Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: DVD Piracy

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Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-14-2001, 01:14 PM:

It's a dangerous world out there for movies in digital form. This attached article from ZDNet Inter@ctive Investor describes the latest twist on defeating consumer DVD encryption, with a real-time decryption program using only seven lines of computer code:
http://www.zdii.com/industry_list.asp?mode=news&doc_id=ZD2693768

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by Steven Pickles (Member # 785) on 03-14-2001, 01:39 PM:

John,

This story only foreshadows what the future has in store for digital media--or any media for that matter. To the inventors it is not just about seven lines of computer code to defeat DVD encryption.. its about beating the system. Such a human mindset has been around for as long as societies have existed. Nothing is ever 100% safe and secure.. and often even the best attempts to do so fail. All this does is allow for more attempts to encrypt something that will inevitably be broken soon after its release. From software to movies, there will be people who feel the need to cheat others.

On a another note, someone will always know how to decrypt data beacause a human has devise a system with which to encrypt the data. That system can only be based on human thought (more or less) so then it only takes a human to think of how to decipher the message.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-14-2001, 01:48 PM:

OK first of all I want to say that I did not read John's link above.

I know all too well about defeating DVD's. I don't bother because most DVDs are dirt cheap anyway. but I do have a friend who has software for Windows that will automatically rip the DVD, and then encode and burn it to Video CD. It only takes several hours per DVD. The resulting Video CD image is strobey (sp?) and it makes it unwatchable for me.

It is interesting, however, that it is entirely legal to put explicit instructions on how to build bombs on the internet, but not legal to put the DVD decryption code or download an MP3!

Posted by John Schulien (Member # 215) on 03-14-2001, 04:38 PM:

It's always been a dangerous world out there for each and every media. It's worth pointing out that the first digital format was the movable type press, and media producers have been fighting piracy -- both real and imagined -- ever since, in digital and analog form.

CSS is a curious invention, and what it doesn't do turns out to be just as interesting as what it does do.

CSS doesn't prevent commercial piracy. As the Chinese DVD bootleggers quickly learned, all you need to do to make bootleg copies of a DVD is to make a bit-for-bit copy of the encrypted data. Why would anyone making pirate copies bother to decode the data anyway, when all DVD players have that functionality built in?

CSS doesn't prevent people from converting movies into internet-downloadable files either. It's been shown that this can be done by feeding the output of a DVD player into a computer-based video capture card. The quality is supposed to be slightly inferior to the native DVD, but that apparently doesn't matter, because the process of down-scaling the MPEG data stream into the chunky, artifact-filled video CD format causes so much video quality loss that regardless of what your video source was, DVD or VHS, the results are uniformly dismal. Ever seen a video CD? Yuck! Would YOU spend hours of modem time to download something that looks inferior to something you can rent for a dollar at the video store?

What CSS DOES do is control access to the DVD player market. If you want to produce a DVD player (as opposed to a copier, which doesn't need to decrypt the data), you need to know the decryption algorithm -- that little seven line program. Until the CSS algorithm was reverse-engineered and disseminated, the only way to obtain that decryption algorithm was to sign a contract with the CSS controlling authority in which you would agree to implement region controls, and not to include a digital output on your DVD player. That's why none of them have one.

A digital output on a DVD player would be extremely desirable, because it would allow one to connect it directly to a video projector or high-end television with a firewire input, bypassing the distortion caused by the digital-to-analog conversion, and the deliberate Macrovision distortion. Region-free players are highly desirable because they allow people in Europe to buy American DVDs, which are generally higher quality -- with more features -- and are priced lower then the local region DVD offerings. A Macrovision-free DVD player would be desirable because you could connect it to your television through the line-in on your VCR without the picture being distorted by the Macrovision detection circuit in the VCR, and some TVs are affected by Macrovision.

The real question with DeCSS is whether it is constitutionally permissible, under U.S. copyright law, for the copyright holders of most motion pictures to join together in a "consortium", and dictate what equipment may be used to play DVDs that have been sold to the general public.

