• AnyStream is having some DRM issues currently, Netflix is not available in HD for the time being.
    Situations like this will always happen with AnyStream: streaming providers are continuously improving their countermeasures while we try to catch up, it's an ongoing cat-and-mouse game. Please be patient and don't flood our support or forum with requests, we are working on it 24/7 to get it resolved. Thank you.

A few thoughts about piracy

@Homeworld how are they doing that? Well they're not going to tell you that now will they. That would tell the pirates exactly what to look for to 'undo' it.
 
The funny thing about this, is that the term fair use gets thrown around a lot here. But I have been buying dvd's like crazy, for about three months now. Many of these second hand. mostly in very good shape. And a good third of these still have their digital copy code card inserts still in them. Mostly expired, but some of them are still usable. As far as I can tell starting in about 2007 almost every dvd comes with a digital copy code. So not only do the studios want you to have a backed up copy, of your movie, they want you to have one for your pc, one for tablet and one for your phone. All included in the original price of the dvd.

Have you seen the crud that they offer in their digital copy??
 
I have to put my two cents in here........I am a firm believer that when I purchase something, it is MINE to do with as I see fit (legally). When I purchase a motor
vehicle, a piece of electronic gear, some furniture......it is MINE......I feel the same about movies, and other electronic media.....I have the "right" not the privilege
to make copies for myself, as backups, etc......and IF I wish to make a copy for one of my relatives.....the disk is MINE.....I paid for it and NOT for the "privilege"
to view it, etc. When I was in law enforcement, years ago, one of our instructors told us: "You can only enforce the traffic laws the motoring public "allows" you to
enforce....if they feel a law is unjust, unfair, and just plain counter productive, they will NOT follow it." When I made a trip to sunny California, long ago the speed
limit was the "double nickle" 55 mph......yeah right.......the average speed on the freeways was over 70 and even the Chips were going that fast....never saw a
vehicle pulled over all the time we were in the city on the freeways. Everyone was driving about 70mph or slightly above and the Chips basically drove the same
speed.....the motoring public just thumbed their noses at the 55mph, and the Chips had no recourse but to go along with it, as the public was not going to "allow"
them to enforce it......

Regardless of how folks view and feel about "copyright laws" for good or bad......the public, for the most overwhelming part, feel the movies they purchase are
theirs to do with as they see fit, copy, don't copy, copy an loan out, copy and give away.....NOT sell, just copy for a friend if you wish......right or wrong that is
how most folks feel if they would tell the truth....you cannot "legislate" morality.....Second chance vest company, that produced bullet resistant vests, had a
saying: "There will never be a vest that cannot be defeated, or a round that connot be stopped". It is the same with all the copyright issues, it is a vicious
circle, tit for tat......and companies like Slysoft, Redfox, and others will be their for the public....the public who feels that the movie industry has no right to
impose laws on products that are purchased by said public, and then try to impose an everlasting prohibition on the public individual who legally purchased their
product, to use that product as the owner of it. For the producer of the product, to basically say: "We STILL own the product, you are simply purchasing the
privilege of using it, you do not own it, we do..." goes against the grain so to speak.....being redundant here......oh well....
 
I quite like Flixter for my UltraViolet HD Digital copy. It works.
@Homeworld how are they doing that? Well they're not going to tell you that now will they. That would tell the pirates exactly what to look for to 'undo' it.
Long time since I replied. No it was more of a rhetorical question back then. I was just thinking about a website that has since been disabled and shut down, they survived by always removing content when a company or dmca request was filed. I'm really interested in piracy (or rather anti-piracy) from a business perspective. I have some free time.... haha.

AnyDVD works anyway, I was initially concerned about the online only components, not really now. Who isn't online at any point these days?

Lately I'm interested in how Microsoft removed movie scenes from a PC game and forced everyone to stream them. Then I've been delving into the silliness over Denuvo. People really seem to dislike DRM in any form whilst not considering the business reasons for a company to do so, even when they're purchasing the protected product.
 
I have to put my two cents in here........I am a firm believer that when I purchase something, it is MINE to do with as I see fit (legally). When I purchase a motor
vehicle, a piece of electronic gear, some furniture......it is MINE......I feel the same about movies, and other electronic media.....I have the "right" not the privilege
to make copies for myself, as backups, etc......and IF I wish to make a copy for one of my relatives.....the disk is MINE.....I paid for it and NOT for the "privilege"
to view it, etc.
In the US the courts have upheld the "Fair Use" ruling already for media you own and bought. So as long as it's for your own use then you can do whatever you want. It stops when you use it to profit or make financial gains from it.
 
