back to article Hollywood: How do we secure high-def 4K content? Easy. Just BRAND the pirates

Movielabs, the R&D business for Hollywood studios, has just issued a new specification for securing 4K high-def streaming video content, and one of the things that it’s going to demand is forensic watermarking. This spec is being described as “recommendations”, but studios will need to adopt these overnight as the hard and …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.

Page:

          1. kellerr13

            Re: When will these idiots realise

            It's NOT stealing. If they have exactly 10 copies on the shelf to be sold, and they sell every one of them, then you who have no intention of buying it anyways, decide to copy it for yourself, you have not deprived them of peoperty.

            Just because they call it theft in their little advertisements, does not make it so. In order to be theft, you must be depriving them of property. Making a copy of something is copyright violation, and that is a different definition under law.

            1. Davie Dee

              Re: When will these idiots realise

              Interestingly if I steal a DVD from a shop, the production company an all still gets all the money its due, since the demise of HMV and virgin and more importantly EUK (well done woollies!) most high street shops operate a system where they only pay for the cost of units they sold.

              so lets be clear

              shop X gets 100 units, they sell 60, and 40 get stolen, they only pay for the 60 they sold on the remaining 40 get wrote off by the company for nothing and the distributer takes a hit on the cost of MEDIA.

              THAT is the true cost of "stealing" sweet bugger all, in term of lost revenue it is exactly the same as if a DVD is copied and past about digitally

              Note that they may have lost REVENUE but it is NOT theft, nothing has been taken or lost in value other than the cost of the original media, in once case that's a fraction of a penny the other case its nothing at all

              Lets explore lost revenue. If I were to copy 3DS max, a product worth $3500, and use it to fart about with, how much revenue has Autodesk LOST? absolutely nothing, because there is no chance I would buy it in the first place.

              Now lets take another example, I download a torrent of some off the wall DVD that is amazing, how much REVENUE have they LOST? nothing, in fact they have gained revenue because I would then go buy it.

              You might say that's rubbish but it is the truth. In almost any other sector you find out what it is you want, BEFORE you buy it, in the world of Movies you cant, you are forced to buy in to something that was likely misrepresented by a shoddy 30 second preview. Im sorry but not, I refuse to pay money for crap, I refuse to reward a company for selling me something I DONT LIKE. that is what they need to resolve. But of course they wont, because every one of the legally abiding folk out there shells out their hard earned cash even tho they may hate it. and when they do decide that DVD was not worth the plastic it was crafted in to they sell it on to someone else,. How much money do the actors etc get from that sale, bugger all, they whole system is just messed up, but rather deal with it they will continue to screw over everyone and ,milk it for all its worth

      1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

        Re: When will these idiots realise

        OK, let me see...

        AC#1 says "I will not buy DRMed stuff, I'll wait for the DRM to be broken and get the free copy instead".

        The implication here is AC#1 might actually buy the stuff if it wasn't DRMed in the first place.

        AC#2 says "This is why they put DRM on" and calls AC#1 an idiot.

        The implication here is that the companies put DRMs on their product in order to ensure that customers don't pay them and resort to piracy instead.

        Alternatively, AC#2 believes that DRMs are the means of stopping DRMs from being cracked.

        In either case AC#2 is clearly the idiot here.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: When will these idiots realise

          "The implication here is that the companies put DRMs on their product in order to ensure that customers don't pay them and resort to piracy instead."

          No, AC#2 knows that DRM exists to try and make piracy harder because people steal content and thus the creator does not get paid. It's not perfect, but it's the best option there is.

          If you cannot get a thing legally, do not consume said thing. It's really, really simple. Clearly you are another moron who can't grasp this simple fact.

          1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

            Re: When will these idiots realise

            "No, AC#2 knows that DRM exists to try and make piracy harder because people steal content and thus the creator does not get paid."

            LOL! No. DRM is not to make piracy harder, it is to make paying customer pay multiple times for what he should only pay for once.

            "If you cannot get a thing legally, do not consume said thing."

            I do not "consume" music or video. That's one.

