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Media

Spielberg Bitten by DVD Encryption 453

Posted by CmdrTaco from the roll-your-eyes dept.
diodesign writes "The Guardian newspaper has reported that 5000 DVD based preview copies of Spielberg's 'Munich' sent to reviewers in the UK can't be played due to the copy protection system involved. Human error at the laboratory where the DVDs were encrypted lead to the wrong region code being set, plus the reviewers use special players from Dolby that prevent the pirating of 'screeners'. An ironic twist in the on-going battle of DRM and media vs. consumers."
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Spielberg Bitten by DVD Encryption More

Spielberg Bitten by DVD Encryption

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  • Everyone In The UK Has Region Free Players Anyway (Score:4, Informative)

    by illectro ( 697914 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:03AM (#14445618)
    They don't have laws such as the DMCA making it a crime to sell region free players, you ca walk into Tescos (a supermarket chain) and buy a region free DVD player with your milk and other groceries.
    • Of course If I'd actually read the aritcle I'd have realised that the reveiwers had been given 'special' DVD players last year for viewing advance copies of movies. 'Special' as in 'Special Olympics' 'The problem, it appears, was partly down to teething troubles with the limited edition DVD players issued last year to Bafta members. Developed by Cinea, a subsidiary of Dolby, the players permit their owners to view encrypted DVD "screeners", but prevent the creation of pirate copies. Munich screeners were e

      • Cinea Players (Score:4, Interesting)

        by lxt ( 724570 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:04AM (#14446069) Journal
        I have one of the Cinea Players (a member of my family is a Bafta member) - to even play normally non spazzed up DVDs on them you need to ring Dolby to activate the damn thing. If I remember, no movies that were sent as screeners last year actually used the Cinea player, so its been sitting in a box somewhere. A lot of the screeners used to be just single layer DVD-Rs, meaning that quite a few films spanned several discs. And they don't really stop the creation of pirate copies, given you can still just plug the video output of the thing into a capture device (although given a lot of the DVDs have serial numbers displayed pretty clearly, you really wouldn't want to).

    • Re:Everyone In The UK Has Region Free Players Anyw (Score:5, Informative)

      by 1u3hr ( 530656 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:10AM (#14445670)
      RTFA.

      The DVDs can only (supposedly) be played on "the limited edition DVD players issued last year to Bafta members. Developed by Cinea, a subsidiary of Dolby, the players permit their owners to view encrypted DVD screeners .... Munich screeners were encoded for region one, which allows them to be played in the US and Canada, rather than region two, which incorporates most of Europe".

      Why on Earth they region-encoded them on top of the special encryption is a question Steve may well be asking.

    • I don't think DMCA can mandate what can and can't be called a DVD player. The DVD consortium mandated that the players be divided up into regions so that the movies studios could prevent distribution outside of the intended market (don't ask my why). From what I remember reading, it has something to do with the algorithms used (which are proprietary); therefore, if you want to use the algorithm then you have to agree to have regions "enhancement" ""Feature"".

      Just go buy a cheap Asian made player that agre
    • Even some big manufactures make it fairly simple to unlock the region encoding on their devices. I bought a Philips DVD player (from Tesco in fact) and was able to unlock it with a few codes on the remote. The player also plays DIVX so all in all its really quite a nice player.

      If you're prepared to go with unheard of players you'll find virtuall all of them are region unlockable and often contain a slip of paper telling you how to do it.

      Region encoding is a farce anyway. It's hard to see why studios are

    • You can walk into a Costco and buy the Liteon 5005 DVD player/recorder and make it region free in 12 seconds with other great fixes. In fact most DVD players are pretty darn easy to disable the Region detect/macrovision.

      It is not difficult at all to get your dvd player region free or get one that can be that way in seconds here in the USA. It's not a big issue here as most people have zero exposure to different region dvd's.

    • Re:Everyone In The UK Has Region Free Players Anyw (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Professor_UNIX ( 867045 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:34AM (#14445846)
      They don't have laws such as the DMCA making it a crime to sell region free players, you ca walk into Tescos (a supermarket chain) and buy a region free DVD player with your milk and other groceries.

      I never really understood the whole region-lock thing anyway. It just seems to be 100% greed. I can understand them using CSS to encrypt the DVDs to prevent copying since that directly eats into their profits, but why should they care where you watch the DVD? If I want to buy anime directly from Japan why should I need a region-free DVD player to view it? Same goes for people in Europe buying the "American" version of a movie. Has region-locking ever been held up in court in the USA anyway? What law would they use to support it? It's not copy protection so the DMCA doesn't apply.

