Sony Tries Using Blockchain Tech For Next-Gen DRM (engadget.com)

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Sony Tries Using Blockchain Tech For Next-Gen DRM (engadget.com)

Posted by BeauHD on Tuesday October 16, 2018 @01:00AM from the everyone-is-doing-it dept.

Sony announced Monday that it's using blockchain technology for digital rights management (DRM), "starting with written educational materials under the Sony Global Education arm of the business," reports Engadget. "This new blockchain system is built on Sony's pre-existing DRM tools, which keep track of the distribution of copyrighted materials, but will have advantages that come with blockchain's inherent security." From the report: Because of the nature of blockchain, which tracks digital transactions in records that are particularly difficult to forge or otherwise tamper with, its application as a DRM tool makes sense and may also help creators keep tabs on their content. Currently, it's up to creators themselves (or the companies they create for) to monitor their contents' rights management. Sony's system could take over the heavy lifting of DRM. The way blockchain works allows Sony to track its content from creation through sharing. This means that users of the blockchain DRM tool will be able to see -- and verify -- who created a piece of work and when. Sony Global Education is the current focus of the DRM tool, but going forward, the company hints that the rest of its media -- including entertainment like music, movies, and virtual reality content -- may be protected the same way.

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everything made by man fails by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 01:02 · Score: 0

so far anyway..
Blockchain 1/1024th of Pocahontas' DNA! by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 01:02 · Score: 0

DRM 1/1024 of it, too!
Did you know a duck is 1/1024 bald eagle?
1. Re: Blockchain 1/1024th of Pocahontas' DNA! by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 02:22 · Score: 1
  
  A milli-Pocahontas if you will.
Idiots by execthts · 2018-10-16 01:04 · Score: 4, Insightful

Didn't they all learn - - from the BMG-Rootkit scandal - about piracy being a service problem - about tamper-protections only hurting paying customers before?
1. Re:Idiots by DarkRookie2 · 2018-10-16 01:17 · Score: 1
  
  Or why haven't media companies in general keep trying to push DRM when it is almost always broken quickly.
  
  --
  http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
2. Re:Idiots by 110010001000 · 2018-10-16 01:41 · Score: 2
  
  Some forms of DRM have never been broken. Just look at the latest consoles.
3. Re:Idiots by HarrySquatter · 2018-10-16 01:41 · Score: 2
  
  Considering they are still around and still use DRM that should answer your question sufficiently.
4. Re:Idiots by DarkRookie2 · 2018-10-16 01:50 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Is this because of the DRM, or no one really trying since the selection of games exclusive to the console is underwhelming to say the least.
  I am betting more the later than the former.
  
  --
  http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
5. Re:Idiots by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 02:40 · Score: 0
  
  The latest PS and XBox consoles have not been hacked in five years. I'll elaborate on more things:
  1: Satellite TV. Was common with cards. Now not done.
  2: Blu-Ray. Every new movie or spin on a new movie has new encryption.
  3: Apple's eBook and video formats.
  If the will is there, stuff can be made resistant to hack attempts.
6. Re:Idiots by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 03:27 · Score: 0
  
  Blu-ray continues to fail gloriously. No, I'm not helping the enforcers by telling you how.
  As for *everything* else, not just the things you mention, there's no coordinated "defense in depth". Pick a softer implementation, win.
  And as fucking always, if you can see it/read it/etc. it can be copied. Your brain is still analog... for now.
7. Re:Idiots by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 03:31 · Score: 0
  
  Blu-Ray is cracked. The attack sequence is leveled at Windows PCs and has overwhelming power.
8. Re:Idiots by Jason+Levine · 2018-10-16 03:38 · Score: 1
  
  Sony's reply to this.
  
  --
  My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
9. Re:Idiots by Dorianny · 2018-10-16 03:58 · Score: 1
  
  The PS4 was hacked and Linux was demonstrated on it back in 2016
10. Re:Idiots by bjdevil66 · 2018-10-16 04:49 · Score: 1
  
  The Switch is hacked. 5.05 PS4 Kernel Exploit? The XBoxOne has been popped open for homebrew, as well.
  Cool. Interesting. * Prepares to research and mod up.. *
  ...coming from your mouth is wholly incorrect and false, Trumpist.
  Trumpist? What? WHY?? *sigh* One-tracked mind AC troll. Nevermind...
11. Re: Idiots by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 07:25 · Score: 0
  
  So because he's a troll you decide you don't wanna mod?
  Sounds like the troll won. Idiot.
12. Re: Idiots by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 08:25 · Score: 0
  
  There was a story on /. just this past week
  about how the current PS4 consoles are actually moddable, so thatâ(TM)s not true.
13. Re:Idiots by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 09:07 · Score: 1
  
