Watermarks, Holograms as DVD CSS Replacement 38
andyo writes: "Given all the discussion of technical anti-copying measures recently,
it might be interesting to see the replacement technologies that
the industry is working on after the DeCSS embarrassment. Watermarks
(which came up in an earlier
Slashdot discussion) and holograms are mentioned in this
article on Planet IT."
Re:There will be no analog TV after 2006 (Score:1)
Re:Watermarking and fines (Score:1)
Well, I never said my idea was perfect, ;) indeed I said there were probably ways to abuse this system, and you found a few... There should be a method for ownership transfer (with the new owner agreeing to the same fine system as the 1st owner,) and a way for reporting theft similar to the policies for reporting theft of credit cards, to limit liability for the original owner. We don't want people to buy tracks, send bogus "My music was stolen" letters to avoid fines and then start bootlegging, owners still have to have some responsibility.
Also, the watermark damn well better be strong. I'd suggest using some sort of digital signature in the watermark that ensures that even if the watermark could be removed, it could not be forged with current technology before the heat-death of the universe.
As for "buying something outright and owning it," that never was entirely true. When you buy a CD, DVD, software in the store, you're buying the media, fancy packaging, and a license for unlimited personal use of the information on the media, codified by copyright. This is how it worked for most of the 20th century.
Also just for arguments sake, let's say the $100 fine was per song, and that the owner could be fined a maximum of 5 times for incidents or $500, then he would be permanently banned from my online music service as a habitual offender, thus preventing further damage to the owner, the music service and the artists. (You know, get too many speeding tickets and lose your driver's license.)
Re:Costs... - how much they are for a video game (Score:1)
They do spend a LOT of money on marketing. For example the publishers pay the retailers tens of thousands of dollars for the right to display an endcap, the cardbord displays advertising a game at places like Babbages.
Yes, I'm also suspicious about the amount of money actually lost to piracy. Noone has been able to come up with reasonably plausible numbers. I think PC Gamer came up with the $1.00 number out of the blue.
I am disappointed that the developers don't get a bigger piece of the pie. They're in the same boat as musicians - getting the shaft from the publishers.
Re:Sony PS2 (Score:1)
true (Score:1)
Also what if my DVDs get stolen, there will have to be somthing set up so I can report it... and if I am forced to register everything then I'll just report it all stolen
Big deal, why don't they stop trying to stop us from copying it and just give up.
Re:Watermarks and Holograms.... (Score:1)
Sony PS2 (Score:1)
Interesting too, that Sony incorporates this tech into their PS2 and at the same time, they make quite a few movies.
Planet IT registration (Score:2)
Anyhoo, the article reads (between the lines) like the writer has a clue. They spend four pages explaining how CSS was designed to prevent "piracy", how it failed, and what factions are involved in the next generation of "copy protection". The holograms to identify legit DVDs is actually a good way (for now) of detecting counterfeit (read commercially pirated) disks, but what evidence have we seen that the MPAA even remebers that the commercial pirates are the people who are really hurting their members bottom lines?
This is macrovision,.. (Score:2)
http://www.macrovision.com [macrovision.com]
Vermifax
Re:This is macrovision,.. (Score:2)
Watermarks and Holograms.... (Score:2)
Watermarks - rely on a detection chip. Sure the average LUSER won't be disabling the chip, but ya wanna bet that the pirates do? How hard can it be to pull some line high, or cut it? Or reprogram the firmware.... The watermarking is a waste.
Moreover, at least *SOME* DVD producers won't want to use watermarks, and the players will have to accomodate this. So if I rip out a watermark, or change the right bits on a bit-by-bit copy to tell the box that it's not watermarked, then it's gonna play anyway...
Who benefits from this? NO ONE...
As for the holograms, yeah, they look pretty, but beyond "verifying" that I've got 'authentic' software, what good is it? Again, even if they check for it, the hardware's gonna have to accomodate people who don't want to waste millions to put a hologram on the disc (well, besides the Pirates and the MPAA members)... And if the disc is supposed to have one that the player is going to check for, then guess what - again, it's a software bit saying "verify that hologram" and bits can be flipped (pesky cosmic rays!).
I know it doesn't check for the holo right now, but assuming it did - and I scratch the holo? Then what? Do I get a new DVD that I have to purchase? Will they just send me a new one in exchange? (yah right!)...
