DRM / HDCP Cracked - could this be good news for consumers?

[SaltiDawg]

...
Digital media (be it movie, data, music, whatever), is licensed, not purchased. HOWEVER, because of possible defects and the venerable knowledge that physical media WILL go bad, you are allowed ONE BACKUP COPY of any digital media you "license".

...

I work in radio, i had a media lawyer explain this to me for $400 an hour. Worth every penny.

If you actually paid a lawyer for that advice, you got taken. If you are trying to extend the "fair use" doctrine to digital content to justify defeating the encryption to make a backup copy, that would be not permitted.

You are simply mistaken - or I apologize for misreading your post and I am simply mistaken. For that money I'm sure he provided a cite for that position. Would you share that with us?

The fair use doctrine was the result of a 1979 decision by the Supreme Court ruling in Sony's favor. It applies to analog products and essentially allowed you to copy analog features so that you could enjoy that content when and as you cared. The industry has succeeded in getting the Congress to make sure no such "right" extends to digital content. As an example of the reach of the DRM, you can not buy any device or software from a seller in the USA that would allow making a backup copy. There are plenty off shore suppliers that will take your Credit Card number and have software in your hands in just a few minutes.

 

[SaltiDawg]

I don't want a 'code' that will copy whole blu ray disks... I want a code that will let you BYPASS ALL THE PREVIEW CRAP AND GET RIGHT TO THE MOVIE!!

There is existing software that provides you that option while doing that illegal decryption to make a copy.

 

[navychop]

I don't want a 'code' that will copy whole blu ray disks... I want a code that will let you BYPASS ALL THE PREVIEW CRAP AND GET RIGHT TO THE MOVIE!!

Now you're getting feverish! :haha

You mean you want to push a button and NOT sit thru the FBI Warning in three languages? How un-American of you!

 

[pretzelboy]

Now, the movie industry hated the invention of instant replay back in the 60's, they REALLY hated the invention of the VCR (with integrated tuners!) in the 70's, but never really tried to lobby it because there were too many other loopholes. (some days i miss analog)

Then came the digital revolution...

Are you kidding me? Never tried to lobby it? We you alive in the 80's? They were desperately trying to lobby against home recording in the early 80's.

Transcript of the HEARINGS BEFORE THE SUBCOMITTEE ON COURTS, CIVIL LIBERTIES, AND THE ADMINSTRATION OF JUSTICE on the HOME RECORDING OF COPYRIGHTED WORKS.

Where Jack Valenti, President of the MPAA famously said, "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."

The movie and television industries were trying everything to ban the VCR.

 

[mike123abc]

The goal of the copyright owners is to sell you the same thing as many times as possible. They want you to go to the theater and see their movie. They then want you to order it on PPV. They then want you to rush out and buy it on BD or DVD. Then they want you to watch it again on HBO, Netflix, etc (you are too lazy to go find that DVD you own and it is showing). Then as a last gasp they want you to watch again on TV with commercials (late night nothing is on and you are too lazy to go find that DVD).

If you can circumvent all this selling they view it as theft of their property. This is why they go through all that they do. They offer rewards to theater workers that catch filmers. They work to stop pirated DVDs. They try all sorts of lame copy protects. They try to sue all the bittorrent users. Anyone that wants to distribute the work legally has to follow all their rules. Dish has too many other things to worry about, so they just follow the rules and do their encryption and the one copy to EHD.

 

[yaz96]

Explain how a notional object is the same as a physical object.

Perhaps someone will rise to respond if you take it to sonicbabble.

Instead of sidestepping the question, just answer this part of it.

 

[Mike_H]

I am surprised that no one seems to fully understand the impact of this. This has nothing to do with duplicating Blue Ray Disks. Blue ray disks use a copy protection scheme that was cracked years ago. (around 2007) What this HDCP master key provides is a mechanism for some 3rd party to create a box that can record a digitial stream from an HDMI cable without needing to license HDCP, and thus not needing to abide by any restrictions tied to the HDMI data stream.

For example, there is currently no simple mechanism to record High Definition PPV events and re-distribute them. Some have restrictions so that even if you record them to your DVR, they will become unplayable after a certain point.

With this 3rd party created box, with the HDCP master keys in it, they'll be able to dump any HDMI data stream to any type of device, including one that can take the stream and create an exact digital copy.