            Two, is if you don't make something available, don't complain when people use other channels to get it. Don't try to defend the cartel system your employers like so much - it's indefensible.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: When will these idiots realise

              "Don't try to defend the cartel system your employers like so much"

              Boom. "I wanna do it so ahmma gonna invent a big bad mans and make that the reason I do it. Wah!" Seriously, get a grip of yourself.

              When YOUR WORK that pays for YOUR HOUSE gets ripped off and you don't get to see a penny to cover your costs - come back and talk to me.

              You are pathetic.

              1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

                Re: When will these idiots realise @AC

                JupiterAC, you are angry, therefore you are wrong.

      2. JEDIDIAH
        Mushroom

        Re: When will these idiots realise

        > So you'll steal the content rather than buy it.

        It's all the same on the balance sheet.

        I am certainly not going to BUY something I can't crack. Media is only worth something to me if I can do what I want with it. It's no different than physical personal property in this regard.

        DRM just makes the product lamer and more annoying.

  1. 080

    Is it worth it?

    The content originators all assume that pirated copies will convert to paid for copies. Sorry boys but this is not going to happen.

    How often do you download a freebe but never bother to watch it? Make it too difficult to copy and the majority will not bother, reduce the cost of a legitimate copy to somewhere near cost + reasonable mark-up, improve the quality of the product and you might sell more.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Works 4 me

    Now if all civilized countries adopted Japan's mandatory minimum 2 year prison sentence plus large fines for piracy, we'd have a good start to proper punishment for piracy. If you're dumb enough to pirate then you're dumb enough to go to jail.

    1. FrankAlphaXII
      Thumb Up

      Re: Works 4 me

      <sarc>

      Yeah, because mandatory minimums work so well everywhere they're used, like here in the US for our "War on Drugs". I Haven't seen someone smoking crack or buying pills since 1989!

      </sarc>

      Get real, outside of NYC and the People's Republic of California, noone gives a damn about the film industry. And all the President has to do is say he's for it to ensure the Republicans oppose it.

  3. IGnatius T Foobar

    Movies still suck

    Hopefully all this extra security around Hollywood's crap will be the final push the world needs to simply set aside the garbage they produce and let the indie film scene do its thing. George Clooney needs to be shot into space and left there.

  4. Fihart

    Why bother with Hollywood ?

    Almost all US movies feature cardboard-cut-out characters, unbelievable plots, people shouting, car chases, too many resulting explosions. Mostly aimed at short-attention-span yoofs.

    These days I mainly watch stuff with subtitles -- fact is Iranian, Argentinian, Mexican, Korean, Japanese, Swedish, Danish, French, Italian, Spanish films that make it into the UK market have to be outstanding to make the transition. Almost always better than the Hollywood stuff forced into Europe by heft of marketing hype and distribution muscle.

  5. stu 19

    4k Even Worth Bothering With?

    I'm sure I read an article, right here on the Reg, that described the effects of delivering intrlaced video streams yada yada yada, that led me to decide - at least for me, that, "who gives a toss about 4K!" Was I wrong to think that, or does the whole raft of security on top mean it will just end up getting skipped over? I suppose as long as the consumer does not feel the bite, (which does not seem likely if non players have to license that tech) then they might give a monkeys.

    As for me wanting 4k on my tablet? I doubt my eyes can tell the difference my my nexus 7 screen!!

    I suppose "they" will make money as long as they persuade punters they need a 4k telly ?

    Someone correct me if I was wrong to think "who gives a toss about 4k, " I'll run out and but a 4k set immediately!!

    oh not to mention that "their" fabulous security plans have not fared too well in recent launches of ... er anything that I can think of.

    stu

  6. Mad Chaz

    4k is already pointless

    Consider this. Right now, on most big screen tv, if you show a modern DVD vs the BR version, most people can't even tell the difference in picture quality. 4K will be the same thing. We are already hitting a wall in term of TV screen quality. The difference between 1080p and 4k won't show, at all, in any living room.

