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Studios OK Burning Movie Downloads 216

Posted by CowboyNeal from the so-long-as-it's-paid-for dept.
SirClicksalot writes "The DVD Copy Control Association has released a statement (pdf) announcing that it will make adaptations to the Content Scramble System (CSS) used to protect DVDs. The association, made up of Hollywood studios, consumer electronics and software companies, licenses CSS to the DVD industry to protect content. The changes will allow home users to legally burn purchased movie downloads to special CSS protected DVDs, compatible with existing DVD players."
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Studios OK Burning Movie Downloads More

Studios OK Burning Movie Downloads

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  • Further evidence... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <akaimbatman AT gmail DOT com> on Friday August 11, 2006 @11:27AM (#15889329) Homepage Journal
    ...that the MPAA and its members aren't quite as evil as the RIAA and its members. I don't think this will really help anything (what prevents me from making a DVD now?), but it's a nice gesture of sincerity. :)

    • Re:Further evidence... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by D-Cypell ( 446534 ) on Friday August 11, 2006 @11:31AM (#15889363)
      but it's a nice gesture of sincerity. :)

      Yes, it is a nice gesture of how sincere they are about making you pay twice for the movie. Once for the download and again for the blank media to burn it to.

      • Re:Further evidence... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by PFI_Optix ( 936301 ) on Friday August 11, 2006 @11:37AM (#15889406) Journal
        The obvious: you don't *have* to burn it to any media.

        It would seem a logical step that if this becomes a standard we might see network-capable DVD players that can play all this media without it being burned.
      • pay twice for the movie. Once for the download and again for the blank media to burn it to

        I suggest you shop around a bit more for your blank media. I think you could find a much better price per disc than what you appear to be paying.

    • Re:Further evidence... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Daniel_Staal ( 609844 ) <DStaal@usa.net> on Friday August 11, 2006 @11:34AM (#15889382)
      Nah. It's just that they've learned from the RIAA's mess. They realize they are where the music industry was in the mid-90's, with downloading movies just becoming practical, and they don't want to loose control of their revenue stream.

      Apple showed that people will pay for downloads, if they are presented with few enough restrictions. So, the MPAA is trying to pre-empt the P2P people by getting legal downloads in place before illegal ones take off.

      • Re:Further evidence... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <akaimbatman AT gmail DOT com> on Friday August 11, 2006 @11:39AM (#15889418) Homepage Journal
        Apple showed that people will pay for downloads, if they are presented with few enough restrictions. So, the MPAA is trying to pre-empt the P2P people by getting legal downloads in place before illegal ones take off.
        Which is what the RIAA members should have done in the first place. If they had, the world would have never known what "Napster" was. Unfortunately, they were too busy (and are still too busy!) protecting their tiny little empires to care about the actual business side of things.

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday August 11, 2006 @11:37AM (#15889405)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:Further evidence... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Yvan256 ( 722131 ) on Friday August 11, 2006 @11:57AM (#15889567) Homepage Journal
        The RIAA's members continue to sell unencumbered media for the most part.
        Because the CDDA specs were done a long time ago, when nobody thought that if would be economically viable to copy 600-700MB of data for a single 20$ music CD. When MP3 came out, it was too little too late to change the CDDA specs: they didn't want to break the billions of CD-audio players available world-wide.

        I'll also add a comment to your "for the most part" argument: look at how often and in how many ways they've tried to put (sometimes artificial) barriers to CD-ripping. With the iPod and other MP3 players being so popular now, too many people stumble upon those limitations, the RIAA can't get away with it.

      • Re:Further evidence... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by thebdj ( 768618 )
        The RIAA's members continue to sell unencumbered media for the most part.

        A large number of new release CDs are getting DRM type protections. The only time these things get any real press or notice though is when Sony screws up big time and installs a root kit without permission. Most of the methods invented can be circumvented, but the CSS was circumvented LONG AGO.

