DVD chips 'to kill illegal copying'

DVDs will soon be tracked with embedded radio transmitter chips to prevent copying and piracy, according to the company which makes movie discs for Warner, Disney, Fox and other major studios. The technology, which can also be used for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs, will allow movie studios to remotely track individual discs as they travel from factories to retail shelves to consumers' homes.

source

so the've tried region coding and other forms of anti pirating software and now they want to follow you home and see where you live

They've been talking about doing this the last couple of years. Can't say I'm surprised, but I'm sure those people will find some other way to do it. But they've had it coming as well, the DVD companies and Hollywood have politicans in their pockets.

posted by solidshot

DVDs will soon be tracked with embedded radio transmitter chips to prevent copying and piracy . . so they’ve tried region coding and other forms of anti pirating software and now they want to follow you home and see where you live

I have a bottom of the line Panasonic DVD bought last year, which will not reproduce a lot of the current movies my friends have loaned me to copy. Perhaps this technology is already in my old set?

The pirates will figure out a way, they always do. If the production companies institute this, they will lose me as a customer and I will ONLY obtain pirated copies, and somehow I don't think I'll be the only one. I will not have a radio transmitter chip in my body or in my home. They will lose more customers than they will gain from this.

As DeNiro would say, "This is a stoopid move. It's a stoopid move."






[edit on 2006-9-16 by wecomeinpeace]

Originally posted by donwhite
I have a bottom of the line Panasonic DVD bought last year, which will not reproduce a lot of the current movies my friends have loaned me to copy. Perhaps this technology is already in my old set?

This is a little different i believe, they are planning to put rfid chips into the disk's so they can track them from the factories to your home.

will allow movie studios to remotely track individual discs as they travel from factories to retail shelves to consumers' homes.

Check out what Microsoft is going to do with their Zune music player(the so-called IPod killer).

www.abovetopsecret.com...

This is very much like the Sony rootkit fiasco, except much worse. This player automatically and unilaterally decides that any and all non-DRM tracks should have DRM on them regardless of wether you downloaded a Free and Legal CC track, or downloaded an DRM-less track from the EMusic Itunes store.

Originally posted by sardion2000
This is very much like the Sony rootkit fiasco, except much worse.

I don't think so, this is a completely different thing.

Sony CDs installed the program, changed the CD player drivers and said nothing about it.

Microsoft is saying that they will use DRM on all files because they do not know how to tell the difference between the ones who really are copyrighted and the one who aren't.

They are both malicious programs which interfere with the normal operating of files/hardware that you own. The only difference here is that one is a Virus, the other is a Rootkit. One effects software, the other effects hardware. One is spread via the hardware, the other is spread via the media. It is a very similiar scenario IMO.

[edit on 16-9-2006 by sardion2000]

Originally posted by sardion2000
They are both malicious programs which interfere with the normal operating of files/hardware that you own.

No.

The DRMing (new word?) of the music files used in the not yet released Microsoft player does not interfere with the files that are not on the player, it only interferes with the files that are used in it.

In the Sony case it was a CD that affected all the operations of the CD player on the computer where it was played.

The only difference here is that one is a Virus, the other is a Rootkit. One effects software, the other effects hardware. One is spread via the hardware, the other is spread via the media. It is a very similiar scenario IMO.

No, it isn't a virus, a virus is self-replicating.

In the case of the Microsoft player, if you play that file who had the DRM added by the Microsoft player on your computer, that does not make your computer apply DRM to all the musics you play.

If they don't change many things on this player I think it will be a flop.

It's a pointless excercise.

The majority of pirated copies that I've seen have been filmed in theatres, or copied from pre-release digital master copies by Hollywood insiders.

I'm almost positive that this technology will not stop the dissemination of pirated movies.

I read some time ago that one movie critic that wrote for the newspapers was found guilty of lending the movie previews that the studios sent him to friends, some of those friends made copies that appeared one or two days after on the Internet.

You know, it's growing so sickening to hear about things like this. I went legal, yes totally legal, and started buying music through RealPlayer. I then unsubscribed to their service (bought a TON of music). Now the DRM is constantly wanting to reinstall before I can play my music.

Now we have DVD's. Well, I copy DVD's all the time. Every single time I buy one, as a matter of fact! That way, I can play the burned copy, not worrying about scratches, and keep the nice pretty one in it's case. Now BluRay gods will be tracking my DVD's every move? No thanks.

They know where they can take their BluRay chips and shove them.

This RFID in a disk is even less secure than the xbox360 security, and it's been hacked 9 ways already.

