Copy Protection Backfires on Blu-ray

An anonymous reader writes "The first two Blu-ray releases to hit the market encrypted with BD+ (an extra layer of protection designed to stave off hackers) are wreaking havoc on innocent consumers. As High-Def Digest reports, this week's Blu-ray releases of 'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer' and 'The Day After Tomorrow' won't play back at all on at least two Blu-ray players, while load times on other players (including the PS3) are delayed by up to two minutes. 'The most severe problems have been reported on Samsung's BDP-1200 and LG's BH100, which are both said to be incapable of playing back the discs at all. Less catastrophic issues (error messages and playback stutter) have been reported for Samsung's BDP-1000. The discs appear to play back fine on all other Blu-ray players ... Calls placed to both Samsung and LG customer support revealed that both manufacturers are aware of the issue, and that both are working on firmware updates to correct it. Samsung promised a firmware update within 'a couple' weeks, while LG said an update is expected in 3-4 days.'"

Well

[by Anonymous Coward]

The players are probably programmed not to play shitty movies

Re:If you fuckers didn't STEAL their shit we would

[Perseid (660451)]

If those fuckers didn't make us suffer this we wouldn't have to STEAL their shit. You're right. It is always the assholes...

Re:If you fuckers didn't STEAL their shit we would

[TheRaven64 (641858)]

You know, the people who did 'steal' their shit[1] got a much better product. Theirs played on laptops and desktops, could be downsampled and burned to DVD or played on an iPod, and loaded immediately. Maybe next time I should 'steal' it instead of buying it...

[1] This one doesn't go in quotes, because it's surprisingly accurate in the current context.

Re:If you fuckers didn't STEAL their shit we would

[siddesu (698447)]

... It was not until unauthorized copying and distribution became mainstream that companies felt they needed to add copy protection to their products.

You must be blind or a shill if you don't see where the real push of the music industry is targeted (so i guess i am wasting my time anyway). It is going one way only: perpetual copyrights, criminalization of the public domain (and thus potential competition), and developing technological solutions that make you pay incrementally for every time you listen to music. You know why? Because that is the most painless way to guarantee what the music industry has now -- monopoly profits, and multiply them many times over, by what economists call discriminatory pricing. incidentally, it means total control over the supply market as well. And why is it happening now, and not 20 years ago? Well, only one reason -- now they have the technology to do it (and due to the massive profits from the 80s and 90s -- the cash to finance the bribery of the various parliaments all over the world). The fight against downloaded music is an aside -- the music industry types, being the myopic idiots they are, simply had not expected the general public to adopt the same tools they use. They thought they were way too smart.

hollywood's perfect anti-theft technique

[jollyreaper (513215)]

Make movies so bad, nobody will pirate them.

The thing that's so darkly amusing to me is that if I was interested in viewing these movies, pirating would be zero-hassle. It's only when I try to view them legally that I get dicked over.

Re:hollywood's perfect anti-theft technique

[Cecil (37810)]

It's true, it works. I doubt anyone pirated E.T. the game [wikipedia.org]... although anyone who bought it probably wished they had...

Re:hollywood's perfect anti-theft technique

[TimothyDavis (1124707)]

FBI WARNING: DO NOT COPY THIS FILM*

If you don't want to be forced to see this message everytime you watch the movie you purchased, then copy this film and edit this out.

Or go to bittorrent - somebody has probably done this for you already. Otherwise, please wait for 30 seconds while we remind you (once again) not to copy this film.

Re:hollywood's perfect anti-theft technique

[jollyreaper (513215)]

FBI WARNING: DO NOT COPY THIS FILM*

If you don't want to be forced to see this message everytime you watch the movie you purchased, then copy this film and edit this out.

Or go to bittorrent - somebody has probably done this for you already. Otherwise, please wait for 30 seconds while we remind you (once again) not to copy this film.