 

[whatchel1]

I am surprised that no one seems to fully understand the impact of this. This has nothing to do with duplicating Blue Ray Disks. Blue ray disks use a copy protection scheme that was cracked years ago. (around 2007) What this HDCP master key provides is a mechanism for some 3rd party to create a box that can record a digitial stream from an HDMI cable without needing to license HDCP, and thus not needing to abide by any restrictions tied to the HDMI data stream.

For example, there is currently no simple mechanism to record High Definition PPV events and re-distribute them. Some have restrictions so that even if you record them to your DVR, they will become unplayable after a certain point.

With this 3rd party created box, with the HDCP master keys in it, they'll be able to dump any HDMI data stream to any type of device, including one that can take the stream and create an exact digital copy.

Have a feeling that it is understood by many here; just not discussed. :

 

[SaltiDawg]

Have a feeling that it is understood by many here; just not discussed. :

+1

 

[mike123abc]

With this 3rd party created box, with the HDCP master keys in it, they'll be able to dump any HDMI data stream to any type of device, including one that can take the stream and create an exact digital copy.

The raw stream is not really that useful. A copy of the raw stream is 180 MBytes/sec. Or, 64 TBytes/hour. One pretty much will have to compress it in real time. This is what they do not like - the ability to make a high resolution copy assuming you have a good hardware capture/compression box.

 

[DishSubLA]

Huh? By that logic, since I want a Rolls but can't afford one, I should be given one. Property is property. Stealing is stealing, even if given to someone who can't afford it because you were "touched" by it. That MAKES you a pirate. A thief.

Forgive me, but it is not "stealing." Too many people have been inculcated, not by religion nor family nor any of the institutions of morality and faith, to the false morality perniciously promoted by content providers from their imperious positions as the purveyors of smut, gratuitous violence, wanton drug use and content that really does erode the family, good behavior, and whose only answer to any moral dilemma when it comes to their products is opting the money, to a notion of "copyright" that is quite different from the tradition of human history: a notion that is a mere decades old. In other words, the content owners have corrupted the notion of what "stealing" is. As one previous made clear, we are talking about "unauthorized use." However, since some still think it is "stealing" let's consider that.

Just because Congress passes a law that allows content owners to hunt down via the internet 13 year old girls, than sue their parents and force payments from them of tens-of-thousands of dollars to drop the suits, doesn't make it right. Conservatives would parry with Natural Law.

Content owners are Hippocrates daring to catechize us by infiltrating our schools proclaiming that copying their content in any manner is "stealing". Well, it isn't. However, selling would be. And the notion of "licensing" content is another very recent abstraction conjured from the ether by content owners who are almost as innovative (and lack the same moral authority) as the Wall Street crowd and their batch phony baloney financial products.

Consider that the vast majority of artists who are the ones who actually do the work of creating the content, and, not insignificantly, have a great financial interest in copyright laws themselves and profit from them, have repeatedly expressed they have no objection to any of their works being shared on smaller scales so long as no profit is made. Some are fine with their works even on YouTube and often encourage sharing that is technically a violation of copyright law because artists produce or share their works primarily for people to promote--introduce others to their works--by sharing because they don't want to deny anyone being "touched" by their works, but also because they understand that such sharing often leads to more "legal" purchases of their works. Now, if someone is going to make money on this, well, artists have stated that is another matter and they would fight to protect thier copyright. However, most of the artists feel they have just about enough money. They want what they are entitled to from the record companies or studios, but they haven't the sickness of avarice that the record companies and studios have. Nightline aired a great piece some time ago that proves that music sharing on the web that is "illegal" actually results in more legal purchases of the content, and the content owners numbers were made-up and filled with lies.

But there is a way to protect content owners' "copyright" on a human scale in the tradition of human history still allowing them to make mountains of money while recognizing Fair Use and understanding that extremely small scale copying NOT FOR PROFIT purposes is going to occur, but still have the law protect them from pirates who copy on grand scales for profit: Adopt a Content Creative Commons copyright. Far too reasonable for content owners to grasp, but Creative Commons type of copyright would be ethical, and ethics are often fair, just, and simply morally superior to any law bought and paid for by those who have none.

 

[DishSubLA]

Gee, Navychop, I liked you; I thought we were friends .

So, Navychop, you have never made a cassette copy of music, let someone borrow it, or and played it at a party, which would constitute a "public performance"?

You have never made a VHS recording of a TV show, then after watching allowed your neighbor or relative or any other person to take it to watch at home or in the RV because the expressed interest in it or asked to "borrow" it or shown the tape to a few people in a group that would constitute a "public performance"?

