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Activist Defends DVD Hack
LordStrange writes "CNN has posted a pleasantly Linux biased story about the DVD hack." Yet another chapter in the DVD crack saga. The article makes it a point to say that specs for DVD were being withheld, and that this crack opens up the DVD market to Linux users. I just hope that when they redesign
the scheme that they decide to open up the specifications so that other OSes aside from Win32 and Mac can gain proper DVD support.
They don't just give it out to anyone who wants it.
First, to CNN: Pretty good article - you gave a very balanced view of the issues.
However:
Why does everyone persist in calling this "hacking". Sure, it was hacking in the traditional (computer) sense of the word, but surely, now days, that word has bad overtones.
Perhaps it wouls be more appropriate to play up the reverse engineering aspect of this. Is it illegal for a non licenced manufacturer to design and sell replacement door panels for your car? Of course not! What the manufactures of those door panels do is exactly the same as what these people did.
Yes, they had to break some (pretty weak, and bungled) encryption, but is that any different from the door manufacture not releasing the specifications of a special bolt needed to attach the door to the car? Not really - and it was perfectly legal to do.
These people weren't trying to pirate movies, they weren't trying to steal national secrets, all they were trying to do was allow people to watch the movies they had legally bought, on a player they had legally bought.
This is no different from trying to get one of those programmable remotes to work with your VCR. Do you think the manufactures (originally, at least) gave out the codes for those remotes? People had to work them out by taking them to bits, checking the chip types and reverse engineering them. Does anyone complain about that? No! They just think is is stupid the manufactures didn't make it easier to do in the first place.
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...yet no mainstream media mention this. The reason the studios want encryption isn't to reduce piracy, it's to try to move back towards the days when viewing a film required paying for it on each and every occasion. You'd have to get a local theater to schedule a showing, then the reels would have to be rented, then the audience would pay. In comes the VCR and suddenly people can record those same movies from television, uncut full-length movies in the case of pay TV. So the movie industry gives in and starts selling those video tapes instead of renting or selling expensive 35mm reels. Since people copied these movies, we got Macrovision for cutting down on it. But real pirates could eliminate Macrovision anyway, so the real purpose is just to keep the average joe from copying tapes. Then comes the chance to move to a digital medium which can be encrypted to prevent piracy--by home users, that is, since real pirates can still get equipment to get at the decrypted video stream and save it, then eliminate Macrovision. And don't forget about DIVX, which is what the companies would really love--paying for every single viewing, or to "unlock" the DIVX permanently meant that it could only be played in the same DIVX machine in the same single place.
Fortunately the public didn't buy into DIVX, but it's all very revealing. The studios--especially Sony, which is notorious for taking extreme measures to eek every last penny from film and music consumers--want to prevent any copying at all, even for backup: eventually it's going to get scratched or gnawed by the dog, and of course you have to go buy another. And heaven forfend, no you can't make a quick copy for a friend to borrow because $30 per film is a single-user license no matter how much money they've cleared from that 30-year-old classic already. Never mind that film and music are the art of our age, and the price for enjoying that art has become too steep (just consider CD prices, versus the 70 cents per CD sold an artist would be lucky to get). And of course, thanks largely to Sony, companies now want to move to a "secure" DVD-like encryped form of the CD. Wow, it's great to live in an age when so many arts are so accessible to the masses--nevermind that most musicians would be happy to give the recordings away for free and make their living off the concerts, since it takes a Madonna to make anywhere near 70 cents per CD sold--most only break-even when advertising and production costs are factored in. It's also unfortunate that Congress has seen fit to increase the length of copyright for music and film--common sense dictates that they should move into the public domain a reasonable period after the death of anyone involved and the profit margins of the studios have been inked-in, but that's not the case.
In Shakespeare's day, even the poorest could afford to see a play once or twice a week. Film is today's equivalent, and yet a theater ticket usually costs upwards of seven dollars--add popcorn and a drink, and maybe a hotdog if you're hungry, and this gets into serious cash. Nearly all movies at least break even at the box office, and most make a good profit. Then they make a mint in video rentals. You wouldn't think it would be such a big deal, then, to have sales of unencrypted digital films--copying one in digital quality is expensive anyway considering the storage space required. It's cost effective to just buy a DVD anyway instead of a bootleg unless...unless...unless the studios want to keep DVD prices at a high level even when the infrastructure is paid for and costs of production go down. Which they do, if the lesson of continually rising CD prices isn't lost on you. Consumers really ought to fight this sort of thing, and give the industry a blunt message: no encryption, you've already made millions in profit by the time DVD sales roll around anyway. No artificially high prices once the profit is there. I am a capitalist, and I hate to say it, but ideally the government would prevent such repeated gouging considering the need for art and entertainment. How much profit is enough--150% of the costs, 300% of the costs, 1000% of the costs? Enough is enough, studios and recording industries...
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*