Honest to fucking Cthulhu, while I think the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy is pretty kick-ass, I think the best part is how you put the disc in and you get the pretty menu immediately, no FBI bullshit. It's like the crew that put the DVD's together said "Ok, let's cut the bollocks, we're talking about some movie magic here. Let's not put in anything to detract from it." Those are the last DVD's I've purchased and I don't begrudge Peter Jackson a dime -- though I do begrudge New Line because they're acting like total dicks to Jackson and the actors by fraudulent bookkeeping practices.

Re:hollywood's perfect anti-theft technique

[Michael Wardle (50363)]

It's like the crew that put the DVD's together said "Ok, let's cut the bollocks, we're talking about some movie magic here. Let's not put in anything to detract from it."

Either that or there was no room left on the disc. ;-)

Re:hollywood's perfect anti-theft technique

[pjt33 (739471)]

As Roy from the I.T. crowd put it: "Man, these anti-piracy ads are getting really mean." [youtube.com]

Message to Sony

[Morgaine (4316)]

Dear Sony:

Let me explain this to you by way of a simple 3-party model, since you are too clueless to understand the actual technical details:

Encryption was designed to protect communications between Alice to Bob from the evil Eve. It was not designed to cope with the case where Bob and Eve are the same person. As a clueless DRM proponent, you are trying to give Bob access to an item without giving Bob access to the item ... which isn't logical.

If you don't understand that then I have nothing else to say to you, and any brain cells you may have are entirely superfluous. I recommend eBay as a good place to sell them off.

Kind regards,

Joe Public.

Only the RIAA could match this stupidity

[nrich239 (790194)]

From the head of the MPAA: "I KNOW! Lets put so much protection on the new discs that people can't even watch the movie! That'll stop those pesky pirates..."

Re:Only the RIAA could match this stupidity

[Starteck81 (917280)]

MPAA Underling: Sir, unfortunately the pirates cracked the 'no play protection' within 24 hrs and are now the only ones that can watch the movies.

Re:Only the RIAA could match this stupidity

[cstdenis (1118589)]

Excellent. Now we know anyone watching one of our movies is a pirate and can sue them more easily.

This just in

[MyNameIsEarl (917015)]

This just in: Sony now says playing a Bluray disc you just purchased is pirating. More to come.

Re:This just in

[Necreia (954727)]

You just have to close one eye... both open is considered double-viewing.

Re:This just in

[Terrasque (796014)]

But.. Wouldn't seeing it with one eye be considered pirate-viewing?

Intelligent chip!

[jacobcaz (91509)]

Obviously Blu-Ray DVD owners should have bought an Intelligent Chip [machinadynamica.com] and this wouldn't have happened. The "quantum material" would have upgraded and fixed all of their problems! :-)

This is a problem?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Preventing people from having to watch Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer should be commended as a public service.

Why firmware updates?

[ktappe (747125)]

Why is this on the drive manufacturers to fix when all previous discs played? Isn't this on the shoulders of the disc manufacturers, to produce discs that are playable? By promising firmware fixes, aren't the player manufacturers both diminishing their brand value in the eyes of consumers and also opening themselves up to a lot of headaches when other discs don't play a month or a year from now due to even more envelope-pushing protection?

Re:Why firmware updates?

[samkass (174571)]

These discs will presumably play on any player that correctly implements BD+. If a player has a bug in its BD+ implementation, it will need a firmware update to fix it. Since these are the first two discs released with BD+, they're the first one to really test it in the field.

Re:Why firmware updates?

[SuiteSisterMary (123932)]

Of course, this assumes mightily that the BD+ discs themselves are properly authored and coded....

Re:

[nege (263655)]

I would imagine that the problem IS with the player manufacturer. It seems like they didnt fully implement BD+ in their players as they should have done. Probably due to a combination of rushing the market to product without fully testing and coding for the spec, thinking "ah, we can fix that in a patch later, it plays regular blu-ray fine for now".

When all the other players except 2 work, it seems to point more to a problem with the players than the disks.