        The illegality of the issue, which could result in jail time, is actually a result of the DMCA. The RIAA could go after people for circu
    • The only thing it proves is that someone had the presence of mind to think, "Hey if we don't allow burning of movies to DVD, we're effectively killing off the entire revenue stream of downloadable movies," and was able to convince other people of the same.

      Your post should read: "Further evidence that the MPAA and its members aren't quite as stupid as the RIAA and its members."

  • How "nice" of them... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Teese ( 89081 ) <beezelNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday August 11, 2006 @11:28AM (#15889334)
    ...to allow us to use our legally purchased content. The movie industry sure is on our side! Maybe next year they will allow us to skip chapters! or fast-forward! Can you imagine how much praise and rejoicing there will be? I can't wait until we have earned their good graces!

    stupid

  • "special" discs? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lordkuri ( 514498 ) on Friday August 11, 2006 @11:29AM (#15889341)
    Anyone want to take a guess at how much these discs are going to cost? I'd wager just about the same price as an actual dvd of the movie itself.

    Besides, haven't these morons figured out yet that CSS is borderline useless?
    • I'd wager just about the same price as an actual dvd of the movie itself.

      They'll make very expensive coasters too if you're not careful when burning... I'll stick to HMV for the meantime.

    • Re:"special" discs? (Score:4, Funny)

      by DarthSkippious ( 940606 ) on Friday August 11, 2006 @11:39AM (#15889424)
      Besides, haven't these morons figured out yet that CSS is borderline useless?


      Useless? Useless? Are you kidding? The hack of it made a great t-shirt!

    • Re:"special" discs? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by AndyG314 ( 760442 )
      Besides, haven't these morons figured out yet that CSS is borderline useless?
      Of course they have, why do you think they are willing to let us use it. They look less evil, and they are only "letting" us do something we already could.

    • Re:"special" discs? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by CastrTroy ( 595695 )
      I really don't see why they don't just let you burn it to a regular DVD+/-R, with no CSS. CSS is useless anyway, was broken years ago, and only exists to stop you from playing DVDs from other regions. It would be much easier to implement a system where you let people/stores burn on regular DVDs with regular DVD burners, on regular computers. If they sold the movies for a reasonable price, people wouldn't really be that interested in copying them, and they'd make a lot of money.

  • Are customers finally winning? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by HoosierPeschke ( 887362 ) <hoosierpeschke@comcast.net> on Friday August 11, 2006 @11:29AM (#15889349) Homepage
    Did we finally get a message through that the majority of us aren't criminals? It's nice to see at least part of the entertainment industry keeping up with the times. Does anyone know the pricing for these movie downloads before I get too far ahead of myself?

    • Re:Are customers finally winning? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Kimos ( 859729 ) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `todhsals.somik'> on Friday August 11, 2006 @11:34AM (#15889380) Homepage
      Of course we're not winning... This system stops you from breaking the CSS.

      If you copy a DVD by breaking the CSS and re-encoding it, you've got a completely DRM free disk. You can do whatever you want with it, and copy it with any burning software. It becomes clean data. This new system will let you burn copies of that same disk, except they re-encrypt it for you and re-apply the DRM. Isn't that nice of them?
      • This new system will let you burn copies of that same disk, except they re-encrypt it for you and re-apply the DRM.

        The headline (let alone the summary or article) says downloads, not discs. They're not talking about letting you duplicate your DVD (CSS and all), they're talking about letting you take your movie downloaded in (probably) "protected [sic]" WMV format and burn it to a DVD such that it still has DRM, but CSS instead of Windows Media DRM.

      • So wouldn't burning it, ripping and stripping it, and re-burning it do the same thing, just an additional step? Heck, one could mount the image and rip away without wasting a disc. It is based on the system to work with current DVD players. But then again, I tend to oversimplify things...
        • So wouldn't burning it, ripping and stripping it, and re-burning it do the same thing, just an additional step? Heck, one could mount the image and rip away without wasting a disc.

