What is your take on Cinavia copy protection - Page 5

PS3 getting hacked may yield Cinavia's secrets

For a good read about which copyrighted works are in danger of perishing have a gander at this Gizmodo article;

http://gizmodo.com/5723451/see-what-...you-of-in-2011

At some point, you have to choose to preserve culture over copyright holder rights and profits. Some real classic films are in danger of disintegrating because copyright has been extended forever and the copyright owners show zero interest in doing a restoration (can't make enough money at it).

Watch The Art of the Steal and see if you think the same way. Those guys just want to bring art to the public...

This only pertains to Blu-rays correct?

Sure. If it's a digital download file from iTunes, Amazon, etc, it already has bucket loads of DRM in it, so they don't need Cinavia.

iTunes stuff is easier to deal with than Cinavia....

I think the studios will strong arm Netflix, et al, to require Cinavia on a Netflix enabled device. I fear this will lead to many users requiring two devices. First a Netfilx/BD-ROM enabled device with Cinavia, and second a streamer like XBMC for everything else.

Cinavia will be cracked / there will be a workaround. All it takes is a poorly secured software implementation,. e.g. in a windows software player, to get things rolling, similar to the defeat of the original BD copy protection scheme.

Will that change anything in the grand scheme of things though? Probably not. The content industry will continue to implement new copy protection mechanisms, they all will get cracked over time, and they will never learn.

What is the alternative for them in protecting their investments of the millions of dollars in a film?

Do what the music industry finally did? Sell high quality drm-free copies without ads at reasonable prices?

Emulating the iTunes modell. Apple understood that those very restrictive DRM music files they initially sold were not making their customers happy, and ironically, not really "protecting any investments" either. Ever since iTunes switched to DRM-free music files, their business has not exactly been hampered, far from it - iTunes is the totally dominant platform for commercial online music today. Without DRM that is.

Most people, the vast majority of people, are willing to pay for a product that is worth its price. A product that does not restrict its use artificially. If the movie industry don't understand this, they will share the same fate as the big music labels. EMi, Sony et al. could have started an iTunes-like distribution service years ago, but they prefered to sue the crap out of Napster and and their own customers. Tough luck.

The music business and film business are two different beasts.

You cannot compare the two, except to say that they are prone to rampant piracy and theft due to the fact that it is a crime that is fairly anonymous.

Why do you have a right to their investment in the way you want it?

If they want to sell ad space, or promote their products, it's their right.

If they want to charge as much as they want, it's their right.

If you don't like it, don't buy it. It's your right.

But if people don't like it, they have no right to steal it (not directed at you personally.)

I just can't understand how it becomes a logical rationalization for theft (I don't like the rules and restrictions, so I just don't need to pay for it but will enjoy the fruits of others labors and investments.)

It like justifying the theft of any other durable goods, except technology has made it seem acceptable because it can be done in the privacy of one's private dwelling.

The business model for making and distributing films and music are two completely different things, and the costs and manpower are just not comparable.

Since record companies don't exist as a viable revenue source any more, artists make their money on touring and merchandising.

Music is a marketing tool as such, and is the means to steering consumers towards spending money in those areas. Musicians don't make a living on the units sold... publishing, touring and merch is where it is at.

Films are the product. It isn't a means to drive business into ancillary forms of revenue.

I just don't think you can compare the two.

And if it isn't painfully obvious by my screen name, of course I am protective of the film industry.

It will be money out of my families pocket if the studios stop spending money on making films, and thus stop hiring me to mix them.

jm... I am not implying you don't pay for the content you consume. You seem bothered more by the fact that once you've spent the cash on such, you are not free to do with it as you'd like.

I get that.

And once again, this isn't pointed at you. But if consumers know that going in the content is full of ads, copy protected, etc.... they shouldn't buy it if they can't abide by the usage restrictions imposed on them by the creators of the product.

I know I am debating on the extreme side of the debate (i.e. not everyone in this conversation is talking about theft.)

But if most people couldn't conceive of walking into a store and physically stealing a product (i.e. a Blu Ray disc) I am stunned by the rationalization that people have talked themselves into over the years that because there isn't a physical theft taking place, it's ok..

/rant

I'm beginning to sound like my parents... even worse, my grandparents.

And this isn't a defending of the studio business as a whole either.... I've seen plenty of things I don't like over my almost 21 years in the business...