Of course, this whole crappy thing could be avoid

Re:Why firmware updates?

[Opportunist (166417)]

I think, the question was rather why the burden of "fixing" is on the player manufacturers instead of the media companies who refuse to stick with standards? Just because it's always been that way (when the first crippled CDs (sorry, Phillips, "disks resembling CDs but breaking the standard" it was also on the drive manufacturers to provide a solution instead of simply saying (rightfully), that the CD does not adhere to specs and should go to hell)?

thanks

[syrinx (106469)]

this week's Blu-ray releases of 'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer' and 'The Day After Tomorrow' won't play back at all on at least two Blu-ray players

That's awfully nice of them. Maybe they'll extend the service to the complete works of Uwe Boll next.

Here's a thought

[MikeRT (947531)]

Use regular DVDs to subsidize the cost of selling Blu-Ray disks at the same cost as a regular DVD. In this newest format war, the first company to do this may end up setting the standard because they would have the cheaper movies. Right now, every next-gen DVD I've seen costs about $30 new. If all new Blu-Ray suddenly hit $20 through subsidies from regular DVDs, HD would probably be up shit creek...

Re:

[91degrees (207121)]

I don't follow. Why couldn't the HD-DVD supporters use exactly the same tactic?

Interesting Timing

[zjbs14 (549864)]

Given the pace of these things being cracked, there's a good chance the torrents will be available before the new player firmware will.

That's the real test

[IPFreely (47576)]

This is what Sony really wants to know. The tech problems are only a side effect and a distraction. They can be fixed.

What Sony desparately needs to know right now is whether BD+ is going to hold or fold. They are watching those torrents very closely.

BD+ was one of their main selling point to the studios. If it fails it can't be fixed, and they could lose studio support. That would be crippling to their format.

Don't call it until you can see it on your monitor. All else is rhetoric.

...firmware update?

[TruePoindexter (975295)]

A firmware update? For my bluray player? Yeah because the average consumer will know how to do this or even be aware of the possibility.

Small Consolation

[camusflage (65105)]

Samsung promised a firmware update within 'a couple' weeks, while LG said an update is expected in 3-4 days.'"

I'm sure that will be of great consolation to folks who rented the movies and have four "nights" (which most people refer to as three days) to have the movie back before getting hit with PMITA late charges.

Only a two minute wait?

[hansamurai (907719)]

Geez, it's at least ten times that at my local theater!

this is really turning me away from HD movies

[SpecialAgentXXX (623692)]

I really like watching movies and was excited about purchasing a BluRay and/or HD-DVD player when they came out. But I decided to wait and see and have the companies work out the kinks. Well it's over a year later and there are still problems. When the main focus is not on enhancing the paying customer's experience, but on padding the pockets of the media execs, this is what you get. I should be #1 in their minds. After all, it doesn't matter how much DRM they put in their product if no one buys it.

So, these media firms have lost a faithful, paying customer. I refuse to buy all of their DRM'd HD crap. Since my HTPC upscaler looks almost as nice as HD, I'll just stick with regular DVDs until, if ever, the DRM crap is done away with. And since you can also record broadcast HD shows, there's no need to shell out another $30 to get the HD-version of a show compared to the regular SD DVD version.

Re:this is really turning me away from HD movies

[mpeg4codec (581587)]

So, these media firms have lost a faithful, paying customer.

Another poor soul deluded into believing he's the customer. Here's a tip: when you're sitting there forced to watch adverts on the disk over which you cannot skip, you're not the customer: you're the consumer.

And by the way, that's just a euphemistic way of saying that you're the product.

Question

[dedazo (737510)]

Maybe I'm behind the times here, but how the hell do you flash an appliance to update the firmware? Do they have USB ports now or is it a special disc and some weird command from the remote?

Re:Question

[HTH NE1 (675604)]

Maybe I'm behind the times here, but how the hell do you flash an appliance to update the firmware?

