Movie Industry: DRM Is For Customers, Not For Members
Written by Ernesto on December 27, 2007A DVD-player that has been designed to prevent DVD-screeners from leaking to the public will be phased out because industry insiders say the DRM hurts their viewing pleasure. It seems that DRM is fine when it’s annoying the public but unacceptable when it’s affecting them.
This week several DVD-screeners leaked on BitTorrent. “I Am Legend”, “Gone Baby Gone” and several other movies showed up at BitTorrent sites, presumably leaked with the help of industry insiders.
December is traditionally the month when a lot DVD-screeners are sent out to the Oscar voters, and also the time when a lot of these screeners leak. Unfortunately for some, there are pirates among the members of this elite group of movie industry insiders, and measures have to be taken to make it harder to leak the films.
One of the measures is watermarking where the DVD-screeners all get a unique, hidden watermark, so potential leaks can be traced back to the source. Another, perhaps even more effective preventive measure that was used by some studios is the SV-300, a custom-made DVD player that’s been in use since 2004.
The player is developed by Cinea, a division of Dolby Laboratories, and it is used to play encrypted disks that will only play on this particular player. The SV-300 makes it nearly impossible to copy and leak a screener, but surprisingly, the developer decided to phase out the machine because of the negative feedback from the Academy members. It turns out that the Oscar voters don’t like the DRM-machine because it hurts their viewing pleasure:
The machine operating the S-View software that scored few points for being user-friendly in its brief run. Its user base complained of the impracticality of having to lug the machine around on vacation during the holiday season, the height of the screening period.
So what they basically say is: “We don’t like DRM”. I can’t agree more of course, but it is kind of ironic that they tend to get more aggressive in imposing DRM on their customers because they are afraid of piracy, while they abandon this effective anti-piracy player because the DRM doesn’t allow them to watch the screeners on vacation.
Don’t think that the industry insiders are unaware of this, hypocritical as they are, they try to talk it right with some strange arguments. Industry insiders now say that Oscar screeners are not considered a primary contributor to movie piracy. This is strange because only 4 years ago Hollywood lobbied for a total ban of Oscar screeners.
I guess it’s all different when your personal viewing pleasure is at stake.
Previously: IFPI: ISPs Should Block BitTorrent and The Pirate Bay
Next: LimeWire Not as Popular as Recent Reports Suggest
37 Responses
Good old double standard :)
DVD-screeners don’t like MAFIAAS I supposed?
Indeed carrying around a DRM machine is extreme manual labor for them. Poor guy probably about shit his pants trying to take it to his hotel room. How pathetic are these people?
Maybe one day IFPI will stop sending threats because their fingers are tired from typing.
kill them all. the lot of them. its time to put the power of democracy back in to the hands of the people, where it is supposed to be. after all, the powers that be are SUPPOSED to be slaves to the people, not the other way around. this is the foresight that founding fathers of democracy had in mind.
POWER TO THE PEOPLE.
They should have just paid a lawyer to carry it onto the plane for them. Lawyers’ll do anything for a buck. Think Barry Zuckerkorn from Arrested Development.
hahaha
that’s so funny. this just makes me feel less guilty about watching them.
I love the double standard initiated by these groups; always true that’s for certain. God forbid the people that are voting for oscars have troubles imposed on them; they don’t pay ANYTHING for the films, and are even given them unsolicited just because they can win some director and cast some almost silly prize.
Of course forget the DRM problems that consumers have; they aren’t consumers themselves. I mean yes they “consume” media but there is really no € $ £’s or anything spent on the purchase. They are freebies, like samples at the grocery store; not asking you to buy them, but they are trying to buy votes from those with the power.
No surprise here . . . just a total lump of disappointment. The people with the power are always corrupt.
stop being a bunch of retards. the kind of ‘drm’ these special dvds have is nothing like kind that gets sold in stores.
all they want is the ‘normal’ drm, they dont want special dvds that dont have any DRM at all. they want to be able to watch these screeners in their laptop or home DVD player.
Anyone has any idea how DVD Screeners get leaked if they are watermarked? It’s probably normal that we don’t know(because if there is a method to get the mark out, revealing the method would be dumb)… But you never know I guess :P
The indistry cares very little about screeners, obviusly because you would hear about people being caught.
[quote comment="249497"]stop being a bunch of retards. the kind of ‘drm’ these special dvds have is nothing like kind that gets sold in stores.
