7 ms·

"Intel's just using Hollywood's fear of piracy" DRM has very little to do with piracy. Hollywood know perfectly well that DRM will not stop a determined pirate

by ris 12y ago

"Intel's just using Hollywood's fear of piracy" DRM has very little to do with piracy. Hollywood know perfectly well that DRM will not stop a determined pirate and a movie only has to be ripped once to be pirated indefinitely. It's about control. It's about the studios always having a seat at the bargaining table when new products/devices are being floated. They fear becoming a commodity supplier.

mike_hearn 12y ago
DRM is absolutely to do with piracy, that's the whole point of the technology. Of course Hollywood knows that any given DRM scheme will be broken at some point. How much they care about this depends a lot on what exactly "at some point" really means. Almost all money from movie sales comes in a spike when the movie is first release, hardly any movies go on to become long-term cult classics that people are still buying years later. If a DRM scheme is so good that it takes three months to crack once disks hit the street, from the movie studios perspectives that's a huge win because during the movie's peak people had to cough up the money to buy it or put up with some truly crappy low quality version. The same economics holds for other things like video games. Nobody cares if you beat the DRM on a game that's five years old. So the real question is, can DRM give studios and other content creators such a window of time? The results are mixed. Sometimes the answer has been yes. Other times the answer has been no. It's complicated and depends on a lot of fiddly things.
- DanBC 12y ago
  DRM is tied to formats, not to movie releases. Your timin argument is odd when you consider that they still release movies on DVD with a thoroughly broken DRM system. > The same economics holds for other things like video games. Nobody cares if you beat the DRM on a game that's five years old. Yes, they do. Japanese game companies wanted to make it illegal to sell games to the second user market; MAME rom sites are routinely shut down. Disney initially resisted releasing films on VHS because they would not be able to extract a charge from everyone in the room watching the movie. Disney uas investigated a bunch of different rights protection mechanisms. They invented video cassettes that had a ratchet meaning they could only be watched once and needed to be sent back to a factory to be rewound. They invented a DVD that oxidized in contact with air. It would be sent to you in special packaging. You had about 48 hours after opening the package before the disc degrades. Early music players had weird schemes - one digital copy; weird software needed to load music to the device. All of these are about controlling how the consumer uses the product. The intent might be to make casual piracy harder, but the effect is to make life really freaking hard for honest people.
  - jimbobimbo 12y ago
    DVDs are coming out months after the initial release, so timing is a part of consideration here.
- jerf 12y ago
  "DRM is absolutely to do with piracy, that's the whole point of the technology." DRM's stated goal was dealing with piracy, 20+ years ago. That does not mean that that is what it does now. Goals aren't results, to say nothing of the fact that goals 20 years ago aren't necessarily goals today. It is highly arguable that, given that it has failed to stop piracy comprehensively, that its primary utility to the people that use it is actually platform control. For instance, please see and think about the stuff discussed in http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/04/understanding-amazons-strategy.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/04/understa... One of the reasons I don't accept "DRM is about piracy and nothing else" is that it doesn't make sense of the observable facts. DRM costs money and basically doesn't work. If it were really about piracy, I think the "DRM is about piracy" theory would see one of two reactions to that fact: Either we'd see a great deal more investment into DRM than we do now to the point where it could actually be relied upon [1], or it would get dropped to save money. Neither is happening; DRM continues, its advancements are quite perfunctory overall, and breaks proliferate. On the other hand, "DRM as platform control" implies that the currently level of DRM tech and investment makes perfect sense, it's already the correct amount as investing a whole bunch more would not increase the already absolute control over platforms that it yields. So I am inclined towards the platform control theory, as it seems to match reality better. As for the fact that the DRM users "say" it's about piracy... feh. Words. Words are meaningless nowadays. Look to the actions. [1]: While "it can always be cracked" triumphalists haven't been looking, the previous gen consoles took an awful long time to be cracked. I'd say there's evidence that this could in practice be made to work for software, at least. The 3DS is still only pried open a bit, just shy of 4 years after its release, and that only recently! I wouldn't care to bet when the XBone or the PS4 get cracked; a straight interpolation of existing trends can easily suggest six or seven years. Music and movies are still going to be hard to fully protect due to the fact that what is output to the AV system is the content. Software allows for more opportunities for DRM.
  - pandaman 12y ago