First of all, make sure to close the blinds and get all of the children out of the room.

Smackin Down The Competition...Maybe

[blueZhift (652272)]

Is it just coincidence that the affected players are from Samsung and LG, two Korean electronics giants that happen to be among Sony's biggest competitors? I'm just sayin...that's all...

DRM is just plain bad business...

[Jennifer York (1021509)]

Why punish the people who actually pay for your product? The only way to suffer from this is if you purchased a copy, the people who are downloading this are free of the pain... It's like they _want_ you to pirate it. They are creating a system with incentives for illegal copying.

This is one of the reasons I don't care about this format war, they both are wrong headed... I want content delivered over the wire (or wireless, you get the idea).

Re:DRM is just plain bad business...

[Opportunist (166417)]

That's exactly the crucial problem with DRM: It devaluates the commodity. From the user point of view, content that was stripped of DRM is more valuable than content still retaining it. If nothing else, content without DRM plays without a 2 minute delay. It plays in every player.

It's almost like going to a store for a new computer and the clerk tells you "well, you could buy it, but only if you steal it you got warranty".

Firmware updates!? To my DVD Player?

[arkham6 (24514)]

Dear God, what the hell is this crap? Are we now to allow manufacturers to produce shoddy equipment and promise 'firmware' fixes down the line? That is totaly unreasonable. I should not have to patch my DVD player, update my receiver, or flash my TV.

I should be able to buy some equipment, plug it in and watch my movies. thats it.

That this is a necessity was a given.

[Opportunist (166417)]

Simply because as soon as they start "revoking" keys, yours could be amongst them, so you have to be able to somehow "upgrade" your ... waitaminute, isn't that key one of those things that can't be flashed?

Say, what happens when a key from a standalone BluRay Player (or, let's play it out a little, the PS3 one) gets revoked? You have a rather expensive brick?

Awful nice of them

[Selfbain (624722)]

The more they do stupid things like this, the better I feel when I pirate.

Punish the paying customer...

[Gadzinka (256729)]

Both the movies mentioned are long available as torrents all over the web. And HDCP protecting the transfer between various HD STB and HD TVs was broken [wikipedia.org] before it was even finalized and small boxes decrypting HDMI signal on the fly are available in various shady places.

Meanwhile a paying customer cannot play the crappy, overpriced movies on his overpriced video player. And my national HD Sat operator's STBs still cannot authenticate via HDMI with my LG LCD. Which is not good, since HDMI/HDCP is a requirement for their VOD HD content...

Screw'em, gotta go and see what's new on trakcers...

Robert

Region locks and now this!

[GreatDrok (684119)]

You know, I understand how people complain that HD DVD isn't as open as DVD but to be honest, to me it is more open because I didn't have to worry about buying a region free player. On the other hand, BD is far more locked than DVD since there were region free DVD players available fairly early on but so far none for Blu ray. Until Blu ray is at least as open as DVD (ie can be made region free) then I will go with HD DVD all the way. Sure, it isn't currently as easy to rip them as with DVDs but it took years before DVD could be ripped.

I just don't understand why people are supporting Blu ray......

The other day I was looking at disc prices. The typical price for a BD here in NZ is close to $50. HD DVDs are about $35 and regular DVDs are $30 for comparison. Also, there are no discounts to be had on the PS3 and while the US looks to be getting a new SKU at $399US ($525NZ) we are expected to pay $1200NZ which works out at $910US. Think about that.

Ding....

[Z-Knight (862716)]

Every time a DVD (Blu-Ray or other) fails, a new Pirate gets his wings.

Re:Obligatory

[fyngyrz (762201)]

Many players are upgradeable. For both HD and Blueray, you should make sure yours has an online upgrade capability. We know they're going to mess with the protection continuously - that was a given when the general public accepted HD-DVD and Blueray as viable formats.

