IBM to shove ads onto DVDs
IBM hopes to slip commercials onto your DVDs. Big Blue has asked the US Patent Office for the exclusive rights to a "system and method of providing advertisements during DVD playback." If this thing ever shows up in your DVD player, your discs won't be ad-free - unless you shell out some cash for some sort of digital certificate …
Do they not understand that the popularity of pop-up blockers mean that consumers are not happy about having adverts forced down our necks.
Perhaps there's a gap in the market for ad-blockers on DVD players
'Big Blue has asked the US Patent Office for the elusive rights to a "system and method of providing advertisements during DVD playback."'
Let's hope these rights do indeed prove to be elusive!
"your discs won't be ad-free using you shell out some cash for some sort of digital certificate"
"using" = "unless"?
It's bad enough with DVDs already, non-skipable ads and trailers before you even get to the menu, but worst of all are the patronising threats about piracy. FFS, I've *bought* the bloody film already so just fuck off!!! Aaargh! No wonder more and more people are turning to P2P - if you're going to be treated like a criminal for *buying* a legitimate copy, then why bother?
And now the idiots at IBM have come up with this little gem They really don't get it, do they?
So what if someone is using a stande-alone player with no possible network connection?
Do they get no Ads or does the 'king thing refuse to play?
Sooo...don't plug the DVD player into the internet to retrieve the ads? And don't buy any DVDs that buy into this scheme.
At least I know I can resort to my $25 DVD player that doesn't care about region encoding, PUOs, and now this.
I hope Handbrake, etc. continue to make our paid-for media useful.
I'll rip it, I'll strip it, and the DVD will cost me less...
Seriously, are these companies that dumb and stupid, do they not understand that piracy is rampant because of two reasons.. soon to be three.
1: Those that download because they can - No lost revenue to them because these are the sort who would never buy the goods in the first place
2: The casual downloader who has become so sick and tired of getting ripped of, by prices, drm restrictions or any of the other multitude of reasons that short sighted and greedy corporations are responsible for.
If this sort of technology were to be implemented, it would affect my DVD purchasing habbit as I already refuse to purchase many goods on moral grounds... This is just an incentive to go online and see if you can find an AD FREE version of it.
Well done Big Blue... That's another BIG mistake you can chalk up to stupid marketers.
so what's the advantage of buying something on DVD if you get "the TV experience" anyway ? (top 1 reason to buy stuff on DVD tends to be "I can watch it in peace & quiet without any ruddy commercial breaks")
I wouldn't want the damn things even if they gave'em away for free.
That said, I'm sure some enterprising hacker will come up with an ingenious tool to emulate the certificate - this is just DRM, but in a more insidious and cleverly packed form.
Let's just hope they're forced to clearly label these booby-trapped DVD's ....
I'm sure it would take a matter of minutes to make a copy with all the adverts stripped out anyway...
Don't they realise that a lot of the popularity of DVDs, especially of tv shows is that they don't have adverts. tv shows with adverts simply won't be bought.
Disney got a lot of flak because its DVDs would include trailers for other Disney crap, and they set the DVD flag usually used for the FBI/Interpol copyright warning that you are not allowed to skip over. The trailers lasted for several minutes and there was no way to bypass them if you used a legal DVD-CCA cartel compliant crippled player.
Seriously, WTF?! The entire reason to get DVDs is to get rid of those blasted adverts that wreak a good film. I stopped counting films that had the anticipation and atmosphere ruined by an ad.
Why not go all out and add them in the middle of films in the cinema.
Sodding gold-diggers...
If the DVDs are free, ok, I might tolerate advertising. It's no worse than free ad-supported TV or radio. Hopwfully with no censorship.
However, if they are going to do this on DVDs I have to pay to watch ($4 to rent, $9 to $15 to own), they are out of their minds.
We'll just have to hack the thing all over again... If anyone is dumb enough to buy ad-laden discs in the first place.
As if people needed more reasons to pirate stuff.
In my case nope, there's practically nothing I see on TV that I then look up.
I use news sites, forums, shops to look for what I want.
I skip adverts on TV using my PVR.
...everyone to use Linux! :-)
I actually tried using a 'real' DVD player the other day. My goodness! How do average consumers put up with it!
Am I the only who doesn't understand why they'd want TV to be replicated on DVD?
I'm sorry but lets see whats on DVD:
TV Shows
Movies
Lets see whats on TV:
Movies
TV Shows
Why would recreating the TV experience be a good way to profit on DVDs? The point of DVDs is to get away from the TV experience.
I have TV shows on DVD, I can watch them 8 times a day on TV with ads, I bought the DVDs to get away from them.
I can get the movie on TV, without advertisements as well if its on box office - fro less than it costs for a DVD, why on earth would I buy DVDs then?
