Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Studios eye new anti-piracy technology

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Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 07-04-2004, 01:27 AM:

Eventually, it'll be circumvented. Nothing is foolproof. If someone is smart enough to make something like this, there will be someone equally smart to defeat it.

quote:
Studios eye new anti-piracy technology

By GARY GENTILE
AP BUSINESS WRITER

LOS ANGELES -- The organization behind the Academy Awards is eyeing new technology to prevent a sequel to last year's embarrassing attempt to protect films by not distributing them to Oscar voters at all.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has endorsed a plan to distribute about 6,000 special DVD players to members. Specially encrypted discs, known as screeners, would be earmarked for a specific academy voter and would play only on that person's machine.

"It's extremely impressive," said academy President Frank Pierson. "It certainly looked foolproof to us."

The player also would imprint an invisible watermark on the disc each time it is viewed. In addition, if someone uses a camcorder to tape the movie as it is playing on a monitor, that image would contain information on the person assigned the machine.

Several studios said they were considering participating in the effort, but no studio has made a formal commitment.

Similar watermarking technology used last year on lower-quality videocassettes helped authorities track and convict an Illinois man who had obtained screeners from an academy member and duplicated hundreds of illegal copies for sale.

The success of that effort led Cinea Inc., a division of Dolby Laboratories, to approach the academy about a combination of encryption and watermarking so studios could once again distribute screeners on DVDs.

The Motion Picture Association of America, which represents studios, last year banned the distribution of screener DVDs and videotapes over concerns about bootlegging. Many of the screener copies are of films that are in movie theaters or are still unreleased.

The studios later changed the policy to allow the shipment of encoded videocassettes to Academy Award voters only. A federal judge, however, granted a temporary injunction lifting the screener ban in a lawsuit brought by independent production companies, which argued the policy put them at a disadvantage for awards.

Cinea will invest several million dollars to make and distribute the DVD players to academy members and possibly to movie critics and other awards groups.

"We feel pretty good about the investment and putting the money upfront because we've gotten a lot of positive reinforcement for this idea," said Laurence Roth, Cinea vice president and co-founder.

Cinea executives said that with enough time and money, a hacker could eventually circumvent the encryption technology hardwired in a single DVD player, but the watermarking will help authorities track down that player.

The discs, by themselves, cannot be hacked, Roth said.

The studios would be expected to pay for a machine to encode its discs and a licensing fee to use Cinea's anti-piracy technology.

Cinea is gambling that the high-profile use of its system will persuade the industry to adopt it more widely to protect films as they pass through post-production facilities - another source of bootlegged copies - as well as "digital dailies" - the snippets of film sent, often on DVD, from a film's shooting location to studio executives or a film's marketing partners.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/movies/apmovies_story.asp?category=1402&slug=Secure%20Screeners

[ 07-04-2004, 02:28 AM: Message edited by: Paul G. Thompson ]

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-04-2004, 01:57 AM:

You have a link for that Paul? [av=c] Go ahead and edit it into your post. Thanks. [Smile]

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 07-04-2004, 02:18 AM:

Sorry I still can't do the "clicky here" thing, so I gave you the long link.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-04-2004, 07:29 AM:

Piracy issue aside, I still feel strongly that anyone who is voting for a major award ought to see the films in question properly in a screening room or, preferably, a good commercial theatre with a real audience. Anyone who makes a voting decision based upon watching a video version of the film is just being lazy. Films are made to be seen in theatres with audiences and the Academy members should accept that fact or resign their positions to others who do.

Posted by Dennis Udovich (Member # 1066) on 07-04-2004, 02:01 PM:

Scott, I sure agree with you. The people involved in the motion picture business and then won't go to a movie theatre to see it. That's unbelievable!

Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 07-04-2004, 02:27 PM:

Looks like a new version of "DVD-Decrypter" will be coming out soon. Keep an eye on your favourite pirate site for details.

