Managing Rights Management

Toshiba Makes It Official: Giving Up On HD-DVD

Variety and Reuters are reporting that Toshiba has officially given up on HD-DVD, now leaving the market open to Sony-backed Blu-ray. Quoting from a Toshiba release, Variety says:

“As a result of recent market developments, the company has decided to discontinue sales and marketing of HD DVD players. Accordingly, Toshiba will begin to cease shipments of its HD DVD products to retail channels,” it said in the statement.

CH-DVD, DRM, and The Blu-ray HD-DVD Battle

BetaNews has a couple of related articles of interest. Jacqueline Emigh's article begins with old news that DRM for music is dying, if not dead. More interesting is the discussing of the Chinese DVD standard, CH-DVD:

For high-def video to really start reaching greater numbers of people, high-def vendors need to give up their current grip on DRM and other manifestations of Blu-ray and HD DVD proprietary formats, and start selling discs that will work interchangeably on any vendor's HD equipment. But what will happen if these two warring camps continue to stay locked in their current stalemate?

Does Microsft Want Market Confusion Re Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD?

Investors' Business Daily (via CNN) says that no winner has emerged from the Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD format war. Although Blu-ray has sold more discs, ongoing studio realignments have continued to muddy the waters. And confusion may serve the interests of some competitors. Citing movie director Michael Bay, the IBD article claims that Microsoft wants both formats to fail until HD digital downloads are perfected:

Movie director Michael Bay in early December complained on his official Web site that Microsoft MSFT is providing financial backing for HD DVD because it wants both high-def disc formats to fail.

"That is the dirty secret no one is talking about," said Bay, director of the recent hit film "Transformers." "They want confusion in the market until they perfect the digital downloads." Microsoft sells HD movie and TV show downloads to its video game consoles through its Xbox Live Marketplace.

Couldn't find the Bay article on his site.

Western Digital's Crippleware

Writing in the ChannelRegister (UK), Andrew Orlowski has written a couple of useful articles on the Western Digital's 1 terabyte network drive targeted to the consumer market. The first article describes how WD has crippled the filesharing software it provides so that one cannot share media files across the net. Orlowsk's second article describes earlier attempts to accomplish similar anti-piracy goals

But there may be less here than initially thought, according to Orlowski:

What's "crippled" is Western Digital's optional extra, a virtual file system for Windows users called Mionet. But then it always has been....

Mionet is marketed as a virtual filesystem, and permits you to access your home Windows PC across the internet. It actually does quite a bit more: a shared workspace, and remote device access, for example viewing your webcam remotely. It's a "placeshifting" service, of a kind.

Many of these services are intentionally limited, and this one is no different: Mio blocked shared media over an internet connection long before Western Digital acquired the startup earlier this year.

All these attempts at blanket restrictions--however circumventable--give DRM a bad name. It's one thing to protect movies, television, and music. It's quite another to prevent consumers from sharing their own media files with others and in doing so, add more ammunition to the rising tide of anti-DRM sentiment.

AACS Key Changes, BD+ Confirmed - Sorta

An article in yesterday's WSJ all but confirmed that that latest Fox releases are protected by BD+, a second, virtual machine based security layer used by Blu-ray and not HD-DVD discs.

The WSJ article also noted that the AACS licensing authority has released a new key for AACS, the renewable encryption and authentication technology on both Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs. However, no press release has yet been posted on the AACS LA web site and neither Google News nor Yahoo could locate it elsewhere.

With respect to BD+, the WSJ article said:

Steve Feldstein, a spokesman for Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, said both HD-DVD and Blu-ray players occasionally have needed updates to play new discs, and urged customers to monitor manufacturer Web sites that distribute the fixes, known as firmware updates. "When these sort of glitches happen, they're resolved in...a week or two, once people realize they do need to use the firmware upgrades," he said.

Mr. Feldstein declined to confirm that BD+ was on the new discs, saying doing so would be an open invitation to hackers. He also said BD+ wasn't the cause of the playback problems.

Wink Wink.

 

Blu-ray Updates Including BD+ Support

The error screen shown in the Engadget blogicle on the need for firmware updates to support BD+ security on certain players points to the Fox web site (www.foxbd.com/cs), which is redirected to the Blu-ray customer support site. Links to the various hardware and software vendor support sites are aggregated there, although there are no explicit references to BD+.

Wesley Crusher Crushed By DirecTV HDMI Problem - Not

The blogosphere (e.g., Wired, P2PNet, and various comments appended thereto) was beginning to trash DirecTV and copy protection for HDTV signals. This following a post on Wil Wheaton's  blog indicating that his HDTV failed to work when connected to DirecTV through a HDMI interface. Instead of crystal clear TV, he got a nasty message on all channels saying:

This program includes content protection restricts viewing on the television attached to your DIRECTV receiver's HDMI connector.

Following a suggestion from one commentator to unplug all the devices and reconnect and restart everything, the problem disappeared and Wheaton was able to enjoy his favorite programs.

CableBox liberation and DRM

The long delayed requirement to allow consumers to purchase cable boxes will soon be upon us. Mark Fleichman has a useful posting on DigitalTrends.com regarding the July1 CableCARD requirements that also addresses DRM issues.