  Didn't they all learn - - from the BMG-Rootkit scandal - about piracy being a service problem - about tamper-protections only hurting paying customers before?
  Of course they did.
  They learned that through DRM they could utterly destroy the second hand market and forbid the public from engaging in their right to resale.
  They also learned that by doing so they would be able to rent the content to you forever, ensuring them a profit for doing absolutely nothing.
  They also learned that the public is powerless to do anything about it, and will mostly just accept the further loss of control or quality over the products they purchase.
  They also learned that governments won't give a damn if their DRM makes the system as a whole less safe to use and or fit for purpose. Especially if such degradation stated in the trillion page long agreement that you need a lawyer to understand and is shrink-wrapped on every copy.
  They also learned that although pirates will find a way around DRM eventually, most people will still just pay for the inferior version they produce, even if the damn thing doesn't work at all on release.
  They also learned that despite ever increasing legal protections for their content, they can still whine to congress about never making a profit on paper and they will continue getting even greater legal protections. Even if the public is completely against greater legal protections for them on an international level.
  They also learned that perpetual copyright is perfectly OK so long as it's "limited" in no real meaningful or practical way.
  They also learned that the vast majority of people are actually sympathetic for them despite the ever increasing imbalance of power between them and society as a whole, and don't even need to try and hide their blatant perversion and corruption of copyright into their personal money printing machine.
  Finally, They learned they don't have to give a crap about consumers to continue making money off of them.
  So yeah, I'd say they learned a lot from their various "scandals" over the years.
14. Re: Idiots by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 09:36 · Score: 0
  
  No, he was going to mod up, but didn't, after reading the "trumpist" bit. That doesn't imply he wont mod *down*.
15. Re:Idiots by sheramil · 2018-10-16 09:42 · Score: 2
  
  Didn't they all learn - - from the BMG-Rootkit scandal - about piracy being a service problem - about tamper-protections only hurting paying customers before?
  Evidently, they learned at least one thing: DRM in entertainment just forces the customer away, so they're using it in education, where at least in some circumstances the clients have no DRM-free alternatives.
16. Re:Idiots by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-17 20:10 · Score: 0
  
  I have never seen a bluray that isn't trivial to copy.
  numbnuts
Talk about perversion! by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 01:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

Only SONY can take a technology intended to increase freedom, and turn it into a method of censorship! Good gawd! this company disgusts me. I stopped buying their products when they started putting malware on DVD's they were selling customers.
1. Re:Talk about perversion! by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 01:10 · Score: 0
  
  I was very surprised that the company was able to hang on without going into bankruptcy protection once you stopped buying their products. This will surely do them in, right?
2. Re: Talk about perversion! by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 01:16 · Score: 1
  
  Seriously. Fuck Sony and DRM too.
3. Re:Talk about perversion! by genfail · 2018-10-16 04:49 · Score: 1
  
  Only SONY can take a technology intended to increase freedom, and turn it into a method of censorship! Good gawd! this company disgusts me. I stopped buying their products when they started putting malware on DVD's they were selling customers.
  That's the modus operandi for the wealthy in general. Hell the internet itself, which was a utopian vision of communication, has long since been weaponized as a tool for oppression.
4. Re:Talk about perversion! by wed128 · 2018-10-16 08:13 · Score: 1
  
  How is the internet a tool of oppression? I can send any message I want, to anyone, at any time, and encrypt it to boot. Sounds like Utopian free communication to me...
5. Re: Talk about perversion! by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 13:58 · Score: 0
  
  Yet so many programs have active backdoors and workarounds that security is basically an illusion to all but those willing to dig into the code of every app they use to confirm it's safe to use, which isn't even possible on most apps and a significant portion will just sell your data for profit on the side anyway.
6. Re: Talk about perversion! by wed128 · 2018-10-17 02:12 · Score: 1
  
  Sounds like those tools are the tools of oppression, not the internet itself. Open a UDP socket, and I can send you encrypted traffic all day long. You have the freedom to write and control software.
What value added? by arth1 · 2018-10-16 01:10 · Score: 4, Interesting

I fail to see what value a blockchain adds here over, say, signed certificates. Can someone explain the added value to either content creator, copyright holder or consumer that requires blockchain?
1. Re:What value added? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 01:25 · Score: 0
  
  You can track how the file was changed, and who it was changed by. This can easily tell you if the file was sourced from Sony or not, and gives you the exact offenders to those who break their copyright policies. So long as the pirates do not obtain greater than 51 percent hashing power, it should give them more overall control based on history rather than just saying that the copy is legitimate based on my certificate.
2. Re:What value added? by Sarten-X · 2018-10-16 01:28 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  My guess (and it is purely a guess, since TFS and TFA are so light on detail) is that transactions involving works will be logged in a blockchain. I buy a movie, and that purchase is linked to my particular account. I can then loan that movie to someone else, and the transfer gets logged. When it's returned to me, that's logged, too... Unless I happen to be disconnected from the blockchain-handling system, in which case I'd be stuck with the last-known state of property ownership.
  If everything works like that, then a content owner could track their creation and see that I loaned a movie to someone... because apparently that's something Sony thinks they care about. Like many other DRM systems, it also allows Sony to revoke rights to works by authoritatively transferring them away, unless there's a crypto method to authorize a transfer (which is not indicated in TFS or TFA).
  Pretty much, it provides nothing of technical value that wouldn't be served better by a central database. For marketing value, though, blockchain's an excellent choice right now.
  
