Claim of a Blu-ray BD+ Crack 307
Google85 writes in with a brief Enquirer piece reporting on an announcement on a German site that SlySoft claims to have cracked BD+, the extra copy-protection layer in Blu-ray. Here is the German original.
Problems (Score:5, Insightful)
1- Protect media with lock
2- ensure customer can open lock with key to use
3- ensure customer can't copy content with the same key
Given enough time clever customers will always find your keys and always figure a way to copy your media. Isn't it better to stop trying and just offer products not licenses. The alternate route is to simply make copying hard enough to deter most people (console games + mod chips) or dial home to get some nifty extra features (MMORPG's).
Re:t-shirt (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How to translate MPAA claims. (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me know when they've got a copy-protection method that doesn't get cracked in a few weeks or months of its debut. Otherwise it's just the regular pattern.
Maybe if they want their precious movies to avoid this, they should consider using a media that physically has no computer-based player...
Re:Problems (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not an alternate route for the studios
Re:How to translate MPAA claims. (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone cracked MagicGate yet?
Heck, even AACS is just weakened, not really permanently broken. Though I suspect as long as they're giving keys to software players, it's going to keep getting cracked.
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean they only managed to sell 1/40th of one before this?
Re:Problems (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, the alternate route might be to make the blank media cost enough that people can't be bothered. Double layer DVD media are still too expensive (comparatively) for many people I know to bother with; they either use DVDShrink or, if they like the movie enough, buy it for $15. This is probably the reason why the MPAA lobbies for media taxes in Canada.
Re:keeping people in a job... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:keeping people in a job... (Score:3, Insightful)
To fuel police corruption and organized crime?
Re:keeping people in a job... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Problems (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can't be Done (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:keeping people in a job... (Score:2, Insightful)
"I don't remember the last time Piracy altered somebody's life, caused physical distress or even death, or even contributed to a fatal car accident."
Re:Problems (Score:3, Insightful)
Give up.
No, seriously. All this copy protection is pissing off the paying customers who find that their TV, while quite capable of displaying HD signals, won't display this signal because Hollywood won't trust it. Or whose new PC is dedicating clock cycles every second of the day to enforcing a Hollywood-mandated lockdown on the whole system, and will crash the fuck out if anything's even slightly suspect. Meanwhile, as we're seeing, it's hardly even showing the pirates down.
Re:Problems (Score:3, Insightful)
* Cut it out with the byzantine copy protections.
* Great special features, like deleted scenes and director's commentary-- content which is rarely maintained when ripping.
* Ensure that there are insanely convenient, reasonably cost-effective legal distribution systems available.
* Quit worrying so much. The industry's profits aren't falling off a cliff, and if they were going to they would have already.
Re:How to translate MPAA claims. (Score:5, Insightful)
They're sometimes not that bright... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, to my point. When I go to the store, new releases are $13-15, and 2-3 year old releases are typically under $10. I can't believe anybody copies for that price, particularly when you only watch once.
So DVD piracy is effectively solved by lowering the price so it's just not worth it to the vast majority of people. If they get high definition disks down to under $15, this is really a moot point.
The only reasons I can think spending this much time and effort by the record companies is either (a) They think that they'll eventually drive piracy out of the market allowing them to raise prices or (b) they're crazy control freaks who aren't completely rational. Or maybe both.
Re:Problems (Score:5, Insightful)
Never fuck over a paying customer. Never do anything that causes my product to be inferior to a pirated copy. Never ever send the message, "We don't want your moneyl you might want to consider looking for a pirated copy instead." Ergo: no DRM. Don't try to prevent copying through technical means; don't do anything that prevents interoperability; don't do anything that restricts the availability of players, since that restricts my market.
Go ahead and prosecute copyright infringers when it's easy to do so, but don't fixate on them. Keep existing customers, try to gain customers, but don't worry too much about people who aren't customers, except in terms of luring them.
In other words, try to think of revenue as a desirable thing, rather than as something to snicker about when the stockholders aren't watching me.