The Supreme Court said, "No" in 1917 to a similar question, when it dissolved Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company, which controlled the motion picture industry the way that the DVD consortium controls the DVD industry. Among other things, the Edison Trust licensed projectors, and declared that it was illegal to display a motion picture produced by the trust (which was most of the industry players at the time) on a projector that was not licensed by the trust. The Supreme Court said no way, and dissolved the trust, breaking open the market for both motion pictures and motion picture equipment.

The motion picture industry has done quite well for itself since 1917.

Practically speaking, it's too late to stop the spread of the CSS algorithm. The horse is out of the barn, and it isn't going back in. The fact that the decryptor can be written in seven lines is interesting, but hardly important. Seven lines or 7000 lines, the important thing about the DeCSS program is that it breaks the DVD trust.

The only logical reason I can see for the MPAA to continue to fight the CSS battle is to regain control over the DVD player market, and keep those region-free, Macrovision free DVD players with digital outputs -- a superior product -- off the shelves.

It's an ugly industry fight, based on the question of whether the general public has the right, once they buy a DVD, to view their DVD on the equipment of their choice, or if they only have the right to view their DVDs on industry-approved and licensed players.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 03-14-2001, 06:36 PM:

Personally, I wouldn't fool around ripping DVD's anyway. DVD's are affordable as it is. I feel more comfortable by possessing a legit DVD than some bootlegged POS.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 03-14-2001, 07:55 PM:

Paul -- I agree with you on this. The bigger problem, though, with CSS and the DMCA (an evil piece of legislation called the Digital Millenium Copyright Act) is that both of these infringe upon legitimate "fair use" rights of individuals, while not really doing much to prevent the real problems of piracy.

I'm totally in favor of increased enforcement of copyright laws, yet the idea of making it illegal to reverse-engineer a copy-protection scheme even when such reverse-engineering is necessary in order to make legal personal copies of the material (which is within the fair-use rights of the user, at least in the US) is clearly a misguided approach to the piracy problem.

(Sorry for the mini-rant. I'd just rather see better enforcement of existing laws against copyright infringement than these lame pseudo-copy-protection schemes and laws written by record- and film-industry lobbyists which essentially reduce "fair use" to a meaningless concept, making life very difficult for libraries, personal users, etc., while not doing anything to solve the real problem of piracy.)

Posted by Jerry Chase (Member # 660) on 03-14-2001, 08:09 PM:

John S., I love it when someone like you does a reality check.

It is common knowledge that anyone can get the latest movies off the net if they are willing to suffer through abysmal quality and long download times.

AFAIK, DVD isn't the future issue as much as MPG4 and the non-Comp-usa DivX. We need to ask- Why is piracy such a big issue that it could put most theatres out of business?

Film has historically depended on three factors to justify the high prices charged moviegoers for an ephemeral product.

1. Timeliness. Being the first to see a film has always been an audience draw. Film, as a product, has a definite short shelf life for most people.

2. Quality. In addition to quality of plot and performances, this includes presentation quality, which is what this group largely discusses. 'nuff said.

3. Ambiance. No screaming kids, no phone calls, no interruptions, beautiful comfortable surroundings.

Other lesser factors, like convenience and product awareness, also play their part.

It is no wonder that the problem of piracy is such a big issue. When timeliness has been compromised by pirate copies becoming available day-and-date with the major release dates, (Str-r-r-r-IKE one!) what is left?

Quality. Much as I hate to say it, a large portion of the exhibition end of the industry does a lousy job. Scratched, out of focus prints, lack of proper masking and curtains, cheap slide shows on the magic screen, all these add up to a perception of poor presentation. Home presentation systems keep getting better. Str-r-r-r-ike two.

Ambiance. Screaming kids, cell phones, interruptions, auditoriums controlled by a computer to be uniformly too hot or too cold, in order to save pennies on energy cost. Strike three. Yer out!!!

Piracy could end up being the final blow. Indian language films suffer from this problem, and the market for Hindi films has shortened to a single week in some markets. After that, the pirate copies saturate the market.

It goes against the grain for me to say it, but in larger markets we would probably better serve the public if the industry went back to vertical integration, where Fox features ran in Fox theatres, etc.. The incentives for excellence are reduced when the industry is split into warring money-grubbing factions the way it is. By giving a company control from inception to finish, and forcing competition based on quality of the complete process, it would be VITAL for a company to insure quality product and presentation.

