Blu-Ray to Include New Copy Protection 536
Lord Haha writes "In an announcement (warning: links to a PDF) last night, the Blu-ray Disc Association, led by Sony, representing one of two competing high-definition DVD formats (the other being HD-DVD, led by Toshiba), stated it will simultaneously embrace digital watermarking, programmable cryptography, and a self-destruct code for Blu-ray disc players. Will this be the continuation of the trend into more and more restrictive DRM? Or something that will fade away like Betamax Tapes? Two articles on the topic can be found at Tom's Hardware and PC World."
if (HD-DVD == DRM) HD-DVD = DEAD; (Score:3, Insightful)
HD-DVD will be stillborn.
People will take convenience and the facade of ownership over crippled technology any day. Just look at divx (not the Mpeg 4 technology - the rediculous pay for play disks that were stillborn).
Blu-Ray? no thanks! (Score:2, Insightful)
If the HD-DVD decide to go down the same slipery road as the Blu-Ray and the content lobby I'll stick to good old inexpensive DVDs.
Re:Scary. very scary. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, as long as it's cheap.
Re:I don't think so.. (Score:4, Insightful)
What percent of Playstation owners do you think had mod chips? I can't imagine it's significantly greater than zero.
Death of Blue Ray before it even got started (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Scary. very scary. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not buyin' it (Score:5, Insightful)
That's waaaay over the line.
Not gonna buy it.
You think I'd let a mistake by some techie or program destroy a few hundred bucks of my hard-earned money?
I'm tired of people treating me like a thief, when I never pirate ANYTHING!
I've got lots of CDs and DVDs I already bought in the 80s and 90s, and I can always just walk along the street and whistle (or daydream).
Re:self-destruct code (Score:3, Insightful)
Assumedly the means to destroy content is in case they think it was copied illegally. If that's the case, in reality, it'll most often destroy the discs of those doing nothing wrong. No matter how they try, they can't keep people from the raw data; it's essentially impossible. If it comes down to it, even if the video signal ends up analog straight out of the decryption chip, people can still tempest the chip to see what ops it's running.
People who are going to duplicate/rip the discs are going to do it *right*, not in a way that gets their disc destroyed. And once it's in a non-restricted format, it can flow freely across the net. I.e., it only needs to get ripped once.
Follow the Porn (Score:5, Insightful)
Porn producers are very realistic, and very saavy. Do you think people are going to buy "Buttbandits 23" if they know that every time they queue it up, some manufacturer is getting a record of it?? Even those without tinfoil hats know this is a bad idea...
My prediction is that the pornographers will use a version of the high-def discs WITHOUT the phone-home feature, or will stick to DVDs.
Pornography: Saving Western Civilization since 1826.
Re:Self-Destruct? Not likely (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be willing to bet a month's salary that they are going to use public-key cryptography with a bigass key to protect it. RSA2048 will keep anyone from screwing with it. Hard-code the SSL public key, and the only way you're going to launch a man-in-the-middle attack against it is by rewriting the key.
Re:I don't think so.. (Score:3, Insightful)
if what you say was true then Sony pictures would refuse to release anything on DVD because it's too insecure and they would lose money drastically and all that other FUD and lies they trot out to distract you from seeing their gigantic pile of money that is growing out of control.
BluRay has no chance, just like how UMD has zero chance outside of the PSP and sony's SACD is a major failure (oh and that Minidisc thingy of theirs)
The format that is embraced by the China Manufacturers for their cheapo players will be the standard, just like how the porn industry told hollywood that VHS is the standard by picking it over Betamax.
They are going to have a really hard time trying to Pry current DVD out of the hands of joe public. Every one of them remembers that their VHS players have been around for 20-30 years, they will expect DVD to do the same, and honestly a good DVD on a decent plaer with a line doubler is pretty damn good looking on a HD projector on a 10 foot screen. I've seen DVD's look better than the HD superbowl broadcasts.
It's scare tactics, Sony will lose once again (oh remember the sony Bookman? that was going to revolutionize ebooks!) just like they always do.
Re:Self-Destruct? Not likely (Score:5, Insightful)
Who is paying? (Score:2, Insightful)
However who is paying the price for all this hardware and copy protection. Permanent internet connections? Players that render themselves inoperable once a copyright violation has been detected? It might sound like a sweet deal to industry lawyers, but these machines and discs are going to be needlessly expensive and few people are going to buy into a technology that resembles a copyright minefield.