    Not only that, but the 3D fiasco already showed people aren't going to flock to get a new screen anymore, as the perseived increase in image quality by going to HD was more then enough for most of them. Besides, who as a grand or 2 to spend every 2 or 3 years just to upgrade to the latest studio mandated fad?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 4k is already pointless

      How bad must peoples eyes be to not tell the difference, sure DVD's look amazing with a decent upscaling DVD player on a good 1080p TV, but no difference? no you can tell the difference...

      what pisses me off is when I watch something on a HD channel and the quality is NOT HD...

  7. MrXavia

    If watermarking means I can get DRM free 4K Video files, I would be very happy! there is no need to target downloaders, just the originators of the content.

    I don't mind paying for content, I am happy to support the production companies that make entertainment I enjoy, I would never use iTunes, but I buy MP3's all the time (I wish they did lossless audio files too)

  8. bigtimehustler

    This will make no different what so ever! If I buy a 4K movie from a shop and then rip it and put it online. They know its the same version thats spread all over the place online, but they have no idea who I am, I paid for this from a shop using cash. What a waste of time.

    1. JDX Gold badge

      How do you know they can't find a way to make physical copies unique?

  9. MacGyver

    Wow

    Firstly the only way that could work would be to have users register the serial number of their 4k player. A draconian challenge at best that is easily circumvented by the fact that you simply need to report your registered one stolen, then you could release all the rips you want, "It must be the robber that is doing it, not me.". Unless they are talking about a "phone-home" system, but then who wants some manufacture or studio knowing what movies you are watching? Hmm, I recall a similar system called DIVX that Circuit City tried to push, I wonder where either of those are today?

    If they can turn owning physical media into a Steam style system, then we're all screwed. If 4k BR are allowed to be network only devices a la Microsoft ONE, we truly will "own" nothing.

    Just sell the discs at a price that people are willing to pay. Only the poor would be pirates if things were made available in a timely manner and at a price people were willing to pay. But no, let's spend millions, inconvenience millions, and have it be broken in less than a month anyway. Rinse, wash, repeat.

    1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

      Re: Wow

      "Unless they are talking about a "phone-home" system, but then who wants some manufacture or studio knowing what movies you are watching?"

      Hmmm, if you have a BD player, that's pretty much what you've got already.

      1. MacGyver

        Re: Wow

        Well that explains it, I don't own a BluRay player (ok, my PS3 has one, but I don't watch movies in it). I own lots of DVDs and BluRays (like 500), and when I buy one, I copy it to a harddrive, then encode it to H.264, then delete the 35GB in temp files, then I can watch the H.264 file from any device anywhere around my house (The Bluray then goes on the shelf, never to be used again). I would never plug a BD player into the network or phone jack.

  10. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    Death to Multicast?

    That's exactly what we humans as a species want to do. Move to ever higher demands for Internet bandwidth, and then cut the legs out from under one of the solutions.

    Crazy planet.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Am I being thick?

    (Maybe someone's explored this in all the comments - apologies if I'm suggesting something that's old hat).

    Would the easiest answer to defeat the watermarks be to rip the content at 4K then downscale to standard HD?

    Or perhaps ripping the 4K content twice and sampling the frames into one another, turning any encoded watermarks into complete nonsense? The process might take longer to encode, but the encoder probably wouldn't mind the extra safety this brings them from the feds...

    That's the sort of thing I'd do if I was in that situation. I'm not fussed with 4K. I'll quite happily stick with standard HD.

  12. clean_state
    Megaphone

    +1 for watermarking

    I'm all for the watermarking - if they could just remove all of the other encryption nonsense. If I look at my current movie consumptions, it's all pretty legal. Paying 4€ for a V.O.D. movie streamed directly to my house seems fair and it is more convenient than torrenting it. The same for paying 10€ for a children's film DVD that the kids will be playing over and over.

    And yet, are the various anti-piracy systems the reason why I bittorrent less and less ? Not at all. Convenience and fair price are.

    So please, big content studios, add watermarking everywhere, then remove all the artificial incompatibilities you introduced (you call it "security features" - as if it was making my life secure in any way) and let me enjoy my content on any device I want.

    (Loudspeaker, in hope the message reaches their ears)

  13. john devoy

    What about bought 4k discs?

    Does this mean they have no plans to sell a 4k bluray format? It seems this system would only work with online delivered content.