In the US the courts have upheld the "Fair Use" ruling already for media you own and bought. So as long as it's for your own use then you can do whatever you want. It stops when you use it to profit or make financial gains from it.
And it doesn't have any DRM or any other protection mechanism's on it that must be circumvented. That's the catch 22 of it all.
And there's alot of laws on the books intentionally written that way . So they can say you can do "X" but really you can't according to the way the entire law was wrote.
 
I have to put my two cents in here........I am a firm believer that when I purchase something, it is MINE to do with as I see fit (legally). When I purchase a motor
vehicle, a piece of electronic gear, some furniture......it is MINE......I feel the same about movies, and other electronic media.....I have the "right" not the privilege
to make copies for myself, as backups, etc......and IF I wish to make a copy for one of my relatives.....the disk is MINE.....I paid for it and NOT for the "privilege"
to view it, etc.

The problem with your argument (which goes to the root of why "stealing" digital goods, is copyright infringement, not theft), is that you can't simply copy a car and give it to a friend. You can't simply buy a TV once, copy it and put a copy in every room you own. Physical, tangible products must be purchased, because they cannot be duplicated in the same manner digital information can. When you buy a game or a movie, you're not buying the physical disc it's stored on, you're buying access to the 1's and 0's on the disc. The disc is simply the transportation medium, that you use to access those 1's and 0's.
 
When you buy a game or a movie, you're not buying the physical disc it's stored on, you're buying access to the 1's and 0's on the disc. The disc is simply the transportation medium, that you use to access those 1's and 0's.
Which is why many newer games and movies are being released via digital means these days, using either a DRM frontend or direct internet access to determine proper licensing.
 
I posted a question about access rights but after a little digging, found the answer and edited the post.


U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

JOINT COMMENTS OF THE DVD COPY CONTROL ASSOCIATION

(“DVD CCA”) AND THE ADVANCED ACCESS CONTENT SYSTEM

LICENSING ADMINISTRATOR LLC (“AACS LA”) ON PROPOSED CLASS 8

In the matter of Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies under 17 U.S.C. § 1201

“When consumers buy a DVD or Blu-ray disc, they are not purchasing the motion picture itself, rather they are purchasing access to the motion picture which affords only the right to access the work according to the format’s particular specifications (i.e., through the use of a DVD player), or the Blu-ray Disc format specifications (i.e., through the use of a Blu-ray format player). Consumers are able to purchase the copy at its retail price because it is distributed on a specific medium that will play back on only a licensed player. In prior exemption proceedings, the Register and Librarian have recognized that there is no unqualified right to access a work on a particular device.”
Source: http://copyright.gov/1201/2015/comments-032715/class 8/DVDCCA_and_AACS_LA_class08_1201_2014.pdf

Officially, consumers can purchase access rights to movies but only to the purchased format’s specific delivery medium. The industry gives consumers tightly controlled, strings attached access in order to maximize profit. The industry needs to understand that consumers purchase access rights period, none of that "...which affords only the right to..." nonsense.
 
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The movie industry increases their licensing fees, the movie houses charge more, DVD cost goes up, and an occasional "honest" consumer is made an example of in the court systems.
You left out the fact that big name stars demand at least $20 million each which could easily cost over $100 million in salaries alone for the entire cast in occasional productions.
 
You left out the fact that big name stars demand at least $20 million each which could easily cost over $100 million in salaries alone for the entire cast in occasional productions.
They should just go for a percentage of the gross.
 
You left out the fact that big name stars demand at least $20 million each which could easily cost over $100 million in salaries alone for the entire cast in occasional productions.
They should just go for a percentage of the gross.
Most times the Big Money Actors get both, a large up-front salary and a percentage.
 
I love you, guys! :D

(Sorry, I didn't know where else to post my childlike, exuberant outburst.)
 
So, sorry MPAA, AACS and all you people with the fancy acronyms - we can't help you with the piracy, but since no one is helping us with the movies, we're picking up things ourselves.
Think twice.
There are many legitimate reasons in copying a movie to hard drives or memory cards but one seldom mentioned is that some disabled folks who may lack dexterity due to paralysis or some other disability can't handle inserting a disk or maybe watching a movie while in bed on a smaller touch-screen enabled screen like a tablet. I am a long time Vietnam era veteran paraplegic and while my hands and arms work fine I'm limited in the amount of "sit-up" time, after 48 years of being a roller, so I might start or end a film like normal on a computer DVD or TV but then use my Shield tablet for the other part of the movie. So AnyDVD and CloneDVD have really helped me with the different options. I also use the tablet to watch movies while travelling since I 'retired' from driving a couple of years ago and have someone else drive which is quite often because I live quite a way from civilization. I would love for the ABCD outfits to come after me for copying disks...We'd have a swell time in court while I proved they were violating my rights to fair use of their product that able-bodied people can use. Maybe they will reimburse me for the cost of these programs...Yeah, sure.
 
