A few thoughts about piracy

[quatermass]

Actually VHS tapes had Macrovision which was a 'kind of DRM'. It was a system that distorts the timing pulse at the start of each line. TVs ignore this section of video when playing. But video recorders used it to record. So that it was very, very hard to copy the video. Indeed the Macrovision people even managed to get JVC to fiddle with the VHS standard so it worked even better at protection.

Trouble as always, if you happened to have a TV that was sensitive to Macrovision, your rented or bought movie waved and spluttered in shades of brightness! Back then you could order a replacement which had no Macrovision on it by contacting the movie distributor.

IIRC Alien was the 1st VHS commercial film to use it in the Eighties and of course Star Wars: A New Hope. Both costed around £70 each....!

Various TV broadcasters use it (to this day) to prevent the copying of their programmes by video recorders.
IIRC Betamax and V2000 ignored the Macrovision protection.

Various public electronic magazines had projects that you could build that bypassed it. In time, these became widely available as assembled units.

 

[quibid]

I agree completely with 'Peer' comments and particularly regarding playability of movie products. Issues that are not addresed by AACC etc are instances of poor quality media used by by top brand names where after a period you have to ditch a well loved movie and then try and find a replacement somewhere. That often results in poorer quality copies which may suffer region restrictions on equipment that we take for granted can play anything and cannot. Replacement movies found on the Net inmnay cases come from sourcers that do not identify the region for which the media has been burnt. AnyDVD could at least simply work around that which IS NOT PIRACY by any objective definition anywhere on the planet. We buy each product for its 'advertised' use and in many cases find restrictions which amount more to a breach of contract by the brand owner. Media playing Equipment available throughout the world in so many cases can be found to have limitations in which neither the media source or player have compatibility and a major key of incompatibility is the limitations burnt into the media by the producer. ANd that incompatibility can be easily worked around given the right process to do it with and absolutely NO PIRACY occurs. It is probably about time that a class actions was commenced against the product manufacturers specifically targetting what they deny their customers. Piracy as indicated is an individual action by a few. But in this instance Slysoft is being hammered for something that it is not a party to. Consdier if someone buys a car and then races around dangerously should every other car owner be prohibited in what they can buy or use their car for. Bit like the gun lobby situation in some ways but here the restrictions are purely aimed at protection of profit and not prevention by those responsible for the actual crime. Slyfox had my support for many ytears and with their help I managed to work around manufacturer restrictions that prevented me from enjoying what I truly bought. I had always been able to put my copy where 'I' or my family could watch it in the privacy of our home. Although the name is now Redfox the guys have my full and continuing support. Make those greedy mothers sit back and take notice...

 

[YaniD]

Torrenting and piracy created a culture of "for free" which really took a generation the wrong way in my opinion.

I believe both file sharing and pirating (two different things but with similar end results) arose as a reaction to the monopoly that has become the distribution arm of the entertainment industry: I don't believe it is a culture "for free" at all (although in the real world there are always minority elements that want something for nothing). The free market system is based on competition: something you can't have when you implement region coding and other market manipulations through restrictive copyright rules. A backlash to introduce a form of competition was inevitable in the marketplace and here we are. The studios have simply been demanding too high a "price" for their products without allowing the consumer any influence within a competitive market. However, when the consumer votes with their wallet and sales inevitably drop, the studios complain it is copyright infringement when it is really the consumer applying the only real power they have left, so the studios escalate the situation into a copyright violation with high damages to recover the profit they erroneously think they should be receiving. The real failing of copyright was in not setting a limit on reasonable profit and devolving non-profitable works back to public domain.

IMO, the fundamental issue is the ethics of profiting from any creation in-perpetuity, when the costs of that creation and a reasonable profit are already returned. In a sense, I think that is also the situation with AnyDVD HD. Surely the costs of development have already been paid for by LTL and subscriptions already (I mean haven't the developers been paid progressively for their effort?). The only thing remaining now is maintenance and IMO that should be devolved to the community. For individuals to want to continue to profit from AnyDVD HD is the same as the studios wanting to profit in-perpetuity from their once-off creation costs and it's unethical IMO.

I think RedFox should concentrate on developing other products for which fees can be ethically charged, but I don't believe AnyDVD HD should be amongst them.

Slysoft has always been very coy about how much effort goes into the maintenance of AnyDVD HD, so if I have misunderstood the situation I would appreciate being corrected.

 

[OLDieButGOODie]

..

 

[sondeterra]

According to the DMCA (whose congressional hearings I actually watched on CSPAN) it is legal to make a copy, it is illegal to break any encryption.

 

[OLDieButGOODie]

According to the DMCA (whose congressional hearings I actually watched on CSPAN) it is legal to make a copy, it is illegal to break any encryption.

But if all disks have some form of 'encryption' how was it legal in the first place?
You usually need to 'break' the encryption to make the copy..!

 

[sondeterra]

AHA catch 22, it is legal to purchase and own AnyDVD but it is illegal to use it.

 

[OLDieButGOODie]

AHA catch 22, it is legal to purchase and own AnyDVD but it is illegal to use it.

WOW...!

Wait...that law actually doesn't make sense in that case.
They say a backup copy is OK to make, but when they say that they also know the encryption needs to be 'ignored'.

