I guess future movies will finally be bullet proof.
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2164309/embedded-dvd-chip-fights-piracy

Fair Use is going down the toilet...

There will be a way to get around this in minutes.

I'm sure thats a really great lock, shame the horse has allready bolted.

Something smells a bit, well, hoax like about that news story.

How for example would this work with all the millions of players out there that don't have the required equipment to read the 'radio' signal off the chip?

Also, how on earth would a radio tracker device be able to render a DVD unplayable? By physically changing the disc itself?!

Nope, smells of BS to me and is technically impossible from what I can tell.

Well RFID technology is real and is starting to roll out gradually. I believe WalMart is among one of the first companies to adopt it on a large scale in the US. It provides a way to monitor products as they move through the distribution process without having to physically scan barcodes or anything.

This doesn't sound so far fetched to me, although it probably would take years to adopt on any large scale. I would assume they want your DVD player connected to the internet somehow, and it would need to authorize the DVD by checking its serial number with a database of legal copies. Or maybe it could be even simpler, like refusing to play a disk that didn't have an RFID tag, or if the data on the tag doesn't match some pre-programmed criteria.

Oh, I think it's completely doable.

Consider now, that films you see in theatres have those little 'copyguard' diamonds that show up at some point in a scene. Those are 'identifying markers' that are different for each print. SO when some joker sets up his miniDV camera to 'copy' a first run film, and it hits the streets or the internet the next day... the film distributor knows EXACTLY where it was copied. This helps track down the copiers (Or at least gives them a starting point)

This is just an electronic version of the same thing.

Mind you, I'm not a big fan of people knowing that I bought copy #14232773489578csdjelo380120 of "Matrix Remixed and Remastered". But once my magnetic ink is in the system... (Scanned in upon sale) They'll know who bought it initially. When you take it home, and try to 'rip it' Some portion of that code will go onto the 'ripped' media. SO when you give it to your friend, or sell it on the street, and it goes into the brand new dvd players that READ the chips... the DVD players will know if it's a legal copy. The same way your computer knows if you have a legal copy of WIndows Software on it.

Which means that the players won't play a DVD without a 'legal' chip in it.

Yeah, I can see how it would work.

Eventually.

For a little while.

So no, I don't think its BS. It's just another form of copyguard.

(Beat me to the punch Boyd.)

It is possible to make the technology secure but it pretty much can't happen for DVD.

For example the player can generate a random number, pass this to the chip along with the players public key. The chip then can spit out an encrypted message containing the random number and the key required to decrypt the disk content.

The decoder chip in the player then decrypts the message, checks the random number and if it matches attempts to decrypt the data.

This system could be made secure enough that a copied disk would need someone to reverse engineer the silicon chip of the RFID device.

The problem is noone in charge of the DVD standard will let it be changed in a way that makes all current DVD players obsolete. If the movie can be played on existing DVD players then the video can be decrypted with readily available tools and reprinted as an unprotected DVD.

The horse has not only bolted, but it has flown to europe after stealing a passport from a donkey and is living on the spanish coast under the assumed name of signor Ed and making good money working for a local bar.

Here’s another article about RFIDs being used in DVDs.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060915/094552.shtml

Not in any meaningful way. The source of the report in that article is the other article.

Not in any meaningful way. The source of the report in that article is the other article.
No problem at all.
I was searching for other news article about that situation and they also quote this article. Without fully reading the second article, I thought it was different.

Something smells a bit, well, hoax like about that news story.

How for example would this work with all the millions of players out there that don't have the required equipment to read the 'radio' signal off the chip?

Also, how on earth would a radio tracker device be able to render a DVD unplayable? By physically changing the disk itself?!

Nope, smells of BS to me and is technically impossible from what I can tell.

Well there goes another opportunity to patent that, had a disk in chip[ idea years ago (came up with something better and dropped it).

RFID have been around for at least ten to 20 years. Really amazing technology, they have little chip and circuit that can be entirely powered by a radio pulse emitted by a transmitter in a room, return the id and then power down.

Amazing low power technique, along with watch microprocessors etc.

Which means that the players won't play a DVD without a 'legal' chip in it.

But therein lies the problem. They aren't just talking about Blu-Ray and HD-DVD etc, they are talking about normal DVD's.

This copy protection will not work simply because all of the millions of exisitng DVD players out there don't have the ability to read the chip.

They dont say 'when' this technology will be employed. So it could be they are forward engineering. YOu know, like all the millions of TV sets out there that can't play HD, or all the MILLIONS of VHS players still in production, ora ll the (?) THOUSANDS of 8-track tape players that people buy and sell tapes for.

This copy protection will not work simply because all of the millions of exisitng DVD players out there don't have the ability to read the chip.

Well of course that's true. But they could certainly use the technology to stop the distribution of pirated DVD's. Distributors and retail outlets could refuse to accept shipments of DVD's if the packages don't answer an RFID challenge correctly.

Okay, but what about discs that we create ourselves? They won't have a chip on them, so they won't answer any challenges. So how would the player distinguish between a DVD-R of somebody's holiday video, from a film that had its VOB etc file ripped and then re-burned?

Honestly Simon, I don't know anything about this system, and don't particularly care one way or the other :-) If you feel it's a hoax then that's fine with me. My only point is that it sounds plausible, and I can see reasons why the manufacturers might be interested in such a system. I know there are a lot of concerns in the software industry about slick pirated copies coming out of China and other countries.

I think its real. MACROVISION is real, and fairly ineffective. I think this new system will work for a short while, and then someone will find a workaround. It's all part of the 'arms race' attitude.

No reason to assume the article is a hoax or bogus.

There will be a way to get around this in minutes.


Play the movie as a high quality analogue signal and record that signal.

Burn a DVD.

Simple !


It may not be digital or an identical clone, but done well on cheap equipment we probably already own any degradation may be tiny.