  --
  You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
3. Re:What value added? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 01:45 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  But that makes zero sense. If they wanted, if there is real incentive, it is going to be trivial for some pirates to spin up a ton of servers to quickly perform a 51% attack. Or do you think sony is just going to spend millions of dollars having hash farms sitting there hashing away just in case a pirate attacks?
  And more importantly, in the event the pirates successfully pull off a 51% attack, then what? Is everyone just going to roll over and say "well, the majority of hashing power has voted" and just give up on the ? No, they are going to say "well, that's not really valid anymore, so lets just ignore it and go with what sony says is legit". And now you've just invalidated the entire point of having a blockchain. "We can't trust anyone, so we'll trust the blockchain collectively...until we decide we can't trust the blockchain, at which point we'll just trust the entity we didn't want to simply trust at the beginning".
  If you give up on your principles as soon as they are inconvenient, they weren't really principles to begin with. Likewise if you can stop trusting the blockchain as soon as you think it is compromised, it was never really trusted to begin with.
4. Re:What value added? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 01:51 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  How can they tell where a file came from and so on?
  Blockchain records transactions - and unlike a simple log "it cannot be faked". But blockchain will only record transactions that actually gets recorded.
  Lets say my brother buy a Sony movie, and this is duly registered in the blockchain. So proof exist that my brother bought that. And he can pass the movie on, and register that fact in the blockchain and so on.
  But I am a pirate. I copy his movie. I edit out all the trailers & other commercials. I cut some boring cry scenes.
  Then I sell this movie to folks who like having "no commercials". But what do Sony gain from having blockchain here? The piracy is obvious to law enforcement - it is mostly the original movie. Blockchain do not aid in proving my obvious piracy. If they really watermark every movie differently, then they can see it was my brothers movie that got leaked. But they can't get him for piracy: "Someone may have copied the movie when the kids watched it with their friends". Sony can't demand that customers have good security, they can't hold customers responsible for being burgled or defrauded.
  The blockchain has an unfakeable account of transactions. When I sell pirated movies, I obviously don't register the transactions with anyone! My black-market buyers also knows my movies aren't 'legit'. So no trail for Sony to follow.
  Perhaps Sony will be able to refuse, if a stupid black-market buyer tries to return a pirated copy to a store - for a refund. But do that happen at all?
5. Re: What value added? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 02:17 · Score: 1
  
  I suspect this will be much more like the use of chained signatures in certificate transparency logs (merkle trees) than it will like the bitcoin proof-of-work system. Sony has no interest in relegating ownership of their materials.
  tbh, its hard for me to understand why they need something more than git and signed commits.
6. Re:What value added? by faedle · 2018-10-16 02:24 · Score: 2
  
  > Unless I happen to be disconnected from the blockchain-handling system, in which case I'd be stuck with the last-known state of property ownership.
  That's highly unlikely, as that could be a hole to exploit. It's more likely the content won't play at all.
7. Re: What value added? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 02:36 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Youâ(TM)re technically correct that all you need to do is do a 51% attack, but doing so is specifically impractical. Thereâ(TM)s a concept of agreed-upon finality, where you need to build a certain number of blocks ahead. For bitcoin itâ(TM)s 6 blocks, and every block would cost you a lot more money than just the amount of mined BTC to pay enough mining rigs to do so consistently for an hour. It would cost a few million dollars, assuming you could find a way to rent that sort of hashpower, which isnâ(TM)t really doable. You wonâ(TM)t find a one place or multiple place that would let you rent enough machines for that, so the next option is buying mining rigs yourself. I hope you have really really deep pockets and are ready for quite an architectural/logistics challenge of setting up a few thousand machines.
  BlockChains security works by crypto economics. All of them. If you donâ(TM)t take a well established BlockChain then yeah the cryptoeconomic security just isnâ(TM)t there. Thatâ(TM)s why if you want to build anything remotely securely, you should be pegging the information on like bitcoin or ethereum.
8. Re:What value added? by mysidia · 2018-10-16 02:49 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I guess the idea is media creators could create a public blockchain describing their works and every playerID or userCode license that has an authorization to disseminate their work. The description of a work could actually contain enough information about various watermarks and identifying features of their works to identify both legitimate copies and Identify decent-quality rogue copies containing an identical picture or more than 30 seconds or so of audio or video: then in order to disseminate ANY work, a compliant playing device would be required to maintain an online connection and take steps to identify what work is being played --- then in order to play a work identified as matching a protected one: the player would be required to login, userId, and apply for a player hardware Id Lease containing the player hardwareId and the manufacturer+hardware IDs of the monitor and every device in the viewing chain (May require submitting a payment); wait for a short-lived Play authorization to appear on the blockchain, and maintain an internet connection to (1) Verify every 60 seconds that the play authorization is still valid for this content, and (2) The player has to transmit all the blockchain records to the HDCP display monitor, digital sound, and every device in the chain, so.... (3) The HDCP monitor also verifies the "play authorization".
  The DRM could be combined with a proprietary audo/video encoding package: which would be protected by a patent,
  and in order to enforce the DRM policies -- licensing the patent to decode would require that all decoders made available
  be only "Compliant players". After every 3 or 4 years, there would be a new encoding/decoding package with a new patent,
  and a mandatory online instant update for Compliant Players to remain compliant and be able to continue playing content
  that involves removing the hardware's capability to decode media packages that are more than 2 versions behind --
  and media leases can no longer be issued for older versions of the media to ensure by the time patent expires - nothing in consumers' hands can play that format anymore.
9. Re:What value added? by XxtraLarGe · 2018-10-16 03:00 · Score: 1
  
  I fail to see what value a blockchain adds here over, say, signed certificates. Can someone explain the added value to either content creator, copyright holder or consumer that requires blockchain?
  Buzzwords. They'll probably figure out how to jam AI in there in the near future as well.
  
