Disney Patents Blockchain-Based Movie Distribution System To Stop Pirates (torrentfreak.com) 95
A few days ago, Disney added a new anti-piracy patent to its arsenal: a blockchain-based distribution system that aims to make it harder for pirates to intercept films being distributed to movie theaters. TorrentFreak reports: The patent in question, titled "Blockchain configuration for secure content delivery," focuses on the distribution of content to movie theaters. This is a vulnerable process where pirates with the right connections can make copies during or after delivery. There are already several security mechanisms in place to prevent leaks from happening. Theaters have to adhere to strict rules, for example, and movies are all watermarked. Nevertheless, Disney believes that this isn't sufficient to stop pirates. "[S]uch security mechanisms are often reactive rather than preventative. For example, watermarking configurations insert a watermark into content to track piracy after the piracy has already occurred. As a result, current configurations do not adequately prevent piracy," the company explains.
Disney argues that by implementing a secure blockchain-based system, the distribution process can be more tightly controlled. Among other things, it will make it impossible for a movie to be played before it arrives at the intended location. "In contrast with previous configurations, the blockchain configuration verifies that the content is received at the intended destination prior to allowing playback of the content at that destination," the patent reads.
The system can also be configured with other anti-piracy features. For example, it can track the number of times a movie is played to prevent bad actors from showing it more often than they should. "Further, the blockchain configuration has an automated auditing mechanism that tracks playback of the content at the destination to ensure that the quantity of playbacks is accurately recorded. Therefore, piracy by the intended recipient, in the form of a greater quantity of actual playbacks than reported playbacks, is prevented.' While Disney regularly refers to movie theaters and projectors, it specifically states that the patent also applies to other 'playback environments.' For example, when Disney content is sent to other streaming providers, which will need the proper credentials to play the content. There are several possible practical implementations but whether Disney has concrete plans to use these in the real world is unknown.
Disney argues that by implementing a secure blockchain-based system, the distribution process can be more tightly controlled. Among other things, it will make it impossible for a movie to be played before it arrives at the intended location. "In contrast with previous configurations, the blockchain configuration verifies that the content is received at the intended destination prior to allowing playback of the content at that destination," the patent reads.
The system can also be configured with other anti-piracy features. For example, it can track the number of times a movie is played to prevent bad actors from showing it more often than they should. "Further, the blockchain configuration has an automated auditing mechanism that tracks playback of the content at the destination to ensure that the quantity of playbacks is accurately recorded. Therefore, piracy by the intended recipient, in the form of a greater quantity of actual playbacks than reported playbacks, is prevented.' While Disney regularly refers to movie theaters and projectors, it specifically states that the patent also applies to other 'playback environments.' For example, when Disney content is sent to other streaming providers, which will need the proper credentials to play the content. There are several possible practical implementations but whether Disney has concrete plans to use these in the real world is unknown.
Blockchain for digital media licenses (Score:2)
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Well, just like DRM or anything they can think of, this will never stop piracy. It will probably simply make piracy a little harder to accomplish, that's all.
The only way to completely stop piracy is to make it impossible for anybody to see the movie. As long as somebody can see the movie, he/she can capture the video and the audio and then share it.
Re:Blockchain for digital media licenses (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, and you only need one copy to leak and its all over
The REAL solution to piracy is to stop this constant balkanization of streaming services. I've no problem paying for Netflix and Amazon, and if I was in the US maybe Hula too. But now every damn studio has their own service and its over the top.
Apple+ had literally one show worth watching (For all mankind), and after that, nothing. Cancel!
Disney+ has had a few disneyish things that where interesting, those marvel series, but beyond that? Nothing. Cancel.
And on it goes.
Easier to just stop into Pirate Bay and grab a no-fuss non-nonsense drm-removed version to watch at my pleasure on the devices I actually want to watch it on.
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Apple+ had literally one show worth watching (For all mankind), and after that, nothing.