I've been scanning through the many, many posts from the recent days and especially one post with a link to some blog entry over at torrentfreak ruined my day a bit. It's not the actual message (for who didn't read it: it's all about the poor pirates, now having no tool for their glorious doings).
After all, torrentfreak is all about file sharing and it's not my place to judge what's right and what's wrong (though I do have a strong personal dislike for piracy).
What I found depressing, was how this places SlySoft next to the pirates and makes it sound as if piracy is what we were doing this for.

Pirates were never the intended audience. If SlySoft could have shaken them off, they would have.
In fact - some people seem to think, that without piracy, SlySoft wouldn't have existed (I'm defining "piracy" here as making copies and mass-distributing them - for money, for shits and giggles, for feeling a bit less like dirt, whatever gets them going).
The exact opposite is true. Pirates only made a very small percentage of the AnyDVD userbase. And - given that they are pirates, it's a valid question whether they were even paying customers.
AnyDVD was created out of the frustration of a few people, who got fed up with the unplayability (yes! that word is fitting!) of DVDs and later on Blu-ray discs.

So, of course, SlySoft could have easily done without the pirates - and had they, SlySoft might even still exist.
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.
They have this huge money-making machine, collect fees for every BD ever being sold without having to really, well, do much (god, I wish I were the AACS-LA), while promising to protect the discs in return, which effectivly doesn't work - so they have no choice but to fight back.

So that's one reason why they come after SlySoft and not the actual pirates.
The other reason is: it just wouldn't work. Pirates have a higher level of anonymity, and they are also too many. So even if this was (just) about piracy, SlySoft would remain the main target.

Piracy is an issue. You can't deny that it is hurting the movie industry. And you can't deny that we were involuntarily helping piracy. Just like the glass cutter involuntarily helps burglary.
Though you can argue over the numbers. They like to pretend that every single downloaded movie is one sold disc less. Of course that is utter nonsense. A lot of that stuff gets downloaded simply because it's there. At least 99 out of 100 downloads are done by people who wouldn't even consider paying for the disc. And I'm willing to bet, that 99% is too cautious an estimate.

Personally, I think the whole industry is getting off track with their DRM. It does make sense to have it in place. As I said, the pirates are a real problem.
But they want to gain more and more control over what the consumers do. Sort of finding a second purpose for the DRM already in place.

People are running for the streaming services.
Yey, streaming!
That is already a service that puts you in chains. Even when you "buy" a movie on a streaming platform, you're asking for permission every single time you want to watch it (which is why I'm hesitant to call it "buying", you simply don't own the thing).
Have the platform go dead and your "owned" movies are just as gone. You think Netflix is going to exist forever? They're likely to be around for quite a while, but things change so fast these days, especially with anything having "Internet" in its description. Maybe they decide to sell rubber boots someday (sorry, that joke will mostly make sense in Finland) and close down the streaming business, because the competition ruins the profit.

And the AACS 2.0 specification (for UHD discs) is trying to get there too. With the - so far - optional possibility to have the disc fetch decryption keys from some server each and every time.
Reminds me of the recent Internet failure here, just a couple of days ago - TV, phone and Internet all broke down at once, what was left was my collection of discs (yes, all bought and paid for) to spend the evening with. Unless of course I'd need permission to watch from the studio. Over that dead Internet connection.

I'm not even diving too deep into the whole backup and fair use thing - I think everybody knows about that. Some of the DVDs my kids have been using look like they've been treated with sand paper. Some of the more "busy" ones actually look like sand paper. Blu-ray coatings are a lot more resilient - but unfortunately Blu-rays are also more sensitive to scratches. And some cease to play without any visible damage.
I have 7 or 8 damaged BDs among the non-kids category that I know of - possibly many more, because most discs I never touched twice, so I wouldn't know.
Meanwhile I transfer the most precious ones to my server.

So, sorry MPAA, AACS and all you people with the fancy acronyms - we can't help you with the piracy, but since no one is helping us with the movies, we're picking up things ourselves.

