New Sony DVDs Not Working In Some Players

An anonymous reader writes "It seems that the most recent DVDs released by Sony — specifically Stranger Than Fiction, Casino Royale, and The Pursuit of Happyness — have some kind of 'feature' that makes them unplayable on many DVD players. This doesn't appear to be covered by the major media yet, but this link to a discussion over at Amazon gives a flavor of the problems people are experiencing. A blogger called Sony and was told the problem is with the new copy protection scheme, and they do not intend to fix it. Sony says it's up to the manufacturers to update their hardware."

Gee.

Sony DRM pissing customers off. Why does that sound so familiar?

Re:Gee.

Nothing new to see here people, keep moving...

Bravo

Nothing new to see here people, keep moving...

If I had mod points, then if I had a sense of humor, ... oh, nevermind.

Re:Gee.

Indeed. When it didn't work for me, I just launched DVDFab Decrypter, temporarily copied it to my computer, and it played perfectly. Ironic that the only way I could watch a movie I had legally rented was to illegally copy it.

Re:Gee.

I found it necessary to decrypt a rental DVD to play a it on my computer. It kept complaining about enabled YV out.

Bypassing copy protection should never be the only way to access protected content....

Re:Gee.

That's the genius of disc DRM - the rippers bypass it easily while the paying customers can't watch it.

I'm slightly surprised that the incredible disaster of CD DRM hasn't actually resulted in Sony learning anything.

If anyone from Sony is reading, this is what happens when a customer buys a disc with DRM that renders it unplayable. Joe Sixpack simply returns the disc. A N Other Slashdoteer rips the disc and then returns it. Joe Sixpack then uses BitTorrent to download the rip made by A N Other Slashdoteer. Mr Slashdoteer thinks twice about buying another disc, as does Joe Sixpack.

Re:Gee.

Might want to recheck the Digital Millenium Copyright Act if you're living in the States - deliberately breaching copyright protections such as exist on DVDs is indeed illegal.

Re:Gee.

Making copies of DVD's isn't illegal

You live outside United States soil, right? HOw is the immigration policy where you live?

Re:Gee.

Making copies of DVD's isn't illegal

You live outside United States soil, right? HOw is the immigration policy where you live?

Hey, don't forget to ask about their extradition policy too.

Re:Gee.

I don't care how many branches there are. The DVD division ought to make sure their damn product plays.

Making Grandma update the firmware on a DVD player just to make it take two minutes longer for a pirate to copy a DVD is stupid.

Re:Gee.

Funny, it didn't seem to take longer...

Re:Gee.

I guess he meant "to make it take two minutes longer for a pirate to copy a DVD first"

Re:Gee.

I think it's a little bit naive to expect one branch of a multi-national corporation to talk very well with another.

When one branch of that multinational corporation is making discs specifically designed to play in another branch's hardware, then no, I don't think that's a little bit naive whatsoever. I don't expect the computer division to hit up the TV stand division about every little thing, but it seems like "we're making a new type of DVD, so let's call up the guys who make the DVD players and make sure nothing broke" is a thought that should have occured to someone.

That's the problem

It shouldn't be called a "new type of DVD" nor sold as such.

Maybe I'm wrong, but like some "CDs" in the past that incorporated some copy protection and couldn't carry the CD logo/seal any longer on the cover, wouldn't the same thing apply here? Can Sony legimitately still call this thing a DVD anymore without being sued for fraud?

Re:That's the problem

Maybe I'm wrong, but like some "CDs" in the past that incorporated some copy protection and couldn't carry the CD logo/seal any longer on the cover, wouldn't the same thing apply here? Can Sony legimitately still call this thing a DVD anymore without being sued for fraud?

Perhaps the DVD-Video logo, but it's still a DVD. You can get software on DVDs. You can't play them in your video player, but they are still DVDs.

Actually, it's the same thing with CDs. CDs with copy protection are still CDs; they just can't carry the CDDA (CD Digital Audio) logo.

Re:That's the problem

Don't know about the general population, but I had no idea about that until people mentioned it here on slashdot. The CDs are in the CD part of the store, then I assume it is a CD. Same goes for DVDs.