  --
  Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
10. Re:What value added? by orient · 2018-10-16 03:08 · Score: 1
  
  What about players that refuse to play discs that are not recorded in the blockchain?
  
  --
  Laudele lor desigur m-ar mahni peste masura.
11. Re:What value added? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 03:23 · Score: 0
  
  Maybe it can prevent the bankruptcy scenario. DRM servers will never go down.
12. Re:What value added? by Jadecristal · 2018-10-16 03:34 · Score: 1
  
  I mean, you can try. In the end, you'd have to use total monopoly power, pretty much, and stomp on anyone who wouldn't comply. And you're going to obsolete all those players, etc. that exist now. And people can still write open software, and crack your encryption just like they do now.
  And consumer adoption of things like DivX went so well, too. /s
  A distributed ledger is only a distributed ledger, not a control mechanism, and they seem to be missing this - there's nothing "new" that they get in terms of DRM from spending a lot of money trying to bake in "blockchain". If Sony-and-only-Sony controls the ledger, how is it any different from Sony-and-only-Sony controlling the "license key" server, or "WMA DRM certificate-issuing" server, or anything else that they can already do? Openness? As in, they're going to let the entire world look at their ledger/sales numbers/who bought what combination of things? Nah.
13. Re:What value added? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 03:38 · Score: 0
  
  That would be a consumer benefit, and is not a permitted function of DRM technology.
  Report to re-education center 217-B.
14. Re: What value added? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 03:45 · Score: 0
  
  What makes you think they are going to "rent" the machines?
15. Re:What value added? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 03:46 · Score: 0
  
  And how would the player identify the original media (disc or otherwise) (which IS in the blockchain) from a 100% identical copy? In order to accomplish this, you would need 100% unhackable media, where each one has a hard coded and unmodifiable serial number, and you would need to ensure that nobody is ever able to manufacture compatible media that does allow modification. Good luck with that.
16. Re:What value added? by Sarten-X · 2018-10-16 03:59 · Score: 1
  
  If the system runs on a publicly-managed blockchain, and if the clients are entirely self-sufficient, and if there's a large enough userbase for manufacturers to support the scheme after Sony's bankruptcy, and if the chosen blockchain is still actively processing by that time... then yes, there's a chance the DRM will still function.
  A simpler solution to the bankruptcy problem is to have the system fail-safe. If the DRM client gets a magic (cryptographically-signed) token, or is unable to contact the servers for a suitably-long (one year, perhaps?) time, it unlocks by default.
  
  --
  You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
17. Re: What value added? by Cinnamon+Beige · 2018-10-16 04:04 · Score: 1
  
  I think the assumption here is that, given Sony's history with DRM schemes, it won't be a well-established blockchain.
18. Re:What value added? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 04:05 · Score: 0
  
  a signed cert won't pad sony's share price like a press release with the buzzword of the month in it.
19. Re:What value added? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 04:14 · Score: 0
  
  They don't even have to do that, if you can see it, it can be recorded in a format that doesn't use this crazy scheme and then its game over. Better to spend time and money partnering with multiple streaming providers to ensure maximum number of paying customers have access to your content no matter what service they use.
20. Re:What value added? by Cinnamon+Beige · 2018-10-16 04:25 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe it can prevent the bankruptcy scenario. DRM servers will never go down.
  I'd like to think that was the goal, but it's Sony and we haven't (yet) passed any laws encouraging companies to ensure that if their DRM servers go down, their DRM will not be preventing people from using products they legally own.
21. Re:What value added? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 04:49 · Score: 0
  
  If it's as simple as a 51% attack then Sony is screwed. They can barely keep their servers alive for their games half the time, what makes them think they can compete with the collective power of DRM crackers and their army of botnets?
22. Re:What value added? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 06:57 · Score: 0
  
  Who would buy one of those?
23. Re:What value added? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 09:47 · Score: 0
  
  The value added for Sony is that they can offload the need to keep a centralized database recording all the DRM issues. This blockchain could then be used by a multitude of third-party Sony partners as well. so you buy a movie that's backed by Sony from a third-party site and they have keys that allow them to record the transaction into the DRM blockchain without needing to log into a centralized Sony-managed database. Then Sony effective has no need to keep a centralized record of who-bought-what, which is brittle and costly. The cost is offloaded to the network itself.
24. Re:What value added? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 09:50 · Score: 0
  
  (continuing) Think about this, if Sony kept a database to keep track of purchases, then they'd need administrators, and they'd need customer service people. Automate and offload the whole thing to a distributed ledger and there's nothing to hack, no single point of failure for the company to get blamed for.
25. Re:What value added? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 10:47 · Score: 0
  
  In-fact, the current DMCA laws do exactly the opposite. If a DRM server goes down, you can be certain that the content can't be used. I've yet to find a product that has had it's DRM intentionally disabled by the original company.
26. Re:What value added? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 11:12 · Score: 0
  
