Studios OK Burning Movie Downloads 216
SirClicksalot writes "The DVD Copy Control Association has released a statement (pdf) announcing that it will make adaptations to the Content Scramble System (CSS) used to protect DVDs. The association, made up of Hollywood studios, consumer electronics and software companies, licenses CSS to the DVD industry to protect content. The changes will allow home users to legally burn purchased movie downloads to special CSS protected DVDs, compatible with existing DVD players."
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Sadly encouraging, but.... (Score:4, Informative)
#!/usr/bin/perl (Score:2, Informative)
b=map{ord qB8,unqb8,qT,_^$a[--D]}@INC;s/...$/1$&/;Q=unqV,qb
^S*8^S>=8
)+=P+(~F&E))for@a[128..$#a]}print+qT,@a}';s/[D-HO
Re:"special" discs? (Score:3, Informative)
as for reading the article, I quote:
"Soon, people will be able to copy a digital movie onto a specially made DVD"
What it sounds like to me is that they plan on distributing discs with CSS keys already burned on them instead of the discs that exist now having the CSS ring zeroed out.
Re:"special" discs? (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't just a software change. See, the whole reason CSS is effective (to any extent) is that DVD burners and blank DVD media are designed to prevent you from writing CSS keys to a disc. The media comes with the key area pre-burned with zeros (or physically embossed, for RW discs) and the burners refuse to write there anyway. Even with the expensive DVD-R for Authoring format, you can't burn a CSS protected disc today, AFAICT.
Re:Further evidence... (Score:5, Informative)
I'll also add a comment to your "for the most part" argument: look at how often and in how many ways they've tried to put (sometimes artificial) barriers to CD-ripping. With the iPod and other MP3 players being so popular now, too many people stumble upon those limitations, the RIAA can't get away with it.
Re:"Special" DVDs (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, CSS is hardware as well as software, because the key is stored in a spacial place on the disk, and existing disks do not allow that special place to be written. So it is impossible to make CSS-protected disks with current domestic DVD writers.
WRONG (Score:5, Informative)
YOU need to read TFA:
http://www.dvdcca.org/data/css/DVDCCArecordrlsFIN
"Both would require special blank DVD discs that will use the Content Scramble System (CSS) for encryption and will be compatible with the millions of existing DVD players in the marketplace today."
If you had a clue about what you're talking about, you would know that CSS keys cannot be written existing DVD blank media, which is what makes CSS semi-effective in the first place. Otherwise, you wouldn't need to decrypt a DVD to copy it; you could just copy the whole encrypted disk, including keys, which would kinda defeat the entire purpose of CSS.
Re:Further evidence... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:"special" discs? (Score:4, Informative)
Even with the expensive DVD-R for Authoring format, you can't burn a CSS protected disc today, AFAICT.
As I understand it, that was the whole point of DVD-R for Authoring. They did let you burn CSS to Authoring discs ("authoring", after all, means making an exact image of what is going to be pressed at the factory), but they made sure that Authoring discs wouldn't be burnable in regular drives, and (for some reason I can't comprehend), Authoring drives wouldn't burn regular discs.
The original intent was that the only people with Authoring drives and using Authoring discs would be the few pros who needed them. And they would pay big bucks for what was esentially a drive with different firmware, and a blank disc made with different header info, further limiting use to pros only.
Re:"special" discs? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Further evidence... (Score:5, Informative)
Popular DVD "ripping" tools that make the ISO's actually decrypt the content first so that you can burn it to another disc in an unencrypted format.
Major(s) costs saving (Score:3, Informative)
- They don't need to edit a DVD structure with bonuses and such
- They donc have to create the media, the jacket and such
- They don't have to manage media storage
- They don't have to manage media transportation
But you pay the same: They earn 35% more.
Same for downloadable manazines and news papers: same price, but the company saves paper, printing costs, transportation, unsold idtems,
Re:WRONG (Score:2, Informative)
Think of it like this; imagine the entire DVD is a zip file with a password on it, and the password is in a place that is only writeable through pressing the DVDs, not burning them (and by pressing, I mean manufacturing them, not pushing on it with your thumb). This would stop a straight DVD copy from working in a conventional DVD player. The content remains scrambled because there is no password with it. This cuts out the easiest copying solution, which existed in conventional audio CDs.
The second problem is, only authorised/liscensed software were given the technique to get the password. This would mean that they could still be played on a PC through special software that had proprietary code built-in, such as PowerDVD. Such software was probably only allowed to perform a certain number of tasks, such as playback and seeking. I would imagine that any program that wanted to use the technique for anything other than playback was denied the necessary proprietary code.
Now, if the password to the DVD was stored somewhere where everyone could see it, that would make the previous two implementations invalid and unnecessary, but we know them to be true, and because of this, you don't need sources, just evidence.