[/quote]
If you buy and download a DVD or movie online you can only play it on a limited number of devices, it’s not the same but close enough.
is it just me, or does this have good implications for us?
Sounds like we now have grounds for a legal battle to abolish DRM, first evidence exhibit: Their own words. Eat ‘em.
AS I type these words I am in the process of copying to my networked media drive (http://www.freecom.com/ecproduct_detail.asp?ID=2638&CatID=8060&sCatID=1147626&ssCatID=1147626)
XVid rips of both ‘I Am Legend’ and ‘No Country For Old Men’ – both, I am told by my source, are screener rips.
FUCK THE MPAA, and their mothers too.
Typical.
http://www.atlanticcitycarservice.com
mTraks.com offers DRM-free music and is compatible with all mp3 players.
Nice device, I am self in the progress of getting the 1.5 Tb mybook device, so I download and safe much much more :)
btw, if not the MPAA the “company” that gives us the ready to sreen dvd to the Academy members, if so, fucking them is maby not so nice :)
nothing short of laughable…
Then again Mischa Barton got a DUI last night, these Hollywoodtards sure do give my country a great image… sometimes I think Bush does better for our image than our entertainment industries.
Alex, what you said is pretty funny because the people who likely benefit the most from piracy are not the pirates themselves but hard drive manufacturers.
All that data has to go somewhere =)
it is the same with the 160gb ipod, or any other mp3 player. Maby if you like, you could say, that the hardware makers are as “guility” for piracy as the suppliers of links to piracy files.
but I life in Holland, and there downloading is legal :)
If people don’t wake up their entire computer will be a DRM device on the hardware level. It will be illegal to own a fully-functional computer. They want your home computer to be little more than an interactive television and your online experience to be a continual shopping trip. This is already in the works.
But before they do that, they will lock down the Internet. Just like China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, USA and Germany. American companies developed the technology that allows these regimes to monitor everything and block anything.
This is true, and it will happen . Not much you can do about it though.
The internet will die, and sooner than you think .
The next big thing is around the corner though.
does anyone know if a DVD screener of THERE WIL BE BLOOD has leaked yet?
[quote comment="249802"]does anyone know if a DVD screener of THERE WIL BE BLOOD has leaked yet?[/quote]
There. you are!! Wait there I think the FBI are still looking for you. or maybe they’re just interested in catching filesharers first?
Impossible to copy? Sif. You can always capture it in realtime :)
[quote comment="249996"]Impossible to copy? Sif. You can always capture it in realtime :)[/quote]
Like you said, that’s capturing, not copying.
fags
Wow….torrentfreak readers are retarded, of the 25 prior posts about 22 of you are retarded, I don’t feel like explaining myself, but if you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you’re one of the retarded people. And no #23, there is no DVDSCR of There Will Be Blood, although I wouldn’t be surprised if one got released in the next couple weeks. Especially since it’s a major Oscar contender.
does anyone know where i can find a dvd screener for i am legend ?
I don’t suppose any one could point to some english subtitles for LUST, CAUTION? Great looking film, just can’t understand the language…:)
9
SOB. The oscar voters get their copies for free and they can choose where and when to play it. We have to pay for a legal copy that is restricted to near unplayability.
Let’s all shove our legally bought media up their arses and DL everything else off the net.
[quote comment="249506"]Anyone has any idea how DVD Screeners get leaked if they are watermarked? It’s probably normal that we don’t know(because if there is a method to get the mark out, revealing the method would be dumb)… But you never know I guess :P[/quote]
they blank the text out in the dvd screaner I am ledgend the watermark is blanked out.
I’ll bet my bottom dollar that there will be hacks for these DRM computers like there are hacks for the DRM DVD’s now. I can’t see the sharing community sitting still for the **AA’s under any circumstances…
i go out and still buy all these movies anyway.i dont think im doing any harm.im not a murderer, or a rapist,or a terroist.what harm our we really doing.they just want to make more money.i think greed is the main theme here.DONT YOU
[quote comment="249685"]it is the same with the 160gb ipod, or any other mp3 player. Maby if you like, you could say, that the hardware makers are as “guility” for piracy as the suppliers of links to piracy files.
but I life in Holland, and there downloading is legal :)[/quote]
But uploading is illegal…
just like softdrugs in holland huh? :P
Both I’M NOT THERE and CONTROL SCRs are all over the place. THERE WILL BE BLOOD soon?
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