      • Re:Everyone In The UK Has Region Free Players Anyw (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Dionysus ( 12737 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:54AM (#14445995) Homepage
        I never really understood the whole region-lock thing anyway. It just seems to be 100% greed.

        It is 100% greed. DVD could be more expensive in Europe than in the US, even with the postage and custom (saying could, because it depends on the country). MPAA members want to be able to sell the same product for different prices depending on region. So, for a western European, buying from the US might be cheaper than buying locally. For a northern American, it could be cheaper to buy from Asia than to buy locally. They really want the public to pay as much as possible for a given product, and not the world average.

        Also, they usually get local distributors to sell their DVDs. These would go away, they fear, if everybody buys DVDs from another country.

        To be honest, I don't think they should fear the last point. Most people in Norway would prefer to have DVDs with Norwegian subtitles, so they probably wouldn't order from the US anyways (since those DVDs aren't subtitled in Norwegian).

      • Re:Everyone In The UK Has Region Free Players Anyw (Score:5, Informative)

        by Ewan ( 5533 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:59AM (#14446036) Homepage Journal
        The reason is pretty simple, though equally it's pretty rubbish.

        Movie studios sell the distribution rights for a film to multiple companies, including CD soundtrack producers, toy companies, and DVD distributors, giving each one limited rights in what they can do, including what parts of the world they can sell the finished product.

        The DVD distribution company then decides on things like the price they'll sell it to wholesalers at, what extras to include, the packaging design, does all the retail hand-holding, local marketing (if it's a major film the studio will still play a part in all this), and is responsible for the DVD manufacture and shipping out to the wholesalers.

        The theory goes that if there wasn't region encoding, the distribution companies wouldn't be willing to pay as much for their monopoly rights to distribute a film in a region, as everyone would buy the version with the extras and packaging they wanted at the cheapest price they could find wherever it came from in the world, rather than pay full retail price in their local country for the version their distributor has decided to produce.
        • Actually the original reason was because films tended to have staggered releases. A film print costs a LOT of money (low to mid-five figures per copy, once you factor in transportation expenses). Unless something is guaranteed to be a blockbuster, they tend to recycle prints as well as use the time and profits from the initial release to pay for and print additional copies for other staggered releases.

          In some cases, DVDs come out in their first market while the movie is still in the theater in secondary mar
      • I never really understood the whole region-lock thing anyway. It just seems to be 100% greed.

        Exactly. So what about it don't you understand?
      • It's an anti-free-trade move.

        You see, corporations love free trade when it's in their favor. Lower tariffs, move factories over seas and sell stuff domestically, that kind of thing.

        On the other hand, if there's any way that they can HINDER free trade when it's in the customer's favor, they'll do it.

        This is one of those cases.
      • It is possible to dupliate a disk, including the CSS encryption, using professional equipment for mass production. This can be done with zero understanding of CSS. So CSS does nothing to stop money-making pirates.

        The true purpose of CSS was to prevent translation to different forms by unauthorized software. The good thing is that this makes it harder to copy over the internet (currently sending a CSS disk image over the internet is impractical, and all known compression schemes require decoding the CSS). Th
    • Welcome to the EUCD: it's illegal to circumvent copyprotection mechanisms.

      Current DVDs with regioncodes and CSS might be exempt since they were no longer effective before ratification of the EUCD.

      You might want to read (and your local implementation of it)
      http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi !celexplus!prod!CELEXnumdoc&numdoc=32001L0029&lg=E N [eu.int]

      CHAPTER III

      PROTECTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURES AND RIGHTS-MANAGEMENT INFORMATION

      Article 6

      Obligations as to technological measures

      2. Member State

  • Linux users (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mtenhagen ( 450608 )
    Then they now know how someone who only has a linux machine feels when he tries to play the dvd he just bought.

    I suggest them to download the movie that works without problems.
    • I suggest them to download the movie that works without problems.


      If the oscar jury can't play (and leak) the movie then there IS NOTHING to download.

      • Re:Linux users (Score:3, Insightful)

        by tomhudson ( 43916 )

        If the oscar jury can't play (and leak) the movie then there IS NOTHING to download.

        So the only people in the supply chain who have ever leaked anything are the oscar jury? Nah, can't be. Some schlub somewhere has an unencrypted copy. After all, they don't just pop out of the camera edited, post-processed, and encrypted.

    • No, they don't know how it feels. A Linux user can't call up the person who sent them the disc, rant about it, and have a new viewable disc sent to them within two weeks.