Actually, I found both Ted Lasso (helps that I am currently in the UK, but am not British) and Mythic Quest very funny. I still don't plant to pay for it after my 1-year free (with an M1 Mac Mini I got to try out) expires.
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The balkanization is a problem only if you don't cancel/rejoin and treat the whole thing as cable a-la-carte. And it is a lot easier to just switch streaming services than going to Pirate Bay (wow, I haven't been there in more
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Dude, just cancel and rejoin.
I can guarantee that will soon become a non-option; once these streaming services hit anything resembling critical mass, your only signup options will be multi-year contracts.
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Dude, just cancel and rejoin.
I can guarantee that will soon become a non-option; once these streaming services hit anything resembling critical mass, your only signup options will be multi-year contracts.
How much more critical mass does Amazon, Hulu or Netflix need? Your scenario is possible, but unlikely since customer bases have already moved past multi-month/multi-year contracts.
You could be right, but I don't think you are. I guess time will tell.
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That's a great strategy if you're content having your TV consumption defined by binge watching one or two series at a go.
Many people enjoy watching several shows at a leisurely pace though and many others enjoy having multiple libraries to browse for impulse watching.
Basically, solid strategy if it works for you but it's a bit too intense for many people.
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That's a great strategy if you're content having your TV consumption defined by binge watching one or two series at a go.
Many people enjoy watching several shows at a leisurely pace though and many others enjoy having multiple libraries to browse for impulse watching.
Basically, solid strategy if it works for you but it's a bit too intense for many people.
We don't really binge-watch at home. Maybe once or twice every 2 months. But in general, my kids just watch cartoons, and I just watch re-runs.
I did engage in binge-watching a few years ago (GoT, for instance), but I just altered my view patterns to fit this way of renting and flipping through streaming services.
Also, streaming services are now releasing one episode per week for their original content to pause binge-watchers. So, even if I wanted to binge-watch, say, the future 2nd season of "Raised by
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You're not getting what I'm saying. If some one wants to watch a few seasons of a show over say a 6 month period your strategy wont work for them if they also want to watch other shows at the same time that are on other streaming networks. You say your plan doesnt involve binge watching but I don't see any other way for it to be viable.
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I kinda like that Disney has its own streaming service. That way I don't have to filter out Disney content on Netflix.
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>The only way to completely stop piracy is to make it impossible for anybody to see the movie.
There's another route which current Hollywood's unintentionally doing better in than DRM arms race - Making pandering movies that no one watches (hyperbole I know) and are mostly banned in the country which they pandered to anyway. See Shan Qi, Mulan, Onward etc.
Re:Blockchain for digital media licenses (Score:4, Interesting)
Piracy is always service problem for me. There are many games I have pirated for the reasons of "Simply not available in my country", "My country has an inferior version (cut content, censorship, etcetera)", and "The place I can buy it from has a 100KB/s download speed on a game that is gigabytes in size".
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If it's a video DRM mechanism it is ultimately going to boil down to the same old "deliver encrypted media to some probably-untrustworthy trusted client that implements conditional access and phones home to the mothership.
I'm struggling to see how 'blockchain' changes any
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and allows things like trading a physical copy for a digital one or vice versa.
Oh god NO! Next you’ll want to be able to sell your old copy or *shudders* buy a used copy like some kind of savage.
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Well, no duh. That's the intent.
The problem is that no DRM system ever works as intended, and usually causes more problems for the consumer, let alone the intermediate paths. By design.
Like, go back to the older VOD PPV system that cable companies had. They originally had to allocate a channel and have a scrambler on the sending side, and only those who paid for the descrambler and one-time key to decrypt it, could watch it. I can't think of any pre-DVR VOD system that was remotely successful. People would
cable ppv worked for years let you tape as well (Score:2)
cable ppv worked for years let you tape as well even said that in the ppv ad's
Re: Blockchain for digital media licenses (Score:2)
Yeah, DRM makes me feel like a mug for paying for what I watch. Discs are protected, making it difficult to rip a disc so I can watch while travelling or stream to my TV. HDCP makes players quirky (e.g. causing issues with splitter boxes).