  The DRM could be combined with a proprietary audo/video encoding package: which would be protected by a patent,
  and in order to enforce the DRM policies -- licensing the patent to decode would require that all decoders made available
  be only "Compliant players". After every 3 or 4 years, there would be a new encoding/decoding package with a new patent,
  and a mandatory online instant update for Compliant Players to remain compliant and be able to continue playing content
  that involves removing the hardware's capability to decode media packages that are more than 2 versions behind --
  and media leases can no longer be issued for older versions of the media to ensure by the time patent expires - nothing in consumers' hands can play that format anymore.
  Which in laymen's terms means complete media center hardware refreshes every 2-3 years just to watch ANYTHING.
  Yeah... the rest of society will go along with that for the first two cycles before saying "fuck it" and bittorrent use skyrockets like nothing ever seen before.
  Possibly less given any real heads up about this scheme. And definitely less if people are expected to keep paying the current standard pricing for "purchasing" a work: $25-$40 for current movies, $60-$80 for current video games, $10-$30 for current books, and $1 for current individual music tracks. Remember this scheme lacks backwards compat, so old media items and pricing are a non-starter here. Also, these are limited time rentals that only last for about 2-3 years assuming you "buy" them at the start of the current hardware refresh cycle, and have the current hardware plus a working + consistent + 24/7/365 internet connection.
  Yeah, that adds up ridiculously fast for them doing absolutely nothing beneficial for the consumer. No thanks. If you or someone you know sees a scheme like this, be sure to keep them out of it and inform others.
27. Re: What value added? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 14:00 · Score: 0
  
  Quantum cloud Xtreme high speed block chain dot com is the value added.
Blockchain BS by Sarten-X · 2018-10-16 01:15 · Score: 5, Insightful

Repeat after me, folks: Blockchain is a buzzword for a logbook.
That's it. There's no "inherent security". It's just a log with a checksum. Any can tamper with that log as much as they like, just making sure that they control enough of the verification process to authoritatively say their claims are genuine.
Seeing and verifying "who created a piece of work and when" is not really ever a problem in copyright cases. The real problems are how much of a pre-existing work was used or referenced to make a derivative work, and whether the derivative work is sufficiently creative enough to stand on its own.
With so little detail, it's difficult to speculate on precisely how Sony thinks this technology will benefit anyone (including themselves). So far, the only people who benefit from industrial use of a blockchain are the people selling a blockchain as a solution.

--
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
1. Re:Blockchain BS by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 01:31 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  99% of the time, blockchain is way more work for something that could be much more efficiently handled in a central database. Where blockchain really shines is when you want a system whereby no individual parties are trusted. Hence, the reason why it's so useful for cryptocurrencies. It can have other limited uses for things like smart contracts, but it seems way to many businesses are trying to use blockchain just so they seem relevant.
  Same thing happened with NoSQL 10 years ago.
2. Re:Blockchain BS by arth1 · 2018-10-16 01:38 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Where blockchain really shines is when you want a system whereby no individual parties are trusted.
  That makes sense then - no-one trusts Sony, after all.
3. Re:Blockchain BS by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 01:52 · Score: 1
  
  Found the libtard. Blockchain is revolutionary and makes securing everything from elections to video games UNBREAKABLE. It forms the basis for an amazing little thing called Cryptocurrency, you might have heard of it (except probably not because you sound stupid).
4. Re:Blockchain BS by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 01:52 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Where blockchain really shines is when you want a system whereby no individual parties are trusted.
  Haha, still no. For a no-trust blockchain to work, you have to trust that the distrust between the parties is enough that there will never be cooperation in excess of 50% of the accounting. Since oligopolies tend to form when big players would rather split a market than compete with each-other, we already have proof that eternal hostility between major parties is not a stable state.
  For a time, a no-trust blockchain may operate as intended, but it is a precarious state and will fail into a more stable model of either a single-authentication system or an abandoned waste of energy. Maybe the failure will be after all the early players have died, so they can go to their graves believing that their version was the exception.
5. Re:Blockchain BS by postbigbang · 2018-10-16 02:07 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  It's more about transactional integrity. Blockchain is more trivial to code and execute than you might think.
  If one takes a vetted (!!) inventory of music and film and media and whatever, and wants to bank it among a group of producers, artists, media companies, and consumers, this method can work to achieve a transaction history of who owns what with what stipulations, and it's wickedly difficult to game.
  Not that DRM works. Rather, this is transactional integrity for the lawyers and apps that will be used to assert "rights".
  IMHO, it's folly and a waste of money, but rights protection is a mantra in the media business. I allows Wall Street to believe that there is asset protection, therefore stock value and price. In actuality, that's the real "customer" for this blockchain effort. And that's the charade's target: share price.
  
  --
  ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
6. Re:Blockchain BS by Sarten-X · 2018-10-16 02:10 · Score: 2
  
  If trust is your problem, cryptography is your solution. There are crypto systems that allow a consensus of several parties to validate another party's claims.
  Blockchain, by itself, is just a log where each entry includes all of the previous ones. It's useful when you want to have a small checksum to validate that the whole log hasn't been modified.
  If a historic log being modified is your problem, blockchain is your solution... but that's usually not actually your problem.
  
  --
  You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
7. Re:Blockchain BS by Sarten-X · 2018-10-16 02:28 · Score: 2
  
  this method can work to achieve a transaction history of who owns what with what stipulations, and it's wickedly difficult to game.
  
  Rather, this is transactional integrity for the lawyers and apps that will be used to assert "rights".
  So it's a normal collection of license contracts, but now with dependencies on a processing network. Lovely.
  
