copy protection talk
 

OK, since it looks like we are going to get into this in the other thread, I thought I'd start it up here.

The thought of putting a watermark on each frame is fine for large scale deterrents, but I'm more concerend with keeping people from making a dozen copies for their friends. I was thinking that at the start of the tape you could put "$500 reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of individuals making pirated copies of this material." That would keep medium scale piracy down, but people will still make copies for friends.
These people you could keep away with physical tape protection. Most of them aren't going to have the resources, or bother, to try and deal with that. It's easier just to buy another copy.

So what do we have for physical tape protection options? The only one I've heard of is Macrovision. Does anyone have experience with this or other forms? Prices? Ease of use? Etc...?

FWIW.....my own APEX DVD player has a hack in it that disables MACROVISION. These things are readily available on the internet.

Forget about "protections".. they do not help you in any way,
except for seriously removing cash from you. Protections like
macrovision requires licenses for every tape/DVD you distribute.

And the funny thing is that with DVD you only have to flip ONE
bit to enable Macrovision (which you could do without paying
a fee). For tape you need a macrovision generator as well.

Then you also have CSS encryption for DVD's which is meant
to disallow for a digital copy.

Both techniques are very easily circumvented and offer you no
protection against for simple copy. Whether you want to shell
out the $$$ for this is up to you.

A reward might be more interesting indeed. But then maybe not.
If I were a person that bought illegal stuff than I would certainly
not phone you up for $500 because i will have to testify against
the other person and I don't want that kind of attention or perhaps
the police searching my house for more stuff...

All in all I don't have an answer for you for stuff that you could do.

Sorry and sad, but true....

You could put a statement at the head of the tape to the effect: "persons copying this work consent to pay a fee of $1,000 per copy payable to . . . "

Chances of collecting would be slim, but it might make some stop and think.

Anti-copying technology doesn't work on the small scale because it is too expensive. Macrovision for VHS tapes is too costly for small production runs (less than 1,000 copies). It would double the cost of duplication. Even more for you Dylan, because your doing your own duplication.

DVD anti-copying protection, CSS, can only be done with pressed discs. It can't be applied to discs that are burned. This may have changed since I looked into it last (about a year ago).

So that leaves you playing cop or getting the cops to do it. In a few cases a nasty letter from an attorney scares them enough to make them quit.

I've had luck both ways. Many years ago a guy used an image of mine (saw it in a book) and did a silk screened T-Shirt from it. I saw the shirt in JC Penny and bought one. My lawyer contacted JC Penny and threatened them with a law suite. That lead to negotiations with the artist and we settled for $10,000. In a small case like yours the lawyer could get them to quite making copies, but I doubt you 'll get any settlement.

I had a client who decided that he would make his own copies. I advised him that, per our agreement, my company was the sole owner of the tape and he could not copy the tape. I tried working it out with the guy but didn't want to hear it. so, I contacted the local FBI office and they were very helpful. I filed a complaint and presented the little evidence I had. A couple days later two agents for the FBI show up at the guys office to question him. It scarred the s**t out of him. It was very effective. They threatened him with a search warrant and confiscating equipment as evidence. Who knows what else they might have found.

Jeff

CSS on DVD's still can only be done by pressing your discs. For
this you also need to pay some fees which are probably to high
for indepedent work. You could also set a macrovision bit on the
DVD (you also need to pay a fee for this, but you can do it yourself)