It would all be easier if I simply torrented to receive a higher quality product for free.
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"HDCP"
Remember: HDCP is an abbreviation for "HANDICAP".
I wonder if this was merely an accident or if it was intentional to make that acronym look like "handicap".
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why trade one copy for one copy when you can make it into 1000's of copies? it's going to be tough to make piracy less attractive when it removed artificial constraints.
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WTH? Why not use email? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here, problem solved.
Re:WTH? Why not use email? (Score:5, Insightful)
This, using a blockchain for this is anti-efficient bullshit that improves nothing. I wonder if they think putting out a press release with "blockchain" in it will boost stock prices.
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Re: WTH? Why not use email? (Score:2)
This patent reads like Disney is trying to crackdown on unauthorized playing of the movie at the theater itself. This kind of copy protection is likely a big feature if you don't trust the theaters, which is likely given world wide releases.
Also, there are private screenings for movie reviewers, directors, and other insiders. This technology would secure those as well. I've heard of special dvd players used for this. This technology might be better.
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Re: WTH? Why not use email? (Score:4, Informative)
You clearly don't know what blockchain is.
Blockchain is a logistics mechanism. It (contrary to how some people see it associated with cryptocurrencies) contains no "data" other than tracing who has opened the envelopes with the keys.
There's three kinds of ways Disney can do this, and knowing Disney, they would do all of them.
- Player key
- Media key
- License key
Blueray players use the first two, but the keys can't be changed. The thought process is that if the player key is compromised, it can be blacklisted. However the reality is that it's easier to replace a $200 BD-ROM than it is to replace a $10,000 media library. Basically how media keys work is that every company either uses one key for all their titles, or one key per title. So if that key is leaked somehow, they can just change it, and new discs will be impossible to decrypt with the old key.
That said, the media key is decrypted by the player key. Where blockchain comes in most likely here, is that Disney will track the ledger of every "playback" of the media key by the player keys, and look for blacklisted keys and actively blacklist players that violate playback agreements. This will almost certainly translate to theaters going out of business when customers demand a refund when the player key gets blacklisted by accident and the theatre has to deal with the kind of BS customer service that exists already (eg, none. See Youtube, See Twitch)
Thus I expect it will be more of a license key layer where theaters and VOD systems will likely report every playback start and stop to Disney via blockchain, and it will log the player key hash and the media hash into it. So each "license" will be a separate ledger. If Disney decides you've exceeded the license, they stop sending "copies" to the theater with that player key.
directv and dish have push VOD, VOD, and lininer (Score:2)
directv and dish have push VOD, VOD, and linear channels for PPV. Authed on local boxes in people homes.
Re: WTH? Why not use email? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, basically, the same ol' same ol' client-server authentication, but with blockchain awkwardly grafted on for literally no purpose other than to hope it boosts stock prices because omg blokchan. Just like twenty years ago when companies were adding lowercase "e"s to the beginning of everything.
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I thought the same thing. Blockchain works for something like Bitcoin where there's no centralized server that holds all the accounts. But in this case, Disney is sending out a movie to 10,000 theatres. The theatre hardware can connect directly to Disney's server to say I want to play this movie in this theatre at this time, and the server can return a decryption key, or record the event in a single database.
What's the value in recording all that information in a blockchain? Why do all theatres need to reco
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"What's the value in recording all that information in a blockchain? Why do all theatres need to record all their show history in a public ledger?"
Likely some fresh out of college kid said "Blockchain is the newest thing, blah blah blah..." and someone senior in the company who is not very technically savvy but "knows enough to be dangerous" gave it the go-ahead.
This kind of thing is common in the private and public sector. I have a vague recollection of a school district who got snookered i
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"So, basically, the same ol' same ol' client-server authentication, but with blockchain awkwardly grafted on for literally no purpose other than to hope it boosts stock prices because omg blokchan. Just like twenty years ago when companies were adding lowercase "e"s to the beginning of everything"
Wow, I completely forgot all about it. A short while back, I made a post regarding AOL and saying "who still uses AOL, grandma who refuses to part with her 2001 era e-machines computer?", imagining the e be
Re: WTH? Why not use email? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you did get it.