Gist: Copy protection doesn't work. Can't work. and Won't ever work... Stop wasting everyone's time and money on this useless shit and innovate so I have to continually buy something that's worth buying rather than trying to protect something that can't be protected...
Watermarking and fines (Score:3)
Putting a unique watermark on a DVD or MP3 could work, but I'd do it a bit differently. Say I was the evil overlord of an online subscription based music company and I wanted to deter piracy, I would do as follows:
The idea here is not to bankrupt people or create drawn out court cases, we want a simple deterrent, while still allowing fair use of copyrighted works. There should be a limit to the fines - a customer shouldn't have to pay $100,000,000 if the company catches 1,000,000 infringing copies of his track on the net. Also, there should be a fair appeals process in place, preferably through a disinterested 3rd party so the customer can contest the fine, but the process should be quick, cheap and final.
Of course, depending of the evilness of the people implementing this plan, there are probably lots of ways for this plan to be abused. But maybe it can be turned into a fair way of fighting piracy.
Ok, I think I just let something evil loose, flame away!
Costs... (Score:1)
However, that's me - an ex-college student who graduated and has a real job... if I were still making $12K a year and eating ramen noodles, I'd be dealing with the crappy quality and watching 'em on my 'puter...
I'd suspect that the MPAA has problems with piracy in some countries because their products are OVERPRICED for those markets. Tip: Pirated products are cheaper, that's why people go for them. Reduce your prices to a level close to the pirates, and people will pay a buck or two more for your quality...(well, most will, the rest, who cares?)
Piracy is simple market dynamics at work: People go for the lowest price....
Re:Paranoid? (Score:1)
Thats because the reason they spend that much money producing it is that they all know that they will receive a good return on their investment based on current levels of piracy. Since copyright and copy protection in its current form is allowing them to do this, further levels of protection seem paranoid, and are just blatent profiteering.
Why should anyone in...say...the software industry want to stop fair use of their products?
Because fair use includes the right to disassemble. This would allow people to make compatible competing products.
Fair use allows us to use the product wherever we want. I don't know why the motion picture industry objects to this, but they seem to put a lot of effort into stopping us.
Fair use allows us to sell something that we no longer want. This represents a loss of a sale in their opinion.
Fair use means that a console company doesn't have total control of games for their console.
The problem is that the majority of people are not only into fair use but also piracy.
The majority of people are into fair use. I have a DVD player to watch films. Not to pirate them. If I buy a book I want to read it. Not mass produce copies. As it happens, the current level of protection allows me to do most of the things I might reasonably wish to do. Unfortunately it prevents me from making my own DVD player. Other "Copy protection" schemes would prevent me from copying something even after copyright expires, or prevent me from lending something to a friend, or making nth gen copies of music that I write and perform. Or recording a film for later viewing.
Re:Watermarking for what purpose? (Score:1)
Watermarking is adding imperceptible (as far as most people are concerned) data to an image or sound that can be identified by a program.
Artists can watermark their jpgs. When someone else rips off the file and claims that they created it, anyone who has the correct software can identify that it is actually made by someone else. Watermarks can be very powerful, to the point that a printed and then scanned jpg can still contain the identifying data.
Watermarking a dvd (read 4-8 gigs of data) takes a significant amount of computer proccessing. They are not going to give each dvd they burn a unique watermark, as it wouldn't be practical. So, watermarks are going to be more like a proof of copyright imbedded into the video. I bet they will be used for region coding or some other lame thing. (Right now it is easy to decrypt the vobs and strip the region coding. Anyone with the right equipment could burn those and sell them to the bad guys. Oh no!)
If anyone else has any brilliant ideas as to what the watermarking will be used for, or if anyone actually bothers to read the article, please reply.
-theman2
ps: I am still pissed that I can't buy the complete tv series "The Prisoner" collection on dvd as it is only released in europe now. If anyone has a dvd burner and wants to kill the region coding and send me some burnt copys, I will pay list price. I got the first 4 episodes and I am hooked =)
Re:Sony PS2 (Score:1)
Has anyone figured out why they bother to do this? All they do is piss off customers and anyone whos going to distribute copies of movies is going to do it with or without copy protection. Damn MagicGate...
Like Karma doesn't matter...