Re:That's the problem

Don't know about the general population, but I had no idea about that until people mentioned it here on slashdot. The CDs are in the CD part of the store, then I assume it is a CD. Same goes for DVDs.

And that's what they want you to think. And it's understandable if people don't know all the guidelines that go into those logos. However, the bottom line is that if you buy a DVD and it doesn't play in your player, you should return it and demand your money back. Let the stores deal with the manufacturers.

Re:That's the problem

Perhaps the DVD-Video logo, but it's still a DVD. You can get software on DVDs. You can't play them in your video player, but they are still DVDs.

Actually, it's the same thing with CDs. CDs with copy protection are still CDs; they just can't carry the CDDA (CD Digital Audio) logo.

Not according to the Red Book standard [wikipedia.org].

There are a couple avenues of consumer remedy for buying one of these non-standard discs. First, warranties. When you purchase a CD or something purporting to be a CD, then its failure is a breach of general warranty for fitness. Second, if "CD" is a trademark, then selling a CD-like device as-if it were a CD can violate the trademark, and the trademark holder can pursue a remedy against the misrepresenter. Finally, there are statutory consumer protection acts which entitled consumers to remedies for violations of standards in product quality.

You're right to say that, colloquially, a CD with copy protection is still a CD. It serves the same purpose, looks the same, and often functions in the exact same way as a "true" CD. However, a CD-like disc with copy protection is legally distinct from a CD as "Compact Disc" in terms of the warranty for fitness, trademark holder rights, and consumer protection laws.

YMMV. :)

Re:That's the problem

Second, if "CD" is a trademark, then selling a CD-like device as-if it were a CD can violate the trademark, and the trademark holder can pursue a remedy against the misrepresenter

What's troublesome here is that Sony and Phillips that established the red book standard. Now if Sony holds that trademark, along with Phillips, it might be a bit tricky for Sony to sue themselves.

That's why the market should be deathly afraid of a Blue-Ray DVD victory. It'll mean that Sony will control the standard and move it around as it suits Sony. Amongst other reasons that is. It might certainly be [slightly] more superior than HD-DVD, although who's eyes can tell?

Re:That's the problem

"but like some "CDs" in the past that incorporated some copy protection and couldn't carry the CD logo/seal any longer on the cover"

"Some?" A pseudorandom sample of CDs inspected at some local big-name stores that sell CDs have produced no CD audio logos that I could find. These newfangled "FBI warnings" seem to have taken their place.

Re:That's the problem

Can Sony legimitately still call this thing a DVD anymore without being sued for fraud?

IMHO this should be dealt with the other way around. Instead of preventing companies from labeling these discs as DVD/CD/whatever, they should be forced to tag the boxes with "CONTAINS DRM", "Content is remotely managed by $CompanyName", "Contains rootkit by Sony", etc. This is a matter of consumer rights, not just distributors' rights. The consumer should be made aware of how the device is meant to work and hopefully a standard set of consumer warnings and advisories should foster the much needed discussion on the fairness of these distributors' tools.

Sony's PR department is better than yours

Sony will say that because of big bad rippers they had to update the security. The ones who will look bad in the media are the rippers. Sony knows damn good and well that this will barely cause a hiccup in illegal copying of DVDs. What it does is give them an opportunity to demonize the copiers. Remember, the media giants who own the news outlets? Well, they care about their digial rights and copyright as well. They WILL NOT come out in favor of the consumer on this. You'll see.

Re:Gee.

I think it's a little bit naive to expect one branch of a multi-national corporation to talk very well with another.

I think it's a little bit naive of you and Sony to think people will care about Sony's internal problems when people's shiny new Sony-branded products fail to function as advertised. If their stuff doesn't work, it isn't worth the money. Why that occurs is not my problem.

Re:Gee.

I wonder if the new DRM's been successful at keeping those movies off the torrent sites [isohunt.com]. Because if the article's to be believed, it's certainly been successful at pissing off paying customers, and what would be the point of doing that if the movies were still being pirated anyway [torrentspy.com]?