The decline of budgets for sound, the rise of the marketing execs as creative producers, terrible scripts, rising ticket prices, non-original ideas.... my grievance list goes on and on...

In the end, I love movies, sound and technology. I hope everyone can enjoy a healthy debate...

The paralell to concerts are movie theatres, and the revenue made there, which is considerable. What we are talking about here is revenue generated through sales of the same product after that, be it on optical media or online. And of course the situation there is similar. The only difference is the bandwidth necessary, which will become more or less negligible in the coming years due to the introduction of (very) high speed broadband access, if it hasn't already.

DRM does not protect any investments, it only annoys the people who actually pay for it. I'm absolutely sure that an iTunes-like video distribution service would be very successful, provided the same ease of use, speed and quality can be obtained at a reasonable price. Other immensely successful services like Netflix clearly show that there is demand for legal, well priced online video services, and I bet people would be willing to pay a lot more if they'd get better quality, restriction free content that could not just be streamed, but burned, converted, whatever the hell the customer wants to do with it.

Of course the studios can do with their product as they please, but in the long run, this archaic business model is doomed. Well, not my problem, since I don't work there, but maybe it's about time you guys try a different approach, after years of total failure in battling piracy this way? Just a thought.

The problem is that "whatever the hell the customer wants to do with it" includes free copies to friend, relatives, and the Internet.

You don't see a problem with that?

No, because let's be honest, that's how it always was and always has been. Back in the VHS days, people shared copies with friends and family, and nobody seemed to care about this generally accepted 'fair use' policy. If you try to restrict this, you actually encourage people to find ways around it, mostly illegal. Not trying to justify piracy here, just telling it how it is.

It's simply a false belief - restriction rarely, if ever, protects investments. It makes the product less desirable, annoys customers, scares off potential customers and costs a lot of money that could be put to better use elsewhere. As I said, Apple (iTunes) are making a fortune with restriction free, freely copyable music, I really don't see them complaining. The music labels selling their products via iTunes don't complain either, except for the fact that they could have cut the middleman if they had been smarter in the past.

1) VHS was never a high quality, bit-perfect copy. Computers make perfect copies.
2) VHS was a kludge to copy. Computers copy with a single button click.
3) VHS needed a blank tape at some cost, and another machine at some cost. Computers need neither.
4) There was no Internet to distribute VHS tapes. Let's be honest--do you see that this is not, in fact, how it has always been? Oh, and let's clarify:
5) Copying for friends is not "fair use."

I hope you do not work for a financial institution...

How does Apple's iTunes business model have any bearing on this discussion? They are not the content owners.

How do you know they don't complain?

You make a lot of unfounded assumptions.

You think movies and music are the same because they can all be reduced to files. FilmMixer has been trying to explain that movies are not the same as music. I can add to that case.

Sometimes a friend will send me a disc of compiled songs. I get to hear artists I never knew, and if I like them, I buy their CD. Discovery is a positive side effect of "sharing."

If someone sees a movie, that may well be the end of the road. Sure, on rare occasions someone will say wow, that's such a good movie I want to go see it again, or buy a copy for their collection. But Netflix has built a business on the idea that folks want to watch a movie in high quality but not own it. A lot of us really like that option. I'd guess most people rarely see a movie twice, let along dozens of times as is the case with music.

Movies and music are different animals, with different business models.

Every year the movie industry revenue has decreased more and more until 2010. But 2010 was the release of 3D movies which would incur a higher cost to consumers. If 3D movies did not show up when it did, who knows how low the revenue for the movie industry would be this year. And every year they hike up the price of admission thus forcing less people to attend the theatres. I used to go to the theatres probably at least every 2 weeks, usually every week...but after the price increase I reserve my money for films that deserve it.

I think the film industry need to take a step back and analyze the reason why it has dropped consistantly every year. It's been falling for a while and they still haven't caught on. And now you wonder why you're making less money and trying to restrict people copying it. Point in fact, there will always be people who download their content and people who buy their content. It has been like that for the past 12 years. But it has not been till recently when the movie industry revenue has dropped signaficant numbers. They need to do some real market analysis.

Good points...

Some clarifications... box office hasn't declined like you are stating. Box office receipts aren't where the issue with studio's revenue stream has changed..

Where they really got killed in the last few years is in the declining home video market.