We already know how to rewrite RFID.

True, that technology was rumored to have appared on here years ago. Like someone said above me, ppl have already hacked, unhacked, and re-programmed RFID files.

I don't understand how this will stop piracy. Sure, they can track the original disks, but how will they know if a copy has been made or where the copy would be? Also, how are they able to locate the disks from such far away distances? Does the chip relay a signal to a satelite? Where does the chip also get it's energy supply from, and where would they place it on the dvd, so it doesn't unbalance the disk's rotation?

When the rest of the world knows, someone will get back to you. Please leave a message at the beep.
Beep.
Joking.

I don't know. It's on the CD case, I think, and I think it works by mircochip. That's what I've heard on livedaily and music sites. I'll do a search and find you some links.

Originally posted by solidshot

DVDs will soon be tracked with embedded radio transmitter chips to prevent copying and piracy, according to the company which makes movie discs for Warner, Disney, Fox and other major studios. The technology, which can also be used for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs, will allow movie studios to remotely track individual discs as they travel from factories to retail shelves to consumers' homes.

source

so the've tried region coding and other forms of anti pirating software and now they want to follow you home and see where you live

1, they only want to know where consumers who use the illegal commerical uses live to sue them.
2, the coding is to protect the artists copyright, and other merchiandising lincences from being used. So if you don't plan on illegally using them always prompt your music burning software's lincenses. If for private use by you and your family members ONLY.
3, They can't use commerical jiggles,TV themes(i.e BTVS 50 sec opening), etc. w/o premission from artist, distrubitor, publisher, etc. without their knowleadge. So if you have anything from Napster that's commerical. If it goes over 30 secs.

4, For goodness sakes, don't share it on the net or w/ friends or co-workers, your legally not even suppose to have it. If it's a TV theme, speech, musical, etc. w/o their premission. And if you do have it. Use it for private use only, otherwise you risk a hefty lawsuit. And it breaks Fair-share/fair use laws.

5, How do I know all this?

I study law a little on the side. Also here are some links on the subject. But on the inside of CD Albums now, you'll notice a thin metal/foil strip on top of plastic. That's the chip, it's connected to a GPS system. I had a friend in the music business, he explained to me how it worked. He explained, they don't care about "Private Users", just distrubitors, which is another reason why celebrities are on the internet more now.

Also, links:

www.gdnlaw.com...

www.foxnews.com...

www.copyright.gov...

www.riaa.com...

Just trying to help.

Reading this thread, I had two questions, and DJMessiah asks them for me:

I don't understand how this will stop piracy. Sure, they can track the original disks, but how will they know if a copy has been made or where the copy would be?

Also, how are they able to locate the disks from such far away distances? Does the chip relay a signal to a satelite? Where does the chip also get it's energy supply from?

My friend said,
They use satalites, when they have lawyers, investigatiors, etc. working for the labels. They find the suspected distrubitor's IP address, etc. they trace it. Then they trace those cereal numbers on the disc, that tell the location of the Store distrubitor, their store #, the trade market #, the artist's #, the album #s, the specific album it is. By using a similar system, like that of the of UPC codes on bar codes on food, but a little longer.

The plastic, and the foil, and metal on top of the mircochip, which is about 2 inches in lengh, and about quarter of an inch wide, the insallation of the plastic, the foil, and the metal allow for the chip to work by GPS when needed. The locations of the investgatory cites to find these distrubitors are on multiple rental properties through out the world. Mostly by college students, since their the most likely ones to distrubte works illegally.

Ok, thanks smalllight, but how do the people tracking the CD know where it is?

How does the microchip send out it's location to these satellites?
To emit a signal, the chip would have to have a power-source. Now unless it was designed to receive power from the DVD player/burner (is that possible?), it would have to have a battery within the actual disk. Now since there isn't a battery in the disk, you have to presume that the chips would work like RFID's, where they reflect or otherwise return EM energy from a transmitter. BUT RFIDs are only meant to work if you hold the transmitter within a few feet, inches in most cases.

So how powerful would a transmitter have to be if it was to get returns off of chips that could be anywhere in the entire United States? Surely a single satellite could not push out that much energy, not with just solar cells providing it's main power source, so I'd guess that there would be ground-based transmitting stations, like the company just sticks transmitters on the tops of mobile-phone towers. But even then, that's a lot of energy they're going to use.

The mobile phone network uses huge amounts of electricity, and that's with the phone's themselves transmitting.

Of course, I know nothing about any of this stuff, so if anybody knows how these things will work, I'd sure like to know.