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Flood of 4K James Bond Leaks Further Point To iTunes Breach (torrentfreak.com)
AmiMoJo writes: All 24 movies from the iTunes exclusive 4K "James Bond Collection" have leaked online. This is further evidence to suggest that pirates have found a way to decrypt 4K source files from the iTunes store. How, exactly, remains a mystery. While most regular releases can be ripped or decrypted nowadays, 4K content remains a challenge to breach. Up until a few days ago, pirate sites had never seen a decrypted 4K download from Apple's video platform. However, a flurry of recent leaks, including many titles from the iTunes-exclusive "James Bond Collection," suggests that the flood gates are now open. It all started earlier this month ago when a pirated 4K copy of Aquaman surfaced online. The file is a so-called "Web" release, also known as WEB-DL in P2P circles. This means that it's a decrypted copy of the original source file. These were never seen before for 4K releases. Because the Aquaman release was only available on iTunes in this quality at the time, the most likely conclusion was that Apple's platform was the source. However, based on just one single leak, it was tricky to draw strong conclusions.
Did anyone honestly believe that SPECTRE wouldn't be able to figure out a way to decrypt Apple's 4k movies?
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No thanks. Too many James Bond movies for my taste
I never saw how it was supposed to be possible to really prevent someone from ripping digital content that can be played back on a computer?
It seems like iTunes itself handles the content decryption process so you can view what you purchased. And once that can take place, you could write software that captures each frame out of the video buffer along with the audio that's playing back to the speakers and saves them to a new file?
I'm sure there are challenges in keeping the video and the audio synchronized as you're saving that much data in real-time as it plays ... but modern computers should have the CPU power to do it.
Now maybe they will finally start letting us watch 4K movies that we paid for on our 4k monitors which we also paid for. I am NOT buying what is essentially a $200 dongle to watch 4K movies. Now that the cat is out of the bag, maybe they can stop being so precious.
Pretty sure the number of surprised people is around 0.
I suppose this is good news for people who want 4k content but can't use proprietary stores or players. They might as well just pirate the stuff until/unless the industry starts selling standard files. (Who the fuck wants to have to use iTunes?)
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
When will the content providers realize that every content protection system ever devised has been broken. They've been trying this for a good 40 years now when pay TV satellite signals were first scrambled, and they always get broken.
It's described as a "cat and mouse game", but what's never revealed is that the cat is Tom and the mouse is Jerry. Pretty much the mouse is always winning.
I did finally start buying all my videos through itunes, then after buying a new Macbook pro everything I bought wouldn't play saying I had to buy a different frame rate version or some shit error message. Down load for free, buy with no DRM or I won't watch period.
I buy 4K content on iTunes to play on my AppleTV on occasion, but when you download a copy to a computer it's limited to 1080p. Does this mean I can finally get copies of movies I've paid for in 4K so when Apple pulls them from its catalog I have a copy? I would actually make more 4K purchases on iTunes if I was sure I could download a copy, even if it had DRM as long as I could play it from my Mac to my TV.
in anima Apparatus
Great! Now I can look forward to FINALLY downloading all of The Honeymooners episodes in full 4K!
Didn't see that coming
Like many security issues, piracy often leverages insider leaks. Accessing the content before the DRM is applied and sharing with an insiders list is often simpler. These closed circles keep things quiet, but eventually, somebody shares outside the closed circle and then things get shared wider.
If the DRM was broken, I would expect their full catalog to have been shared online.
Are these just 4k resolution or do they also use some wonky colorspace that looks all washed out and displays properly on virtually nothing?
I recently tried my hand at ripping some UHD blurays. The ripping part went without a hitch but when I used ffmpeg to reencode transparently to a manageable size (h.265 CRF 19) I noticed three things.
1. Color metadata gone
2. Resulting bitrate almost identical to HD version of the same content.. WTF?
3. Nothing I have not PC or TV would play it or the original ripped copy properly.
In fact I would say the matched 4k TV/UHD BD player/BD disc all produced by the same company (Sony) appeared slightly washed out compared to the BD version. You can apply a transfer function to the encode to convert back to something usable but still you end up clipping extremes of contrast without further processing and no matter what algorithm you select it will never be as good as the original BD version. What's all this crap about dynamic range anyway? 10-bit makes sense and is welcomed but HDR? On TVs with shitty LED backlights that can't even physically reproduce gamut ancient CRTs pumped out with ease? JFMEC the only way they make this shit work at all is by cranking up the brightness to 11 and burning contrast margin... and that ever so incredible IPS glow... it's not better it's obnoxious.
I long suspected UHD was a scam. It was only after I tried playing both discs side by side on a 70" TV with the TV info banner showing UHD and HD respectively and still couldn't tell a lick of difference standing way closer to the screen than anyone normally would that it finally dawned just how pointless 4k really is.
