Copy Protection for homemade Dvd's
 

Hey folks, I was just wondering if anyone has ever put copy protection on a homemade DVD. I recently made my very first wedding DVD and the father of the bride remarked that they could make they own copies.....that disturbed me.

I did a quick search on the dvinfo forums and didn't seem to come up with much. So I thought I would ask the experts....you guys.

Thanks

Unfortunately, no you can't. You should however, kindly remind the father of the bride that making copies is a violation of copyright. Let him know that if he enjoys the video so much, that he should compensate you so that your business will survive should he wish to refer anyone else to you. But, he probably feels like he paid you enough already. Just ask if he plans to make illegal copies of the still photographer's work as well.

Although Apple's DVD Studio Pro allows you to select copy protection, the image has to go to a machine called digital linear tape, or DLT for short. The resulting DVD's pressed from the tape master can have copy protection applied but there is lots of software out there that will circumvent even those measures.

-gb-

Do wedding videographers retain the rights to the master when they are hired to tape a wedding? When I do corporate projects, I turn the master over to the client. They usually want us to do any duplication because the price is good and we make good thermal printed copies, but I do not have any problem with them making copies. I agree that there is no practical copy protection for DVDs.

That depends on the contract. I know some wedding photogs simply quote a one time buyout fee for the negatives which allows the couple to duplicate as they wish. This topic has come up before here on DVI and I seem to recall a statement to the effect that unless specifically agreed to in advance, the rights usually remain with the production company and not the client.

-gb-

There is an interesting do-it-yourself way of copy protecting a DVD described and debated on http://forums.dvdoctor.net/showthrea...t=copy+protect

your q's been answered but hopefully with BluRay around the corner, we can insert digital rights to each piece, rendering it uncopyable or requiring the purchase of a license to view a copy of the work sell teh clietn 5 licenses, and voila, there are their 5 copies.. even if they make a copy, they still need a license and if u set ur license to only allow 5 "activations" it locks up ntil you reset it.. reset it and u can charge $$ for it..
Hopefully the BD players will go forward with this scheme.. but i really do doubt itll happen.. too many hassles..
Even when consumers can afford to buy a Blue Ray burner though, they wouldnt be able to watch it..

heres hoping ...

Could you consider a business model that would discourage them from making their own copies? Have a minimum order, say of ten, and discount for increased volume.

The best thing sorted out of that discussion is the business model problem.
I think all models linking the value of the work to a media is a failure.
You spend some hours to do a work, use some equipement and skill.
This should be enough to set a price for the master copy. This is the money you spend to do the job and the money you expect to earn to make sur it is not a philantropic operation.
subsequent copy should be proposed for free (or at cost of additional work), but in no case you should expect your previous work paid by a hypothetic sale of DVDs.
That is often the proposal of customers who do not want to pay for you work.
They ask you to reduce you price and let you hope you will get your money back by selling copies.
The real answer to such proposal is to tell the customer that you won't reduce your price , but THEY can get their money back by selling as much copies as they want at the price they want.

for the protection system.
I wonder if we cannot refine the method by placing the black video, not at the end, but directly in to the main menu for example, so you invalidate a pretty important VOB. You will object that, then it is almost impossible to identify where this area is on the disk.
So the second refinement is not to scratch the disk, but make an image of it on the harddisk and edit with an Hex editor or a disc sector editor to invalidate the structure of the file at the correct place (we need to find the byte sequence of a long black video).
Then by blindly burn the image back to a DVD, we should get the equivalent of a scratch.
Since it will not prevent a raw copy of the DVD (physical modification should still be necessary), it will prevent programs trying to decode the DVD.
I think some copy protection system are using such method.

Well to be completely honest about the situation, I was never paid anything for what I did. Considering it was my brother that got married I didn't even think of wanting money for anything. I guess I'm not losing any money because of them making copies but it just seemed rather rude to sit right in front of me and make the comment that he can make copies of it at work.

Now my next question is....Can I get a recommendation of software to author dvd's. I have Encore 2.0 since it came with Premiere Pro and I'd like to think if I can understand Premiere then I should be able to understand Encore but for some reason I look at the interface on Encore and it makes me scratch my head. So any suggestion?

Also I'd like to have the ability to add an Easter Egg to a different version of this wedding dvd that I will be making this week since I'm off work for a week. I did a google and a search here and neither turned up much help other than definitions of what an Easter Egg is.

Any help is appreciated.

You want the ability of adding Easter Egg whil you do not even know what it is ?
Easter Eggs in DVD are hidden feature that can only be activated by secret sequences. I never really understand the purpose of this.
this is not a feature of an authoring program, but the way you will play with menu and programming some flag to keep track of user's action.

Customer service is king!!!
 

I do very few weddings. Those that seek me out for this are informed about the production values etc etc and the cost.

Since the dvd becomes their keepsake only and is not a distributable money maker I could care less how many copies they make. They paid the $2K for the creation of the work.

The sale usually closes when they view my previous work. The icing on the cake is when they ask "How much for extra copies?" Since they have been quoted silly prices for this by my competition, this is when I ask for the order after I tell them they are free.

This is not a budget job. Ad hoc price lists with menus of options just cloud the whole thing.

And if they make copies on their own for family and friends, they just made a great business card for you and are proud of their purchase decision. Let 'em spread the word!!!

What is the worst that could happen? You get a referral!!!

If you charge 10, 20 or whatever per extra copy and scare them with copyright legalese, they will be less likely to refer you. So when their colleagues and family members go shopping for video in the future, they might find me. And my outrageous fee of zero for extra copies will beat you to the order every time. All things else being equal....

My last referral was for a $7K corporate video .............

Yeah I know what easter eggs are hence my asking the question how I can add them to my own dvd's.Anything past renaming a button in a template is beyond my knowledge of dvd authoring.

in some DVD authoring applications , you got access to the register (memory cell). You can store and read values.
using real simple programming, you can check for a pattern of values and decide to banch to a menu that allow selection of usually hidden feature.
Sometime yo uneed to solve some game, sometime you need to set a complex combination of keyson the remote control.
Again, i think it is pretty useless to hide content on a DVD, if you do not provide the way of accessing it. And if you provide this way it is not an Easter egg anymore.

Actually, you can copy protect (CSS, macro, etc) home-brew DVDs. I'm not going to give directions on how to do it (it's not simple); I'm fundementally opposed to the practice - at least with the consumer budget space. But from a technical/curiosity point of view, it's certainly doable.

I encourage my wedding clients (if they are technically inclined) to make all the copies they like.

YMMV

That's pretty shady IMO.

Normal DVDRs don't have a long shelf life under average care. Also, who's to say the creator is even in business a year from receipt. The client's then SOL.

Also, it really says a lot about the true customer service intentions. If a crucial source of income is to finagle money in this way, clearly there's no sound business plan - unless again, the point is to be shady.

There's no amount of content control I'd take over repeat business or client/positive reccomendations.

$.02