People like simple funcional things, like disks that you slot into a machine and watch movies on, not permanently internet-connected, big brother-esque machines that throw a fit and need to be repaired if you try and watch a naughty, naughty copied movie on. "Bad consumer, very baaad consumer!"
People (by which i mean the 95% of people who are happy with DVD and don't see a reason to upgrade to HD) won't buy into a new technology unless it is simple, reasonably cheap and offers a clear advantage the DVD player they bought a few years ago.
I, for one won't be buying a Blu-Ray machine. My money is on HD-DVD. A lower capacity disk yes, but probably cheaper, probably easier to make +R discs of (which is what I REALLY want them for) and probably better overall.
At the same time, I may end up downloading my HD movies from Apple through iTunes (or whatever) , which is the way things may well end up if these people don't get their s**t together.
Re:True costs of piracy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Scary. very scary. (Score:2, Insightful)
At our expense...of course. This will do wonders for those on dial up. In addition to being made as dumb as TV, the internet will become the world's biggest dongle, which will be required to operate any electronic device. It will become our new electronic tracking collar, like they use for those under house arrest. If you like premade entertainment, you'd better stock up now and learn how to keep all your old equipment in good repair.
That's stepping a little too far over the bounds of protecting *your* content.
They have been doing that since 1710.
If you destroy *my* hardware you have invaded my private space which is unacceptable.
Your society will claim "self-defense", and most people will go along. The thugs will smash you printing press and burn your books to maintain their power, and you will like it.
Of course, you can always buy from China (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I don't think so.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Point-Counterpoint: I say let 'em crash (Score:5, Insightful)
It'll be worse, the retailers will get in on it. They'll be getting all sorts of returns from people who don't have an Internet connection. Parents whose player doesn't work after little Johnny unbeknownst to them tried to play a disc his friend at school gave him. People whose player got "self-destructed" because somebody at a content provider mis-keyed a serial number. And people won't be happy about having to pay restocking or repair fees when they didn't do anything to break the player. A few consumer complaints later, Blu-Ray players will be anathema to retailers who can't afford to eat the cost of all those returns.
...and they think I want one of these? (Score:1, Insightful)
I haven't purchased a HDTV for much the same reason. They are wanting excessive prices for them and they are still not down to acceptable distrubution and cost. After the debacle of the broadcast flag, I am sure that I did right in that one. We still have to see a standard set down and made THE STANDARD everyone will use with no changes that may require the purchase yet again of something else to make it work.
This idea that it is ok to damage my equipment that I spent money on for their sake is nuts. They can go twiddle their fingers till they figure out where their rights end and mine hold sway. It's my money, not theirs. I won't invest in such types of schemes anymore than I will downloan what is now offered for legal consumption.
There is a very important fact here that all these cartels and megacorporations have forgotten. The customer is king, if you don't satisfy them and they don't come away with a certain satisfaction that the money was well spent, there comes a time when the customer says, "No More".
I have reached the point of "No More" long ago with the idea that I have to have a new player that meets this or that standard to play what I wish to play. My old cd player in the car works just fine. I don't need to spend the cost of an additional player just because the cartels have decided this or that scheme better supports their holy grail of no copy.
Re:Not buyin' it (Score:1, Insightful)
A 'mistake' in this context would lead to me, my clients and a hoard of lawyers after these jokers for MILLIONS!!!! As an earlier poster remarks, it's all well and good with *your* data but you fuck with *MY* data and God help you.
It's stillborn technology. What an awful waste of development time and money.
Re:Scary. very scary. (Score:3, Insightful)
More like getting rid of first sale doctrine. This is saying you don't own your player or your media, you're licensing it, except without the concomitant reduction in price.
With such a communication channel, they could also still-birth the used HD-DVD/Blu-Ray market and control who is allowed to offer rental services. Individual disks could be married to individual players, divorceable only by paying an additional fee (bulk discounts for Blockbuster, NetFlix locked out, or use it to gather data about the rental market).
Re:I remember this... (Score:5, Insightful)
And just like divx- when they decide the market is going to BluRay2, they just stop validating your disks and they become unplayable. (like divx became unplayable for those who forgot).
Sounds like Firefly... (Score:3, Insightful)
Won't work (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, it's inevitable that somebody will find a way to send bogus self-destruct codes to every player connected to the internet. Instant worst nightmare for Sony. Unless there's some secret back door to automatically un-destruct them... Viola, no more protection!