Think twice.
I have been an AnydvdHd owner for quite a long time indeed I have 2 licences for 2 machines.
I have always backed up my DVDs/ Blu-rays to full ISO/ Mkv and now thanks to AnyDVD UHD.
I have no intention of pirating my discs , just to have a library of my Uhd discs is amazing.
If your using your Pc to play Uhd discs have a look at this device , plays Uhd from Hdd.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/xtr...i910bmkddnGvaWRDhx_8lfK7-JdrTJvkaArBOEALw_wcB
Or here
http://hdland.fr/en/modeles-d-exposition/3383-zappiti-player-4k-occasion.html
Both excellent .
Thanks again for your fine work.
 
Great post and totally agree.

I just want a way to remove DRM off of the things that I paid for fair and square. I think that is reasonable. I do think they have justification to go after people who share it to people who didn't pay for it. I watch all my stuff through Plex. I prefer to have it all on my NAS in case my internet goes down. It's the same reason I keep buying Blu-ray and DVD after all these years. Anything can play DVDs with free software.

The problem is that you can't find a lot of content on DVD now (TV series are going streaming-only, movies seem like they are going streaming first then releasing disc a couple months later). Redbox seems like they're not even getting discs for most new movies (if they do, they only get the DVD). I think it's only a matter of time before Redbox shuts down or becomes a streaming-only service. Netflix doesn't seem to care about keeping their DVD Netflix service going either. I think Hollywood execs have seen the writing on the wall, and it's only a matter of time before they just stop producing discs all together. 4K Blu-ray is selling even worse than 3D Blu-ray did. And it's a good way for them to claw back control over content under the guise of stopping piracy.

I am another one who is of the opinion that when I buy a copy of a creative work, I own the copy and can do whatever I want with it after I have paid for it. The problem in the United States is these large lobbying groups that give money to our elected representatives, have changed the meaning of copyright, changed the definition of ownership, and redefined what the 'product' is that they're selling you. It was intended to stop me from taking someone else's creative work, redistributing it and/or making money off of it and claiming it as my own. It was not designed to kill off "fair use" so that these companies can sell you the same product 5 different times.
 
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I'll go out on a limb because this is deep into my history, I will do my best to refrain but feel free to edit as necessary. Since this is a public forum and I do understand what Redfox is doing and support them, I need to exercise restraint.

I've been scanning through the many, many posts from the recent days and especially one post with a link to some blog entry over at torrentfreak ruined my day a bit. It's not the actual message (for who didn't read it: it's all about the poor pirates, now having no tool for their glorious doings).
After all, torrentfreak is all about file sharing and it's not my place to judge what's right and what's wrong (though I do have a strong personal dislike for piracy).
What I found depressing, was how this places SlySoft next to the pirates and makes it sound as if piracy is what we were doing this for.

Back when I was an Admin over at MegaGames (not even sure if they are alive anymore) we had the same problem. They wanted to keep offering NoCD patches (not the games) but not via software, instead just the scene releases.

We started to try and go legit but were always Associated w/ pirates and warez (the scene). This was during the CloneCD days before Redfox. Regardless, I left when trying to go "legit" didn't work and haven't looked back. As far as I know since they were Ad Based Rev business they never recovered.

It was their own fault. We started in a very grey area. Elaborate Bytes never did that, it was software that helped legit owners make a DRM free (or working) backup. This format remains today.

So, of course, SlySoft could have easily done without the pirates - and had they, SlySoft might even still exist.
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.
They have this huge money-making machine, collect fees for every BD ever being sold without having to really, well, do much (god, I wish I were the AACS-LA), while promising to protect the discs in return, which effectivly doesn't work - so they have no choice but to fight back.

So that's one reason why they come after SlySoft and not the actual pirates.
The other reason is: it just wouldn't work. Pirates have a higher level of anonymity, and they are also too many. So even if this was (just) about piracy, SlySoft would remain the main target.

Admitting (reluctantly) I am long retired but was active in the scene. I am not going to admit anything but I can tell you no one ever used Elaborate Bytes/SlySoft/Redfox software for scene releases. They used their own tools and NoCD cracks which was a lot smaller and easy. For DVD (towards my end before I retired) was a mix of free tools and custom made stuff (DVDdecrypter and RipIt4Me) who knows what they did after I left.

I switched sides and started working for SonyBMG on creating DRM that AnyDVD had to deal with but that's another story, but I can tell you it's ignorance to think any commercial software like this was used by the scene.

