From the “if ya can’t beat ‘em, legislate ‘em department” comes this scary little bit of news on the MPAA’s latest petition to the FCC on the topic of Selectable Output Controls. In a nutshell, SOC is the ability for content owners to control not just WHAT you are able to watch, but HOW and on what devices you are able to watch it. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has the story.

You want to watch my new movie on that digital TV you bought a few years ago? No, sorry, I don’t like your TV (perhaps because I’m afraid of the analog component inputs it uses). You want to space-shift using your Slingbox (which lacks DRM-enabling controls on its outputs)? Oh, no, I don’t think that’s a good idea. You were hoping to TiVo that show that’s on this afternoon so that you can watch it when you get home from work? Hm, not unless you upgrade to a new TiVo, because I won’t allow the signal to make it to TiVos that don’t have digital outputs. You want to record that program so that you can make a fair use of an excerpt? Dear dear, we can’t have that.

Seems kind of crazy, no? That’s what the FCC thought, too, which was why the agency forbade use of SOC when it last addressed this issue, in 2003. The FCC concluded that multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs - companies like cable television providers) can’t “attach or embed data or information with commercial audiovisual content . . . so as to prevent its output through any analog or digital output authorized or permitted under license, law or regulation governing such covered product.”

It seems that the MPAA is now seeking a permanent waiver from the SOC ban. I’m a little unsure what consumers can do at this point to speak out against that petition, (if anything), but supporting the EFF would be a good first step.

For some related reading on home media and perhaps why the MPAA and others might not want too much control in consumers hands, check out this fine series of articles at The Collective Shelf. Part 1: Why we don’t care about Blu Ray, Part 2: Collectionism and the Digital Revolution, and Part 3: Why Are Digital Movie Downloads So Important?

I rail against DRM on a fairly regular basis here at FreshDV, and it’s sparked some interesting discussions with readers from time to time. It’s not that I advocate piracy, it’s that I am adamantly opposed to restrictions being placed on what has been lawfully bought and paid for by the consumer. Furthermore, I’ve always maintained that anything that restricts the consumer will only further foster piracy on some level. The answer is not draconian control policies, the answer is easily accessible content available at a reasonable price point.

On this topic, I just read the news over at Ars Technica that Yahoo Music was going under. Not a huge surprise, what with Amazon, iTunes, and of course the Zune marketplace, it’s tough competition out there. Unfortunately in the case of Yahoo Music, they will be taking their DRM licensing servers offline with them. What this means is that customers who have lawfully purchased music tracks from Yahoo Music will be unable to move those tracks to new computers. The tracks are DRM’d, and since there is no way to authorized the move once those servers go offline, you are just out of luck. Thanks for your business, sorry for ya! That plain sucks. And if you’re keeping score, Microsoft announced the same sort of thing earlier this year when they discontinued MSN Music (on a positive note, they backed off a bit and will keep auth servers up till 2011). Here’s an excerpt from Ars:

“Once the Yahoo store goes down and the key servers go offline, existing tracks cannot be authorized to play on new computers. Instead, Yahoo recommends the old, lame, and lossy workaround of burning the files to CD, then reripping them onto the computer. Sure, you’ll lose a bunch of blank CDs, sound quality, and all the metadata, but that’s a small price to pay for the privilege of being able to listen to that music you lawfully acquired. Good thing you didn’t download it illegally or just buy it on CD!”

“Ars has been one of only many groups banging the anti-DRM drum for years. We’re not pro-piracy, we’re just not dumb as rocks. DRM makes things harder for legal users; it creates hassles that illegal users won’t deal with; it (often) prevents cross-platform compatibility and movement between devices. In what possible world was that a good strategy for building up the nascent digital download market?”

Just another example of why DRM is anti-consumer rights. Here’s hoping that DRM-free services like Amazon’s music store will continue to flourish in the coming months and spread to other forms of media distribution, like moving pictures.

UPDATE: It looks as though Yahoo may now be offering it’s stranded users a refund for music purchases, and is researching the possibility of giving them a DRM-free MP3 version of their music. That’s more like it…

Here is yet another example of how DRM ultimately screws the end user and potentially drives people that are willing to pay good money for content to less-than-legal methods of acquiring it. This is the story of a user who subscribes to Netflix’s streaming movie service. When he upgraded his PC with an HD monitor, DRM said no-no.

“When I tried to launch a streaming movie, I was greeted with an error message asking me to “resetâ€? my DRM…
When I called them they confirmed my worst fears. In order to access the Watch Now service, I had to give Microsoft’s DRM sniffing program access to all of the files on my hard drive. If the software found any non-Netflix video files, it would revoke my rights to the content and invalidate the DRM. This means that I would lose all the movies that I’ve purchased from Amazon’s Unbox, just to troubleshoot the issue.”

It always amazes me at the steps companies make to ensure their content will be as hard as possible for users to access…in their haste to protect content from piracy, they potentially drive even more users to piracy out of sheer frustration. Fortunately, some major companies are starting to see that DRM hurts more than helps. A number of labels have dabbled in DRM-free digital music, and it seems that Sony BMG is the latest to agree that DRM can be bad for consumers.

