DRM Fiasco Ruins James Cameron’s Avatar 3D Preview

http://torrentfreak.com/drm-fiasco-ruins-james-camerons-avatar-3d-preview-091217/

by talison • 17 years ago

24 14 17 years ago

lmkg• 17 years ago

Just to make this even more explicit than it was in the article: DRM had more effect on legitimate viewers than on pirates.[1]

Of all the possible snarky comments to make (and there are many), I'm going to settle for this one: maybe we really are better off not encrypting those predator drones.

[1] To be fair, some legitimate users and some pirates, and I don't know where they'll get the 3-d glasses.

camccann• 17 years ago

Which really goes to highlight the biggest flaw with DRM: It's an additional cost to add something that will not, under any circumstances, improve the customer's experience.

It's one thing to have a black market providing illicit versions of a product, but when the black market provides a superior product at lower cost with, often, greater convenience? Something that has gone horribly, terribly wrong.

RevRal2• 17 years ago

I have never gotten the digital copies, that come with some blu ray movies, to work.

I have to turn around and use a torrent. I feel smug about it too. Serves them right.

wmf• 17 years ago

In one theater.

rimantas• 17 years ago

Nope, there in Lithuania show was delayed by 30 minutes for the same reason. Another one went without sound…

kierank• 17 years ago

Conditional Access caused this, not DRM

tptacek2• 17 years ago

This isn't digital rights management, it's basic operational security. A security failure damaged their preview. Having intense security controls on one of the most eagerly awaited movie premiers of all time is not unreasonable and it's not about "rights"; in fact, it may simply be about the production company not getting sued by its investors.

__david__2• 17 years ago

I disagree, I think it's exactly DRM. It's not DRM that normal consumers ever interact with though (except second hand by seeing the movie, or not seeing the movie as the case may be) but it's rights management none the less. From the failure modes it doesn't sound like there was any security above and beyond the standard DCinema encryption.

tptacek2• 17 years ago

Cinemas have never had "ownership" over the movies they run. Do you not notice the slippery slope your argument is on? Either you're dignifying the concept of DRM, and acknowledging that there are times it's valuable, or it's not DRM.

NateLawson• 17 years ago

This kind of thing was supposed to be standardized by SMPTE's DC28 group, but I'm not sure they ever did. Of course, it's been since 2004 since I worked on this stuff.

We prototyped and delivered a secure D-Cinema device in 2002. We had a smart card for identification of the operator with backups. Each viewing of the movie would do a unique online authorization with our audit server. If that failed, there was a backup modem that operated via cellphone. All of this was in working order in 2002 as our demo included yanking the Ethernet cable and hitting "play".

Press release mentioning the system design: http://www.cryptography.com/company/prel/20021029-CRI-Digi-F...

Case study talk given at USENIX 2004: http://root.org/talks/Usenix_20040629.pdf

This system got a lot of interest, but ultimately SMPTE was dominated by existing proprietary equipment manufacturers, most of whom were afraid of Microsoft Windows Media and cheap PCs (rightly so). Anyone have an idea how many screens today are just that? I know that Landmark Cinemas here in the Bay Area mentioned that was their approach.

hussong• 17 years ago

"The complex DRM system, which involves several certificates and server-delivered time-sensitive keys for hard drives and projectors, failed in a way consistent with the movie’s epic status."

This sentence just made my day.

DRM Fiasco Ruins James Cameron’s Avatar 3D Preview

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