  --
  You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
8. Re:Blockchain BS by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 02:34 · Score: 0
  
  how does this get a score of 1 even?
  I mean its an obvious troll as the GP stated the one major failing of block chain that cannot be fixed. In a distributed system that handles authentication of data, if you control the majority of the computing power then you control what gets verified.
  On top of that, claiming that any digital construct unbreakable is shortsighted as it is made under the premise that computing power will not increase in the future.
9. Re: Blockchain BS by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 02:41 · Score: 0
  
  Thatâ(TM)s not true. If they are using a private BlockChain then I agree, itâ(TM)s just an overbuilt ledger with no additional security beyond verifiable costs of hashing that went into making blocks. But realistically a private BlockChain wouldnâ(TM)t require mining, which indeed defeats the purpose. But if they are using a public BlockChain, then it does offer several benefits beyond an arbitrary data storage format would â" you canâ(TM)t forge entries without severe monetary costs (hasnâ(TM)t been done so far on BTC), the data remains available even if the company were to shut down as well as being censorship resistant.
10. Re:Blockchain BS by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 02:42 · Score: 0
  
  In a lot of applications you don't need everyone to see all transactions publicly. It's often more efficient to record everything in a hash chain and then periodically store the current checksum of that chain in any public blockchain (eg Etherium). You then have no limit on the time to add to the log, don't pay transaction fees on every transaction, and can use several blockchains in case you distrust any single one.
11. Re:Blockchain BS by postbigbang · 2018-10-16 02:55 · Score: 0
  
  Anything, any kind of doc or media can be stored in a blockchain. Content doesn't matter, but it becomes part of the record and non-ambiguous.
  It's costly and totally draconian. Makes Wall Street very happy. Will customers be happy? Currently agreed-upon statistics say: um, no.
  Will that stop them? Um, no. Will Wall Street be happy? Maybe. Could astute public policy change this? Probably not, because public policy is inevitably guided by bribery, and rarely by altruism and common sense.
  
  --
  ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
12. Re:Blockchain BS by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 07:21 · Score: 0
  
  Its score is one because it is an amazing comment. Your comment score is ZERO because your comment is just more useless anti-blockchain propaganda. Really you just sound stupid. I go to a lot of crypto meetups and theres always someone like you who says shit about bitcoin and blockchains trying to troll for attention or whatever, but he is always just ignored and never invited to the afterparties. In a room where you have a dozen smart investors who are millionares and one guy calling blockchains a "scam" its obvious which one the moron is. In this case it is you.
13. Re:Blockchain BS by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 07:43 · Score: 0
  
  99% of the time, blockchain is way more work for something that could be much more efficiently handled in a central database. Where blockchain really shines is when you want a system whereby no individual parties are trusted.
  And where the transaction-rate limitations aren't an issue. I can imagine the backlash if it becomes routine for people to purchase a license to stream a movie from Sony on their devices, and get told that they're #327 in the queue to have their transaction recorded in Sony's blockchain, and they should expect to be given access to stream their movie in about an hour and a half, as soon as the transaction completes, and not to turn their device off or close the app in the meantime.
14. Re:Blockchain BS by Darinbob · 2018-10-16 10:30 · Score: 1
  
  So let's say a court decides in a lawsuit that Sony does not actually own some content, given that Sony failed to reimburse the true content creator. Would that mean that de-facto ownership away from Sony by changing the blockchain even if Sony refuses to accept the court order?
  Or maybe more practically, if a court rules that fair use applies to copies of media and games, and that Sony can no longer forbid customers from exercising their legal rights (to make backups, do time shifting, lend or resell the product, etc). Could the court override Sony's control that forbids making copies and grant back to customers the rights that Sony removed?
  This is my biggest concern with DRM, in that it overrides the laws of various contries and turns the content owner into the ultimate legal authority. If the content owner disagrees with laws that allow consumers the rights to use their copies in various ways, the content owners can use DRM to create restrictions that go above and beyond the law. Ie, the law may say "the customer may use the copy at any time and in any locale that they wish provided it is not a public performance", but the DRM will go further and say "the customer can only use the copy in the USA, only during the year of 2019, and only on an authorized viewing device."
  But if Sony controls the blockchain, or the method to manipulate the blockchain, then its still a centralized control method and gives no advantages beyond its current DRM schemes. But then, blockchain is a fashionable term so maybe Sony only uses this term to razzle dazzle the investors...
15. Re: Blockchain BS by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 14:02 · Score: 0
  
  It could be used to identify the original purchaser of a pirated copy and perhaps charge them for illegal distribution but in the end just making users log in to an account to use the software will be 10x more effective.
Public Ledger of Piracy by kd3bj · 2018-10-16 01:16 · Score: 2

Cool. Now we'll all have a way to prove to each other how much media we've pirated.
Exactly, where is the benefit for the customer? by grungeman · 2018-10-16 01:17 · Score: 2

Does this even matter anymore in management decisions? Maybe I am old-fashined, but back in the old days a product (like the Walkman) became successful because it provided a certain value for the customer.