          Obviously that is possible if you use some illegal software/product such as DeCSS and you commit a crime subject to 5 ears in federal prison. Just like any other DVD.

          Aside from that, no, obviously the MPAA would never permit this if it allowed you to read or copy the disks with normal (legal) software and products.

          The disks will s

    • Did we finally get a message through that the majority of us aren't criminals?

      To whom are you trying to deliver this message? The MPAA members?

      A criminal can make a perfect copy of a DVD and resell it without touching the encryption. A criminal can point a video camera at a TV playing a DVD and make a file. A criminal can break the encryption anyway, since it is weak and the only thing stopping them is the law. A criminal can download a cracked copy from the internet.

      All of the the so called "copy prot

    • Did we finally get a message through that the majority of us aren't criminals?
      No. If you read the PDF, all that has actually changed is the license agreement that binds the manufacturers of DVDs. They will now be allowed to make CSS-protected DVDs using special recordable disks. I suppose that previously they were only allowed to use pressed disks.

      The immediate purpose of this will be to allow vending machines to create DVDs on the fly. As far as home recording goes, the press release just says "Indiv

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday August 11, 2006 @11:30AM (#15889353)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • huh... Seems to me that any kiosks are going to have all the speed and quality of downloads combined with the convenience of going to a shop rather than buying over the internet.
      • Think how cool it'd be to go to the grocery store, pick out a movie from a million titles, and it's ready when you're done shopping. Ten bucks, you get to keep it. I'd go for that, and I'm a hardened criminal. With enough bandwidth and fast drives you could have a dvd-quality movie in 10 minutes. That's fast enough to put a kiosk in a fast food restaurant or pretty much any store.

    • Re:If it works with existing DVD players... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Friday August 11, 2006 @11:46AM (#15889489) Homepage
      This makes sense, as any consumer based DVD burner that can burn CSS discs will be ultimately possible to modify such that it can copy regular DVDs too.

      you mean like how I can copy any DVD right now without effort?

      BTW, I can make CSS "protected" DVD's right now with DVD-R media and a old Pioneer A-06 DVD burner. I did it last month for a client that paid for their CSS key and I used Scenerist to creat ethe DVD structure and apply the CSS encoding key.

      Plays in DVD players nice and DVD decryptor and my other tools for ripping DVD's shows it as having CSS protection.

      I am unsure as to this special area you are speaking of but it's not needed to make your own CSS encrypted DVD's. (although CSS is 100% useless for protection of any kind.)
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • No, he's not violating the DMCA. He apparantly has an A class burner ("old Pioneer A-06 DVD burner") and A class disks rather than a G class burner and G class disks. A stands for Authoring and G stands for General. This is not illegal at all, but it is unduly expensive.

          If you do a bit-for-bit copy an entire disk, CSS encryption and CSS keys and all intact, then you are only subject to normal copyright law (and retain all Fair Use rights). He's not bothering to circumvent the encryption scheme, therefore su
  • Sounds like you will have to buy special blank DVDs. Unless these blanks are as cheap as existing blanks (or close) this will bomb. Heck it might bomb even if they were cheaper, on the confusion factor alone. There is no reason the CSS data can't be burned directly from the burner, so all this is is a ploy.
    • Sounds like you will have to buy special blank DVDs.
      And exactly where does the article state that? CSS is software, not hardware.

      Good God, there's a lot of misinformation in these threads.

    • Re:"Special" DVDs (Score:5, Funny)

      by z0idberg ( 888892 ) on Friday August 11, 2006 @12:15PM (#15889685)
      You will actually have to buy a specific blank DVD for each movie you want to download and burn. For example if you want to watch "Weekend at Bernies" you will have to drive to WalMart and by the specific "Weekend at Bernies - Blank Edition", then drive home and download the movie, then burn it to the blank, then and only then will you be able to play the movie.

