[mythtv-users] Time Warner & Firewire

Mark Knecht markknecht at gmail.com
Wed May 18 16:37:26 UTC 2005


On 5/17/05, Brad Templeton <brad+myth at templetons.com> wrote:

> Actually, the copy prevention systems don't do anything about that.
> Since it just takes one copy to get out into the underground nets, and
> they can't make an uncrackable system, the only thing these systems do
> is make it harder for ordinary users to copy -- but most importantly,
> they make it harder for smaller entrants to compete in the media player
> markets and impossible for open source developers to compete.

It's not unbearably harder for small entrants. They can sign the NDA,
get a copy of 5C and do what they want.

> 
> 
> > in the States are on the order of a few billion a year. That's less
> > revenue than one moderate semiconductor company like AMD. The returns
> > from DVDs is far higher so without the DVD revenue the studios lose
> > money go out of business and we don't get movies in any format. As
> 
> Actually not true.  They make more money now from cinema release than
> they did (in constant dollars) in the old days, and on top of that
> make even more from home video and tv rights.  (TV rights of course
> don't stop copying, and nor has home video release stopped copying in
> any effective way.)

Not my understanding but I could be wrong. None the less I'm sure we'd
agree that they think that should they stop DVD piracy in certain
countries they believe they will make more revenue than by not doing
so.

> 
> So they have a thriving industry right now without copy prevention but
> they are both worried about losing it -- and on keeping a lock on
> the tech.

If you go back to one of the original DTCP papers
(www.dtcp.com/data/wp_spec.pdf) you'll see that the issue contemplated
was not (IMO) 'keep a lock on the tech' nor even unlimited copies of
analog data which degrades from copy to copy, but rather unlimited
copies of digital data which does not degrade. No one in the DTCP
community ever said it would be impossible to crack 5C but rather it
would be suitably difficult and slow that at least it wouldn't happen
on a grand scale where every movie ends up seeded in a bit-torrent
like they do today.

> 
> > long as Open Source tools continue to give all users the capability to
> > make perfect digital copies of any source material there is going to
> > be disagreements and issues like this.
> 
> Actually, the tech-savvy folks at the movie studios know perfectly well
> their DRM is crackable and won't stop copies from getting into the
> underground P2P nets.   I sympathise with their plight actually in
> ways even they don't know (every dime that ever fed me has come from
> media and copyright businesses) but freedom to innovate in tech is
> even more important.

Agreed as above

> >
> >    That said I expect that over time the cable boxes will get much
> > better about this. There shouldn't be any reason that I cannot make a
> > copy of news shows, high school sports events or other low revenue
> > generating shows for time shifting and I expect that cable boxes will
> > make this stuff available over time. In the mean time it's not
> > surprising to me that they take a somewhat draconian view and say all
> > or nothing.
> 
> DRM requires a system where the default is no copying and only certain
> exceptions are allowed.  That precludes open tools and open source.  It's
> hard to imagine any DRM, even the most permissive, not shutting linux
> tools out of the media playing space.   I have imagined some methods but
> they remain ugly and still shut out the innovation that this space is
> about.
> 

I don't think so. I think it precludes copying. Nothing more. I never
saw anything in the specs that made it technically impossible to do on
a Linux machine what is allowed to be done on a windows machine. Truly
they were far more worried (at the time - I know nothing of recent
importance) about Windows boxes since in 1998 there were about a
million more Windows boxes than Linux boxes.

I agree that openly publishing the specs for the Hitachi encryption
methods is far more of a threat in the Open Source communities than in
Windows, but there's nothing impossible about having software that
does it in a non-open-source way and providing that much like some
hardware manufacturers provide their drivers. Please remember that
Windows programmers could also use the same information to make
similar programs that create the same sort of problems for the content
providers. 5C was not targeted at making life particularly difficult
for Open Source. Far from it.

Bye,
Mark


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