We hope you've never made a recording of any major league sporting event and further dared to play it back or shared it later with another member of the household or neighbor " . . . without the expressed written permission of Major League (fill in the blank)?

And all those guys who pay for the boxing or whatever sports PPV and throw a party inviting a large number of friends to come and see the fight that would easily constitute a "public performance" are all "thieves" as well? Certainly the parties were each person chips in a few dollars to cover the cost of purchasing the very expensive PPV event that the host could not otherwise afford to buy which constitutes "charging admission" to the prohibited "public performance" event making the host guilty of double "thievery" (one can steal the same thing twice?). One would think those who paid "admission" would also be guilty of financing the prohibited "public performance" and would share the same cell with the host. Somebody please call Gerry Spence!

Should anyone ever pay you back the hundreds or $2,000 they borrowed from you for the mortgage or whatever good reason, you will report that income to the IRS, won't you, along with any winnings from your BINGO nights? Oh, and if you've ever won anything in a raffle, you did report that to the IRS and paid tax on its value, right? Even a $50 cash prize is taxable income, but you knew that already, I'm sure, because you have reported, otherwise you would be a tax evader, a different form of "thief".

Don't play cards for ANY amount of money because that is gambling, and if you should win at the game of cards, you would be both a common criminal and tax evader (higher class of criminal?), presuming you forgot to declare your winnings to the IRS or your state, for that matter.

And please don't dash our high esteem of you by having ever sang "Happy Birthday" and certainly not in a setting if more than a few people present, say at a birthday party, for example, for you would be in violation of copyright without having paid the royalty to the composers of said "Happy Birthday to you" and guilty of a further violation for doing so in what constitutes a "public performance." Failure to make the royal payment is food off the "Happy Birthday" composer's table, you "thief". Say it aint so.

And we would believe you if you told us all that you do indeed follow the law to the letter always without exception and have never sang "Happy Birthday to you" and are the perfect human being who never omits because anyone with a post filled with such moral outrage as yours proclaiming "thief", is so persuasive in its adamant stance that we have to conclude that you are the only human in existence who has never transgressed any law no matter how trivial nor inconsequential in doing something without the intent (intent is often the trump card in law) of violating copyrights, or any law. Such infallibility qualifies one as Pope. So, please issue your encyclical from your throne at the holy see of copyright jurisdiction regarding copying content for any purpose. We all look forward to reading it and your next moral pronouncement on taking more than one napkin from the coffee bar at Starbucks. But I'm more interested in how you morally reconcile ever having sung "Happy Birthday to you." Ye best be getting ye calculator and make those back royalty payments to the person you "stole" from.

Beware of those proclaiming to be holy than we, for he may be the least holy.

 

[llzel]

Gee, Navychop, I liked you; I thought we were friends .

So, Navychop, you have never made a cassette copy of music, let someone borrow it, or and played it at a party, which would constitute a "public performance"?

You have never made a VHS recording of a TV show, then after watching allowed your neighbor or relative or any other person to take it to watch at home or in the RV because the expressed interest in it or asked to "borrow" it or shown the tape to a few people in a group that would constitute a "public performance"?

We hope you've never made a recording of any major league sporting event and further dared to play it back or shared it later with another member of the household or neighbor " . . . without the expressed written permission of Major League (fill in the blank)?

And all those guys who pay for the boxing or whatever sports PPV and throw a party inviting a large number of friends to come and see the fight that would easily constitute a "public performance" are all "thieves" as well? Certainly the parties were each person chips in a few dollars to cover the cost of purchasing the very expensive PPV event that the host could not otherwise afford to buy which constitutes "charging admission" to the prohibited "public performance" event making the host guilty of double "thievery" (one can steal the same thing twice?). One would think those who paid "admission" would also be guilty of financing the prohibited "public performance" and would share the same cell with the host. Somebody please call Gerry Spence!

Should anyone ever pay you back the hundreds or $2,000 they borrowed from you for the mortgage or whatever good reason, you will report that income to the IRS, won't you, along with any winnings from your BINGO nights? Oh, and if you've ever won anything in a raffle, you did report that to the IRS and paid tax on its value, right? Even a $50 cash prize is taxable income, but you knew that already, I'm sure, because you have reported, otherwise you would be a tax evader, a different form of "thief".