      To compensate you for your trouble "Weekend at Bernies - Blank Edition" will be between $1.23 and $1.56 cheaper than "Weekend at Bernies" original that will be on sale right next to "Weekend at Bernies - Blank Edition", and between $1.56 and $1.93 cheaper than "Weekend at Bernies - Directors Cut" and "Weekend at Bernies - Now in HD", which will be the next two DVDs over.

  • Special media? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by winnabago ( 949419 ) on Friday August 11, 2006 @11:31AM (#15889365) Homepage
    I thought it was proven that consumers won't purchase particular media in advance back when it was tried with audio CDs. I am beginning to think that a cursory attempt at digital distribution is all they want, making it appear that they are defending their rights while supplementing income with civil lawsuit extortion. Nothing new, but it gets clearer every day to me.

  • Sadly encouraging, but.... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Utilitygeek ( 969913 ) on Friday August 11, 2006 @11:32AM (#15889367)
    While, sadly, it is encouraging that the MPAA is trying to find ways for end-users to have fair use of the media they purchase, I still have to wonder what sort of DRM and restrictions they will place in/on this new technology. Will I be able to burn multiple copies? Watch without burning? Or, if I misburn myself a coaster, am I simply SOL?
  • Finally, someone beside Apple recognizes that there is a Way Forward in the digital age. It may not be all we want, but it is a start.

    Give these guys credit. Anything that even smells like it would endanger the all powerful Bottom Line and drop share prices is taboo for all major corporations.

  • Why Bother? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bistronaut ( 267467 ) on Friday August 11, 2006 @11:35AM (#15889392) Homepage Journal
    Why are they going through all this trouble? Don't they know that CSS was broken years ago? Haven't they ever downloaded Handbrake?

  • Countdown to crack (Score:5, Funny)

    by mistersooreams ( 811324 ) on Friday August 11, 2006 @11:36AM (#15889396) Homepage
    Crack coming in 3... 2...

    What's that? CSS got cracked years ago? Look, behind you - a three-headed terrorist! Think of the children!

    *runs*

  • not that great... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In a statement, the association said that an updated version of CSS could allow retailers to place kiosks on showroom floors and allow consumers to watch as a digital movie recording is placed on a blank DVD while they wait.

    Looks like this is aimed more at the content distributers than the home consumers. now that's the MPAA we've come to know and love!

  • Why must they put DRM on it? CSS has already been proven not to be effective, so what are the Media Companies afraid of?

    This is certainly a step in the correct direction for video downloads. Certainly the movie business must be realizing that customers want freedom to use their products how they wish. Being locked into only "approved" viewing on a pc could only have appealed to a small audience.

    I suppose DRM is an attempt to make people buy content more than once, because it certainly will never stop pira

    • Why must they put DRM on it? CSS has already been proven not to be effective, so what are the Media Companies afraid of?

      At least part of it is probably that the DMCA prohibits circumventing an access control measure. If you just put raw data on there, you can't invoke those portions of the DMCA.
  • ... after all ? So they have started to comply with the times' and people's demands about the matter.

    • Ultimately, groups like the MPAA and RIAA have to adapt to the demands of the market or work very hard to regulate that market in such a way as to keep them filthy stinking rich. So they'll do both, with varying degrees of success. The latter will always be the default strategy. The former will usually be slow and more-or-less half-assed (which allows the wiggle room to say, "see, we tried that, it didn't work... back to plan A").

  • #!/usr/bin/perl (Score:2, Informative)

    by guzugi ( 688311 )
    s''$/=\2048;while(){G=29;R=142;if((@a=unqT="C*",_) [20]&48){D=89;_=unqb24,qT,@
    b=map{ord qB8,unqb8,qT,_^$a[--D]}@INC;s/...$/1$&/;Q=unqV,qb2 5,_;H=73;O=$b[4]>8^(P=(E=255)&(Q>>12^Q>>4^Q/8^Q))> 8^(E&(F=(S=O>>14&7^O)
    ^S*8^S>=8
    )+=P+(~F&E))for@a[128..$#a]}print+qT,@a}';s/[D-HO- U_]/\$$&/g;s/q/pack+/g;eval

    • Don't run that! (Score:4, Funny)

      by patio11 ( 857072 ) on Friday August 11, 2006 @11:47AM (#15889491)
      You might think in context that it is deCSS, but it actually prints "Just another perl hacker" unless an obscure race condition happens, in which case it instructs Google to become sentient and begin the elimination of the human race.

