Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Fake titles on DCP drive boxes

This is topic Fake titles on DCP drive boxes in forum Digital Cinema Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 06-17-2015, 11:20 PM:

Just been digesting a flurry of "WTF is this and when are we showing it?" emails resulting from the fact that a DCP we were recently delivered had a fake name on the box.

Unbelievable that they’re still using fake titles on encrypted DCPs. With film prints it made sense – get your hands on a film print and, assuming you have access to scanning/telecine infrastructure (which, if you’re an organized criminal of the sort who typically stole film prints, you probably will), you have a means to make high quality pirate copies. So there was a good reason for disguising the identity of film prints in transit.

But an encrypted DCP?! By the time you’ve successfully done a brute-force decryption of 128-bit AES, the movie in question will be written about in history books, and almost certainly near-worthless to pirates. The encryption system used in DCI DCPs has proven so strong that to my knowledge, no one has yet managed to crack it (unlike every consumer system you care to mention, e.g. CSS, AACS and HDCP, all of which can be defeated by cheap hardware and/or software easily available on Ebay). All you will have stolen is a $50 hard drive, and that is still worth $50 regardless of what movie is on it when you steal it. So using fake names on DCP drive boxes serves no useful purpose whatsoever, while creating the risk that theatres will return them in error without ingesting, in the belief that they’ve been sent the wrong show.

Did no-one tell the studios, Technicolor or Deluxe why they go to all this hassle encrypting DCPs, fielding all the "Help! Where's my KDM?" messages, etc. etc.?! [Roll Eyes]

Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 06-17-2015, 11:36 PM:

Most criminals aren't that intelligent, and encrypted or not there's a much higher chance anything labeled Star Wars VII is going to disappear from FedEx, UPS or even the back hall of the theater than if it were labeled Return to Joe's Apartment. [Big Grin]

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 06-18-2015, 06:19 AM:

It does happen that the final title is not decided upon when the movie is being mastered. Also, there may be very different title names for multi-territory releases.

Very often we get boxes and discs with labels carrying the original language title, with the localized title being so far off, we have to google the relationship.

- Carsten

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 06-18-2015, 07:42 AM:

I'm sure that your average FedEx or UPS driver, or any other potential bootlegger/uploader, has no idea what level of encryption is happening and no idea what file format they will be dealing with. Anyone dumb enough to boost a drive more that likely that thinks the picture is simply a .mov or .wmv file or something eaisly transferred to an average computer, and when they realize they can't, it will go right into the trash. Meanwhile, your theatre is out a drive.

In a similar vein, I remember years ago a 35mm print of Return of The Jedi was stolen from the booth of a local theatre, and found days later in a schoolyard dumpster. When they caught the kids, they said that they thought they would be able to run it on a 16mm Kodak Pageant projector they took from the school's A/V room. No clue.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 06-18-2015, 07:50 AM:

Wondering why the shipping box needs to carry any film-title at all...

- Carsten

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 06-18-2015, 10:51 AM:

I must confess that Mark's and William's points didn't occur to me. Maybe a printed label that says "This movie will not play on consumer equipment", like the decals on some security vans that say "No cash carried on board" might be a good idea.

However, because the studios don't forewarn you about fake titles, this is a risky strategy. On the subject of Star Bores, I did actually put the return label on a 35mm print of the first one of the second batch, in 1999 (it was actually called something like "The Farting Menace" IIRC - the fake title was "Perfect Timing"), and, when it occurred to me to check out the contents of the box anyway, only retrieved it from the lobby with minutes to spare before the courier arrived to collect.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-18-2015, 01:11 PM:

quote: Carsten Kurz
Wondering why the shipping box needs to carry any film-title at all...

Why not dispense with names and just use code numbers on everything?

The reference between the code numbers and the actual movie titles could be sent via e-mail along with the KDM that the theater already receives.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 06-18-2015, 02:04 PM:

We open every box that arrives at the theater, we do not care about any number or movie name printed on it.

As a matter of fact, a lot of boxes do arrive without a movie title on them.

I hate getting promotional material like posters, etc. without a movie title on it, because we get lot's of material for movies we do never play, and I hate searching through a dozen boxes to find a specific title.
But hard-drives are ordered items and we have to unpack and check every one anyway.

- Carsten

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-18-2015, 04:15 PM:

Tracking numbers or invoice numbers?
Just include them in the e-mail.

Since there are already people who are spending time making up fake movie titles and entering them into some computer in order to generate e-mails and shipping labels, it might even be a "labor saving" measure. (Sarcasm... [Roll Eyes]

)