  • Not a Terrible Blow to Copy Protection Really.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by eno2001 ( 527078 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:03AM (#14445622) Homepage Journal
    This is more a problem of quality control at the manufacturing plant. It's like those Barbies that got shipped out with G.I. Joe voice boxes a few years ago. The people who were supposed to view these aren't even going to notice. They'll likely get new copies in a week or two and watch them without even having one thought of shaking their fists at the MPAA.

  • He'll have to (Score:5, Funny)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:04AM (#14445624) Homepage Journal
    go over to the lab and club them with his oscar.
  • Reviewers can't see the movie before they review it, showering it with praise for being the best thing since sliced bread.

    To me, this is only the next logical step. They hardly glance at the movies they review now, so I fail to see how this will put a damper on things.

  • Well obviously... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bin_jammin ( 684517 ) <Binjammin@gmail.com> on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:06AM (#14445641)
    it was region encoded wrong, Munich is in Germany, not in the UK.
  • Oh, if only Aeon Flux had been so lucky!

  • bad luck? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BushCheney08 ( 917605 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:09AM (#14445661)
    "Someone pushed the wrong button," she said. "It was a case of rotten bad luck."

    I sure wish I could blame pushing the wrong button on bad luck. Unfortunately, I live in the real world and have to live with the consequences of my negligence.

  • Story Post Misses the Main Point (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BandoMcHando ( 85123 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:11AM (#14445679)
    The post has completely missed the significant point with this story. It's not so much that the dvds were unviewable, it's that because the reviewers couldn't see the film, the film itself is ineligible for the main official UK film awards.
    • Rather, the movie will most likely not get a nomination or win any awards because not enough of BAFTA's 5k members will have seen it. They've been trying to get multiple screenings and will have about 3-4 done soon in london for Bafta's members due to the dvd crisis but it will most likely not be seen by enough people still.

      It's too bad, I have a feeling the brits would have really liked this one.
    • Too bad, because I saw it, and it's so effing depressing it would have swept the awards. Hands down, no problem.

    • Re:Story Post Misses the Main Point (Score:5, Interesting)

      by tc ( 93768 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:41AM (#14445891)
      I am a BAFTA member, and as such I vote in these awards. And yes, I still haven't seen Munich due in part to this debacle. The distributor does offer screenings in a cinema for members, but if you can't get to them when they are scheduled (as I couldn't) then you can only judge from the DVD. If you can't play the DVD, then you're out of luck.

      However, it's not correct to say that Munich is ineligable. It is eligable for the awards, but members are (obviously) instructed not to vote for films they haven't seen. So, if most members don't get to see a review DVD or make it to a screening, then they're not going to (or at least certainly shouldn't) vote for the film or performances from it - consequently, many of them haven't. That may of course lead to a film/performance being eliminated from contention in an early round of voting (which is perhaps what you're getting at).

  • Why use region coding? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BushCheney08 ( 917605 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:12AM (#14445691)
    The problem, it appears, was partly down to teething troubles with the limited edition DVD players issued last year to Bafta members. Developed by Cinea, a subsidiary of Dolby, the players permit their owners to view encrypted DVD "screeners", but prevent the creation of pirate copies. Munich screeners were encoded for region one, which allows them to be played in the US and Canada, rather than region two, which incorporates most of Europe.

    If they're using specially encrypted DVDs meant to only be played back on specially-made DVD players, why are they even bothering to region code them? This just reeks of stupidity...

    • Re:Why use region coding? (Score:5, Informative)

      by realStrategos ( 260587 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:56AM (#14446015)

      why are they even bothering to region code them?

      Because they werent suppose to!

      The S-View system requires a fully authored standard DVD-Video project as input, with only a few restrictions:

      1. Leave 200 MB free space on the disc (on Layer 0 of a dual layer title).
      2. Do not enable CSS.
      3. Do not set Region code.
      4. Do not set parental levels.
      5. Author the main feature as one continuous VTS, in MPEG 2.
      6. Do not author angles.
      7. Add a "Cinea Audio Track" as the last audio track for the title. "Cinea Audio Track" is a placeholder for watermarking data that the Cinea system generates. The content of this track is not important (the facility can use a track supplied by Cinea, or can generate their own). We can provide a Dolby Digital 128 kHz file (containing an audio test tone) 120 minutes in length, which is to be authored as the last audio under the entire feature.

      http://www.cinea.com/fews.html [cinea.com]

    • Re:Why use region coding? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Eil ( 82413 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:06AM (#14446081) Homepage Journal
      If they're using specially encrypted DVDs meant to only be played back on specially-made DVD players, why are they even bothering to region code them? This just reeks of stupidity...