  14. john devoy

    They never learn

    If they came up with a sensibly priced system for delivering 4k content then piracy would drop, the media has reported that TV piracy fell about 50% with the introduction of Netflix. A lot of people only pirate tv/film because it's less hassle than official channels, give them an alternative and they'll use it.

  15. Luke McCarthy

    No need to remove watermark

    Just scramble it enough that it is unreadable.

    1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

      Re: No need to remove watermark

      Well, if you decompress the video into full RGB and then compress it again, that alone should probably kill or disrupt any stego that was in the original stream.

      1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

        Re: No need to remove watermark

        Well, if you decompress the video into full RGB and then compress it again, that alone should probably kill or disrupt any stego that was in the original stream.

        A good scheme would survive this as well. Data can be hidden into content in all manner of ways, and much of this would indeed survive the re-encoding process. Think about the basics - on a 100 minute movie running at 25 there's 150000 individual frames. If a 20 character (160 bit) watermark could be encoded in a single spot (not pixel, think screen location) with one bit per frame it could still be encoded over 900 times sequentially. That's just video, IDs can be encoded into audio as well.

  16. Stevie

    Bah!

    "after you have compromised the quality of the output"

    HARHARHARHARHARHARHARHARHARHARHARHARgaspwheezechoke!

  17. tom dial Silver badge

    I find it interesting that of the first 50 or so comments, all those favorable to newer and harsher DRM are posted anonymously.

    It appears to me that the consortium is trying to bridge a gap between actually selling something concrete, as a DVD or BD disk, for instance, and a restrictive license to use, like Microsoft. However, the last I looked, Microsoft would sell a copy of Windows that could be transferred to another machine, at least. I don't use the product and didn't have the stomach to read the EULA to see if you could transfer the software to another user. It would be interesting to know what provisions the DRM has for evaporating in the unlikely case of copyright expiration or rationalization of the copyright laws, or for the much more likely case where the device with the TPM fails.

    You don't really own something you can't transfer freely, including the cases where a captive "store" exercises monopoly control over selling/reselling or you may not use it as you wish. The producers should be able to protect "their" content as a contract matter in whatever way they wish, including encryption and watermarking, and to enforce their contracts in civil actions, but it is not at all clear that they should be able to enlist the government's ability to use force and imprisonment to do so. They are few and we are many, and in a democratic regime that ought to count for something. And if the proposed methods approach the effectiveness the producers wish, there may no longer be any need for government granted copyright on this material - the technical means would allow the studios to prevent most unauthorized copying and identify successful contract violators so as to bring them into civil court. There would not be a need for governments to allocate public money for the private benefit of the private organizations that might (or might not) have been damaged by unauthorized copying of digital data.

  18. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    Client side watermarking? So stupid.

    ""Jimmy can't save up and buy DRM free 4K films"

    So what - that is still no excuse for theft."

    You mean copyright infringement. If this were theft, the file sharing site would have deprived the movie company of the movie after they took it from them (wouldn't that piss them off!), and then Jimmy would have deprived the file sharing site of it after he took it from them. They are not, they are making copies. By using improper terminology you add nothing to this discussion. Edit: Forget it, I didn't read all the posts to realize I was feeding a troll.

    ---------------------------------------

    Anyway... watermarking seems like a good idea. Whether the movie company wastes money on yet more attempts at rights restriction or not, it's never proven effective in the long term. With the watermark, people will be able to make fair use of the video. But when it gets to mass distribution, they'll get pinched. Problem solved.

    Watermarking on the CLIENT DEVICE? Absurd. You ("you" being the movie industry..) still assume you will come up with an unbreakable rights restriction system (you won't), you assume if client devices are subverted you can disable them (you'll have so many pissed off customers you will not believe it, and devices WILL be subverted.) You assume that your watermarking will be to clever for anyone to figure out (server-side watermarking could be switched up as frequently as you want, whereas client-side will be built into the box and only updateable via firmware update, which the customer may or may not bother to do.) And finally, you throw away the chance to give the customer what they want -- plenty of potential customers get free movies because as it stands, they can either get the free movie and watch it on whatever device they'd prefer, or they can pay you for a movie then find out it won't actually play on some of their devices due to the rights restrictions you artificially threw in.

