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Managed Copy Enabled Blu-Rays Coming Soon

Justin Kerr — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:39:20 -0600

The first Managed Copy enabled Blu-Ray disks will be hitting store shelves soon, unfortunately, it will be well ahead of any hardware that can make use of it. For those that haven’t heard of Managed Copy, it is a system that allows you to make legal copies of Blu-Ray disks, but spawned versions of the content are very heavily protected by DRM. Any user trying to play the copied version needs to contact the studios DRM servers which decide if you can watch it, and even how many times it can be copied.

Dedicated Blu-Ray hardware isn’t expected to implement this feature anytime soon, but PC jukebox software will likely be available within the next few months to take advantage of the fact that all disks sold after December 4th will need to be compliant. It remains to be seen if this is true of just new releases, or if the entire back catalog of Blu-Ray disks will eventually be updated. Either way, expect it to be a confusing mess until packaging updates roll along in the Spring.

Many wonder if Managed Copy will satisfy consumers ever increasing demands to “liberate” their digital content from the medium, but consumers historically haven’t embraced solutions that trade one DRM implementation for another. This is especially true when competing technologies such as those from Slysoft accomplishes the same thing, and without any additional usage restrictions.

Want to learn more about HD Video Encryption? Check out our White Paper for the low down.

RealNetworks Still Fighting the Good Fight, Plans to Appeal RealDVD Case

Paul Lilly — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:45:01 -0500

Down but not out, RealNetworks said it will file an appeal and ask that a court ruling to ban sales of its DVD-copying software, RealDVD, be lifted.

The original ruling dates back to August when a federal district judge issued a preliminary injunction to halt sales of the software after film studios successfully argued that RealDVD violated copyright law. The injunction drew major interest from consumers looking for some clarification in the murky Fair Use waters.

RealNetwork's appeal only addresses the injunction, not the case itself, which, barring a resolution, is moving towards a jury trial.

"What they're going to argue is that somehow the legal basis for the injunction is wanting," said Denise Howell, an appellate and technology lawyer. "They will say that there has been an error of law somewhere along the way but they're going to try and undo the injunction. Real is facing an uphill battle."

Image Credit: RealNetworks

Blu-ray gets a Legal Disk Copy Solution – But at What Cost?

Justin Kerr — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:39:09 -0500

Movie pirates have often justified their DMCA violations by claiming that “they were just making backup copies”. And while this might seem like a reasonable enough explanation for cracking the copy protection on your new Blu-ray disk, it is in fact, highly illegal. It’s taken over three years, but “Managed Copy” is hoping to finally put the backup issue to rest by allowing users to make legitimate backup copies of their Blu-ray disks as early as next year.

For those of you who are thinking that this sounds too good to be true, it does indeed come at a cost. Current Blu-ray players will most likely not be able to decode the copied disk, and although this feature will be included in new players, that doesn’t help people with older hardware. The number of copies will also be heavily restricted, carry an unknown price tag, and if you want a PC friendly version, the result is a DRM-laced, Microsoft only file. This leaves iPod’s, Zune’s, and other platforms out in the cold. This might change before next year, but it seems increasingly unlikely when you consider that the authenticity check requires an internet connection.

I suppose something is better than nothing, and while Slysoft clearly has the superior solution,at least this one is guaranteed to be legal!

So, do you think Managed Copy will catch on?

(Image Credit: Engadget)

Rumor: Last.fm Releases the Contents of Users Music Libraries to the RIAA

Justin Kerr — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 17:21:01 -0600

The unreleased U2 album "No Line on the Horizon" was leaked onto Bit Torrent last week, and the resulting downloads have sent the RIAA into a frenzied fit. New rumors reported by TechCrunch have revealed that the recording industry might be looking to track down people who downloaded the album using Last.fm’s Scrobbler service. Scrobbler keeps track of songs playing on a user’s computer, regardless of the program used to do so. This information is then shared with Last.fm’s servers which broadcast’s playlists, along with recommending new tracks. According to unconfirmed sources within Last.FM, the RIAA contacted and obtained the logs of users who may have played the leaked U2 tracks. Apparently the logs also contain information that “can be used to identify individuals and will likely be shared with 3rd parties that have relationships with the RIAA.”

Despite the fact that neither Last.fm, or its parent company CBS has yet to confirm these rumors, its privacy policy certainly gives them the legal backing to do so. According to the policy, “…. your record collection (including your skipping history) may be viewed by all other users of Last.fm (who may include other organizations or representatives of other organizations who have registered as Last.fm users) and that they may easily associate this information with your Last.fm username.” Users of the service must be understandably worried. Particularly because they are dealing with an organization which historically solves these types of disputes in a court of law.

Given the fact that that no legal precedent would force Last.fm ito release a user’s personal information, should they be protecting its customers from the RIAA here? Let us know what you think.

Slysoft Plays Cat and Mouse with BD+ DRM - And Continues to Win the War

Justin Kerr — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 09:34:03 -0600

Copy protection and DRM in general is a difficult subject to write about objectively. If you take a step back and look at the desire to protect ones intellectual property, DRM sounds like a good idea. But as a legitimate consumer of many types of media, it can be somewhat frustrating to know that pirates get to enjoy their plunder on any device, while my DVD remains locked to its plastic prison. Ways around this exist, but they are often somewhat involved, and if you’re trying to keep things legitimate, it’s difficult to know exactly when you’ve broken the law. CD and DVD copy protection has been cracked for some time now, and many easy to use utilities exist to do so. For legitimate consumers, this represents a grey area of the law many seem willing to cross.