To really see a difference you need to drive way higher bitrates in 3 or 4 layer territory like most of the impressive 4k technology demos and even then it makes no difference in normal viewing position.
Personally it's not worth it... I just don't care and won't waste my time with 4k content anymore. I did my homework. Tried it... it's a complete waste of time.
I think this showcases how piracy and torrenting and DRM don't really matter - BluRay rips of basically anything are always available, if you know where to look. Sure - this 4k version is new, but whatever.
All that Netflix and iTunes etc. do is help keep honest people honest, by convenience. And they are doing very well with that. They don't really sell exclusive access to media - they sell the EASE of access to the media.
As an example: I use Netflix when possible, but fire up a very easy to use netflix-like interface to torrent streaming when I want to watch something not available there. My non-technical wife thinks that even having to consider stuff like different torrent health for the different available qualities is too much hassle, and sticks to Netflix.
This is also why I think that the really easy ways to pirate (torrent-based netflix alternatives, piracy enabled Kodi devices, etc.) should keep on being slightly suppressed in the mainstream media and general mindset. Not banned as such, but don't advertise them. This way, everyone can be happy.
In the country I live in, that's the way prostitution is legally handled: it is legal, but pimping or promoting it is quite illegal.
I mean it's been years, but there was this one guy that decided to say fark all to convention, and was just calling things 1080p when it was really just badly upscaled content of a much lower size. It was obvious, because the files he uploaded were half the size an actual 1080p video of that length would be. He just made it harder to find true 1080p 5.1 content because so much was labeled as being it, but wasn't. So like, you guys sure it's really 4k?
Living in France, lots of TV shows and movies are either just not available or only available dubbed in French. The delightful media companies of course geo-fence and disallow any legal streaming from an English speaking country.
"Voila" - only workable option to see stuff I would happily pay for is via pirated copies.
Studies have shown that "pirated content" actually increases sales. By leaking it, not only can they benefit from increased revenue, but they can also extort money from "illegal downloaders".
How can an end user know whether a copy is authorized? Obviously they haven't been given permission to distribute it, so seeders beware, but leachers have no way of knowing until it has been downloaded especially with all the fragmentation in streaming services.
After 1080p is diminishing returns for me, even on my 70" TV
So exciting. And not queer over-compensation AT ALL. kek
The HDTV stream from DVDs is only 12 bit colour, the encoding of BluRay is, IIRC, 16bit. I do not believe 4K uses even 24 bits except on the output side. Internally in each segment of frame it uses a tiny fraction of 24 bits since there aren't 2^24 bits to have a separate colour.
That glowy thing on the other end of that HDCP connection is called "A monitor" and it doesn't show encrypted pictures nor does it do the encryption itself. Therefore it has to be getting it as raw free text.
When you demand I pay you damages well above the value of the product you are stealing from me my effort making that copy. YOU did fuck all to make that copy, I did all the work on my end. So unless you want to reduce the cost by the value of the work done by making copies (which according to the split from publisher to artist is about 90% of the price of the product), you are stealing my work when I copied "your movie". Filthy pirate, you.
There is no copyright protection in place for personal use of a copyrighted work, dumbass, so your quotemine of the law is pure your villainy and criminality at work. That law also specifically allows the parent poster. You just cut out the bit that fits. Quote mined.
Someone screen capped it and recompressed it. It's a 4K stream... To screen cap it and recompress is going to be hardly noticeable
My computer has to decrypt to play the damn thing, obviously it can be decrypted.
Apple to me really never has done well with security, they always take the easy way out so everything works. Be interesting to see how badly Apple does with its new TV service.
Have the online freedom to talk about movies, DRM and 4K.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
In the end, the signal is sent electrically and non-encrypted to the pixels. It can, at the very least, be captured in this step, with hardware that an advanced hobbyist can afford and build. This is known as the "analog hole" and nothing can be done about it unless everybody gets Digital Restriction Management hardware installed in their eyes. (Not that I would put that idea past the copyright Mafia.) Very likely it can be captured earlier.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
It still has to present red, blue or green. It can't be scrambed at that point.
DO try to keep up, dear.
It protects effective copyright protection. Since the personal copying is not covered by copyright AND THE DMCA SPECIFICALLY ALLOWS IT TO BOOT, you're a lying shithole who is trying to scare people shitless to protect your tiny monopolies. Fuck off. I'm glad your shit is being copied. You deserve to die off in obsolescence, you've no longer a purpose, only a massive unearned ego. Scream about how stuff won't be made if you're not given sole rights to everything that can possibly display "your" stuff. See how well your encrypted stuff pays the fucking food on the table and roof over your head.