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Signature deleted by lameness filter.
when birds have radios in their butts.. by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 01:18 · Score: 0

there will be music in the air at all times?
Two Words: by sfsp · 2018-10-16 01:26 · Score: 1

Analog Hole.
1. Re:Two Words: by HarrySquatter · 2018-10-16 01:45 · Score: 1
  
  Which means nothing when nearly zero Bluray players, consoles, set-top boxes, etc. made in the last 5 years or so have analog outputs.
2. Re:Two Words: by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 02:04 · Score: 1
  
  HDCP is already broken. And the pixel-to-retina interface is still very much analog, in any case.
3. Re: Two Words: by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 02:20 · Score: 0
  
  you only watch it with your digital eyes and listen with your digital ears, right?
4. Re:Two Words: by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 02:23 · Score: 0
  
  One word: Cinavia
5. Re:Two Words: by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 02:48 · Score: 0
  
  Cinavia's a joke with a near 100% failure rate. Nobody has even bothered to write a Cinavia detection library for things like mpv or vlc or Kodi to use, so that the player can know when it's supposed to malfunction and work against its user. And if the player maker doesn't go to the trouble to make it malfunction and work against the user, then Cinavia doesn't do anything.
  Even if they document it, or release a library for players to use so that they can fail to play more often, you still have to persuade the users to use that fork. Cinavia is not only a fraud right now, but it doesn't even have the potential to ever work some day.
6. Re:Two Words: by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 11:24 · Score: 0
  
  This is a solved problem, it just hasn't been implemented. They had a similar problem with printers printing money, so now they've got firmware that refuses to or that includes an identifiable code that's nearly invisible
  They could do similar with watermarking of the image or a hidden sound that deactivates recording equipment.
Don't buy Sony by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 01:48 · Score: 0

Sony treats their customers like shit [1] [2]. Don't want to be treated like shit? Don't become Sony's customer in the first place.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
This might actually be good for games? by stephenjsweeney · 2018-10-16 01:56 · Score: 1

I'm going to play devil's advocate here and say that I would welcome blockchains / logbooks for digital video games. Done properly, one could finally actually own their copy of said game. Picture this: you purchase a digital PS5 game, play it, finish it, complete all the extras, etc., and then choose to lend it to a friend. The blockchain associated with the game would mean that you could simply transfer it to them. Hell, you could even have a system where you sell it to a third party.
It would end up being like owning the physical copy, except without needing to hand it to them in person. There are digital games I own but members of my family don't, and with the right tech in place I could select the game from my library, chose the person I want to transfer it to, and press OK. It would then disappear from my library and arrive in the other person's.
(as an aside, I've never understood Steam's need to boot you out of a game you're playing because the library owner starts up Steam and/or decides to play an entirely different game.)
1. Re:This might actually be good for games? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 02:43 · Score: 0
  
  The video game industry has been fighting "used" games for decades. Publishers HATE that consumers can resell/trade games. They've been doing everything they can to prevent that: one-time DLC codes on consoles, DRM like Steam on PC, etc. They've intentionally turned transferable copies into consumables. The last thing they're going to do is make it easier again.
2. Re:This might actually be good for games? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 02:45 · Score: 0
  
  You are forgetting that they dont want you to own your game, if this happen, you wont own the game they will lend it to you.
  Just as steam, you dont own game on steam, they lend you and if they decide to remove a game from the store they wont tell you.
  It wal just disapear from the store and you wont be able to install or play the game unless you had a steam backup of the game.
  I know I lost at least 10 games in steam.
  And I know of one that I did have a backup.
  Try and find Tom clancy's H.A.W.K. on steam... doesnt exist anymore.
  So yeah they would know you own the game and they would probably use that to lock it to one device... you paid for this game this exact one
  so ont try to play on PS4 if you bought the XBox one !! Or worse it's locked to your PS4 so if you want to play on your friends PS4 buy another one!
  I know they might not do that but they also might!
3. Re:This might actually be good for games? by Jadecristal · 2018-10-16 04:00 · Score: 1
  
  I was under the impression that once it was "sold" to you, it remained in your library even if the store stopped selling it.
  Does some license say otherwise? If not, aren't we back to "fraud"?
4. Re:This might actually be good for games? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 11:39 · Score: 0
  
  (as an aside, I've never understood Steam's need to boot you out of a game you're playing because the library owner starts up Steam and/or decides to play an entirely different game.)
  Because Legal and Control.
  Also, that's the specific reason why digital games shouldn't be resellable. If it requires someone else's permission to run what you've bought, it's a broken system. Permission can be faked, even on purpose built hardware. The industry wastes more time, money, and effort trying to stop something using complex and easily breakable online DRM methods that is easily prevented for most by simple physical possession. Even the Denuvo argument of "We protect the first $X $TIME_PERIOD of sales." is worthless with physical possession.
  If you think that blockchain or any other always online digital gaming resale system is going to work out let me remind you of this: Digital Resale means money actually trades hands for a product that can never be proven to be fully removed from the seller. I.e. Just because the blockchain says player A sold the game to player B. Does not mean player A lacks a backup copy and a broken / third party player that will still play it regardless. They may not be able to sell it twice, but within the first week alone: one could buy the game, wait a random amount of time, resell it while the release is still topping the charts for a quick buck, and still retain the original copy for themselves. Meaning that they paid the difference in sale price for the game to keep it permanently, while someone else bought a "used" copy and paid less for it. Hence although the publisher will get some money for the resale (because that's the entire point of digital distribution, I.e. to eliminate secondhand sales that don't give the mafia their cut), the publisher will make less money overall due to the decreasing number of "new" sales. Cue the publishers instituting mandatory "ownership" periods where you can't resell something you "own" in a desperate attempt to limit losses. Before scraping the resell system outright as "cost ineffective" while refusing to put out physical releases because they are "impractical", "insecure", and "the $TYPE_OF_WORK is too big to fit on a physical release".
  In short with digital, you DON'T own the thing you paid for. You rent the thing you pay for unless you're willing to break the DRM and the law, to actually own it. To say otherwise is glorifying being "genuine" to some random authority that considers all of us, including you, to be criminals.
So what happens to analog hole and re-encoding? by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2018-10-16 01:59 · Score: 3, Interesting