Re:Direct TV (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:keeping people in a job... (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course they would. Taxes aren't some ultimate evil that people would rather risk getting shot then buying at a legal source. Not to mention the taxed ones would be dosed, better quality controlled, and CHEAPER. Mass production and competition would drive the price down.
"Do you really think Crack Cocaine belongs on the streets?"
No, I think it belongs at a legal store, and that adults should be able to do it at home if they so choose. Cocaine has been used for a long time, and in fact it used to be cut by pharmacist for personal use by little old ladies.
It's not evil, but by making it some shady dealing where people have to risk there lives, and are afraid of being an outcast is.
"Do you think that Children will not be able to aquire Crack Cocaine once it's price has plummeted?"
They get it all they want NOW you idiot. It is easier for them to get it now because they people selling it to them have nothing more to loose. Legalizing would drive those people out of business and dry up the only source available to 'children'. Not completely, but it would be harder to get drugs then now.
"Really I could care less what people do in their personal time but if you think that legalizing drugs will not have an effect on society in general and even yourself then you are dillusional."
Of course it will have an effect, a positive one.
You're neighbor can get it now, if he so chooses. So that's not really an issue. More to the point, your neighbor won't be screaming because he will get a correct dose at a regulated purity. Not to mention that rarely happens anyways.
I used to spiel the same line you are, but I did about 3 years of research into legalization, the myths taught to young people, and actual studied effects of drug use.
Right now, there are two benefactors of drug prohibition:
1) The drug lords
2) Law enforcement
Re:So i guess if true (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, no. People are cracking these because they enforce usage controls that many - myself included - believe go too far. Some of us like to use media centers that play video that's been ripped (not necessarily pirated). I've got a nice collection of video files that I've ripped from DVDs that I own that I stream to my living room media center. It's extremely convenient and the video quality is quite good. I'm not out there distributing the ripped versions of these films, and I'm not out there downloading pirated versions of them, either. I'm doing nothing more than utilizing an alternative method to view content I paid for in the privacy of my own home. At present, I cannot do this with Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.
To be fair, commercial DVDs contain copy protections designed to thwart this kind of activity, but thanks to the diligent efforts by the very same kind of people (and likely the same people in many cases) who are working to crack the new schemes, the process is convenient and effectively one-click. Until I can do the same thing with HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs, I won't be buying any of either, and I'll continue to recommend to the people who ask my opinion that they stay away.
In short, people aren't just doing it because they can. They're doing it because there are legitimate reasons for doing so. Not everyone who rips discs is a pirate, but this DRM punishes all equally.
Re:So i guess if true (Score:3, Insightful)
AACS hasn't been "fully cracked" -- the encryption scheme remains unbroken. It's just proving impossible to keep people from extracting the keys once they're in memory -- which they have to be to decrypt the movie. Software players have evidently gotten extremely sneaky at obfuscating keys, yet it's not enough.
So AACS isn't really cracked. It's just trying to do what can't be done.
Re:Direct TV (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Direct TV (Score:3, Insightful)
I think because you would have a LONG way to go to get Joe Average consumer to even understand what this new paradigm is that you're touting.
Remember, most people do not have broadband....many do not have any internet connectivity at all...and MOST people out there...assume once you buy a player, it will play forever till it breaks. They would never assume that they, as a consumer would ever have to change out anything or update anything just to keep it working legally. They don't have home networks that can connect to all their components....and I can't see expecting Joe Average to periodically have to run somewhere to change out a piece of hardware....hell, changing batteries on things is beyond many in Joe Average's family, seriously.
Take this scenario in your world. The sim for the new blockbuster kids movie XYZ has been cracked. It is Xmas day, and 'Santa' brings the XYZ dvd to little joey average....Dad pops it into the player...it won't play. Now...even if Dad knows the reason and needs a new sim...nothing is open on Xmas day...little joey is crying, and Dad's not happy. That kind of stuff in consumer-land, just isn't going to work. A consumer expects that if he buys a player for music or video....once he can actually get it hooked up (no small feat for JA), that it will just work when he pops in the media.