Re:Scary. very scary. (Score:3, Insightful)
-- a time traveler from the future
Re:Scary. very scary. (Score:3, Insightful)
Pimpleface: Yeah this is a really cool player - check out the resolution on this TV
Noobie: Great I'll take one
PF: Just one thing sir, you need a home LAN connection to the internet to make this thing work
Noob: a home LAN? What's a LAN
PF: Our associates over at Geeksquad can help you set one up - for a fee of course
Noob: Wha?!? Huh?!?!
*no sale*
And besides how easy would that be to hack? If you have a home LAN to connected to this stoopid box - you could easily spoof the DNS or IP its looking for and redirect its traffic
Sheesh!
Re:Doubt it (Score:3, Insightful)
If a person buys/rents a DVD and it works, they won't consider the technology crippled
Very True. But the natural progression of marketing this form of technology goes something like this:
1. Format established and publicized.
2. Manufacturers sign on to build the players and begin production. First players released are marketed but they are expensive.
3. Content providers slowly dribble in source content.
4. Ecstatic early adopters embrace the new wiz-bang nerd-porn technology. Willingly forking over their hard earned ca$h for the expensive technology to show off to all the other nerd-porn loving early adopters.
5. The word slowly spreads about how truly wonderful this new technology is and receives widespread adoption as the technology gets cheap enough for Joe 6-pack.
So what's wrong with this picture? No early adopters - no game. Miss that step and the technology is dead.
Why would early adopters reject this technology?
1. DRM - the subject of this article. 2. Pay for play. 3. HDTV obsolescence. 4. Pissed off about getting burned (again).
Keep in mind that this DRM is there to slip in a pay-for-play strategy long term. Taking control of the box with this specific DRM will allow this strategy to work. The industry (**AA) has come right out and stated this is their goal. They are trying to learn from their mistake with divx and time-lapse degradable DVD's.
But DRM is not the whole story, either. What else other than DRM do we need to kill this technology? The "analog hole." Every HDTV sold before digital interfaces (DVI-HDCP, HDMI-HDCP, broadcast flag, etc.) were invented are dead as well with this technology (both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will down-rez "analog" component connections to "DVD" quality). These HDTV's are equipped only with component (and some rare cases RGBHV) analog HD inputs.
Guess who the majority of the population that owns those early dinosaur HDTV's are? Early Adopters. This pisses them off and they will state it very loudly with their wallets. BUt they don't even have to be pissed off. Since they can't watch HDTV they simply can't make use of the technology without spending another $3000 (in addition to the $6000 they already spent 5 years ago) for a new HDTV.
Lets face it. This technology (for HDTV only - I'm sure computing/PS3/etc. will make good use of it) is stillborn. No early adopters will accept it as it is. But don't take my word for it. Go to http://www.avsforum.com/ [avsforum.com] and see what the early adopters are saying themselves.
P.S. there is another great technological failure that draws a lot of parallels here: DAT.
Re:Scary. very scary. (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, sure, they can patch the copy protection when it fails...and so can we.
Yes, I'm sure it will required a signed binary, but keys leak. And buffer overflows exist.
Before, if we wanted to hack the firmware of DVD player, we had to take it apart. With Blu-Ray, we might have to pop the lid and disable a lead, or maybe we just need to brute-force one key, but they have the ability to read new firmware off a disc built-in.
Re:True costs of piracy? (Score:1, Insightful)
Oh, wait. I don't own it. I bought a license allowing me permission to view the content. That's more like it!
Oh, wait. If I bought the movie once, then I already own a license to watch it because I have a VHS of it. Therefore, I can download a DVD copy, because I already have a license!
Oh, wait...
That's the content providers wanting to have their cake and eat it too. They re-interpret their own arguments to suit themselves however they like. That's probably why a growing number of people appear to not mind re-interpreting the rules to allow them to download things for free.
Its not going to die like Divx (Score:3, Insightful)
The minor difference is that the public is more in tune with DRM (thanks, Apple) and is more accepting of it. Remember how pop-ups/on screen advertising killed Prodigy, but are a mainstay of AOL other online services now?
The major difference is that, when Divx was tried, there was a competing, non-invasive DRM included on DVDs. I say non-invasive primarily because copying and swapping of content, either physical or over the internet, was not practical. This time the competing formats are both DRM-hamstrung. Both are lousy - there's no "good" version to crush them into oblivion.
That said, HD-DVD just might win out. Given the possibility of hardware failure on BR, regardless of the software lockout on HD-DVD, the hardware failure "stick" may be the deciding factor in a typical household purchase.