      Friends don't let friends execute perl scripts they didn't write.

  • No doubt one will remaain a felon for watching a DVD on linux but it shows they are thinking of a strategy to adapt.

    Whether it is competitive depends on how smart they are. Would they accept a dollar/disk royalty? Even at that, it isn't like 100 disk cakeboxes would be competitive -- $130/box? But wouldn't a lot of people buy 6-packs at the checkout counter for $10? Could work.

    And it seems only inevitable that the DVD store will eventually be a machine.

  • What am I missing (Score:4, Interesting)

    by szembek ( 948327 ) on Friday August 11, 2006 @11:52AM (#15889532) Homepage
    I can burn stuff to a DVD and play it in a regular DVD player with no problem. Does Nero use illegal tech to make this happen? I understand that bypassing DRM might be illegal, but how is the encoding of the disc to play in a DVD player illegal right now?

    • but how is the encoding of the disc to play in a DVD player illegal right now?

      It isn't. Here's what you are missing: Nero can (ok, should, I don't know for a fact since I've not used the lastest version) only burn unencrypted (no CSS) data. Most movies are encrypted. So there was no means to burn an encrypted movie without breaking the encryption first. That's the illegal part. With this there will essentially be a means to burn a movie with the encryption intact.

  • Misquoted (Score:5, Funny)

    by sjonke ( 457707 ) on Friday August 11, 2006 @11:54AM (#15889547) Journal
    It actually said, "Studios OK Burning Movie Downloaders".

  • The simple summary - encryption must live on (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Overzeetop ( 214511 ) on Friday August 11, 2006 @12:00PM (#15889590) Journal
    There's clearly a big market for video on demand, and the ability to burn movies at a kiosk would greatly reduce the up-front warehousing, shipping, floor space, and back catalog storage. This is a masterful win for potential sales and increasing sales outlets.

    Fromt the desciption and my palty knowledge of the DVD format, it seems like they're simply going to make everybody capable of burning in the key area with approved software. The end user part is to allow electronic distribution through a pay-per-download scheme. That scheme can also be used to digitally watermark the downloads and monitor infringing uploads, which is a bonus for them. More people with bigger pipes will be necessary for that to really take hold.

    As for the end user burning a CCA encrypted disc, thay pretty much have to keep that part in order to retain much in the way of legal protections. Consumers keep crying "fair use" as a way to format shift, and to them format shifting is pronounced "lost sale". If drop the encryption, it's just like a CD, and there are already services which will format shift your CDs to MP3. All legal through fair use and unencrypted content. By encrypting the content, they keep their DMCA protections - it's not legal anyone else to help you format shift, in any way shape or form. For the vast majority of the population, that means format shifting is done via additional purchase.

    Everyone here seems to think that the MPAA is trying to stop pirates, and we bubble with exhaspiration over the fact that the encryption has been broken and is useless. The MPAA doesn't really care about big time pirates all that much - it's a small market, mostly in asia, and mostly in places where the disposable income isn't high enough for the average person to afford a price that would turn a profit for the member organizations. No, the pirates the MPAA is concerned about are the casual ones - the guy next door who will burn his also-tech-unsavvy neighbor a quick copy on his consumer DVD recorder. That's more likely to be a lost sale than some chick dropping $1US on a pirated Malasian jewelcase on a street corner or a pimply faced 14 year old downloading a torrent. They won't admit it in public, but they know its true. Keeping Jim and Billy Bob from swapping discs will generate more revenue than stopping a dozen teenagers from getting an image off the eDonkey.