Certificate - yuck!
OK I have a DVD, all is well accepted the premise of why it's there (let's imagine), the movie assigned cert is fine, and later the root CA expires after five years.
All local, no network required. Cert check fails because the CA chain fails: instant adverts.
Permission to flame on?
Being pragmatic, I doubt they'll ever be free. If you make a mass source of free DVDs, you'll suddenly find Ultimate Frisbee becoming the new national sport. And given the amount of damage a flying CD/DVD can cause, not a good choice.
If there is a genuine choice, with a full-price and a (drastically) cut-price version (a couple of quid), fine.
If it's used for promos (eg newspaper/magazine giveaways, film festival goodie bags), fine.
I'd caution, though, that if it seems in too forced, it's likely to be less effective. I got so used to DVDs that use the "unskippable" trick for the opening ads, that I now put the DVD in the player five minutes or so before I want to watch it, eg before the end of the program I'm watching, before putting the kettle on, before making a phone call. Conversely, after watching a good film, I'll often browse through the film trailers if there's a menu option to do so.
Anyway, the whole thing'll fail until the end-of-life of BluRay and HD-DVD because there are just too many DVD, BluRay and HD-DVD drives that wouldn't be compatible. It won't exist for another 10 years.
Thankfully I am at an age (I never thought I'd live this long!) where wisdom prevails.....stop watching, stop buying,read a book instead, or do some good....have a whisky and kick back, and fuck 'em all!
And on the odd occasion, indulge in piracy.
Hmmm...? Ah, here it is. [click click] <Yawn...>
There are a lot of things that IBM patents that don't actually see the light of day.
If any studio exec thinks this is a good idea, then well, there's this thing called evolution in action.... ;-)
The copy protection technology and other junk often found on DVD's has been bad enough for my computer system's stability that I have to keep them off of it already and thus no longer do I buy or view the infernal things. If they really think this is a good idea I'll never see it anyways. LOL. Never the less this will obviously kill DVD sales. Contrary to the common belief that Corporate Executives don't understand, I think Corporate Executives do. It's just that they are so bloody greedy they don't let the obvious stop them from trying to force %$#@ like this on us. Hehehe their loss. :)
I'm sick and tired of companies thinking that I'm just a walking wallet to be marketed to. If I purchase a DVD, it's because I don't want to watch the telly with its endless boring, poorly done commercials. If they put adverts into DVDs, I'll be one of the first in line for any mechanism to rip the advertising out.
I stopped going to cinemas regularly after they started subjecting me to endless advertising at a movie that I've paid to attend. There is no way in any type of hell that I'm going to put up with the same shit-for-brains idea from a DVD.
...how long does the movie have to pause with a "downloading..........." screen on a 33k POTS line that drops out when the water table rises in the rain?!?
Not everyone (my mother for example) has broadband. Some of us live in a 2nd-world* region like non-metro Australia.
*with the pretty-well-complete collapse of traditional communism (Cuba notwitstanding), I am re-purposing the term "2nd world" to describe former 1st-world countries that are slipping backwards to a not-quite-third-world state. ;-)
I haven't watched TV in 6 months at this point. I get all my TV shows online off streaming sites like Stage6. I couldn't take seeing repeats of shows over and over. Also with Christmas now starting in October I didn't feel like watching two and a half months of adverts aimed at children for the latest Barbie dream home or the present that will make you popular with your family and friends and extended friends etc. I used to get dvds then came the unskippable piracy ads. It might make sense for rental videos but not ones that you have to BUY in order to watch. I now get my films via p2p. We keep getting told their are legal alternatives but they are often locked to ip ranges of different countries or they are so low quality you might as well go to a streaming site (iTunes). Or they are high quality, riddled with DRM restrictions and cost ridiculous amounts of money (more than a dvd) to stream.
So MPAA take heed of my advice, start cutting the bureaucracy and come up with a plausible business model to compete that works internationally and for the love of god ditch the piracy adverts they only annoy and most people aren't going pay one bit of attention to them. You can feed the masses all the bad films you want and they will probably be watched but that doesn't mean they are devoid of neural activity. As long as IT has smart people your multi million (billion?) protection systems are useless.
The music industry is starting to get the idea DRM free downloads and also deezer.com (great site!). Wow what a rant!
IBM isn't exactly a huge advertising or entertainment (Is there a different anymore?) corporation - They might have taken this patent just to keep it out of the hands of morons that would abuse it. From what I hear, they do that quite a bit. Though I imagine that they'd be just fine with selling it for the right price. And we all know how much money the morons of the advotainment world have...
Just another reason why I have mainstream media placed second to the top of my list of things most likely to lead to the corruption of society and eventually the end of civilization. Morons are first.