      Hi, I see you're new to the film industry...

  • The really interesting question is.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by psavo ( 162634 ) <psavo@iki.fi> on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:12AM (#14445701) Homepage

    ..did it stop screeners of 'Munich' from appearing on trackers?

  • DVD - Don't View Dis (Score:4, Funny)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) * on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:13AM (#14445706)
    In other news, the VHS tape is making a huge resurgence in the video market for its low price, high duplicability, and general ease of use.

  • Why don't they just pay to see it in the theaters? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Like they expect us to do.
    • The reason they dont go see the movies in theatres, and why theatre attendance in general is going down, is because when a guy goes to the movies, he usually brings his girlfriend / wife...

      Now to avoid relationship trouble, guys usually let the woman pick the seat.

      And we all know that women have a knack for picking the worst possible seat in a theatre (usually at the back, because she doesnt want "to be too close", and off to the side, because she took too long to get ready before leaving, therefore all the
  • that prevent the pirating of 'screeners'.

    I could have sworn that a "screener" was just another word for "cam," a designation that means the pirated version comes from someone sneaking a camera into a theater and bootlegging it that way. If you have the DVD, why do this? Also, I thought that the proper designation for a prerelease that is bootlegged from a DVD preview was "Royal." If anyone can correct me on this, I'd appreciate it, as AFAIK, there is no bootleggers vocabulary list anywhere... and the who

    • Nope; a screener is actually a DVD rip from one of these preview DVDs and are often considered the best quality. A camera snuck inside a threatre where the audio is taken from the Hearing Aid port on certain chairs is called a TeleSync and somebody sneaking a camera in there with a microphone is called something similar, although the exact name escapes me at the moment.

    • Re:doesn't a screener = cam?? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Spad ( 470073 ) <slashdot@ s p a d . co.uk> on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:54AM (#14445993) Homepage
      Cam = As it sounds - a handy-cam job by someone who manages to sneak a video camera into the theatre
      TS (Telesync) = Shot from the projection booth with a decent camera taking the audio feed straight from the source.
      VHS Screener = VHS Quality awards screener, usually with watermarking, B&W scenes or missing audio, getting less and less common these days
      TC (Telecine) = Produced by digitally scanning a physical film print, again with an audio feed straight from the souce.
      DVD Screener = DVD Quality awards screener. Same content as VHS screeners but much better quality
      DVD Rip = Usually ripped from retail DVDs, sometimes from pre-release disks
      DVD-R = Often an untouched copy of the retail DVD, sometimes they will have extra features removed to get the size down enough for a DVD5
      HDTV = Ripped from a 720p or 1080i/p HDTV feed, usually pure TS (Transport Stream) format which can either be played back directly or encoded by the user as they see fit.

  • No, no, no ... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ihlosi ( 895663 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:25AM (#14445785)
    "Someone pushed the wrong button,"



    No, no, no. Everyone knows there is only one correct region code, "1". Countries with other region codes are either figments of imagination or simply way too backwards to even know what a DVD is.

  • It Doesn't Matter for the Awards (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:25AM (#14445786)
    But the preview DVD sent to the academy's members is unplayable on machines used in the UK. As a result the majority of Bafta's 5,000 voters will not have seen the film, due to be released in Britain on January 27, and can hardly be expected to recommend it for acclaim.

    As has been known for years, academy members simply don't watch many of the movies they select. It's a huge farce. I'll bet that even though they didn't get the movie within a reasonable time, many vote for it anyway.

    The Academy Awards are a grandiose pat on the back, given by the industry to itself. Why we care, I'm not sure.

    • As has been known for years, academy members simply don't watch many of the movies they select. It's a huge farce. I'll bet that even though they didn't get the movie within a reasonable time, many vote for it anyway.

      The article points out that this wasn't the case last year where Bafta voters weren't provided with screeners of Million Dollar Baby:

      Clint Eastwood's boxing drama failed to gain a single nomination at the 2005 awards. One month later it scooped the major honours at the Academy Awards.

      • The article points out that this wasn't the case last year where Bafta voters weren't provided with screeners of Million Dollar Baby: Clint Eastwood's boxing drama failed to gain a single nomination at the 2005 awards. One month later it scooped the major honours at the Academy Awards.

        While I grant you that, I do think that most people weren't geared to vote for a boxing film "just because", whereas a Stephen Spielberg BMD (Big Moving Drama) just screams, "vote for me".

