But if you suspect that your competition stole some map information from you, you just check to see if there's a Fake Street in Chicago. If the street is there, in the same place as on your maps, you know they stole the map data from you.

Re:Old anti-piracy message on DVDs

[VShael]

I hope we all get the reference, but just in case...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg

Re:Do as I say---

[Hurricane78]

There are only four big companies left in music business. And a colleague of mine personally worked with the bosses of all of them, when they were still five.

And according to him, they actually ARE lying cocaine-snoring hooker-addicted thieves all alike. I mean for a fact.
I would have no trouble stating that in public, as here it’s not illegal to state mere facts. I can easily prove them to be facts. :)