RFID To Track Play of DVDs And CDs?

jayp00001 writes, "A Taiwan-based maker of DVDs and CDs for major studios is about to begin putting RFID chips in disks. The eventual aim is for DVD and CD players equipped with an RFID reader to prevent copied or out-of-region disks from being played."

hmm....

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

and everyone pays for a more expensive RFID-capable CD/DVD player because...?

The end of those stickers?

[portwojc]

With RFID chips embedded maybe we won't have to peel three seperate stickers off the DVD case.

That would be nice.

Re:If it won't play in my DVD player, it's not a D

[Anonymous Coward]

It will play in your DVD player. It will not play in new players with a mismatching region code. When your DVD player breaks (or when you upgrade to HD), you will buy a new player. The only way to protest is to stop buying, and that ain't gonna happen. People have money to burn and they will buy to fill the void between sleep and work with entertainment.

Aluminum foil over the RFID detector? Burn a copy?

[Secrity]

If suspect that this crap won't go very far as I suspect that it won't be difficult to circumvent.

Re:hmm....

[Potor]

because i imagine that one day older technology will be outlawed by act of congress, like analogue television

Re:hmm....

[Tim C]

...because by the time your current player finally dies, that's all that's available?

This idea is a complete non-starter in any case - are they really saying that I won't be able to burn my crappy home movies of my daughter to DVD to post to my parents?

Well, I've tried to play nice...

[ProppaT]

I've bought thousands of cds. I also have hundreds of records and various other forms of music media. And music isn't cheap! I refuse to buy into music stores such as iTunes because I feel it's ludicrous to have to pay what adds up to almost the same price as buying the physical disc to have digital copies of music files that are encoded lower than I would have encoded it myself if I had the disc. But, I swear, the second they pull a stunt like this, I'm out. See ya. I'll still buy cds from all the independant artists I love, because I'm sure they'll avoid this like the plague. But it looks like the only option will be music services such as Yahoo! Unlimited that charge me $60 a year to listen to whatever I want. Now if only I had broadband in my car, I'd be set...

Could mean consumer-unbreakable protection

[Anonymous Coward]

To the people saying that a person could just "cut the wires" to the RFID reader module inside vis drive:
Ever heard of system-on-chip?

I can tell you right now that it is extremely doable to put the necessary rfid reader circuity inside the drive controller ASIC and connect it to a simple loop antenna by a couple of pins (remember it only needs to have a range of an inch or so).

The controller chip could even scan for the correct impedance to prevent people from breaking the antenna trace, or (this is a good one) have a 'verification' RFID somewhere inside the drive case:
If the RFID reader part of the controller can't read the unique id of it's matching verification RFID (remember nowadays it's possible to have a small pseudo-PROM area of an ASIC) it won't let you use the drive..

We are seeing the end of the consumer-hackable hardware era; modern hardware can and will prevent all but the most dedicated hardware hackers with expensive logic analyzers from making unauthorized copies.

Wrap, don't cut.

[Anonymous Coward]

wrap the transceiver in aluminum foil (don't cut the wires 'cause then it will know it's been tampered with).

Actually, if they're smart, they will encase an RFID tag in the housing of the player aswell. That way they'll know that the transceiver is working (reads it's own RFID tag, then the disc tag)

And then add an optical marker to the disc so that the player knows this particular disc is supposed to have an RFID tag even if it can't find one.

So much wasted effort.

I wonder how long it will be before all players phone home to narc on your listening habits.

Re:Aluminum foil over the RFID detector? Burn a co

[Zocalo]

And the destruction of the RFID tag is going to occur without damage to the probably even thinner layer of metal that holds the actual media content because?

Re:Are they trying to encourage piracy

[mikael]

The next stage would be for the Cable/Satellite TV setbox to have a built in DVD player "for your convenience". Combining this with RFID'ed DVD's, and they would be able to determine what movies you had acquired from elsewhere (perhaps this could already be done using the serial numbers of the DVD).

Re:The right to steal?

[kimvette]

Watch the next DVD ad you see on TV. Seriously.

Do thet say "license the movie today?" No. It's "Own Lion King on DVD today." "OWN Narnia on DVD today." "Own the original trilogy on DVD today."

Please stop parroting those idiots' (read idiots' as: ..AAs') claims that content is merely "licensed." They know better, and as a consumer, you should know your rights as well.

They (the content producers themselves) re promoting the indisputable fact that you OWN the copy of that content. The only thing you CANNOT legally do with it is infringe on copyright law, aside from the exceptions provided for by the fair use clause.

If the content were a work for hire, it might be a different story, depending on the basis of the contract under which you had them create the content for you. No, DVDs are commodity goods, and when you buy it, you OWN it. Period.

$.02