(BTW... between 2000 and 2010, domestically only three years were declines year to year financially (2 of them 0.03% and 1 5.8%.) For the decade, receipts were up ~20%. Attendance has, year to year, and over the decade, not varied more than 9%, while average ticket prices have increased almost 35% (and it was around 20% 2000-2007.. then IMAX and 3D hit it big... ))

Blu Ray will most assuredly be the last bastion of physical media they are able to sell.

3D and IMAX were big boons to the studios income... Along with that, exhibitors and studios had to upgrade to digital projection, etc... While the overall pie might have grown larger, there are also more fingers in it (i.e. concession royalties to IMAX, etc..)

While great for the economy, jobs, etc.... it most definitely isn't a sustainable growth rate, as you point out.

I do think, regardless of this, that there will always be one demographic that will allow the film industry to maintain the theatrical market at a sustainable outlet.

Youth... they have disposable income and the need to be away from their parents and out of the house. They can be blamed for a lot of the crap the studios make, but if it sustains other kinds of quality cinema, even if it gets increasingly rare, I'm all for it. (I've been lucky to have mixed a Best Picture, and a couple of films with both Acting wins and nominations.)

But, yes, they do need to figure the future out..

While I won't get into debating the difference between music vs. movies (they are not remotely similar as high_definitely is trying to make them out) it is sufficed to say that the investment is larger by factors of 100's or 1000's, which leads them to be more aggressive on an ongoing basis..

They are most definitely late to the game in figuring out a new structure... but I can't fault them for trying to thwart piracy while doing so.

First of all, I wasn't comparing VHS to digital media, but rather pointing out the concept of 'fair use' that has been around ever since content has been sold to consumers. Trying to restict this 'age old' concept artificially in the digital age will not protect any investments, it will encourage people to find ways around it.

I was mentioning Apple for the simple fact that their decision to remove DRM from the music files they are selling has not hurt their sales, as you guys seem to be arguing, on the contrary, they are more dominant as ever on the online music market. That's a practical example of how things could work without DRM.

Music, movies, books, art etc. are all content, the fundamental concept to sell and distribute them is very similar. There may be differences in detail, but the relevant aspect here is that both music and movies can be sold in a digital form, distributed over the net at relatively low costs. People are willing to pay good money for a product that is sold to them this way as long as its use is not artifically restricted.

At the end of the day, it all boils down to trust - either you trust your customers, or you don't. If you trust them to pay for a desirable product, and the vast majority do, you can have great success selling non-restricted products to them. If you don't, you will always find people who put a lot of time and energy in finding ways around it. I've seen people download a pirated copy of content they legally own simply because they were fed up with the restrictions. That's the irony of it, the pirated copy is actually hassle free and hence the more desirable product! Trust is mutual, and the more you try to restrict your customers, the more you will annoy them and ironically increase the acceptance of piracy.

Were you actually around in the VHS days? "Fair use" in the Batamax case focused on private, noncommercial time-shifting in the home. Sharing copies with friends and family would amount to distribution and would not be "Fair use". Fast forward and you have "Napster" where this interpretation of "Fair use" does not apply, specifically because of shared distribution.

"...and nobody seemed to care about this generally accepted 'fair use' policy. If you try to restrict this, you actually encourage people to find ways around it, mostly illegal. Not trying to justify piracy here, just telling it how it is..."

I would seem that your definition of "nobody" does not include the industry. Clearly, a good many nobodies care manifesting in the Batamax case, Napster, etc. The Rovi Corporation, Macrovision, came directly from the VHS days in an effort to block "Fair use".

To cut to the chase, in the United States, a backup copy of a DVD-Video or an audio CD by a consumer is legal under fair use protection. However, this provision of United States law conflicts with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act prohibition of so-called "circumvention measures" of copy protections.

To further complicate matters or the "catch 22" is the "321" case. Federal District Judge Susan Illston of the Northern District of California, ruled that backup copies made with software are in fact legal but that distribution of the software used to make them is illegal. As of the date of this revision, neither the US Supreme Court nor the US Congress has taken definitive action on the matter.

"As I said, Apple (iTunes) are making a fortune with restriction free, freely copyable music, I really don't see them complaining. The music labels selling their products via iTunes don't complain either, except for the fact that they could have cut the middleman if they had been smarter in the past."