I think you miss (at least one) point. If you have no network connection then for 5 year expriry to be an issue, the ads would have to be already on the DVD.
Would anyone really treat a 5 year old advert as anything more than a joke?
Before BSkyB came along, nobody ever complained about the adverts on the UK commercial channels interfering with the programmes, and everyone used to have a good laugh at the poor quality of TV in the US.
Twenty years later, with every channel sheepishly copying everything Sky does, and with an industry poodle as a watchdog, look at the state of broadcasting now.
so, those who are scoffing at having a dvd full of adverts AND paying for it, presumably aren't subscription tv customers? i mean, fancy paying to be served ads ;p. the bbc license model has never seemed so good.
what the hell is ibm doing anyway? is the report accurate? do you mean blu-ray/hd-dvd? do you mean any video medium? what's the fuss?
I always thought that in order to be granted, a patent must be useful, novel and nonobvious. Since when was bloody stupid a criteria?
The modern DVD player likes its broadband connection so much that it comes complete with an Ethernet port and on-screen configuration for DHCP or static IP / DNS and optional NTP. Its so eager to talk to its owner (yes, I paid for it but I don't consider I own the thing), it wants to tell them all about you, what you watch and why. It tries to tell you that it needs this to get firmware updates and to provide wonderful "Web enabled" features but we know what it wants to do...its really part of a botnet.
The problem with this is that most people don't have a Cat5 connection to their TV, or, come to think of it, anything any more. We use wireless. So expect that in future generations of these units.
Seriously, though, the adverts can be added in just fine. TiVo has pioneered some of this sort of thing already. ("I've seen the future and it sucks")
Corporations inventing iniquitous methods to anally rape the consumer would not be so bad, if the government would not be in the pockets of the aforementioned corporations – if the consumer would have a choice, the corporations would instantly loose out. As it stands, NOW, however, the corporations can do anything that they like, it is enshrined in LAW. It is already ILLIGAL [must be read in a scary voice] to copy media that you own, for your own personal use. It is already ILLIGAL to circumvent “systems” (for example pushing the shift key to prevent root kit launching autorun.inf from running on a music CD) and quite soon it will be ILLIGAL –NOT to buy 5 DVDs a month, as a average law abiding households purchase 5 DVDs a month, and if YOU are not, you are breaking the LAW citizen!
And who is to blame? – the average consumer, - the same guy that bought an DRM ridden Ipod all those years ago – when there were so many MP3 players on the market that offered better capacity, battery life, and playback quality. Why did he do it? – The magazine with scantily-clad woman on the cover told him it is was cool. All those years ago if people would not buy DRM crap, we would not be in the situation we are now. And it will only get worse.
I have said this before and got flamed for it, but I will say it again because it is true.
Who in their right mind is going to create a website or movie and not get paid for it? Well a few might for one reason or another, but most will not.
So wake up and smell the coffee consumers. No such thing as a free lunch unless you steal it.
People are actually encouraged to build, create, innovate, when they are getting paid to do it. We don't live in a perfect world where everyone just works for nothing and we all share. That is a nice dream, but it isn't reality on planet earth at the moment.
Consumers are really quite stupid.
I imagine that the program on the DVD will be "edited" to fit longer films onto the format. A bit like a 30 min show on a commercial network. 25 minutes of show 5 minutes of ads. You find yourself playing; "which bits did they chop?"
What you inconsiderate idiots need to understand is that people like myself who work in the honourable profession of advertising and marketing need to provide for their families. How are we supposed to do that when people like you have the presumption to selfishly turn off your TV sets simply because of one or two harmless commercials?
I have indeed noted with growing disappointment the way that some ungrateful consumers are, at considerable expense I might add, migrating from television to their own DVD libraries SPECIFICALLY in order to avoid adverts! The only reason why they are doing this is because it is an option that we have so far ALLOWED them to take advantage of. I guess that's what the industry gets for trusting consumers. Either way, this behaviour is morally unacceptable as it impacts upon the rights of content suppliers to squeeze more money out of their established and hard won government sanctioned business models.
As you may expect, we have observed these trends in the target population with growing concern. Fortunately, existing DVD technology already accommodates our legal rights to insert compulsory commercials at multiple points throughout ordinary DVD movies along with the appropriate flags to disable fast-forwarding past them. Needless to say, a lot of time and money goes into the creation of commercials and it is important that as many people as possible benefit from them. If this were to mean that some of a movie needed to be edited to make space for these commercials then I believe that the product would still represent very good value for money.
I may need to check with one of my lawyer friends, but as I understand it any attempt to circumvent this technology is a breach of existing anti copying legislation such as the handy DMCA. If this is not the case then it can always be rectified with sufficient lobbying. Furthermore, once such principles are enshrined in law, then the population with be under a moral obligation to adhere to them.