    I think you attribute your own goals to the DRM. I, for one, don't believe DRM is there to prevent all and any copyright infringement through technical means. It works very well against casual copying. Even Macrovision for VHS did, despite being cracked. It has no means to prevent e.g. unlicensed public performance though. Neither it's aiming at preventing unlicensed distribution on non-DRM platforms, which you seem to point as a fault of DRM.
davidgerard 12y ago
>Hollywood know perfectly well that DRM will not stop a determined pirate and a movie only has to be ripped once to be pirated indefinitely. You know, I'm really not convinced they do. Everything I see from these people leads me to think they literally think this stuff is magic, and they want the snake oil so badly they'll believe the people selling it over the people telling them the disappointing truth, every time.
- walterbell 12y ago
  There's also a legal component of control. More DRM means more identifiers for content creators, distributors, consumers, including open-source Firefox that will support HTML5 DRM. http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2014/10/new-tpp-leak-canada-emerges-leading-opponent-u-s-intellectual-property-demands/ http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2014/10/new-tpp-leak-canada-emerg..., ".. shows Canada as the strongest opponent to TPP IP demands, signalling its opposition to a proposal 56 times, more than any other country. The strongest opposition comes in the patents, enforcement, trademarks, and copyright sections. .. the U.S. wants Canada to eviscerate many of the recent reforms found in copyright and counterfeiting legislation along with court rulings on patent protection. These demands focus on enhanced criminal liability for copyright infringement .."
- Thlom 12y ago
  As far as I know the DRM on DCPs (Digital Cinema Package) isn't broken. Yet. Maybe because relatively few people have access to the encrypted content. I guess the most important thing for the movie industry is to have the cinema window free from pirated copies.
  - seanp2k2 12y ago
    Where/how is this used? I ask because screeners are definitely a thing.
    - Thlom 12y ago
      Most digital cinema releases are AES 128 bit encrypted. For specifics refer to the DCI specification [1]. Screeners are from DVD/Bluray copies sent to academy members and such? If I'm not mistaken? [1] http://dcimovies.com/specification/DCI_DCSS_v12_with_errata_2012-1010.pdf http://dcimovies.com/specification/DCI_DCSS_v12_with_errata_...
rhino369 12y ago
Consumer DRM is about making piracy more difficult. It's not an all or nothing proposition. Video and Audio DRM will never stop scene pirating. It's easy to just copy the output. But it stops me from just copying movies I rented on Amazon Instant to my brothers PC. If 10% of the population is pirating you shit, you aren't losing very many sales. Sure it hurts your profit margin a little. But most dedicated pirates are junkies for content. But if my mom can't figure out how to pirate your content, you are fucked. That's why Napster and the P2P ruined the commercial music industry. It not only took a huge chunk of the revenue, but it changed the perception of the value of music itself. Instead of 12 bucks per album, people wanted 20,000 songs on their IPOD for free. The fight against piracy isn't a fight to exterminate it, but to keep piracy out of reach of the critical mass. Some DRM really works. PC multiplayer DRM works great and is the only reason the PC industry is surviving. Movie theatres are the best DRM there is. Not being able to sideload stuff on a nonjailbroken iphone is huge.
rayiner 12y ago
> It's about control. It's about the studios always having a seat at the bargaining table when new products/devices are being floated. They fear becoming a commodity supplier. The only way the studios would become a commodity supplier is if there were numerous other sources of content people would pay money to watch. That's what it means for your product to be a commodity. E.g. consumer PCs are a commodity because if you don't like Dell, you can get an identical product from HP. But with movies, if you want Harry Potter, you have to play ball with Warner Bros., because consumers want that specific movie, not some generic equivalent. The studios want DRM not because they don't trust consumers, but because they (rightfully) don't trust the tech industry. It doesn't matter that Harry Potter isn't a commodity if you can pirate it without doing business with Warner Brothers. The tech industry sells hardware and software services for consuming content, and it helps its bottom line if piracy is easy and prevalent. See, e.g., Youtube's being built on the back of infringing Viacom's copyrights. DRM gives the studios a toe-hold in the process to deter products that blatantly promote copyright infringement.
- xorcist 12y ago
  The studios are also distributors, and it is on distributors the pull of DRM is the strongest. You are indeed a commodity if the consumers can get their Harry Potter fix from anyone. (And that is basically what "pirates" have been saying for ages, that distributors are ice block sellers in the refrigerator age, and that distribution is destined to move up the value chain in the digital age.)
  - rhino369 12y ago
    There won't be a value chain if the content creators don't get compensated. Piracy, digital or otherwise, only works if you are skimming off the top of a viable business model. The distribution channel is really the commodity. Hell, pirates do it for free. I'm a pirate, but I realize the worst thing that could happen is widespread piracy. Someone has to pay to create the media.
    - xorcist 12y ago
wolfgke 12y ago
Pirating movies: No hassle with DRM Buying moving legally: Trouble with DRM (Windows, OS X), often impossible to play on Linux. Let the customer decide. :-)