Sorry, this doesn't make any sense. In this case, Apple is the middleman. Maybe a different business model and distribution system, but still a middleman. I can buy the music DRM free from Apple or I can drive to Walmart and buy the music DRM free on a CD. The convenience with iTunes is that I can buy one song, not the whole CD, and I don't have to leave the house. Really nothing to do with "Fair use" here until you copy and how you use the copy.

(I'll make it short, because the last thing I have in mind now is a lengthy discussion about intellectual property laws. )

Yes, Apple is the middleman, that was my point. If the labels had started a similar service themselves years ago, they wouldn't need to share profits with Apple now. Instead, they concentrated on suing everyone and their grandmother.

Apple sells DRM free music in a digital form over the net. By the logic of most pro-restriction arguments in this thread, that's a worst case scenario, Armageddon if you like. But Apple is not losing money ever since they removed DRM from their product, on the contrary, their sales are continuing to increase. I really don't see what's so difficult to understand about this.

Your interpretation. Apple simply acquiesced to completive market pressure by selling DRM free music which has nothing to do with "Fair use".

The crux of my problem with Cinavia was just posted by b curry a little further up. Under fair use laws I am legally allowed to make a back up copy of the media that I have purchased. However, the studios continue to push against this with more and more laws that go into direct contention with this, such as the digital millennium copyright act.

Let's look at an analogy, shall we? You buy a book, and US law says that it is completely legal for you to make a copy of that book for your own use (this is, in fact, the root of fair use)... but the book publishers are very angry about this, because a number of people out there are photocopying the books.

So the publisher tries to make it illegal to buy a photocopier.... when that does not work they next try to embed a watermark on the pages of the book (at a large cost that is passed on to their paying customers) to prevent them from being photocopied.

Meanwhile they continue to write fat checks to congress to try to get the laws passed that will make it so that no one can make a copy of a book ever. They toy with the idea of never publishing a book at all, but making it so you can only own a license to look at a digital copy of the book on a reader that they approve (that has iron clad DRM). All of this time the people that they are hurting is their own consumers. While it can be argued that they are "losing revenue" it can also be argued that the cheap bastard who bought the photocopied version was never going to pay for it in the first place... not to mention that the added costs of all of these protection schemes continue raising prices on their product which continues to hurt sales.

Honestly I don't give a rats ass how much money they are losing to piracy. That money could be recouped in a moment by selling high quality DRM free copies that were watermarked with the name of the owner to prevent illegal distribution (then you can prove someone illegally distributed it) and then priced properly for the market they were selling in ($15 in the US, $2 in China, etc).

Am I honestly supposed to feel bad that the movie industry who finances giant blockbuster flop after giant blockbuster flop is losing money to piracy? I might feel worse if they weren't jacking up prices, inserting ads, spending millions on new DRM schemes, all on MY DIME as a paying customer.

There is always going to be a market for high quality movies and people will PAY to see them, either in the theater or in their homes.

What there might not be a market for is an over-priced, DRM laden, ad infested copy of a movie that you pay $30 for and never have any fair right access to so that you can watch it HOW you want to watch it.

I would not give one lick at this point if the movie studios burn to the ground, because that just means something better, something consumers want will rise from the ashes.

Have there been no class action lawsuit about this in the States? Or is it considered to bee non-issue because of the digital disc backups? Studios have not released any form of copy management system yet...

As a consumer- this point bothers me too.
When my children were younger, I used to make backups of all their original computer program CD's and movie DVD's. As any parent will tell you- optical media is no match for toddlers/pre-schoolers! Many, many times I had to go back to those original discs and make new copies because the kids destroyed/lost the "everyday" copies we used. If I wasn't (physically) able to make new copies from the originals I own- after the first couple of damaged/unusable factory discs I'd just say; ok, no more road trip DVD's for you guys, and computer CD-Roms will only be used under adult supervision. Is this what the content owner is looking for? That's a one way street- and it's heading the wrong way for me!
There's no way I would continue to buy new media content for my kids if I couldn't back up the content...

Well, you should know better than to let kids near that stuff! (at least that's what studio execs have to say about it). The way that they look at it is if your kid broke one of their toys you would have to buy another one. Never mind the fact that the discs are EXTREMELY prone to damage, even with relatively careful handling.