  • question? (Score:3, Funny)

    by acroyear ( 5882 ) <jws-slashdot@javaclientcookbook.net> on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:26AM (#14445791) Homepage Journal
    are there really 5000 "reviewers" in the UK to start with? I didn't think there were *that* many newspapers left on the planet, much less great britain.

  • Thanks to this, in the UK... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...nobody will want the Director's Cut.

    Thanks, I'll be here all week.

  • Wrong conclusion... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GreyPoopon ( 411036 ) <gpoopon@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:29AM (#14445815)
    An ironic twist in the on-going battle of DRM and media vs. consumers.

    This has almost nothing to do with the DRM battle between media and consumers. These people aren't consumers. These are screener copies used in the awards process. I have absolutely no problem with whatever kinds of DRM they want to use on screener copies, as these have already been found to be a genuine source of piracy. This is EXACTLY the kind of target that the media companies should pursue. The only problem is that they goofed on their first attempt at using some of their new strategies. Other than that, nothing to see here.

  • Reviews (Score:2)

    by neo ( 4625 )
    Despite not being able to view the movie, reviews were positive for the film, with most reviews giving it two thumbs up or four out of five stars depending on their rating systems.
  • Reprinting 5,000 DVD's would be much less costly than an early pirated version of the movie.

  • Scandal in the making. Seriously. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Eric_Cartman_South_P ( 594330 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:41AM (#14445884)
    The deadline is comming up very soon for the reviewers. Tomorrow? Does this mean that if Munich is nominated, it's a scam, since no-one was able to watch it!?!

    \couldn't get me to watch that piece of crap if you paid me.
    \\slashdot needs for fark "slashies"

  • Lack of QA Process (Score:2, Insightful)

    by BStorm ( 107974 )
    It seems that a wrong button was pressed. However the real problems is that there was NO QA process. It would of been very simple to add the step of trying to play the DVD on the DVD player that was the target. If they did not have the DVD with the proper region encoding, they choose not wait for the DVD player to be delivered.

    Trying to take a shortcut on the QA process has turned into big problem. Reminds me of the old nursery rhyme, "For the want of a nail, the kingdom was lost..."

  • It turned out okay (Score:4, Funny)

    by jpsowin ( 325530 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:43AM (#14445906) Homepage
    They just downloaded the torrent and were able to watch it.

  • Purely Karmic (Score:5, Insightful)

    by theguyfromsaturn ( 802938 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @10:57AM (#14446021)
    I always thought that Regional distinctions were wrong, and illegitimate. Even if you want to "protect your IP" and prevent people from copying your product, there is no legitimate reason to prevent someone from buying something in one country and viewing it in another. People can be called upon to move because of work or family. They can bring a present to a family member abroad... maybe because things are cheaper at home. There are so many legitimate reasons for the movies to have to be played in other markets than their destination markets that that kind of protection should plainly be illegal. On the other hand, here we have a beautiful example of karmic retribution. Maybe there is intelligent design after all.

  • Article description horribly off base (Score:5, Insightful)

    by I Like Pudding ( 323363 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:20AM (#14446197)
    The submitter and I have very different criteria for "ironic twist". A Cask of Amontillado this is not. Hell, it isn't even up to M. Night Shyamalan standards.

    Seriously, every time I reread the submission I find something else wrong. This has nothing to do with encryption, consumers, or copy protection. Region codes serve only one "useful" purpose: preventing the import/export of legit discs. The lab mistakenly put in a "1" instead of a "2", so the disc wouldn't play. This is a non-event. This is not a stunning blow against the media pigopolists. No points were made. No wars were won. No minds were blown.

    Rename the headline to "Lab fucks up; switches 2s with 1s. Almost nobody affected" or I will start submitting a new article for every DVD-R I coaster.

  • Munich the film = ridiculously flawed facts (Score:4, Funny)

    by Jackie_Chan_Fan ( 730745 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:43AM (#14446407)
    The Palestinian terrorist (Black September) did infact use guns, and not walkie talkies.

    F'n Speilberg, leave your movies alone! ET phone home. :)

  • This is overblown (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @12:10PM (#14446613) Homepage
    How is this any different than me sending someone in the UK a file, encrypting it with a password, but typing the wrong password, or using the wrong algorithm to encrypt it, thus making it unreadable at the other end.

    There is nothing in the field of morality or ethics that says Spielberg shouldn't be able to send some people of his choice encrypted copies of data that he created. He did make the movie, after all.

    Sheesh.

    If you SELL me a movie that has encryption or DRM limiting how I can watch that movie, then there's a problem. These people in the UK never purchased a copy of the movie.

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