Moderators: -1, nested, oldest first!
There is no point to it. (Score:1)
Hopefully, the entertainment industry will someday get that clue (preferably after a brutal fragmenting of the current megalithic multinationals) and leave their legal problems with lawyers, and solve their technical with technology.
OK,
- B
--
Watermarking for what purpose? (Score:1)
Excellent. (Score:1)
Re:Watermarks and Holograms.... (Score:2)
//rdj
Re:Watermarking and fines (Score:2)
(Sounds like you want a kind of Viral GPL type license where you sell it to someone and they are now obligated under the same terms... or something? I dunno if you can do that. Cuz what if I just want to sell it outright..?)
What if the songs are cracked and your id # is watermarked into them before they're distributed?
Do you really waa legally binding agreement when you buy a DVD or music? What happened to the idea of just buying something outright and just plain owning it?
BTW-- is your $100 fine per song? per album? per DVD? Would a double-album be some huge multi-thousand dollar fine? Is it per-infringement, or if my song gets "out" and is pirated 1,000 times, do I owe $100,000?
It seems I'd get my 1,000,000 Napster friends together and we'd just all co-own the album, paying
W
-------------------
Watermarking and Insurance (Score:2)
My theory is that watermarked copyrighted media will create a new situation that isn't much different then the situation with our automobiles.
When every copy of a copyrighted work is marked with a watermarked, unique serial number, the store clerks will simply record the ID of the purchaser. This isn't going to be much trouble - most people use credit cards to pay for things anyhow. And you must have an ID to rent movies - you need to present proof-of-age for certain movies - it won't be any trouble for the RIAA/MPAA to push this scheme through.
So now what? If they find a copy of Star Wars Episode 3 with serial number 12305439 on a warez site, they can legally go after the person who purchased that title and sue him for damages. Considering the cost of this title, they will probably want $1e6 or so. He won't have the money to pay it - so what will he do?
The customer here will do the same thing as automobile owners do today. Just as an auto can kill a whole family, causing megabucks in damages, so can copyrighted material "escape". You can't expect the customer to keep it in a locked safe and guard it with his life, anymore then you can expect a driver to never hit anything. People crash cars, and information gets "freed".
The purchaser of copyrighted material will purchase "infringement insurance" to pay the damages for when his copyrighted material gets "freed", just as an automobile owner will purchase "liability insurance" for when he smashes another car and/or the occupants.
In fact, just like autos, the States will probably require their citizens to purchase "copyright insurance" in order to have access to copyrighted material - just as auto insurance is mandatory.
Of course, in order to prevent the poor from not being allowed to read, there will probably be some sort of subsidy to purchase copyright insurance for low-income individuals, as well as subsidized insurance for libraries and schools. Perhaps the government will even pay losses to copyright holders in the event that the infringer's insurance has lapsed! They do that here in Michigan for autos. This will all come out of tax money.
It'll happen, we'll survive, and the insurance companies will get even richer. We'll be a little poorer for the insurance money.
Re:Watermarks and Holograms.... (Score:2)
on the whole though, if they are putting holograms on for anti-piracy, but *not* checking them, then they are more than acceptable - one of the risks must be of buying what you think is a full, legal copy of a DVD and ending up with a pirate copy. if all DVDs carried hard-to-copy holograms, then you couldn't claim if caught that you couldn't tell the difference.
--
About the PS2 (Score:1)
Re:Watermarking and Insurance (Score:1)
But... how would somebody's DVD unintentionally end up on a warez site? I can't think of any reasonable way that this could happen.
Insurance is designed to cover things that are unavoidable and unpredictable. Whereas you copying a DVD is neither unavoidable nor unpredictable, so the argument for insurance just doesn't make any sense.
Re:Watermarking and Insurance (Score:1)
Unless you make it look like someone stole your car and crashed it into someboy.
I don't think it's a big leap to assume that a movie, if stolen, would be on the 'Net the next day.
My scenario says that someone buys the disc, gives it to a pirate friend for 'Net distribution, and claims that it got stolen, thus absolving the buyer of liability. After the claim is processed, he gets his movie back, as well as thousands of others who get that same copy.
The states would have to investigate every claim to check for this and any other scenario that one could concoct. Well, they wouldn't have to, but we all know the pressure the $$MPAA/RIAA$$ can put on a government.
