Singing the Blu-Ray Blues!

[One4yu2c]

Unfortunately, the movie studios are doing everything they can to turn a minor hassle into a fruitless headache. In the ongoing high definition format war between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, some studios have outright refused to release big name titles due to the lack of unbreakable encryption, a laughable trait when discussing AACS. But the long anticipated Blu-Ray only BD+ DRM scheme is finally ready for prime time, giving the studios a reason to start selling movies again (apparently it made more fiscal sense to not sell a movie at all, as opposed to absorbing any lost sales resulting from piracy...insert your own fuzzy math joke), and giving the Blu-Ray format a major boost in becoming the new standard. Hooray for Blu-Ray, but what does this mean for consumers? - Paul "One4yu2c" Lilly

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[Panda Man]

I have an optical drive in my main comp and 2 in the media center. Am I 3 times the criminal :O

Nice article Paul

[gvblake22]

A cat that eats with chopsticks?! Where do you find this crap?!

Anyway, interesting points you brought up. I think this is one of those issues (like abortion) which will be argued until the end of time and never be solved. Meanwhile the hackers will just continue to break the restrictions over and over like you said. What would your ideal solution to the whole ordeal be Paul?

[One4yu2c]

Originally Posted by gvblake22

A cat that eats with chopsticks?! Where do you find this crap?!

I always wonder if people end up clicking the links, there are some gems to found in some of the those blogs!

Originally Posted by gvblake

What would your ideal solution to the whole ordeal be Paul?

That's just it, there isn't an 'ideal' solution to be had. It's simply not possible to stop piracy, let alone stop piracy and let users back up their media. So my less than ideal solution would have the movie studios quit trying to lock down their media and treating paying consumers as pirates, because the ones affected by copy protection aren't the ones running illegal movie rings. Once BD+ is cracked (and we all know it's coming), illegal copies will find their way onto the black market, meanwhile less than savvy computer users (like Jokerswild) will be SOL if they damage or misplace their original copy.

And one thing I didn't touch on was what kind of potential havoc could a VM cause inside your hardware? It supposed to turn off the moment you remove the disc, but one can't help but think of Sony's recent rootkit fiasco.

DRM =

[gvblake22]

One interesting solution I heard of suggested that the movie companies just lower the prices of the movies to encourage more people to just buy the movie instead of trying to find a pirated copy. I don't think that would cut down on the number of movies being illegally created for distribution, but it could (possibly) reduce the number of people who seek out pirated material.

But I agree, there is no good solution to the whole thing.

[Quakindude]

Long ago, in a land outside the normal human conception of time and space, I worked with a lot of very high-speed and intelligent individuals. This one dude, right back from Somalia, alive and unscathed, was telling me how he was developing a fool-proof CD encryption scheme. He had created the code himself and was telling me about his 96 bits of hard core encryption it would take 10,000 computers a year to crack. And it would be included in every CD sold whether it was music, video or games. Ole Charlie is definitely a smart man, and back when we were Nightstalkers, he was one of the best! But he greatly underestimated the abilities of the criminal element to get something for nothing.

A lot of Charlie's precepts and ideology permeates the DRM monolith I see today.

And as in all things of value, there will be those that want something for nothing. These same people will pay thousands of their own dollars, computer equipment, in their search to break what Johnny Law puts up as a barrier. DRM may have Hollywood and the Music industry behind them with millions of dollars to throw into the war machines gullet, but there are those out there fighting Charlie and the rest of them with greed and rights.

Only here, in this method and this technological shelf can we find the criminals leading the way so that the common American can take advantage of a legal activity.

Making back-ups of our own damned property.

Great write up Paul.

[Banditman]

All the DRM crap is the reason I quit buying music and movies. I only wish that the rest of America would do the same but I know that will never happen. Mostly because most of America is in love with movies, music and friggin Paris Hilton. We, the people decide the fate of any given business in this country. But not the MPAA and RIAA. Not as long as people continue to not give a damn about their rights and property!!!!

[Dr. V]

The major problems are:

a) It's simple: DVDs are too damn expensive.
b) All the protection they try to do will NEVER be enough - NEVER EVER - there will ALWAYS be a workaround.
c) People will always rather wait a bit and get something for free (download) or spend a steep fraction of the cost (backups/bootlegs) to get almost the exact same quality rather than spending over $20 a pop.

Until these 3 things come to a compromise, it will never change.

By the way, they never will.

a) The companies are too cheap.
b) It's obvious - the hackers are on a completely different galaxy - simply too damn good.
c) People will never stop wanting to get something for free or a helluva lot cheaper.

GOOD LUCK!