With the sole exception of cryptocurrencies I haven't yet seen any problem solved by blockchain that couldn't be solved better without. This isn't different.
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There really just aren't all that many situations where you have lots of mutually untrusted parties and no opportunities for those parties to lie or cheat or hack the system before whatever you are trying to record gets written into the official record. This is true to an extent even with currency applicati
Re: WTH? Why not use email? (Score:2)
Exactly.
Actually it's even worse than that.
Compared to classic currencies, cryptocurrencies promise two things: anonymity and decentralization.
As far as anonymity is concerned the opposite is the case: your wallet is is stored in the ledger For. Ever. After. So if someone in the future manages to piece together bits of your identity and link them to your wallet id, thry can reconstruct every single transaction of your past. If they manage to identify business parnets of yours, and associate them with you by
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Decryption keys are tied to the server and projector. The key specifies that *this* version of *this* film will work from date/time x to date/time y, on *this* server connected to *that* projector.
It's pretty tight - you've even got different keys for a subtitled version of a film vs. the non-subtitled version.
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"This patent reads like Disney is trying to crackdown on unauthorized playing of the movie at the theater itself."
Theater chains have to give a % of revenue back to the studios. If they do an extra showing per day, they could pocket that money. This could help studios track and ensure compliance. There's nothing like not being able to trust your business partners!
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All valid and reasonable points. The mouse may disagree though, and they are what stands between theater owners and their movies. I'm not saying they're right, but they have the power.
Re:WTH? Why not use email? (Score:5, Informative)
I know a lot of theaters use hard drives to distribute films, I don't know if things are encrypted specifically. Years ago I had a friend who was doing film to digital projector swap-outs and part of that was installing the ingest system and he had said the hard drives are encrypted to the specific machine at each theater.
Also a majority of films today are sent digitally over satellite links which is technically security by obfuscation in a sense but i imagine it's pretty effective, especially since that stream itself is likely encrypted.
Digital Cinema Distribution Coalition [dcdcdistribution.com]
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The film isn't actually decrypted until it hits the projector. There's a specific processor board - "Enigma" - in the projector that decrypts the data stream coming from the server.
Both the server and projector are tied to each other by serial number (and probably an additional secret serial number or key). You have to have the projector powered on to even ingest the film to the server. The ingest process will throw an exception until it can contact the projector.
If you remove a single access cover on the p
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Most pirate releases these days are from Korean digital versions. For some reason movies get released there digitally while they are still in Western cinemas. They have Korean subtitles hard-coded but the quality is at least as good as DVD, often better.
Other times digital copies leak from places like Bluray mastering houses. It's getting less common though so usually have to wait for the official release now.
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Super interesting, thanks My first thought was surely distributors have control over the projection hardware. Sure enough. But not enough I guess if they’re still looking for additional measures.
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That's exactly how it happens for cinemas without sufficient internet bandwidth to receive the film over the 'net.
You get the hard drive, upload the files to the server, you get the key via email, you upload the key, and it "opens" day ro two before your first screening (to give you time for a test and resolve issues), then it "closes" after your last screening. IOW, the key specifies a window where your film will work.
Nothing stopping you from showing it more times than you've paid for, but some distribut
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The goal of this is not encrypting the hard drives. They're already encrypted and the keys are released to theatres when it's being played back.
The problem is, of course, that a theatre might be licensed for 3 showings a day. Since the key is the same, the theatre could do an unsanctioned 4th showing and keep that money.
It's not about piracy of movies at the home video level, it's piracy of the movie at the theatre level. First run movies typically pay the studio 100% of the proceeds and live off the conce
Sigh... (Score:3)
If only traditional servers were capable of incrementing counters every time a specific player key phoned home to request an unlock...