Or even better
"Accountability is un-American!!" -- Opus, Bloom County
Thus sprach DrQu+xum.
# grep
And can be defeated for about USD$30 (Score:2)
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo [pineight.com].
Re:Copy on VHS (Score:1)
1 is what are you going to do with the copy? It can't be posted and shared over the internet. This limits how far your copies can go. The tape copy can not be copied without loss unlike a digital copy.
2 To make sure the copy is poor, the output of DVD players is Macrovision encoded ensuring the recording VCR will have fits with the signal. Try it. It is required of VCR manufactures to have a non defeatable AGC that the Macrovision signal will mess up. It is part of the VHS tm. license. You will get a copy that flashes in brightness, the color changes and the video drops out.
Re:Watermarking and Insurance (Score:1)
Who the hell is going to pay a monthly fee, or even a one-time fee, for what *might* happen to a $20 DVD?
In fact, just like autos, the States will probably require their citizens to purchase "copyright insurance" in order to have access to copyrighted material - just as auto insurance is mandatory.
Thus opening up a whole new level of insurance fraud.
Droid: Intellectual Property Claim Center. 1337 d00d: Hey, my copy of "The Net" got stolen! Droid: Yes sir. We are sending two of our investigators to your residence to investigate your claim.
The states (read: taxpayers) would have to shell out big bucks to investigate claims for $20 discs.
Thus sprach DrQu+xum.
# grep
You forgot the console royalties. (Score:1)
You forgot that most components of your average game console are patented, that the boot sector is copyrighted and must be bit-for-bit identical with a copy in the console's BIOS [mc.pp.se] for the disc to boot, and that the boot sector displays trademarks on screen.
You forgot the $10 per unit royalties for console games.
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo [pineight.com].
Re:Costs... - how much they are for a video game (Score:1)
I just saw an article in the latest issue of PC Gamer titled "Where Does Your Money Go?" showing a breakdown of the costs involved in producing a computer game. They are more expensive then you may realize. Here are the costs per game.
In case you can't do math, the above costs add up to $49.95 which coincidentally is what you typically pay at Babbages or Best Buy. The programmers get barely enough money to tread water. I'm not sure what the cost breakdowns are for DVD movies and music, but as has been frequently pointed out, the original creators don't get much, most of the expenses are in marketing.
Re:Plain text elimination (Score:1)
To sell more DVD players. (Score:2)
Why prevent people from making copies of their DVDs onto VHS tapes? What if they wanted the copy to take it to a relatives house to watch it, but the relative didnt have a DVD?
In that case, you're supposed to buy your relatives a DVD player for Christmas; royalties on DVD patents go straight back to Hollywood, who makes more money when you "Collect all six!" (one for each DVD region).
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo [pineight.com].
Re:Sony PS2 (Score:1)
Incidentally, Magic Gate is the digital protection used on the PS2 memory card, and is there to prevent Trojans being loaded onto the console. Nothing to do with DVD, other than that DVD cracks - when they appear - will probably be loaded via Magic Gate. Chipping that console is NOT going to be fun - have you taken it apart yet? ;)
Part of the trademark license? (Score:1)
It is required of VCR manufactures to have a non defeatable AGC that the Macrovision signal will mess up. It is part of the VHS tm. license.
I can't believe that JVC (the VHS trademark and (formerly) patent owner) would want to cripple VCRs in such a way. Use a $30 video stabilizer [google.com].
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo [pineight.com].
Re:This is macrovision,.. (Score:1)
--
From: Aaron "PooF" Matthews
There will be no analog TV after 2006 (Score:1)
To vote against it with your pocket book, don't buy any digital TV.
You mean "don't buy any TV." All US analog television broadcasts will go silent on January 1, 2006, when the FCC reclaims all analog television frequencies (as is its right; the Supreme Court has ruled that the Ninth and Tenth Amendments do not imply a right to broadcast). All television will be digital, encrypted, and non-recordable.
It's true this will set back the introduction of digital TV if nobody buys it
The law does have a provision for this, to push back the introduction of digital TV if it has not yet caught on, but Hollywood knows how to market to the sheeple[?] [everything2.com], and the sheeple follow the rule "Do what you're told; buy what you're sold."
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo [pineight.com].
Re:Watermarking and Insurance (Score:1)