Page 1 of DVD copy protection strengthened

DVDs will be harder to copy thanks to new anti-piracy measures devised by copy protection firm Macrovision. The pirated DVD market is enormous because current copy protection was hacked more than five years ago. Macrovision says its new RipGuard technology will thwart most, but not all, of the current DVD ripping (copying) programs used to pirate DVDs. "RipGuard is designed to... reduce DVD ripping and the resulting supply of illegal peer to peer," said the firm. Macrovision said the new technology will work in "nearly all" current DVD players when applied to the discs, but it did not specify how many machines could have a problem with RipGuard. Some BBC News website users have expressed concerns that the new technology will mean that DVDs will not work on PCs running the operating system Linux.

The new technology will be welcomed by Hollywood film studios which are increasingly relying on revenue from DVD sales.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4266977.stm

So basically they could be selling discs that don`t work even when used legitimately? Total bunch of arseholes. It`s about time they stopped blaming `piracy` for all their woes and took a good look at the reasons behind the drop in theatre attendance and the perceived fall off in DVD sales.

It will be as successful as when they launched the CD protection method that wouldnt let you play CDs on computers. People either took the cds back or pressed CTRL when they loaded them......

Its rediculous. Theres a lot of almost and alls in this piece. All it will take is for one program to work (which it already does by the sounds of it) and one brand of DVD to be affected and people have got perfect licence to buy the DVD, rip it and take it back stating that it wouldnt work on their DVD player.

God, the industry is so dumb. Piracy isnt the problem when movies are so crap people cant even be arsed to pirate the damn things.

This piracy issue could also be attributed to the high cost of dvds.

Is it right to think when you see blank dvd media being sold at $.50 a piece that there is a tremendous mark up on the dvds sold?

It`s probably the same argument made by the pharmaceutical firms, that the companies need to make money to pay their employees and need to fund research and developement.

But like someone mentioned in this thread before, movies today aren`t worth the paper your ticket is printed on. If the movies aren`t any good, why bother going?

I don`t see too much pirated goods for sale here where I live, but then I don`t frequent flea markets and swapmeets any more. I do see more than a few when I shop through ebay. Where I see the most pirated goods on sale is back in the home country. I can see the need for cheap discs there since the cost of living is 75% less than in the US. I don`t remember seeing any dvd rental places when I was "home" last, so maybe piracy fills in that niche.

I don`t know what the answer is. Everything comes down to money. The studios wanting to get as much as they can for their product and the consumers who are getting more choosy about what they purchase.

Wonder how much recording off the tv is affecting dvd sales? If you can just record your favourite tv show, why bother buying the "official" release?


....and you thought life was tough

The originally referred news item was posted on BBC News back in February. It`s very old news which was covered on this site at the time - basically Macrovision is desperate to stay relevant in a digital age when its entire business model is based on an analogue video technology. RipGuard is more likely to cause machine instability, so the Studios are unlikely to adopt it, and if they do they`ll drop it after a few thousand faulty disc returns. Sony`s ARCCOS system is more secure and even that`s been hacked.

But then unless you`re up to something illegal, it shouldn`t matter, should it?

J Mark Oates

But then unless you`re up to something illegal, it shouldn`t matter, should it?

apart from the fact you go out, spend your £12.99 take it home put it in the player, and it doesn`t work.

our dvd recorder will not play ARCCOS so we just take them back as faulty.

Quote:
Apart from the fact you go out, spend your £12.99 take it home put it in the player, and it doesn`t work. Our dvd recorder will not play ARCCOS so we just take them back as faulty.

And eventually the brains` trust at Sony will get the message you can`t start buggering around with the DVD standard, but they`re probably hoping everybody in the world will have slung their DVD players in favour of the hot new HD format players.

They`re going to have a rude awakening somewhere along the line.

J Mark Oates

I don`t know why millions of $ is wasted on copy protection. It`s obscene. The companies know that copy protection can be cracked within a few months (surely the`ve figured it out by now.. do none of them use the web?). What`s the point? There are starving children in this world and they waste money on a useless piece of code?

any sort of Digital disc copy protection will never work for more than a matter of weeks. why?


Because people have access to something called a PC.



My DVD collection





67suissac[at]moc.tenretnitb/cassius76.html" target="_blank">JamesL

The Studios waste millions of $s on copy protection because of the absolute shedloads of money they aren`t getting from pirate copies of their movies. You can see their point, but what I personally have issue with is that they think that every pirate copy equates to a lost sale and base their figures for the cost of piracy on that. I don`t think they can put a cost on piracy because their sales figures wouldn`t increase by anything like the level they think they would if piracy could be eradicated overnight. Their figures would go up, but nothing like a one-to-one basis with pirate copies as the people buying pirate copies are unlikely to spring for a full-price legitimate copy. My main beef about the Studios and copy protection is the way they bang on about it so incessantly with FBI warnings, copyright notices and unskippable FACT promos that only serve to remind folk that pirate copies - without all the finger-wagging crap - are available.

I`m a law-abiding citizen. I always buy legitimate copies of DVDs and I`d never consider buying a pirate copy of a movie or downloading one because in my opinion they`re crap - nothing to do with this "funding international crime" spin the Studios use to legitimise what is when all`s said and done a revenue protection exercise. I just wish they wouldn`t assume that I`m a hardened criminal ready to rip them off and that endless copyright notices and threats would scare me off if I was.

J Mark Oates

couldn`t agree more with everything you said.

The funny thing is, with my modded player, the FACT warnings are skippable too!

So all the warnings and the winging can be completely ignored!

I have never bought a pirate. I have seen pirates, awful all of them were too, but I would never buy one.

What on earth can The film industries do to stop piracy and get movie goers back to the cinema and stop people copying dvd`s?

well. They say that soon the DVD will be available at the same time as the Cinema release. Would that kill cinemas off?


My DVD collection





67suissac[at]moc.tenretnitb/cassius76.html" target="_blank">JamesL