I liked the improvements they made in the last version, especially where I can remove those stupid "coming soon" things off the beginning of Disney discs and the FBI Warnings in 5 different languages before I hit the menu. Also the ability to convert a "flipper" disc like GWTW into a single side.

Can't wait for the "Academy Award Disc Protection Removal" option. [Smile]

It's just a couple lines of code that need to be omitted from the transfer, I assume. Like Macrovision.

=TMP=

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-04-2004, 02:57 PM:

Thomas and Paul are dead on. This will be cracked before next year's Award's ceremony.

I must also firmly agree that if someone wants the ability to vote that they should HAVE to screen the movie in a theater or screening room. This whole video laziness is Valenti's biggest screwup. (And yes I blame it fully on him, since he blames 92% of all bootleg copies on us.)

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 07-04-2004, 03:45 PM:

quote: Another Stupid Hollywood Idiot
"It's extremely impressive," said academy President Frank Pierson. "It certainly looked foolproof to us."

Ok, so maybe he is the Academy President. I'm sure he's also a software engineer in his spare time, and can thusly make such a claim. It might be fool proof (which would be good considering how many people in the academy are fools when it comes to piracy), but the question is... is it BREAKABLE?

I wonder if they tried plugging the DVD player into a $200 Digital/Analog converter and recording the output on a PC and burning a new disk. Or I wonder if they tried setting up a camcorder in front of the TV and recording the video.

I agree with Scott. See it in a theater or don't vote. It will be a hell of a lot cheaper for the academy to send out free passes for each film to all its members.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 07-04-2004, 03:58 PM:

quote: Scott Norwood
anyone who is voting for a major award ought to see the films in question properly in a screening room or, preferably, a good commercial theatre with a real audience. Anyone who makes a voting decision based upon watching a video version of the film is just being lazy.

quote: Dennis Udovich
The people involved in the motion picture business and then won't go to a movie theatre to see it. That's unbelievable!

I don't agree at all. If I work at Foster Farms killing chickens all day for a living, does that mean I should not go to the supermarket and buy some pre-packed breasts cuz I didn't choke my chicken myself?

Also, many, many moons ago, while in the U.S. Army Crypto school and having had much better encode/decode and encryption-busting training than the U.S. Navy and Air Farce combined, I can honestly say you guys are missing the point of the proposed new screener scheme. It really doesn't matter if the technology is "cracked" or not, the real plus is the invisible watermark traceability for nabbing those jerks.

That's the ticket.

quote: Brad Miller
This whole video laziness is Valenti's biggest screwup. (And yes I blame it fully on him, since he blames 92% of all bootleg copies on us.)

Brad, I don't agree with your dumbass statement about Jacko...he was just "doing his job." And remember, there are FT members here that have "personally" spoke with him and know the "real" Jack.

>>> Phil

Typos corrected...

[ 07-04-2004, 05:53 PM: Message edited by: Phil Hill ]

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 07-04-2004, 05:22 PM:

quote: Coot!
If I work at Foster Farms killing chickens all day for a living, does that mean I should not got to the supermarket and buy some pre-packed breasts cuz I didn't choke my chicken myself?

That depends on whether or not your peers are going to vote on how well you choke your chicken.

Posted by Wolff King Morrow (Member # 2226) on 07-04-2004, 10:12 PM:

quote: Phil Hill
It really doesn't matter if the technology is "cracked" or not, the real plus is the invisible watermark traceability for nabbing those jerks.

That's only if their assigned player is used to view the disc. A real pirate will have his/her own equipment to make a binary image of the disc, which can then be dissected on a computer until completely cracked.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-04-2004, 10:53 PM:

I bet Michael Beard could crack the code on these new DVDs. He is invincible![av=n]

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 07-04-2004, 11:40 PM:

I agree with Scott Norwood; they should see them in theatrers. All the language relating to voting points to the fact that they should be considered in theatrical terms, including theatrical release date.

Otherwise, you get silliness like the example pointed out here recently of Master & Commander's cinematography award. That CGI must have looked just fine at home on the TV.