by ris 12y ago

mike_hearn 12y ago

DRM is absolutely to do with piracy, that's the whole point of the technology. Of course Hollywood knows that any given DRM scheme will be broken at some point. How much they care about this depends a lot on what exactly "at some point" really means. Almost all money from movie sales comes in a spike when the movie is first release, hardly any movies go on to become long-term cult classics that people are still buying years later. If a DRM scheme is so good that it takes three months to crack once disks hit the street, from the movie studios perspectives that's a huge win because during the movie's peak people had to cough up the money to buy it or put up with some truly crappy low quality version. The same economics holds for other things like video games. Nobody cares if you beat the DRM on a game that's five years old. So the real question is, can DRM give studios and other content creators such a window of time? The results are mixed. Sometimes the answer has been yes. Other times the answer has been no. It's complicated and depends on a lot of fiddly things.

DanBC 12y ago
DRM is tied to formats, not to movie releases. Your timin argument is odd when you consider that they still release movies on DVD with a thoroughly broken DRM system. > The same economics holds for other things like video games. Nobody cares if you beat the DRM on a game that's five years old. Yes, they do. Japanese game companies wanted to make it illegal to sell games to the second user market; MAME rom sites are routinely shut down. Disney initially resisted releasing films on VHS because they would not be able to extract a charge from everyone in the room watching the movie. Disney uas investigated a bunch of different rights protection mechanisms. They invented video cassettes that had a ratchet meaning they could only be watched once and needed to be sent back to a factory to be rewound. They invented a DVD that oxidized in contact with air. It would be sent to you in special packaging. You had about 48 hours after opening the package before the disc degrades. Early music players had weird schemes - one digital copy; weird software needed to load music to the device. All of these are about controlling how the consumer uses the product. The intent might be to make casual piracy harder, but the effect is to make life really freaking hard for honest people.
- jimbobimbo 12y ago
  DVDs are coming out months after the initial release, so timing is a part of consideration here.
jerf 12y ago
"DRM is absolutely to do with piracy, that's the whole point of the technology." DRM's stated goal was dealing with piracy, 20+ years ago. That does not mean that that is what it does now. Goals aren't results, to say nothing of the fact that goals 20 years ago aren't necessarily goals today. It is highly arguable that, given that it has failed to stop piracy comprehensively, that its primary utility to the people that use it is actually platform control. For instance, please see and think about the stuff discussed in http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/04/understanding-amazons-strategy.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/04/understa... One of the reasons I don't accept "DRM is about piracy and nothing else" is that it doesn't make sense of the observable facts. DRM costs money and basically doesn't work. If it were really about piracy, I think the "DRM is about piracy" theory would see one of two reactions to that fact: Either we'd see a great deal more investment into DRM than we do now to the point where it could actually be relied upon [1], or it would get dropped to save money. Neither is happening; DRM continues, its advancements are quite perfunctory overall, and breaks proliferate. On the other hand, "DRM as platform control" implies that the currently level of DRM tech and investment makes perfect sense, it's already the correct amount as investing a whole bunch more would not increase the already absolute control over platforms that it yields. So I am inclined towards the platform control theory, as it seems to match reality better. As for the fact that the DRM users "say" it's about piracy... feh. Words. Words are meaningless nowadays. Look to the actions. [1]: While "it can always be cracked" triumphalists haven't been looking, the previous gen consoles took an awful long time to be cracked. I'd say there's evidence that this could in practice be made to work for software, at least. The 3DS is still only pried open a bit, just shy of 4 years after its release, and that only recently! I wouldn't care to bet when the XBone or the PS4 get cracked; a straight interpolation of existing trends can easily suggest six or seven years. Music and movies are still going to be hard to fully protect due to the fact that what is output to the AV system is the content. Software allows for more opportunities for DRM.
- pandaman 12y ago
  I think you attribute your own goals to the DRM. I, for one, don't believe DRM is there to prevent all and any copyright infringement through technical means. It works very well against casual copying. Even Macrovision for VHS did, despite being cracked. It has no means to prevent e.g. unlicensed public performance though. Neither it's aiming at preventing unlicensed distribution on non-DRM platforms, which you seem to point as a fault of DRM.