Don't play cards for ANY amount of money because that is gambling, and if you should win at the game of cards, you would be both a common criminal and tax evader (higher class of criminal?), presuming you forgot to declare your winnings to the IRS or your state, for that matter.

And please don't dash our high esteem of you by having ever sang "Happy Birthday" and certainly not in a setting if more than a few people present, say at a birthday party, for example, for you would be in violation of copyright without having paid the royalty to the composers of said "Happy Birthday to you" and guilty of a further violation for doing so in what constitutes a "public performance." Failure to make the royal payment is food off the "Happy Birthday" composer's table, you "thief". Say it aint so.

And we would believe you if you told us all that you do indeed follow the law to the letter always without exception and have never sang "Happy Birthday to you" and are the perfect human being who never omits because anyone with a post filled with such moral outrage as yours proclaiming "thief", is so persuasive in its adamant stance that we have to conclude that you are the only human in existence who has never transgressed any law no matter how trivial nor inconsequential in doing something without the intent (intent is often the trump card in law) of violating copyrights, or any law. Such infallibility qualifies one as Pope. So, please issue your encyclical from your throne at the holy see of copyright jurisdiction regarding copying content for any purpose. We all look forward to reading it and your next moral pronouncement on taking more than one napkin from the coffee bar at Starbucks. But I'm more interested in how you morally reconcile ever having sung "Happy Birthday to you." Ye best be getting ye calculator and make those back royalty payments to the person you "stole" from.

Beware of those proclaiming to be holy than we, for he may be the least holy.

++1
Killing is wrong and I'll kill you if you think otherwise!

 

[Mike_H]

The raw stream is not really that useful. A copy of the raw stream is 180 MBytes/sec. Or, 64 TBytes/hour. One pretty much will have to compress it in real time. This is what they do not like - the ability to make a high resolution copy assuming you have a good hardware capture/compression box.

To make a high resolution copy of broadcast HD signals needs exactly what you say isn't that useful, the raw stream.

Of course it takes specialized hardware and software to leverage. But until this master key became available, all the specialized hardware and software in the world wouldn't let you access to the raw data to make a high quality copy.

What is the impact to consumers? Most likely it means that broadcasters may reconsider broadcasting some events.

 

[goobenet]

The simple point of the matter is that this "crack" or breach in the security, which was supposed to be for the "protection" of the consumer (yeah right) doesn't really mean much. As has been said before, BD player keys were broken within 6 months of inception. The HDCP crack would allow a MAN-IN-THE-MIDDLE copy scheme. While yes, not legal, they STILL aren't allowing me my given right to a back up copy under the EULA provided. Simple as that.

It's not stealing if i don't want my kids to break discs and teach them how to watch it on my HTPC. It's not like i'm copying it and distributing it for ill-willed consequences. I PAID for the license, how ever i see fit to enact portions of it is being hampered by this or any other "security" mechanism employed. CSS was the same way, it broke the license agreement from day one! Yet nobody complained.

And really, does the movie industry "lose revenue" because of it? Not really. They're just pissing and moaning because they're greedy. If they (the MPAA/RIAA) ever learned proper distribution methods (is a BD disc REALLY that much more to create en mass than a DVD? No.) they'd be rich beyond their wildest dreams. PPV is a perfect example of that. No box, no disc, no shipping, no storage, etc. they just widened their profit margins by 1000%. $4 you pay for a PPV of 24 hours, $2 of that goes right back to the movie house. For doing what? NOTHING. Hell, look at all the $50 sporting events. It takes NOTHING for a head end to tune those in (besides a license agreement with the event coordinator) as far as equipment goes. Damn near 100% profit.

As for broadcast HD, around my neck of the woods, they refuse to set the copy protect or "broadcast copy protection" flag on the OTA transmitters. Why? Early tuners don't support it. Instead of listening to grandma complain that she can't watch her soaps, they just don't set the flag.

I have the document at work about the lawyer where he cited specifics, i'll dig it up tomorrow. The jist of it was that we wanted to be able to "copy" songs from CD into a digital automation system without any repercussions legally. While we do pay ASCAP/BMI which allows us to do that, there were other legalities the university wanted to make sure of. I believe it's cited somewhere in the DMCA and Fair Use Policy. HOWEVER, we were discussing music, not movies. And it'd appear that the DMCA protects DVDs but not CDs. So i do stand corrected on that fact.

And i was born in the 80s, alive in the 80s. Sony won the battle, but it seems to be coming back to them full circle, now doesn't it?