Blockchain makes everything better (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't the whole blockchain fad dying now that everyone has realized that it's not universally useful?
While I couldn't be bothered to read the whole patent, it seems like it's just a scheme with DRM on the projectors. A centralized server makes a whole lot more sense than a blockchain-based solution.
If you want to send the theaters the movie early but not let them play it until an agreed time, you just encrypt the movie and then send them the decryption key when it's time. Come on guys, this takes about ten seconds to figure out.
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Shhh, I profit off of fads
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Yes, I started reading the comments to figure out WTF blockchain can possibly add to a centralised authentication/encryption system using conventional public key crypto. I think I will remain disappointed. Nothing but buzzword-compliance?
Re:Blockchain makes everything better (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want to send the theaters the movie early but not let them play it until an agreed time, you just encrypt the movie and then send them the decryption key when it's time. Come on guys, this takes about ten seconds to figure out.
Disclaimer: Despite what you might think based on what I'm about to say, I. actually am a Disney fan.
Not kidding when I say this, but perhaps you are not aware that a few years ago we had some articles posted on how Disney outsourced pretty much their entire US based IT staff, or at least the Florida based ones, to an Indian outsourcing company. There were the usual demands that employees stay long enough to train their replacements. Not really having their own IT staff any more might be a very good reason why they didn't think of your suggestion.
Re: Blockchain makes everything better (Score:2)
If you mean you like some of their work (products), good for you and fair enough/fine. If you mean you like the corporation, for the love of $Deity, why??
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Isn't the whole blockchain fad dying now that everyone has realized that it's not universally useful?
While I couldn't be bothered to read the whole patent, it seems like it's just a scheme with DRM on the projectors. A centralized server makes a whole lot more sense than a blockchain-based solution.
If you want to send the theaters the movie early but not let them play it until an agreed time, you just encrypt the movie and then send them the decryption key when it's time. Come on guys, this takes about ten seconds to figure out.
According to the summary, they're not only trying to prevent use before a specific date. They're wanting to track the number of times played, and associate playback with a specific location. With the hard drive + encryption key method, as soon as it's decrypted all the shackles are off. It can then be copied, distributed, viewed an unlimited number of times.
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According to the summary, they're not only trying to prevent use before a specific date. They're wanting to track the number of times played, and associate playback with a specific location. With the hard drive + encryption key method, as soon as it's decrypted all the shackles are off. It can then be copied, distributed, viewed an unlimited number of times.
Yes, if you want to do that you need your playback hardware to enforce your desired DRM limitations. (And it will continue to fail, because DRM doesn't work if your attacker is even mildly motivated to bypass it.) But adding a blockchain does fuck-all to solve any of the limitations inherent in DRM systems.
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It doesn't actually get decrypted until it gets to the projector, which reduces your copying options to using a camera pointed at the screen.You can't just 'cp aquaman.mp4 /media/usb1'. You don't even get access to a command line on the server, and there's nothing in the GUI about copying *to* a hard drive or USB, only copying *from*.
You get an encrypted film on a hard drive, which you upload to the server. Not decrypted yet.
You get an email with a decryption key, which includes the time and date window, th
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This seems like a good application for blockchain. Yes, it is exactly DRM for theaters, filling a gap that studios have apparently been worried about. The static key encryption you propose doesn't solve the problem of leaks from theaters. Once they have the key, that's it. They can decrypt their copy and redistribute it, or show
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If you were in a theater watching a movie and it suddenly froze due to a network issue because the content was streamed or a key didn't get delivered, you'd be unhappy, right?
This seems like a good application for blockchain.
How do you think blockchain solves the problem of network issues, magic?
Your fancy DRM projector has to have some method of getting the OK to play the movie. If you're going to get that permission over the internet from a blockchain, there's no reason it can't just contact some centralized server and cut out the blockchain step entirely.
Blockchain has absolutely no purpose in a scheme like this.