The copyright issues would be immediately solved by such a move. Fox would have their own proprietary encryption codes, and other companies would have other unique codes. Any hack could be dealt with internally, and new codes implimented with minimal hassle. By not splitting the profit pie into so many pieces, profit margins would be increased.

Comments?

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-15-2001, 01:09 AM:

The movie industry has every right to be concerned. With the crap that they are putting in our theaters nowadays (the studios call them "movies") they can't be turning a profit. They have to rely on home sales to break even.

But even if they were turning a profit, you bet they'd want every red cent! You can never have too much money! They really should consider giving some of that money to me for no good reason!

Posted by Tod J. Weitzel (Member # 760) on 03-16-2001, 02:34 AM:

quote:
Ever seen a video CD? Yuck! Would YOU spend hours of modem time to download something that looks inferior to something you can rent for a dollar at the video store?

I have to disagree with this. The latest first-party (as opposed to bootleg)releases coming out of Hong Kong in the last year or so have been improving in quality every quarter. VCD 2.0 movies use a new encoder that, while still technically MPEG-1, drastically cut down artifacting. Most of the high-grossing blockbusters are also being encoded straight off a telecine running a brand new print, oftentimes into MPEG-2 for release on SVCD. My SVCD of Teijing Xinrinlei 2 [Gen-Y Cops if you must know] is probably the best quality video I've seen come off a CD with a hardware player.

No substitute for a DVD, but seeing as how no place around here rents lesser-known HK films, I'll gladly drop the $10 or so for a first-party VCD of a movie I basically have no other means of seeing. Shipping VHS tape from Hong Kong to California gets ridiculous, and DVDs in Asia easily retail for $50+ before import markup.

-Tw?

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-16-2001, 04:22 AM:

DVDs are getting cheaper and cheaper. Hell, a blank video DVD only costs $10 from Apple. So hopefully soon you will be able to get all of your HK stuff on real DVD. Video CD is limited to 352x240, which really isn't anything impressive to say the least. There are Quicktimes on this site with a higher resolution than that. What is the resolution of SVCD? Curious.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 03-16-2001, 06:47 AM:

Joe -- are the Apple DVD-R disks "real" DVD-Rs or are they crippled in some way (like "music" CD-R disks)? I thought that "real" DVD-Rs were still about $20 apiece, which still is pretty cheap. Remember that CD-Rs used to go for about $70 (!) apiece not too long ago; now they can be had for $.50 or so. (Memo to self: get a CD burner)

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-16-2001, 04:18 PM:

Scott-
I'm not sure if they are crippled. I don't see how they would be. Maybe they are not able to produce a dual layer presentation yet. But they will record video at DVD resolution and play back in consumer players.

I just got a CD-R and it's cool! Although it is an internal I shuffle it back between the PC and the Mac because the Mac writes audio CDs just by drag and drop and the PC makes better CD ROMs (actually I think the Mac does drag and drop CDs, but they end up being formatted only for the Mac). Blank CDs are 20 cents apiece. 25 cents for the good ones that can be read on most players (don't buy Ricoh or PNY Tech discs... or anything with a silver bottom!)

Posted by John Schulien (Member # 215) on 03-16-2001, 04:47 PM:

Consumer recordable DVDs *are* slightly crippled, but in a fairly unobtrusive way. All DVDs include a special fixed "key" area. On any DVD encrypted with the CSS algorithm (in other words, most but not all commercial DVDs), this area holds part of the CSS decryption keys for the disk. When combined with the keys built into the player, this gives the player enough information to decypher the DVD data and display the movie.

On consumer media, this area is permanently zeroed out. This prevents you from copying a CSS-protected DVD bit-for-bit onto a blank and having it work. You can't fill in that one critical area, so your DVD player can't decypher the data blocks.

However, if you're creating your own content, there's no problem. Your DVD is mastered in unencrypted mode, and this is fine, because all DVD players are perfectly capable of playing back unencrypted DVDs. It's part of the spec.

BTW, with regards to audio CDRs, there are two differences between audio CDRs and data CDRs. The first is that audio CDRs have a special identification mark built into them that allows them to be used on standalone CDR burners. This doesn't prevent their use as a data CD, it just enables their use on standalone equipment. The second is that 3% of the import or wholesale price of any digital media branded for audio use is paid to the RIAA as a "royalty", in case you happen to fill the disc with copyrighted material.