I must say though, those defending the "industry" obviously must profit from it, otherwise they'd be on the side of the consumer. Do you go out and buy 3 copies of a movie, one for each kid? Or do you let them share your 1 copy? Are you infringing?

 

[goobenet]

Your "given right" is neither God Given nor is it legislatively given. You're making it up. lol

Don't confuse what you perceive as either "right" or "fair" as being lawful. I understand and probably agree with most if not all of your arguments, but you take the next step and advocate breaking the law while claiming that it's OK.

Fair use says that i'm allowed one backup, yet the DMCA enacts the protection mechanisms to not allow it. It's a very gray area imo. Thus, i still do back up my media, legal or not.

 

[dishcomm]

No. I'm saying distributing copies to others is wrong, regardless of self serving excuses.

We agree on that point. IMO recording and reproducing with the intent on distributing whether for sale or no charge is wrong. The audio and/or video IS the property of others.
Of course there are those who think everything should be there for the taking.

 

[dishcomm]

Yeah, we stopped taking Sony discs too.

We're actually kinda pissed that we don't get CDs anymore from a lot of labels. They all want us to go to myspace and get them from there... they seem to think that audio quality is universal. This is our new fight. Dumbasses who think 24khz mono tracks are just as good as the CD cut...

(BTW, i'm an engineer, the PDs worst nightmare, and best friend. )

Ahh.
The most insecure jobs on the planet are those of the PD and the on air talent. Poor ratings means those people becoem expendible.. Real fast.
OTOH, engineers can last forever because nobody ever sees them. As long as they keep the station on the air, they are relatively safe.

 

[goobenet]

Ahh.
The most insecure jobs on the planet are those of the PD and the on air talent. Poor ratings means those people becoem expendible.. Real fast.
OTOH, engineers can last forever because nobody ever sees them. As long as they keep the station on the air, they are relatively safe.

Yep, it's rather unfortunate too. Ratings can drop through no fault of your own. Trends change. Though engineers are now becoming an expendable item around a station too, we spend money and save money, we provide no revenue. GMs are thinking that it's cheaper to call a guy in an emergency than to have one on staff... Penny wise, pound foolish.

I did once get in the face of a PD. He had an ego that the building couldn't hold, he thought i was his personal "bitch". I stood up to him in front of the OM and GM and said "I CAN REPLACE YOU WITH A VERY SMALL COMPUTER PROGRAM TOMORROW, THEY STILL NEED ME TO FIX THE COMPUTER!". He got really quiet after that... Honest to god GOOD air talent is becoming a very rare item these days. PDs tend to just swing their balls around now days and blame the part-timers for any problems or issues so they don't take the heat. It's very much a political game in radio.

But yes, i know how to change a tube in a 30kW transmitter in under 1/2 an hour. The GM doesn't. That gives me the ability to name my price when he calls. =)

 

[Ghpr13]

You know I don't buy any of the BS that Hollywood and others try to feed us on the need for copy protection.
When I was in my 20s, right after "Star Wars" came out, I knew a couple of guys who owned a video store. They told me they could get me a copy of "Star Wars" on VHS, only $50.00. I said why not, I bought the movie. It sucked. It was filmed by a camera in a theater. You could barely hear the sound half the time. PQ was zero, yet I bought the next two sequels from them. Yeah, I spent $150.00 total on 3 of the worst quality VHS cassettes that I've ever owned.
Fast forward to present day. In my collection of movies I now have 2 boxed VHS sets of the original 3 "Star Wars" movies, and all 6 of the DVDs that came out. The two boxed sets cost me $125.00 total and the 6 DVDs cost another $60.00, $185.00 for all of my "Star Wars" collection.

My point is that when people really like something, like "Star Wars", they usually don't just settle for crap. Yeah, I though I was cool by having all 3 movies, but I still couldn't wait for the "official" VHS release, then the "expanded" VHS release, and finally, the 6 DVDs. Oh yeah, I also seen each of the movies at the theater too. So where did Hollywood lose?
I know that with the "Digital Age" it's said that copies made now would be "exactly" as the original. Maybe so in PQ & sound, but part of owning your own copy of a movie you like is the packaging. The cover art, the added info inside the DVD case, etc.

I just find it hard to believe that my neighbors will start setting up a DVD counterfeit copy ring to supplement their income. They make far more money selling Meth.
Ghpr13