Which means they lied about making a law that protects the legit consumer being allowed to make a legal copy.
( not a catch 22, but a 'got-ya' ...with a Ha-Ha to you, customer )
It's as if they want the disk to wear-out and not let you have it for as long as you can

Is there a way to make an exact duplicate without breaking the lock?
Like the way a CD cloning program does it. (Similar to Blind Write from VSO)

 

[sondeterra]

Yes, you can make an exact duplicate using Windows but it won't play on anything, because the disc also has on it an identifier embedded in an area not accessible to consumer copiers that lets the player know that it is a legitimate purchased disc.

 

[sondeterra]

Under the Fair Use doctrine one can make a backup for your own use, but it is not codified in law, just common law.

 

[OLDieButGOODie]

Yes, you can make an exact duplicate using Windows but it won't play on anything, because the disc also has on it an identifier embedded in an area not accessible to consumer copiers that lets the player know that it is a legitimate purchased disc.

Sneaky of them, isn't it?

Under the Fair Use doctrine one can make a backup for your own use, but it is not codified in law, just common law.

Legal 'technicalities' ...don't ya just 'love-em'...!?!

 

[vze2mp9g]

Re: the added cost of DRM.

Those of us that have been around a while remember the 80s and VHS rentals. VHS has no DRM, and yet most VHS movies cost over $100, in 80s dollars, because the studios wanted to "price for rental". Same goes for laserdiscs. It wasn't until the bulk of releases went to "price for retail sale" in the 90s, and the DVD era started in mid-late 90s, that it was reasonable for consumers to own movies.

The cardboard and plastic in a DVD/Bluray box costs more to the studio than the DRM fees.

It certainly appears that we are in the last third of a 50-year-era of home video that started in the late 70s. Streaming is the most economical delivery for the copyright holders (studios), and has been widely embraced by non-enthusiasts and casual viewers.

Re: the cost of piracy to the film industry

The movie business has record profits. Studios are in as good a position as they have even been. The problem - and it is a huge one - is that piracy has forced studios to make product that is best experienced in a theater. Tons of CGI, pointless 3D spectacle movies. There is basically no market for a $40M adult drama. You have $100M blockbuster special effect showcases, and $2-10M indie films that show in art houses and then go to streaming.

I guess you never attempted to copy a commercial VHS tape back in the day. If you did, you would have noticed that the copy would start getting real bight, then dark and it would continue through the entire copy. You could bypass this by purchasing a piece of hardware that might correct it, but I just tape the movie or what ever when it came on TV. This is called Macrovision. Here is the link to read more: http://www.mediacollege.com/video/editing/macrovision/

 

[George++]

Macrovision is still used on some DVDs, and that is one of the protection schemes that AnyDVD removes.

 

[Homeworld]

Pirates are cheap, allow them to access $10,000 of console games by spending $45 and they'll outright refuse. Most of them are going to download anything that's already posted and available. The pirates that do want something like AnyDVD for piracy purposes will likely pirate AnyDVD too. There's not much point in using this software for piracy other than to remove annoying protections that probably won't exist on a pirated movie anyway.

It has always been said that if you're the genuine customer, you'll always have far more hassle than a pirate. Back when the original Xbox was available the big thing to gain from hacking it was XBMC. They tried so hard to get Microsoft to release it officially. We've seen the industry limit their console media players to annoy us all. The industry forced Amazon through contracts to remove Kodi from it's own Appstore. They'll just never let us genuine people do what we'd like to do.

Either someone robs some company/publisher of their income and will have an easy time, or they'll pay fairly and be treated like crap. AnyDVD helps us not be treated like crap whilst being legitimate and because of that, they won't like it whatever it does.

 

[George++]

@Homeworld,

Go to any torrent site and search for AnyDVD, it has been pirated for years now. Along with all other Slysoft and Elby products.

Even the interim versions of AnyDVD (7.9.6.1 - 7.9.6.5) are available, along with a pirated license key file.

 

[vze2mp9g]

Macrovision is still used on some DVDs, and that is one of the protection schemes that AnyDVD removes.

Okay, if I have a VHS player hooked up to my PC via video decoder (which allows me to turn the VHS signal to a digital file so that I can either watch it on my PC, stream it or burn it to a DVD), AnyDVD will remove the Macrovision? If so, that's great because there is one VHS tape I would love to put on a DVD, it's called, "The Man Who Saw Tomorrow". You cannot even get the VHS tape anymore.
Thanks.

 

[Ch3vr0n]

No, because anydvd only removes macrovision when used on a DVD. It does not remove it natively from vhs to capture device, it's your capture device that needs to deal with the macrovision, not anydvd.

 

[Clams]

I wonder what the reaction of the MPAA/Hollywood consortium will be now that even though Slysoft is dead, the programmers are not

PLEASE don't give the MPAA thugs any ideas here!!!!

-W

 

[Clams]

It's not that the AACS-LA wouldn't have gone to the same lengths trying - don't mistake them to be fighting piracy, their goal is a more immediate one, which is to justify their existence.

The whole post was great - but this line nailed it.
-W

 

[George++]

In Germany 50 cents (in Euro cent, not USD) is a regular price for a half a day disc rental.

Up here it costs 3 bucks Canadian plus tax to rent a movie. Around 25 bucks to buy.

In my slice of reality, US, the cost of one day rental is only from RedBox and is US$1.25 for DVDs. There are no brick and mortar video rental stores any more.

So it is either buy, rent from Netflix/Redbox or borrow DVDs from the local library.