    I urge you guys, get a clue and do not waste time on client-side watermarking.

  19. chris lively

    I think Hollywood should apply whatever encryption they want. Make it as hard as possible to watch the crap on anything but an Approved Device properly signed for and gene encoded to the viewers.

    Then, maybe, we can dispense with all their bullshit and move on.

    Of course, what I'd like more than that are for the idiots on this site to get a couple things clear:

    1. Stop conflating content "Creators" with IP Owners. In the vast majority of cases these are completely different groups. Most creators get paid the moment they transfer rights to a studio / record label. They *might* get a residual from sales, but that's small potatoes and is often lowered even more through creative accounting. The real money goes to the studio.

    2. Copying a book, video or song is NOT theft using the legal definition of theft. It can be debated as being morally equivalent to theft but it is not theft. Until the laws equate copying a file with stealing we should call a spade a spade: It's Copyright Infringement.

    Both of these distinctions are critically important in order to have an honest discussion on the subject.

    However I'm not going to hold my breath. Industry schills have an absolute interest in using the wrong terms in everything but the actual written laws.

  20. Jeremy Allison

    Time to remind people of the real purpose of DRM.

    Everyone seems to forget - it's nothing to do with controlling pirates or users, it's to keep the device makers brought to heel to protect obsolete business models.

    Hicksie nails it here:

    https://plus.google.com/107429617152575897589/posts/iPmatxBYuj2

    Disclaimer (I work with Hicksie, when he turns up in the office :-).

  21. chris lively

    Simplest answer to all of this mess would be a subscription service to the studios.

    You pay $10/month and get access to all of that studios releases accessible on any device. As along as the studio continues providing content that you want, you'll be willing to pay.

    Oh wait, that's what Netflix and Amazon Prime are for.... Seems like a good model. Just go with it.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    LOL, this can be defeated by noise.

    Have some code which analyses frames looking for oddities which cannot be explained by the content, and log these as suspect, then re-encode the audio and video with appropriate amplitude noise, especially smudging the suspect sections. A lot of this processing could probably offloaded to GPUs, rather like Bit Coin farming, so does not have to be slow.

    This is an arms race which the media companies cannot win; they are not agile enough.

  23. Trollslayer

    HDCP was broken

    Twice that I know of, it's just that this wasn't really needed to get at the content so it was an intellectual exercise.

    From the article I can see a couple of way to get content that is difficult if not impossible to trace, just there is a bit more effort involved.

  24. Zack Mollusc

    THIEVES!!

    OMG! I am sickened by the blatant stealing going on in this comments section. The Anonymous Cowards may like to hide behind weasel words and call it 'Quoting an earlier post', but it is THEFT, plain and simple.

  25. kellerr13

    Yoho

    Since the media industry have been so unfair, ruthless, openly hostile, injust, and downright criminal in their actions, many of us no longer recognize their copyright. SONY!

    Any artist, or studio releasing anything with one of those brands, forfet their copyright, and pirates everywhere will use whatever methods they can to crack, and distribute, and will ofen even place their own watermarks, or at least establish plausible deniability.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    this is even easier to get around that the reset with one simple sentence.

    No sorry officer I sold that player at a garage sale last month no idea who the buyer was.

    While I am sure it will be hard to get around in the first place when it is mainstream it will have to relax to allow distribution to masses. Plus do they really think everyone will connect their blu-ray player to the net just to be authenticated to watch a movie.

    What is to stop a PC doing a low level copy of the data or even someone making hardware that fakes the signing and adds no watermark.

    For every $ of motivation to add it there is another to remove it. (I remember when the only DVD burner capable of ripping secure-ROM DVD's that could be used on any player was made by Sony the same company that created the protection)

    1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

      Unfortunately as I read it, the player will (must) always be net connected and will check into a central database somewhere. If that database says that you have every copied a film, then the player will be crippled.

      Due process. Heard of it.

    2. Simon 33

      It can be way, way simpler than that.