—Tickletaint [slashdot.org] (forced to post logged-out due to modbombing)

Consumer Math

Let's say that the average consumer is looking at investing in a movie, but knows there is a 1 out of 10 chance that they're wasting their money. There is now a looming doubt if the thing will play at all. It may be a small doubt, but any transaction cost is real. Let's then say that 1 out of 10 decide not to buy, and instead... well, it really doesn't matter what instead, as Sony has already lost their money.

Let's also say that the average pirate is looking to change their ways, and is now out of college and making enough money to support paying for movies. Their incentive to do so is threat of legal persecution and, more significantly, a moral imperitive to support artists that they care about. Now, suddenly, on the other side of the equation is this looming doubt over whether the thing will work at all. If the scales had tipped one way earlier, this might just be enough to tip them the other way.

So in other words, Sony has succeeded in alienating a section of their customer base, prevented another section from becoming legal customers, and all the while (judging by the wide availability of pirated copies of the movies mentioned) had zero effect on the piracy of their movies.

Brilliant. Is it time to put Sony to bed with SCO yet?

Re:Consumer Math

Brilliant. Is it time to put Sony to bed with SCO yet?

Hell NO, we don't need those two making babies!

Re:Consumer Math

The SCOny version of UNIX would come with the rootkits preinstalled.

Re:Consumer Math

Even better, the average consumer buys one of these but it won't play on their DVD player. They don't pirate movies, and know nothing about the technology, but when they go back to Amazon they read about all these other people having problems, and find out that some people have been able to watch the movie by downloading a 'torrent'.

So, they fix the problem themselves by downloading it. Now, what do you think that customer is going to do the next time they want a movie?

WTG Sony, you've just educated another customer in the benefits of piracy...

Re:Gee.

One of my roommates bought Casino Royale. To test it, I just grabbed it and ripped it in DVDFab Decrypter (XP inside of VMWare, with a Linux host). It ripped perfectly, including all extras.

Just out of spite I went ahead and ran DVD Shrink on the rip. I'll probably burn a few copies and leave them various places on my way to work tomorrow.

Re:Gee.

Seriously, you literal-minded milksops are destroying the Slashdot I used to know and love.

Well, it's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it. And I, for one, have nothing better to do, though you might want to put some of the blame where it deservedly belongs ... squarely on the shoulders of Global Warming.

Re:Gee.

Global warming? Won't somebody, please, blame the children?

Re:Gee.

(1) Buy DVD, stick it in DVD player, sit down w/ wife & kids to watch the movie - no joy.
(2) Swap at store, still no joy. Try to return, get hit with restocking fee - take DVD home irate.
(3) Call Sony to complain, get told to update player.
(4) Call player manufacturer to complain, get told "sorry, we've no idea, your player is out of warranty, go away". Now you're broiling angry.
(5) Discover software that rips the CD, despite whatever security measure on it, and burns it to a DVD-R.
(6) Realize you can do the same thing with DVD-R images on the net, and start downloading.

Congratulations, Sony, for having turned a customer over to the Dark Side with your wonderful customer relations program!

Re:Gee.

If it was just that... You forgot the "convenience" of:
-having to get dressed according to weather
-burn some expensive fossil fuels and put wear on an expensive car
-wasting a half hour in city traffic getting cut all the time -- both ways
-hunting for parking spots
-walk around a store full of unhelpful minimum-wage/comission employees looking for what you want (hopefully you won't impulse buy anything you don't need in the process)
-standing in line for a half hour to pay for it
-find out it doesn't play on your computer either (unless you shell out money for something like AnyDVD)

And possibly things like buying a new DVD player (more $) only to find out (if it even works at all) that there's unskippable previews and such crap (FBI warnings) on the disc too.

Whereas using P2P I can download the thing in mere minutes. No DRM, no protection that prevents playing, no rootkits, no unskippable previews, no FBI warnings -- none of the usual crap. No need to waste time ripping/re-encoding it in mpeg4 to put it on my video server either.

I would rather pay for a un-DRM'ed mpeg4 rip direct download then buy the DVD, but studios won't let us, much less for decent prices. Pirating is easy, fast (~30 seconds to start the transfer then downloads overnight), convenient and often provides you with a better product (at least an un-crippled one) -- and much cheaper too. As a bonus, you're not being treated like a thief by the pirated copy (oh the irony). So people pirate instead.