God, I love my job.
I'm guessing (hoping?) that IBM isn't seriously pursuing this technology to put into DVDs, instead they're applying for the patent in hopes that somebody else comes along and wants to implement that into something else and will pay IBM big money for.
Personally I feel that a FEW non intrusive adertisments are acceptable. But when you are watching TV for an hour and the show is about 30minutes while rest is ads. That is going to far. Now on DVD's, give me a break, do you really want to pay for something and still get ads with it.
Hell no! If this happens, hello streaming internet and of cause hello anydvd!
...do they expect to sell?
I suspect, as someone else has already noted, the IBM just patented this "for the fun of it" and has no intention of taking it to market.
But even if they did, where would they find the advertisers?
These days, *everything* is carrying ads. TV, radio, movies, newspapers, billboards, the sides of busses and taxis, and web-sites of every type, from the big commerical ones to someone's never-read blog. There is barely a square millimeter of space anywhere in my local mall that doesn't carry some sort of ad. They're even placing them in the bottom of my shopping bsket, FFS! And now they're even *considering* adding them to DVDs?
Where are they going to find advertisers to pay for all this? No-one has an unlimited marketing budget. They have to spread themselves very thin already. And soon enough they're going to realise that we, the "consumers", see so many ads per minute that we're mentally blanking them out. At which point, sane companies are going to say "Screw It! We're going to use just a couple of media, and not waste our money on the rest!"
And isn't this the very reason that Web Bubble 1.0 crashed? Everybody and his HTML-fluent dog expected advertising to support them, and advertisers didn't see the point anymore?
How about: "IBM to shove ads up their own arse." ?
I think that works better, TBH.
"Avoiding adverts is a criminal offense"
You made my day!
EAfH.
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/04/19/philips_enforced_ads_patent/
I like to comment without any research so here goes:
I suspect the adverts would be static so they work on normal dvd players and the media will be given away free or almost free. So its like TV but you can get the whole series to watch when you like.
This gets around the problem of media pirates who duplicate disks - the disks contain ads and the more pirated copies, the more ads are seen, the more valuable those ad spaces are and the more revenue the media companies can get for them.
You can then pay the normal dvd price to get the disk (or rather, your player) unlocked which removes the ads. That's great because when you move from DVD to blu-ray, you have a new player and you can pay all over again.
Perhaps more importantly, it catches all those commercially irresponsible people who don't rush out when a film is first released in order to pay full price, but prefer to wait a couple of months and visit the local car boot sale to pick it up for a quid.
With DVD players costing not much more than a couple of DVDs, I wouldn't be surprised if the "improved" players were given away for free, maybe with tivo-like dvr capabilities.
As far as blu-ray et al are concerned, one of the great advantages of having a games console with internet gaming capabilities is that there's a good chance you could use that connection for pretty much anything you want.
For my part I have no interest in "owning" dvds. You don't own the content anyway and once I've seen a programme (thank-you MythTV and k3b) I delete it.
Who pays the El Reg team? I don't. Do you?
People will create movies, music, paintings, books and all that "art" whether we have copyright or not.
Copyright extensions are only ensuring that the "owner" is recompensed for any use of their work. Not "adequately" recompensed, and not recompensed so that they can manage to make "art" their day job (and who pays people who play chess? yet they still play chess).
The average movie is produced and sold for a couple of years. It will be out of print for a few years and then appear in the bargain bin (the £5DVD reprint). Average, 5-7 years before the value the monopoly market (NOT free market) figures appropriate has dropped to 1/4. So 7 years is fine for 90% of the value of the product under copyright to be realised. OK, so if it's PD, it may get shown and garner sales that would have generated lots of sales but then if it were under copyright still, it wouldn't have been shown (competing with other copyrighted works) and engendered no sales. See "It's a Wonderful Life" on how this happens.
Bad enough DVDs have region locks. RCE and possibilities of rootkits makes things worse, but this? Totally stupid, and easily bypassed.
Just unplug the DVD player from the network or set the router to block access to the ad servers (you ARE using broadband, aren't you?). Most modern routers have a domain/IP blacklist feature that allows you to block certain URLs.
Assuming the ad is on the DVD itself and interleaved in as chapters, meh, just break the law and rip the necessary chapters to the hard disk using one of the many legally-questionable software in the market.
The Asses need to remember we already paid ridiculous money to watch the content by buying the DVD (I mean, come on. A blank disc costs only a few pence apiece!). If they do manufacture such DVDs, they'll be pretty much digging their own grave (remember divx?- no, not the file format, the pay-per-view discs! Also, it should be noted that those self-destruct discs apparently flopped too).