All of this was introduced by the Audio Home Recording Act in 1992. It currently exists as Title 17 Chapter 10 of the U.S. Code.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/ch10.html

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-16-2001, 05:40 PM:

Audio CDRs are required for stand alone CD Recorders, like my ex girfriends has. The discs cost A LOT more - definitely more than 25 cents per disc. The unit is a piece of crap as you can only record in real time. I have a computer CD burner which can use any type of CDR for audio. No royalties to pay. Any type of CDR will work for audio, it's just that some of them have difficulty playing in my Sony CD Player while they play just fine on my Pioneer CD Player.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 03-16-2001, 08:46 PM:

I have "Disk Burner" on my iMac. It'll do Drag-and-Drop BUT it only writes to the Mac OS format and it only writes single session.

If you want to make a "hybrid" disk for use on both platforms or it you want to make multisession disks you have to use a separate program like "Toast".

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-16-2001, 09:06 PM:

Or I could just burn it on the PC! Let's face it, the Mac is not a good OS. Now Windows, on the other hand, has NEVER given ANYONE and ounce of trouble! It is perfect. Microsoft always makes sure Windows is completely bug free and will work with any peripherals you may have without any sort of conflicts or trouble. That is why it works so well and is 5 billion times better than that Mac! You cannot deny Windows superiority over the Mac! The Mac has troubles even turning on whereas Windows will wipe your ass for you!

Hail Hitler, er I mean Windows!

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 03-16-2001, 09:21 PM:

Y'know, I never thought to use Windows to wipe my ass but come to think of it, that sounds like a mighty fine use for it!

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-17-2001, 05:33 PM:

Yo, Randy! Tell me more about this "Disc Burner" program. My CD Burner is actually a CDRW unit. Would it let me drag and drop files, and also delete them just as if I was using a really big Zip disc? That would kick much ass!

Also, is "Disc Burner" a free download from Apple? I am assuming that it is since they have free music, video editing, FTP, and DVD authoring programs. It is really hard for me to hate Apple, even when they do something stupid.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 03-17-2001, 06:50 PM:

What's the point of the rewritable disks, anyway? The concept might have made sense when CD-Rs cost $20 or so, but at this point, it just seems silly to spend 5-10x the cost of the write-once blanks to get the rewritable blanks that often can't be read by standard drives...

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 03-17-2001, 07:40 PM:

I haven't really put it through its paces yet as I've only had my burner for about 3 weeks... two of which I have been out on the road.

Disk burner seems to be really nothing more than a set of system extensions, etc. that allows the OS to understand CDs as if they were disks. It's free for the downloading from Apple's website. If iTunes will burn to your drive then Disk Burner will, too.

When you put in a disk a dialog pops up that asks you to "prepare" the disk. You name the disk and select the format from a pop-up. Then the disk's icon comes up on your desktop. You treat it like a regular disk by dragging files into it as usual. The difference is that when you want to write the data you have to click on a "burn" button and write the data all at once.

Again, I haven't used it a whole lot. I just used it to start backing up my system so I've only made a couple of burns with it. I just tested it before writing this... when you put in a blank disk it can tell if it's a CD-R or a CD-RW. I didn't go any farther than that because I don't have anything "important" enough to write yet. When I get the time to do it, I'm going to make a "full" backup of my system. (Right after I get done finishing up two weeks worth of expense reports and "PM" reports.) The last two weeks were kinda' hellish. I would get to one place then get called to the next before I could get done with the first.

Once I can get settled I'm going to REALLY put Disk Burner through a workout!

Posted by Tod J. Weitzel (Member # 760) on 03-18-2001, 03:48 AM:

quote:
Video CD is limited to 352x240, which really isn't anything impressive to say the least. There are Quicktimes on this site with a higher resolution than that. What is the resolution of SVCD? Curious.

I believe it is the same as normal VCD.

In case this is heading down the path of a format war (which is not only one I don't stand a chance of winning but is utterly silly on a film bbs), I am not attempting to say VCD is better than DVD - I'm merely advocating that perhaps it's not as bad as it is made out to be.

-Tw?