Re:Gee.

This is all a part of the Sony Customer Rage Assurance Program

Sony CRAP, for short

Re:Gee.

Yup. All part of their plan to scrap DVD players in favor of more costly Blu-Rays.

Re:Gee.

It is not functional and it is not the fault of your player. There should not be a restock fee. If there is SONY should be paying it not you. They are selling you defective merchandise.

Re:Gee.

I've never been hit with a restocking fee for a defective DVD or game. Typically to avoid trouble I've just accepted store credit but complaining that something doesn't work at all will get you an immediate exchange/credit.

Restocking only comes into play if you change your mind.

Re:Gee.

Swap at store, still no joy. Try to return, get hit with restocking fee - take DVD home irate.

Do a charge back. Being charged for a product which fraudulently claims to be compatible with an industry standard (DVD) is fraud. Expecting you to pay fees associated with that fraud is fraud. The credit card issuer will more than likely understand that and issue the chargeback. If the store needs money to cover their restocking fee, they need to contact the manufacturer for producing a defective product. The problem exists between the retail outlet and the manufacturer and not between the retail outlet and the customer.

Best of all, performing a chargeback is a great way for the retail stores to feel the pressure and pass it on to the manufacturer. Surprisingly, merchant associations have fairly heavy clout when they pull in the same direction. Try to make it work for you instead of against you.

Re:Gee.

Sony...like no other

Re:Xine

Did you report the dvd's as defective? It should be plan that if they do not play in a stand alone dvd when all other dvds to that they are defective. When you rent/buy these disk and they do not work simply return them as defective. Once walmart gets a stack of these fucker a mile high they will smack down sony nice and good.

As evil as walmart is sometimes being the 10,000 pound gorilla does have it's uses.

Re:Xine

Complaining to Wal-Mart is exactly the right thing. Piss off a few consumers and they will just ignore it. Piss off Wal-Mart and the movie companies will listen.

Even more powerful

Lots of returns to Sony will hurt Sony's profits and piss off the shareholders.

Pissed off share holders, particularly those who might have personally encountered the DVD problem, are a very nasty bunch to deal with. They cause heads to roll when voting for new board members etc.

Class action lawsuit anyone?

Just thinking about it, if they're selling them using the DVD label identifying it as a dvd, doesn't it legally have to be playable in dvd compatible players? If it wasn't, wouldn't that be a bait and switch scam? Just saying, they may have just opened up the floodgates to yet another massive lawsuit.

Re:Class action lawsuit anyone?

The music studios got in trouble with Phillips on that score: they were told flatly that if it doesn't conform to the published spec they can't use any relevant tradmarks, call it a Compact Disc, use the CD logo, etc. But given how the DVD industry is structured, I doubt much will come of this.

Bait and Switch

Yes, Phillips did the enforcing on CD encoding standards because of their trademark control. The DVD industry has no internal standards enforcement, so this mihgt be the time to bring in external enforcement, namely the courts. If the box says "DVD" it should play in a DVD player. Sonys product is only DVD-like and as such should not be legal to sell as a DVD. It would be like a gas station selling ethanol but calling it gasoline, sure it still works in some vehicles, but it's not the same product.

Re:Bait and Switch

Yes, well, in the U.S. at least we'll probably have to wait until we can get in that new President and Congress we ordered. The current ones are malfunctioning and in need of replacement.

Re:Bait and Switch

Just draw a line around the perimeter of Washington DC with a magic marker. That'll fix it.

Re:Bait and Switch

Would that be the blast radius? If so, you forgot step 2.

Re:Bait and Switch

You got your new congress just after the new year. Same dumb fucks, different name. I have no doubt that a Democratic president would be just as painful to watch.

Re:Bait and Switch

I'll say it more delicately than the other guy who got moderated "flamebait!"