So, coming down the tracks full speed is the world where you can't buy the disc at all. All you can do is "buy" or rent a lower quality digital version that only plays on your approved devices.

No more letting Grandma borrow your copy of The Bucket List, because that makes the studios mad, Grandma should have a budget to buy her own movies dammit!

Amazingly not. People have been prosecuted successfully for distribution of copied music, movies and video games but no-one has ever taken the movie studios (or game companies) to court over this and gotten it all the way to the federal circuit (at least that I am aware of).

Why is this? It's simple. The studios are not stupid enough to try to prosecute someone for merely COPYING their own purchased content and the FBI must feel that it is enough of a gray area that they don't try to prosecute people for breaking the digital millennium copyright act when they make their own backups.

If the studios were stupid enough to start trying to prosecute people for making backups of their own stuff, it would roll all the way up to the supreme court and they would get the taste smacked out of their mouth.

The best thing we can do, as consumers, is make sure to educate people about what the ultimate motive of the industry is... taking away consumer choice, and forcing us all into a pay-per-view scheme in which we never 'own' a copy of anything.

As I have said and many others have rightly pointed out, the ultimate issue here is trust. Because a few bad apples steal content, the industry treats all of their customers like criminals. I can't think of another industry in which that has happened and the industry has not perished.

And the comparison with the music industry is spot on. It matters not a lick how much more a movie costs to produce or market, it is still fundamentally an issue of selling a product that customers want at a price that is acceptable. Everyone thought that mp3 and other digital formats were the death knell of the music industry, and it looked that way until a certain someone forced them to start selling non DRM versions of content... and guess what? If anything they are making more money now. I know lots of people who used to pirate music who no longer do because it is far more convenient to push "buy" on either iTunes or Amazon for that AAC or MP3 copy of the song.

The only conclusion I can draw from all of this is that there are even more over-paid lawyers and consultants in the movie industry than in the music industry. And that, is where the problem is.

^^^^ jmpage...

I don't agree with all of your points.... but even if I did, you still can't use them to rationalize theft, which is what a lot of people do when they pirate films (which I am once again not saying you specifically do or are advocating.) As high says, pirates change that frustration and resentment into a sense of entitlement ("they're evil so I'll steal from them.") to illegally obtain content.

I'm a simpleton who gets worked up over the financial consequences of piracy because I make a living helping film makers realize their visions (and you have to trust me that most directors I work with are not always the biggest fans of the studios for a myriad of reasons..) It will hit me in the pocketbook sooner or later.

You are someone who gets worked up because it is inconvenient for you to sit through ads and trailers, and can't make fair use copies and do things their own way.

Hopefully for all of us, a solution will be coming soon..

PS.. what are these things called "books" you keep referring to? I think I read about them on the internets some time back.

PPS... I mixed "Bucket List..." If your grandma needs a copy, let me know.

LOL, nice! But in all seriousness this is in danger of being something we can't do. If I purchase a movie I have a physical copy of it that I can loan out, sell, etc, to whoever I want.

The digital distribution method that the studios are pushing very hard for *ultraviolet and that ilk* is trying to completely eliminate my ability as a consumer to do those things, which are LEGAL (the movie industry also has tried to get congress to make it illegal to sell a used copy of a movie or video game, they basically have no shame).

I have not said anything in any of my posts to condone piracy, I have merely pointed out that studios have made the problem worse by the lengths they have gone to and the costs they have incurred in using giant sticks to try to combat the problem.

Honestly they probably lose more from the release of one turd like Ishtar or Gigli than piracy actually costs them in an entire year.

In my industry, everyone has had to take a pay cut to stay competitive as our work has for the most part been moving to other countries. This means longer hours for less pay. The federal government has done nada, nothing, zilcho, to prevent companies from wholesale shipping jobs overseas and still getting a tax cut for doing it.

So when it comes to protectionism, I don't see an industry making billions as needing much of it.

Just give us what we want, reasonably priced, high quality copies of the movies we love, without the DRM and without the junk!

I do agree with you but clearly there is something wrong here when fair use is no longer working. Studios can have all their protections but I should not have to depend on some illegal software for my rights. And now when Cinavia is out, there are again no options. We have been waiting 4 years now for a management copy system.

Btw good that you brought up Bucket List. Why do Warner insist on lossy DD5.1 audio tracks with some titels?
I want my Fringe with DTSHDMA =)