Whatever data is embedded in the created media file needs to survive going through a re-encoding process. For music is ridiculously simple to take a high quality analog output and to re-encode it. For digital, there is supposedly some mild protection in HDMI to stop casual pirating boot legging. But one can always buy a legitimate devices or hack a recorder to identify itself as a TV and download the stream for processing. It can be re-encoded with controlled biases and that can thwart any steganography in the video stream or picture files.
It is very hard to stop pirating. Pirating and boot legging is rampant in India. One film director was bemoaning that he got a congratulatory call from Dubai on his new movie on the day of the release. The company had not even begun movie distribution talks with any Dubai distributor at that time. But Bollywood thrives, they know they are going to get the money in the first week and that is all. Then the content is essentially public domain. People take clips and interpolate with some politician's speech and create funny sequences. They play the sound track and record themselves lip synching (called dub-mash) and redistribute. No one pays any royalty or digital rights. Even if a dub-mash goes viral it does not top the charts because it gets immediately boot legged into hundred you tube videos and the viewer count gets fragmented.
Through it all it some how thrives and makes some money for the creators.

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sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Stupid begets stupid by GoRK · 2018-10-16 02:02 · Score: 1

This is DRM news I can get behind. Trying to develop an absurd concept using an absurd system that is designed essentially to absorb and destroy capital investment is glorious. The question is whether or not the negative reinforcement will be enough to make them stop trying. Sadly I suspect not.
What's the point?! by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 02:31 · Score: 0

It's so bizarre to see people putting in effort to reduce their profits by teaching the world to pirate their works. Why don't they just accept money?! What's so bad about for-profit businesses?
DRM is illegitimate and casts a shadow of illegitimacy on everyone responsible for it. It's shady. It makes your product worth less. Serious businesses never use it, and if your business does, the message you're sending to customers is "we don't need customers."
1. Re:What's the point?! by Jadecristal · 2018-10-16 04:04 · Score: 2
  
  The best commentary from a software company that I've seen so far is that it was costing them a non-trivial amount to deal with the support requests from "customers" who cracked software, then thought that they should get support from the company.
  How can we help avoid situations like this, especially for smaller companies? I'm sure it can be done, and *believe* that DRM isn't the answer, but I'm not sure how to best... do it. If you only accept support requests online (maybe only *opening* them online?) then you can refuse to start a request for someone who isn't logged in with a registered copy of the software, I guess. Hmm...
Good luck by Mathinker · 2018-10-16 02:38 · Score: 2

From Wikipedia:

In August 2013, DVD-Ranger released a white paper detailing their methods for detecting, and subsequently removing, the present Cinavia signal from audio files.[16] The DVD-Ranger CinEx beta software synchronises and detects the Cinavia signal in the same way as a consumer Cinavia detection routine; these identified parts of the audio stream are permanently removed, removing the Cinavia signal. Post-processing can be used to try to "fill-in" the audible gaps created.[16]
There are claims[17] that Cinavia can be removed using open source software like Audacity with an extracted audio file from a video source. The audio file is processed by decreasing pitch by 13%; the processed audio file is then merged back into the video source. This renders the Cinavia watermark unreadable.
Ah, Blockchain... by GameboyRMH · 2018-10-16 02:52 · Score: 2

Is there anything it can't make worse? Mind you I don't think this will make the DRM harder to crack, just pointlessly inefficient. There's no distributed trust problem to solve here so it makes no sense to use a blockchain. A centralized database would be just as trustworthy and more efficient by an astronmical degree.
What has blockchain done for humanity so far? Empowered our criminal ownership class and driven another knife into our planet's back.

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"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Never Buy Anything Sony by BrendaEM · 2018-10-16 02:56 · Score: 1

If you don't support them, they will find something else to do instead of making DRM and patented media formats. Please don't feed the bears.

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https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
so you need to be on line all the time + bandwith by Joe_Dragon · 2018-10-16 03:22 · Score: 1

so you need to be on line all the time + a bit of bandwidth (if you need to keep the block chain synced all the time)
Did DIVX need to dial in for each play?
Quick and easy way to do watermarking by rsilvergun · 2018-10-16 03:22 · Score: 1

that's all this is.

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Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
"Finally?" by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 03:26 · Score: 0

Done properly, one could finally actually own their copy of said game.
I started owning copies of games in the 1980s. How can people "finally" get something they usually have?
What's next, is Sony going to invent the horseless carriage?
Found The Gullible Mark by Anonymous Coward · 2018-10-16 05:45 · Score: 0

And we found the gullible mark.
Can I interest you in genuine imitation Pleather jackets, just $4-, no $5-, uh, $699, special best price for you only! Limited time offer!
What will be the incentive to be a node? by jgfenix · 2018-10-16 07:50 · Score: 1

In cryptocurrencies there is a reward but in this?