DSL Gateways to Fight Piracy by Marking Video

Stony Stevenson wrote with an article about home gateway devices being set up to identify video pirates. The article reads: "Home gateway manufacturer Thomson SA plans to incorporate video watermarking technology into future set-top boxes and other video devices. The watermarks, unique to each device, will make it possible for investigators to identify the source of pirated videos. By letting consumers know the watermarks are there, even if they can't see them, Thomson hopes to discourage piracy without putting up obstacles to activities widely considered fair use, such as copying video for use on another device in the home or while traveling to work."

Re:yawn

[maxume]

They used to be behind RCA(apparently they sold the brand).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomson_SA [wikipedia.org]

They are about a quarter of the size of Cisco(based on revenues), but they dwarf Netgear and D-Link.

Oh, brother!

[xigxag]

I hate it when the editorial team tries to sound smart but totally messes it up. This has nothing to do specifically with "DSL Gateways." It's about videos coming through your cable or slingbox-like set top box (STB) being watermarked as they are being played or displayed. So that if you attempt to record said video, it will go out with your box's personal watermark on it. This is to discourage people from uploading TV shows or stuff they get off cable. It won't do jack shit to stop you from bittorrenting DVD rips or files you've gotten from other people.

Re:I'm not buying.

[DeadChobi]

How does watermarking remove functionality from a product? You can copy the DVD all you want, go through the analog hole, whatever. Hell, you could post your entire library on bittorrent. The only thing watermarking does is allow for a convenient method of tracking you should you actually use the technology to violate someone's copyright.

This is definitely an acceptable compromise between copyright holders wanting control and the purchaser of a copy of a work wanting control. I'd stand behind watermarking because it restores good faith and trust to the system, which is what I'm really complaining about whenever I bitch about DRM. I just want the copyright holder to trust me so that I don't have to deal with their rights "management." If I wanted their management I would've hired one of them as a consultant.

What the watermark does is skip all the easily broken DRM and go straight to a method by which the copy's origins can be determined. This returns some form of personal accountability to the process of piracy.

To the GP and anyone else who suggests that watermarking is unacceptable because it also reduces functionality, I've got a question. How, exactly, does a watermark with no other DRM prevent you from doing whatever you want with what you buy?

Re:I'm not buying.

[cduffy]

You're reading the blatantly false article summary, not the actual article.

This is not about DSL gateways, it's about "home media gateways" and set-top boxes. They do not in fact tag all video uploaded -- only video ripped using the hardware in question.

Re:I'm not buying.

[Anonymous Coward]

The actual restriction code is probably in the driver, but it will be software at some level yeah. (At least so far, but sadly this may change with all the hardware DRM crap being forced on us.) The closed ATI driver for Linux used to enforce macrovision, but you could disable it with a perl script that flipped a bit in memory.