The Fantastic Four Silver Surfer Blueray version of the movie played back fine on my PS3, no delays or other evidence of handling problems. It was fine for a comic adaptation. Don't know what everyone is bitching about as far as the movie itself goes - it isn't like the Fantastic Four was either great art or great writing in the first place. This isn't a McFarlane production (i.e., not Spawn, which was a tour de force.)

I remember giving someone a really blank look when they said that "Dumb and Dumber" was a "dumb movie." Same thing kind of applies here. You don't get a Fantastic Four movie in order to broaden your critical faculties.

Re:Obligatory

[laing (303349)]

I am a member of the general public and I have *NOT* accepted HD-DVD or Blueray as viable formats. I have been waiting for something else to come along that promises my ability to view HD movies that I buy on future players. Part of the DRM system incorporated into both standards will "bind" the discs to the players and play them at reduced resolution in any other player. What happens when my player wears out? Must I re-purchase my entire movie collection?

JSL

--
This space for rent.

Re:Obligatory

[provigilman (1044114)]

When your player wears out? How about people that happen to have two? I have a DVD player (I know, I haven't upgraded either) on my TV in the Living Room, and then another in the form of one of several consoles down in my basement. There have been plenty of movies that I've watched in one room, and then watched in the other at a later date. Now I have to buy a second copy?

Hell, this is one of the reasons that I already gave up on Apple and their DRM laden music. When my wife buys an MP3, which would be joint property in a legal sense, and we can't have it on both our iPods simultaneously, that's just stupid.

Welcome to the wonderful world of DRM, where pirates watch everything with ease while you have to jump through hoop after hoop just to listen to/watch something that you legitimately purchased. Enjoy the show...while your player still works that is.

Re:Obligatory

[Sandbags (964742)]

I don't know where you heard this. One option that is available, but noone has put the money forward to implement, is that connected blu-ray players can catalog a movie when it begins playing and check an online service to determine if that particular disk has been played in any other non-authorised players.

You can authorise as many players as you want on your account, including those already authorised on other accounts. The system supposedly also cross checks not to see if you're playing a copy of the movie at multiple locations, but if it's insterted into multiple players "at the same time" at which point it was supposed to determine the movie was pirated and lock down ALL copies of the movie from playing in any player.

Unfortunately, to do this, every copy of every movie stamped needs an individual serial code, and all the players would be required to be network connected. This was unreasonable to the consumer and extremely expensive for the industry, and as yet is not implemented in any fashion that I am aware of or that I could find a reference to. This was a reccomendation the industry (or some designer) made when the platforms were up for standardization, but I can not find proof that this made it into the final product.

The only restrictions (as of this week) currently in use are: 1) advanced encryption in the disk to prevent copying (which won't last a week) and 2) HDCP which prevents movies in HD from playing through non-HDCP compliant equipment (to prevent stream copying by intermediate devices).

For those of you with PCs with aftermarket blue ray or HD players, keep this in mind: even if you have a DVI or HDMI connected display, if your OS, motherboard, video card, and display (as well as a few chips inbetween) don't support and are certified for HDCP, then any disks that require it (just 2 so far) will not be playable on your system. For those of you with HDTVS, not only must you have a proper player (with a functional BIOS) but your TV must specifically implement HDCP, and so must any swith or stereo amplified inline between the 2 points. As of Christmas last year, less than 50% of TVs being sold supported HDCP. CHECK WITH YOUR VENDOR BEFORE BUYING A PLAYER TO MAKE SURE IT WILL ACTUALLY WORK!!! Many of you already experienced this when hooking up your PS3 to unsuppoprted hardware...

If you're buying a new PC, Stereo, or TV, make SURE it has native HDCP support. This is most important in computers. Only DX10 video cards support this so far, but your motherboard must also be HDCP certifies as well.

Re:Couldn't a hacker...

[jon287 (977520)]

Yep, welcome to the brave new media world. Each and every new disc will require a firmware update just to play. Think of it as a kind of 2 factor authentication, only it sucks.