    • "No, the pirates the MPAA is concerned about are the casual ones - the guy next door who will burn his also-tech-unsavvy neighbor a quick copy on his consumer DVD recorder."

      you mean like recording hbo with your vcr? copying your friend's vhs tapes?

      look, people have been doing this for decades and now they want to claim it's "casual piracy".

      bullshit, it's established fair use under the spirit of the AHRA (1992) and the betamax decision (1984)

      don't start spewing their loaded terminology, all it does is serve
      • No, copying a friends tape is infringing. Making an extra copy to take with you in the car is fair use. Recording a show off of HBO so you can watch it later is fair use; giving it to a friend - even one who subscribes to HBO, is not, as far as I can tell. There's a fine line where fair use is concerned.

        Making a copy of a work for your neighbor to watch is no more fair use than making a photocopy of a novel for him to read.

  • FTA: "In a statement, the association said that an updated version of CSS could allow retailers to place kiosks on showroom floors and allow consumers to watch as a digital movie recording is placed on a blank DVD while they wait."

    This sounds to me like their intended market. All the rhetoric about home users is a smoke screen, IMHO, to fool news agencies and some /.ers into believing the MPAA is innovating and becoming consumer friendly. The day the MPAA does anything that would be consumer friendly.

  • It's nice to see that the movie industry is wisening up. They see the RIAA attempts at spam-suing and how badly the consumer backlash is, and are trying a different approach.

    For the average joe, this is probably exactly what they would like to do- make copies of their expensive discs. People will feel better about taking their DVDs along with them on a bus ride, to a friend's, or on a plane (well, I guess that last one doesn't apply anymore). If it breaks, they can just take it the "master" to a kiosk and m
  • I don't buy music off the internet. I don't download movies. Why? Because I'm getting less. When I pay $10 for a cd or $15 for a movie, I'm paying that price not just for the mediaitself, but for the case, the album art, etc.

    I don't like to flip thru my dvd/cd binder and see handwritten titles. I like to see the movie/music are on the actual disc.

    How many people have their DVD or CD collections on shelfs? It's nice to look at. It's easy to find the movie/cd you're wanting. Not the case with download-n-b

  • A good idea would be for them to produce a kit that requires you to have a PC/mac, printer, and a DL DVD burner.

    The kit could have blank 'movie' DVDs that people have bitched about it requiring, blank labels, and blank cases.

    Or perhaps you could integrate it all into a kiosk. Go to kiosk, tell it what you want, it prints the case, label, and DVD. You get a new movie for $10. All the profit goes to the MPAA except for however much they use to pay-off the property that the machine takes up.

    Prices go down,

  • Screw'em (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Randseed ( 132501 ) on Friday August 11, 2006 @01:59PM (#15890357)
    Fuck them. I'll continue to burn DVDs to whatever the hell media I want. Or save it on my HDD. Or whatever.

    See, here's one way to look at the problem. Let's say I subscribe to HBO. HBO plays "Tears of the Sun," to use an example. I record it on my VCR. That's legal. If I take an A/V output from the satellite box and record it, that's fair use as well. If I then convert the VCR or whatever recording and convert it to a DIVX so I can play it on my PC, that's legal. But if I skip the work myself and grab a copy off the Internet, that's illegal.

    The person who is effectively breaking the law by default is the guy who is uploading the movie, not the person downloading it. That isn't to say that the guy downloading it isn't breaking the law as well, but there are plenty of legitimate ways that he could have obtained the same exact result, legally, making the entire argument stupid.

  • Major(s) costs saving (Score:3, Informative)

    by olahaye74 ( 801533 ) on Friday August 11, 2006 @02:36PM (#15890580)
    The aim of this move is simple: costs saving for the majors:

    - They don't need to edit a DVD structure with bonuses and such
    - They donc have to create the media, the jacket and such
    - They don't have to manage media storage
    - They don't have to manage media transportation

    But you pay the same: They earn 35% more.

    Same for downloadable manazines and news papers: same price, but the company saves paper, printing costs, transportation, unsold idtems, ....

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