While many aspects may have been indistinguishable between Bush and Gore/Kerry, there are still many which are. While it's not clear that 9/11 wouldn't have happened with Gore in office, it's entirely possible. The current administration steadfastly and deliberately ignored the Middle East until 9/11. (Their #1 priority was getting out of the ABM treaty so they could begin testing and deploying the stuff.) Then there's the Clean Air Act, Katrina, not to mention Iraq. (And I haven't even mentioned Peak Oil or greenhouse.)

No matter how Libertarian or Progressive you want to think you are, you simply can't say that there is no distinction whatsoever between Democrats and Republicans.

Are political nihilists also bad programmers?

I wish I had mod points for you, buddy.

Anyone remember this [acm.org] article about bugs and programming?

Committing the "black or white fallacy" is destructive everywhere, both in politics and programming. Saying that there's no difference between Democrats and Republicans because they're both politicians is good for one thing:

letting smug, lazy cynics feel somehow that by not doing anything, they're intellectually superior.

All that makes you is a part of the problem.

Re:Class action lawsuit anyone?

The music studios got in trouble with Phillips on that score: they were told flatly that if it doesn't conform to the published spec they can't use any relevant tradmarks, call it a Compact Disc, use the CD logo, etc.

Yes -- and when did you last see any of those things on what-looks-like-a-CD packaging? Hereabouts it all seemed to vanish from the packaging at about the time Philips made that clampdown.

Not quite, I know all about this one.

True Philips did state that any CD that did not conform to the Red Book specification exactly could not use the CD logo, but the response from the music industry was less then thrilling. They reply was basically "so what?" - the argument was that if it was 12cm wide and shiny people would put in their player anyhow, and they did.

Copy Protection on audio CDs was always a less than satisfactory method anyhow - relying on part Orange Book multi session TOCs with looping or non-existent sessions or degraded EFM, interleave or error correction (of course Red Book players would ignore such things and data players would kill the audio or disc). What has killed audio copy protection is market forces, some labels have already dropped it and others look to be doing the same.

Conventional CD audio player (Red Book) are largely removed from the market, nowadays all CD player also play MP3 - in other words they are data CD players (Orange Book) in order to read the ISO9660 or UDF format and hence read the MP3 files. When this shift happened - we started dropping classic audio systems from the CD players we made in about 2002, and the market took a few years to follow - the industry suddenly found that a *very* large percentage of the hardware could not play their discs so the copy protection was dropped. That and the fact it was massively unpopular.

I remember sitting in lectures from the IPFI when they clearly stated that the CD patents from Philips would expire some day and people did not give a damn about the logo or not. The IPFI certainly did not, and as long as Philips got the license money neither did they. Certainly CD copy protection never made the job of building CE audio equipment any harder - we ignored it largely.

Now we have the same again, as Sony has changed the format of the DVD system slightly for *enhanced* copy protection - there is a slight difference as they also have patents on DVD as well as Philips and others. There are only a few things that can happen here :-

1. The people who make DVD systems will alter their FW and that takes a while to reach the market - but (trust me on this) the teams involved in most firms have had sample discs with encoding on for quite some time.

2. Market forces will force Sony into a humiliating reverse *if* sufficient publicity and bad press can be generated. What is takes is a very large number of bad tempered people and some media backing. I would be confident that Sony has tested this new system on a wide variety of player to get a feel for the market first.

3. The number of players that refuse to play them will be small enough that the MPAA/Sony/Others will be able to railroad in this change over a year or so (after all some people will assume that their player is fucked and just get another cheap one) - but as the hackers of this world have a formidable reputation for cracking these things in a week or so the status will largely return to normal in due course.

Re:Class action lawsuit anyone?

Just thinking about it, if they're selling them using the DVD label identifying it as a dvd, doesn't it legally have to be playable in dvd compatible players?

This will depend very much on the local laws. In Australia a DVD that fails to play in a significant number of DVD players meets the statutory definition of unmerchantability, which requires goods to be suitable for every purpose for which they are normally bought (unlike other places where they have to be suitable for just one of the purposes for which they are normally bought). This will give the consumer the right to a refund, but won't lead to any penalty. There is also an argument that applying the label "DVD" to the product (or even selling it in a manner that makes it seem like it is a DVD) is misleading conduct for which anybody could apply to the Federal Court to get an injunction to prevent the product from being sold in that way.