      Fred lives in a backups-are-fair-use zone. Fred makes a backup for his personal use. He gets a virus/visits a dodgy website/opens a dodgy email, his PC is compromised, every rip he has made for fair use is copied and uploaded to torrent sites.

      All these 4k torrents attributable to Fred's device, and he is only guilty of naïveté.

  27. phil dude
    Meh

    noise and...

    The comment about noise may be the result ;-)

    Ultimately for this to be a deterrent someone has to turn up in court and prove defendant A had dodgy video B.

    Surely this will publish the watermark scheme, otherwise a good defence lawyer would argue they are just making it up?

    Once the scheme is known, copying it may not be possible (for the same reason that finding private keys is not easy) but removing it would, if only by averaging the surrounding area. I doubt your eye would notice that in a 4K moving image...

    Or as some others have pointed out, if it needs a database to check, that will get blown.

    Or another plausible approach is to downcode to regular HD but use multiple pieces of multiple streams, guaranteed to be a mix of at least 50 sources... not sure how this helps but it must muddy up the water.

    I think the guy on BBC's Click was being a bit sarcastic mentioning "we have just got over our 3D screens..."

    P.

  28. shovelDriver

    "A watermark has to be introduced in all 4K delivery, at the worst case at the server streaming the content (so that each stream is unique), or better still at the device. The latter will mean that the guilty party customer can be identified . . ."

    Seems like a good way to throw away customers if you ask me.

    After all, they can always get your content elsewhere. Surely you don't believe that something you can "protect" will not ever be decrypted?

    For "research", naturally. Why even Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 specifically acknowledges an exemption for research, and criticism . . .

  29. Winkypop Silver badge
    Trollface

    All this stuff and nonsense

    Just so they can put out more Adam Sandler films.

    Really?

  30. JDX Gold badge

    Is this DRM or a better alternative?

    Thinking about it, if watermarking is deemed secure then media providers don't need to be so paranoid about how they stream/deliver you the content. They can let you have the content to do with as you see fit, and still be confident they can identify you if you start distributing it.

  31. Piro Silver badge

    Streaming?

    What's the point of "4K" (presumably in this context referring to 3840x2160, not actually "4K" which is a film industry term for 4096x2160) streaming?

    Who on earth has the bandwidth for this? Normal video connections that have ENORMOUS amounts of bandwidth have to be upgraded to cope with the sheer amount of data. Our internet connections, even the best domestic ones available, would make a laughably compressed mess of this!

    Between the bluray with a decent bitrate, and some massively compressed "4K" content, give me the bluray.

  32. CheesyTheClown

    This is such a dumb ass method

    I developed a watermarking algorithm two years ago which survived re-encoding, functioned over the broadcast network and actually managed to allow geographic location of who leaked a stream from broadcast to the local exchange. Best thing is, the viewers in the test group we ran it against couldn't tell the difference between the original sources and the watermarked video. We reencoded the files up to 10 generations and could still always identify the markings. It even survived HD to SD conversion and back. Even better.. survived qcif rescaling.

    This design was stupid since it's so easy to bypass. You don't need to compare against the original. What you need instead is to confuse the detection software. How? Get two copies of the same film from two different accounts and compare them together and find the differences and obfuscate them further.

    This is not rocket science... It's just math. Could my system be bypassed? Sure... but the way I marked the video made it almost impossible to do so without understanding the pattern of picture alterations I made. So even if you started mixing from multiple different sources, each source it was mixed from would be be identifiable.

    I am a huge fan of watermarking. I hate DRM. I like to be able to get content and use it however I'd like. I have no problem with people sharing videos with their friends and family. It's when people rent or borrow a movie and then put it on the pirate bay I don't care for.

    That said... the Pirate Bay has evolved into something we all need to some extent. It's a video archive. It's a place where almost all video and music can be found. I love that. Too bad there's no good official source for the material.

    1. Zack Mollusc

      Re: This is such a dumb ass method

      Bad luck when the friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of your friend that you happily shared your Nicki Minaj video with puts it on Pirate Bay and they drag your ass to jail because the watermark identifies you as the guilty party.

Page:

This topic is closed for new posts.