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"They can decrypt their copy and redistribute it, "
No, they can't. It's not decrypted on the server, it's decrypted by a specific processor IN the projector.
"or show it as often as they like"
That, they *can* do. But it wouldn't be at all difficult to have the server or the projector phone home to report the number of screenings.
When you wish upon a chain... (Score:2)
you must have a damaged brain.
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I'd have gone with "Makes no difference. You're insane," personally.
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If I may borrow from Aretha Franklin, "Chain, chain, chain - chain of fools".
Did someone accidentally do a find-replace? (Score:5, Interesting)
The summary and article keep using the word "movie", which implies an artistic endeavour whose primary purpose is to be seen by and enrich the lives of all, but from the surrounding context it seems pretty clear that the actual original word being used is "product".
51% attack (Score:2)
I assume this is some kind of private block chain where you can't add nodes and write whatever you want.
Two words: Analog hole (Score:1)
Yeah, tech might prevent early playback and make bit-level copying useless, but we will always have the analog hole.
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You're still right of course, and I doubt that hole could ever be plugged. There's no kind of HDCP that works past the displayed image. Not unless
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Stop giving them ideas. Do you have any doubt, if possible, Disney would have decryption modules installed in everyone's eyeballs?
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Nah, they'll come out with Baby Vader and everyone will find him soooo cute. [techeblog.com]
Everybody knows that AI is better than blockchain (Score:4, Funny)
so why is Disney sticking to this prehistoric blockchain crap?
Buzzword Bingo (Score:2)
I am not an expert on blockchain technologies. But I do know enough to be fairly confident that every claim that's made in article is 100% bullshit.
Right. Because up until now movie theaters somehow played movies before they received their film or digital copies, all the time. They had some kind of a magical ray-beam machine, that beamed the movie in straight from the studio, or the Fedex package in transit to the
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It's fairly obvious they are talking about the movie being intercepted en route, and played by someone OTHER than the intended recipient.
and the movie theaters are to buy a Disney player? (Score:2)
and the movie theaters are to buy an Disney player per screen to play them?
Can the hardware in place work with this or will theaters be forced to pay more after taking the covid beating. Ok then small coke $3.75 big $4.50 and small popcorn $ 4.00 big $7.00
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It's pretty ridiculous - look up the "Digital Cinema Initiative", it's a solved problem.
$7.75 for a small Coke and popcorn? (Score:3)
Why would the theaters reduce their prices on Coke and popcorn if they had to pay more for new hardware?
Is their stock price in trouble or something? (Score:2)
Doesn't that patent already exist? (Score:1)
I thought that patent already existed - NFTs?
Quick question (Score:2)
heyy (Score:1)
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Cheating Theatres (Score:1)
For new releases movie theatres tend to pay the distributers a percentage of the box office revenue. It is in the interest of the distributor for the cinema to show the film more often so that more people have the opportunity to buy tickets.
If the theatre wanted to cheat the distributed it would simply under-report the box office takings. Distributors and the audit departments of the cinema chains will investigate if the box office figures seem to be abnormal. This is not a new problem- systems like the ele
Could be the production pipeline (Score:2)
It could be about the production pipeline. There were previous leaks were partners in sound design, etc were there sources. And do not forget the infamous old guy who was being nice to everyone and lent out his screener copies.
So they could add some sort of watermark at each stage, and could pinpoint the location of the leaks.
The bad part is, they would probably want to extend this to individual bluray players and netflix streams at homes. So if you rip your stream to upload to your own plex server, and som
So? (Score:2)
So? I was thinking of stealing some garbage, but then I realized, why exactly do I need more garbage?
It doesn't matter (Score:2)
Chain of Custody (Score:2)
Blockchain could make sense here since they have an untrusted supply chain that the product moves through. If they have a way where everyone who touches it gets a uniquely marked copy, they have an easier time figuring out where in the supply chain it was snagged.
And... (Score:2)
Watch for a screen recorded copy of these movies on DVD in front of a subway station near you.
Alot of people really don't care about quality.