The Pirate Bay, worldwide Bittorrent tracker and host to content both legal and illegal, is turning the legal tables by filing their own lawsuit against movie and recording industry studios in Sweden. Two days after International Talk Like A Pirate Day, TPB filed charges of infrastructural sabotage, denial of service attacks, and hacking and spamming. They maintain that all this illegal activity was commissioned by the media companies and executed by MediaDefender. More on that in a minute. The companies that are being reported include:

* Twentieth Century Fox, Sweden AB
* Emi Music Sweden AB
* Universal Music Group Sweden AB
* Universal Pictures Nordic AB
* Paramount Home Entertainment (Sweden) AB
* Atari Nordic AB
* Activision Nordic Filial Till Activision (Uk) Ltd
* Ubisoft Sweden AB
* Sony Bmg Music Entertainment (Sweden) AB
* Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Nordic AB

Continue reading ‘The Pirate Bay to Big Media: “Prepare to be boarded!”’

NBC announced the other day they they will be pulling their TV lineup from the iTunes catalog, citing Apple’s resistance to “better piracy controls” and the inability to bundle shows instead of the iTunes ala carte model. Scott Kirsner covered this over at CinemaTech. So NBC decides not to renew the contract in December, and Apple just upped the ante by dropping the shows now…

“Apple’s agreement with NBC ends in December. Since NBC would withdraw their shows in the middle of the television season, Apple has decided to not offer NBC TV shows for the upcoming television season beginning in September. NBC supplied iTunes with three of its 10 best selling TV shows last season, accounting for 30 percent of iTunes TV show sales.”

The best coverage by far I’ve read on this whole debacle is by Phill Ryu…in a article entitled “Welcome to Zuckerland” he picks apart NBC’s complaint with Apple, their ensuing followup damage control statements, and highlights “…the distinctive mix of paranoia, confusion and fear that is the mark of a corporation that doesn’t understand its customers, is backed into a corner, and is too chicken to fess up and apologize.” Foot, meet bullet. Bullet, meet foot.

Break out your DECSS t-shirt, July 11 is Fair Use Day! May I suggest celebrating your rights by making a personal backup copy of a DVD or two? This would also be a good time to snag a copy of Lawrence Lessig’s “Free Culture” and remind content creators of the Creative Commons licensing model. This short video explains it clearly and succinctly.

 Scott Kirsner on Alternative Distribution [48:31m]: Download

Variety columnist and brains behind Cinematech, writer Scott Kirsner spent some time with the FreshDV team recently and dished on alternative distribution options for indie films and where the market is heading. We discuss the challenges of self-distribution, the state of the mainstream film industry, and Hollywood’s perceived reluctance to embrace new digital business models. It was a very informative and helpful conversation, and one that independent filmmakers should not miss.

A few links that we mentioned in the podcast:
The Future of Web Video (book or PDF)
Illegal Bittorrent Usage Survey
Getting Paid: Sites that Pay for Video
Customflix
Amazon Unbox

Click the Download link above or listen via our FreshDV iTunes Podcast Feed.

On the tails of recent Advanced Access Content System volume key discovery efforts by the hacking community, the organization responsible for the AACS encryption on hi-def discs announced that next week new film releases and discs would feature a new (uncracked) volume key…which was then promptly cracked. This week. Before the revised keys have even hit shelves.

“AACS LA’s attempts to stifle dissemination of AACS keys and prevent hackers from compromising new keys are obviously meeting with extremely limited success. The hacker collective continues to adapt to AACS revisions and is demonstrating a capacity to assimilate new volume keys at a rate which truly reveals the futility of resistance. If keys can be compromised before HD DVDs bearing those keys are even released into the wild, one has to question the viability of the entire key revocation model“ (emphasis mine -MJ)

Why do I continue harping on this subject? To keep reminding FreshDV readers, many who are content producers and creators, that draconian DRM is not the answer. In this case it seems to be backfiring in a major way.

We reported back in February on the latest HD-DVD and Blu-ray encryption cracking efforts by the Doom9 forum members. At that time a AACS encryption media key was discovered, a key that can be used by unapproved software to identify itself as a validly licensed player of HD-def discs. The argument is often presented that without such keys, users of linux and unsupported OS platforms have no options for playing the new AACS encrypted media. So there is a valid fair use argument, similar to the DeCSS issues of yesteryear. The AACS keys can of course also be used to decrypt discs and copy/redistribute them illegally. Personally, I believe fair use entitles you to a personal backup copy, but that’s another argument entirely…
Continue reading ‘AACS Issues HD-DVD Key Takedown Notices, Hilarity Ensues’

Two quickies from Scott Kirsner’s excellent Cinematech website…

*From the WSJ: ‘Hollywood Weighs Copyright Protections’:
“…Many movie executives agree that physical DVDs still need copy protection, but some are starting to discuss whether the heavy-duty digital rights management now on electronic copies is the right route.”

*Video Fingerprinting Overview: Who’s Doing What:
“The New York Times dubs it ‘content-recognition software’; others call it video fingerprinting. The idea is to create a kind of digital dragnet that would allow copyright owners to prevent snippets of their work from being uploaded to video-sharing sites, or circulated around the Net. Who’s developing this technology? Here’s my short list…”