For Wii dumping we needed a RAW drive and completely custom tools as an example.


Piracy is an issue. You can't deny that it is hurting the movie industry. And you can't deny that we were involuntarily helping piracy. Just like the glass cutter involuntarily helps burglary.
Though you can argue over the numbers. They like to pretend that every single downloaded movie is one sold disc less. Of course that is utter nonsense. A lot of that stuff gets downloaded simply because it's there. At least 99 out of 100 downloads are done by people who wouldn't even consider paying for the disc. And I'm willing to bet, that 99% is too cautious an estimate.

Personally, I think the whole industry is getting off track with their DRM. It does make sense to have it in place. As I said, the pirates are a real problem.
But they want to gain more and more control over what the consumers do. Sort of finding a second purpose for the DRM already in place.

As being an ex-part of the industry (even a content and copyright owner) I have no sympathy for them. You are talking a multi-billion dollar industry. $Billions with a HUGE capitol B. CEOS getting 1 week paycheck you will NEVER get in your entire left. It is "beyond greed:".

Don't get me started with the industry's own litigation and lawsuits, I have been in to many. They are malicious corrupt crooks who would eat their young. I will say it I bluntly hate them and have many personal reasons to.

Yea maybe they are losing money but on that level of billions it doesn't effect anyone, and I still contribute and backup my content. Sure I download some subscription stuff but will buy it IF it's even an option and I decide I like it.

People are running for the streaming services.
Yey, streaming!
That is already a service that puts you in chains. Even when you "buy" a movie on a streaming platform, you're asking for permission every single time you want to watch it (which is why I'm hesitant to call it "buying", you simply don't own the thing).
Have the platform go dead and your "owned" movies are just as gone. You think Netflix is going to exist forever? They're likely to be around for quite a while, but things change so fast these days, especially with anything having "Internet" in its description. Maybe they decide to sell rubber boots someday (sorry, that joke will mostly make sense in Finland) and close down the streaming business, because the competition ruins the profit.

And the AACS 2.0 specification (for UHD discs) is trying to get there too. With the - so far - optional possibility to have the disc fetch decryption keys from some server each and every time.
Reminds me of the recent Internet failure here, just a couple of days ago - TV, phone and Internet all broke down at once, what was left was my collection of discs (yes, all bought and paid for) to spend the evening with. Unless of course I'd need permission to watch from the studio. Over that dead Internet connection.

I'm not even diving too deep into the whole backup and fair use thing - I think everybody knows about that. Some of the DVDs my kids have been using look like they've been treated with sand paper. Some of the more "busy" ones actually look like sand paper. Blu-ray coatings are a lot more resilient - but unfortunately Blu-rays are also more sensitive to scratches. And some cease to play without any visible damage.
I have 7 or 8 damaged BDs among the non-kids category that I know of - possibly many more, because most discs I never touched twice, so I wouldn't know.
Meanwhile I transfer the most precious ones to my server.

So, sorry MPAA, AACS and all you people with the fancy acronyms - we can't help you with the piracy, but since no one is helping us with the movies, we're picking up things ourselves.

Think twice.

If you want to "steal" copyrighted content people still use Torrents which are free, they don't come here. The scene still releases them. This will never change pre se, but Redfox is not a pirate site. In fact AnyDVD, CloneCD etc. have been victims of the scene "cracking" their software - not exactly on the same team ;)

Sorry if I rambled on a bit and hopefully some of that makes sense. If it's pointless and "to much info" delete it.
 
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While I don't relate to a pirate's mentality at all, I have no sympathy for the big studios either.

In my opinion, piracy is a problem that the big Hollywood studios brought on themselves, by over-charging for their content. Look at the big picture for a moment and recognize that there's no way in hell that any Hollywood actor, actress, director or producer somehow "deserves" to earn an 8 figure salary. While I realize that there are B-grade and independent movies made by people who do not earn these astronomical salaries, most of the content being pirated is in fact made by people earning ridiculous salaries. Now of course these people work extremely hard, but they don't work 100x harder than the average dude running his own plumbing business. The point of all this is that if they sold a movie disc for $2, then piracy would mostly go away, and everyone in Hollywood would still earn a very respectable living.

Hollywood is so full of itself. They have so much money to waste that they even sponsor their own award ceremony to congratulate themselves. Then these people spout off about politics when they have no clue what they're talking about, and are dumb enough to think intelligent people care what they say. Go do your job and make movies, sell your product with enough profit to earn a decent living, and shut the *%#! up about things you're not an expert in.
 
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