davidgerard 12y ago

>Hollywood know perfectly well that DRM will not stop a determined pirate and a movie only has to be ripped once to be pirated indefinitely. You know, I'm really not convinced they do. Everything I see from these people leads me to think they literally think this stuff is magic, and they want the snake oil so badly they'll believe the people selling it over the people telling them the disappointing truth, every time.

walterbell 12y ago
There's also a legal component of control. More DRM means more identifiers for content creators, distributors, consumers, including open-source Firefox that will support HTML5 DRM. http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2014/10/new-tpp-leak-canada-emerges-leading-opponent-u-s-intellectual-property-demands/ http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2014/10/new-tpp-leak-canada-emerg..., ".. shows Canada as the strongest opponent to TPP IP demands, signalling its opposition to a proposal 56 times, more than any other country. The strongest opposition comes in the patents, enforcement, trademarks, and copyright sections. .. the U.S. wants Canada to eviscerate many of the recent reforms found in copyright and counterfeiting legislation along with court rulings on patent protection. These demands focus on enhanced criminal liability for copyright infringement .."
Thlom 12y ago
As far as I know the DRM on DCPs (Digital Cinema Package) isn't broken. Yet. Maybe because relatively few people have access to the encrypted content. I guess the most important thing for the movie industry is to have the cinema window free from pirated copies.
- seanp2k2 12y ago
  Where/how is this used? I ask because screeners are definitely a thing.
  - Thlom 12y ago
    Most digital cinema releases are AES 128 bit encrypted. For specifics refer to the DCI specification [1]. Screeners are from DVD/Bluray copies sent to academy members and such? If I'm not mistaken? [1] http://dcimovies.com/specification/DCI_DCSS_v12_with_errata_2012-1010.pdf http://dcimovies.com/specification/DCI_DCSS_v12_with_errata_...

rhino369 12y ago

Consumer DRM is about making piracy more difficult. It's not an all or nothing proposition. Video and Audio DRM will never stop scene pirating. It's easy to just copy the output. But it stops me from just copying movies I rented on Amazon Instant to my brothers PC. If 10% of the population is pirating you shit, you aren't losing very many sales. Sure it hurts your profit margin a little. But most dedicated pirates are junkies for content. But if my mom can't figure out how to pirate your content, you are fucked. That's why Napster and the P2P ruined the commercial music industry. It not only took a huge chunk of the revenue, but it changed the perception of the value of music itself. Instead of 12 bucks per album, people wanted 20,000 songs on their IPOD for free. The fight against piracy isn't a fight to exterminate it, but to keep piracy out of reach of the critical mass. Some DRM really works. PC multiplayer DRM works great and is the only reason the PC industry is surviving. Movie theatres are the best DRM there is. Not being able to sideload stuff on a nonjailbroken iphone is huge.

rayiner 12y ago

> It's about control. It's about the studios always having a seat at the bargaining table when new products/devices are being floated. They fear becoming a commodity supplier. The only way the studios would become a commodity supplier is if there were numerous other sources of content people would pay money to watch. That's what it means for your product to be a commodity. E.g. consumer PCs are a commodity because if you don't like Dell, you can get an identical product from HP. But with movies, if you want Harry Potter, you have to play ball with Warner Bros., because consumers want that specific movie, not some generic equivalent. The studios want DRM not because they don't trust consumers, but because they (rightfully) don't trust the tech industry. It doesn't matter that Harry Potter isn't a commodity if you can pirate it without doing business with Warner Brothers. The tech industry sells hardware and software services for consuming content, and it helps its bottom line if piracy is easy and prevalent. See, e.g., Youtube's being built on the back of infringing Viacom's copyrights. DRM gives the studios a toe-hold in the process to deter products that blatantly promote copyright infringement.

xorcist 12y ago
The studios are also distributors, and it is on distributors the pull of DRM is the strongest. You are indeed a commodity if the consumers can get their Harry Potter fix from anyone. (And that is basically what "pirates" have been saying for ages, that distributors are ice block sellers in the refrigerator age, and that distribution is destined to move up the value chain in the digital age.)
- rhino369 12y ago
  There won't be a value chain if the content creators don't get compensated. Piracy, digital or otherwise, only works if you are skimming off the top of a viable business model. The distribution channel is really the commodity. Hell, pirates do it for free. I'm a pirate, but I realize the worst thing that could happen is widespread piracy. Someone has to pay to create the media.
  - xorcist 12y ago

wolfgke 12y ago

Pirating movies: No hassle with DRM Buying moving legally: Trouble with DRM (Windows, OS X), often impossible to play on Linux. Let the customer decide. :-)