The rise of HD media gave birth to even more insidious DRM solutions for protecting video. HDCP compliant displays and BD+ are just two of the terms that haunt HD enthusiasts, particularly those with home theatre PC’s. Blu-Ray’s copy protection has been heavily criticized, and both software and hardware players often require constant updates to play the newest releases. Those in search of a better solution have almost universally embraced AnyDVD HD from Slysoft. Using a specialized Windows driver it allows decryption of most forms of media (even HD) on the fly, circumventing copy protection and region restrictions. A few days ago Slysoft issued us a press release proudly proclaiming once again that Blu-Ray’s BD+ has been fully cracked in version 6.5.0.2. Currently Slysoft offers free lifetime updates to customers, but will make the transition to a subscription model on January 11th 2009. A trial version is available from their website, and just might put an end to your media related DRM woes.

Has Blu-Ray’s extensive DRM requirements slowed your adoption of HD?

NBC Has a “Template” To Fight Online Piracy

Justin Kerr — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 09:02:56 -0500

NBC has lost many battles over the past few years, but it looks as though it might actually win the war over its copy protected media. Executives from the company claim to have found a “template” for protecting their videos from piracy, and it appears as though it’s actually working. You may have noticed lately that copy protected content from NBC and others have been slowly drying up from video swapping sites like YouTube, Dailymotion, Veoh and even Soapbox. And as a result, NBC has been very vocal about the fact that it is generally satisfied with the new systems these services have put in place. As proof NBC cites its recent successes in controlling content from the both the Olympic Games and select Saturday Night Live clips. Clearly NBC views YouTube and other similar services as the primary battleground in protecting their content and attributes a large percentage of online video piracy to being committed out of convenience. According to Rick Cotton NBC’s general council; "What has happened up to now is the ability to access and download infringing content has been trivially simple, and the lesson it teaches people is that if it's that easy it can't be wrong,". NBC however seems to recognize that it needs to find alternatives to these services or risk pushing users to harder forms of piracy such as Bit Torrent. Arguably its full length episodes at both nbc.com and hulu.com do just that. Only time will tell if NBC’s main beef was truly over controlling its content, or simply locking it down to traditional distribution models.

Does the end of copy protected media on sites like YouTube put the death nail in user submitted video? Let us know what you think.

(Image Credit: www.nbc.com)

Backing Up My Games

The Maximum PC Staff — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:00:00 -0500

My question regards backing up games using tools like ImgBurn and Daemon Tools. I use ImgBurn to create the ISO from a disk and Daemon Tools to mount the ISO. But for some reason, with half of my games I get the message “Please insert the original disk” when I try to run the game from the ISO. My method works with older games but not newer ones. I understand that some of these games might have some kind of protection on them preventing me from running them off an ISO, but I paid for these games and I should be able to create backups of them. Do you know how I can back up my games so they actually work?

—Sgt. Christopher Basquit

Your question opens up a bucket of worms, Christopher. The technical answer is easy: Developers include protection mechanisms like SafeDisc and SecuROM on their game CDs to prevent consumers from making copies of the discs. The legal answer is trickier: Although you’re well within your rights as a consumer to make archival or backup copies of your games for personal use, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act does not make allowances for bypassing copy protection to do so.

Given the nature of disc protection, the only way you can make a backup is to create an image of the CD with an application that allows for data positioning measurement. This replicates the various copy-protection technologies involved in the original disc’s creation. From there, you have to use a disc emulation application to mount your image alongside a concealing application that hides this very act of disc mounting from the protection mechanisms. And that’s where you break the law.

SUBMIT YOUR QUESTION Are flames shooting out of the back of your rig? First, grab a fire extinguisher and douse the flames. Once the pyrotechnic display has fizzled, email the doctor at doctor@maximumpc.com for advice on how to solve your technological woes.

EA Responds to Spore DRM Critics

Paul Lilly — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 10:35:37 -0500

Game publisher Electronic Arts has been catching a great deal of flak over its decision to saddle Spore with SecuROM inspired DRM. What was to be a hotly anticipated creature creator game now stands as a product to be made an example of by angry PC gamers who have the nerve to want to be treated like a consumer rather than a potential thief. Well over 2,000 Amazon 'customer reviews' have Spore pegged with a 1.5 star rating, most of which feature angry rhetoric over Spore's DRM, which limits users to three activations As one reviewer put it, "this basically means that you are actually RENTING the game, instead of owning it."

But is EA being unreasonable? The publisher claims the three PC limit essentially represents a balance of meeting the needs of the largest portion of its user base while still limiting piracy. EA notes that, according to its own stats, less than 25 percent of its customers ever activate a game on more than one machine, and those that wish to activate on more than three accounts fall into the under one percentile.

"EA has not changed our basic DRM copy protection system," said Mariam Sughayer of EA's corporate communications in a statement to Gamasutra.com. "We simply changed the copy protection method from using the physical media, which requires authentication every time you play the game by requiring a disc in the drive, to one which uses a one-time online authentication.

Sughayer went on to note that of the 453,048 activations for Spore, 77 percent activated on a single PC, 23 percent activated on more than one, and just 1 percent of users tried to activate on more than three machines (yes, 77 + 23 + 1 = 101).

Assuming EA's numbers are valid, an argument could be made that the hoopla surrounding Spore's DRM scheme is being blown way out of proportion. After all, if hardly anyone even cares to install a game on more than three PCs, than what's the big deal?

On the other hand, how many copies has EA prevented from being pirated due to its DRM scheme? Not only has Spore been cracked since day one, but as Maximum PC's guru of Gaming Roundups Nathan Grayson points out, some users are encouraging the practice of pirating Spore as a way to send a message to EA. It's a tired song and dance that publishers seem unwilling to acknowledge - no matter what copy protection scheme is implemented, pirates will find a way around it, and paying customers will be the ones to pay the penalty.

What are your thoughts - is Spore's DRM scheme being blown out of proportion?