DRM Kills Battery Life

MP3.com says that DRAM reduces battery life for certain portable MP3 players. Snippet:

Those who belong to subscription services such as Napster or Rhapsody have it worse. Music rented from these services arrive in the WMA DRM 10 format, and it takes extra processing power to ensure that the licenses making the tracks work are still valid and match up to the device itself. Heavy DRM not only slows down an MP3 player but also sucks the very life out of them. Take, for instance, the critically acclaimed Creative Zen Vision:M, with a rated battery life of up to 14 hours for audio and 4 hours for video. CNET tested it at nearly 16 hours, with MP3s--impressive indeed. Upon playing back only WMA subscription tracks, the Vision:M scored at just more than 12 hours. That's a loss of almost 4 hours, and you haven't even turned the backlight on yet.

Blu-Ray

As is widely reported, Sony says that the PlayStation 3 (PS3) will be delayed until November. A Forbes article says that the stated reason having to do with copy protection technology in the Blu-ray next-gen DVD may not be the real reason for the delay.

But the supposed reason for the delay raises as many questions as it answers. In February, Sony signed off on the specifications for AACS, the Blu-Ray copy-protection standard, and was ready to make licensing agreements with content producers. At the CeBIT technology show in Germany last week, Sony said it would be shipping VAIO computers with built-in Blu-ray drives by mid-2006, so why would the PS3 Blu-ray implementation take so much longer? Other companies seem to be on schedule with regard to the copy protection in Blu-ray.

So what's going on? The Forbes article goes on to note:

There is a chance that today Sony could have been referring to another layer of copy protection beyond AACS. If the PS3 has a unique digital-rights-management technology that requires special encoding on the game discs, that could have caused the delay, as Sony would have to work out these details with each game maker. Either way, Sony hasn't specified, but there may be more clarification next Wednesday when Phil Harrison, president of worldwide studios at Sony Computer Entertainment, gives a keynote speech titled "PlayStation 3: Beyond the Box" at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif.

The licensing group for AACS is here; technical information on AACS can be found in a PDF here.

Intel's Legrande Security Coming to Home PCs - Not?

Writing in TG Daily, Wolfgang Gruener notes in a very informative article that Intel's Legrande security platform is unlikely to come to home PCs any time soon largely out of Intel's concerns around privacy implications. Snippets:

Studios Sue To Prevent DVD Regional Code Hacks

An article by Ken "Ceasar" Fisher on Ars Technica reports that several movie studios are suing Samsung for producing DVD players that enable circumvention of the regional player code. The RPC is used by the studios to support the release of a movie on DVD in different regions at different times in support of their world-wide marketing campaigns. The contents may differ in some respects by region as well for certain releases. In addition, the Samsung players in question may allow exporting of movies in HD format. Snippets:

Grundner's Modest Proposal On Interoperability

Alexander Grundner, editor and publisher of eHomeUpgrade, has posted a blogicle regarding interoperability of DRM systems. The core of his idea is this:

Why doesn't the industry come together (possibly with help from the CEA) to create a neutral, embedded clearinghouse firmware application that will enable media players to identify non-native DRM wrapped media along with the ability to download the proper codec and DRM restrictions applicable for playback?

Interoperability among rights management systems is technically a most tricky issue. And there are business model implications as well. Let me deal with these first.

Philips Auto Chip Includes DRM Support

Philips has announced that it's latest chip for supporting media applications in the automotive market will include for Digital Rights Management. Snippet:

Apple's New Media DRM and Distrribution system

ThinkSecret's Ryan Katz has an interesting article on what may be Apple's approach to video and other media content. Snippet:

In an effort to appease media companies wary of the security of digital rights management technology, Apple's new technology will deliver content such that it never actually resides on the user's hard drive. Content purchased will be automatically made available on a user's iDisk, which Front Row 2.0 will tap into. When the user wishes to play the content, robust caching technology -- for which Apple previously received a patent -- will serve it to the user's computer as fast as their Internet connection can handle. The system will also likely support downloading the video content to supported iPods but at no time will it ever actually be stored on a computer's hard drive.

Hollywood, Microsoft align on new Windows

John Borland's CNet article provides a very useful discussion of the DRM in MSFT's Vista operating system. Snippet:

Are MSFT and INTL Greedy?

Writing on HardwareAnalysis.com, Sander Sassen asserts that Microsoft and Intel are acting out of greed in their efforts to secure high definition video and other media content. Greed or smart business? I think the latter.

There is, by the way, nothing inherent in well-implemented rights management that prevents the rules associated with protected content to take into account many if not most "fair use" situations. The question is whether DRM technologies included in and/or layered on top of WinTel's DRM are sufficiently feature rich to enable those with rights in media content to define apparent fair uses, such as backup copies.

Snippets:

DVD Blue Lasers, DRM, Compression, etc

Mike Weston's semi-rant on blue laser DVDs and related issues is worth a read. Snippets:

Mac OS X For Intel Hacked, Runs On Any PC

According to this article in CRN, the Intel version of Apple's Mac OS X has been hacked and can be run on virtually any  Intel-architecture machine. Snippets:

Sony's PSP To Gain DRM

Joystiq says that the latest upgrade to Sony's PSP game machine will include DRM. Snippets:

Microsoft Buffeted By Criticism Over Vista DRM

This TechWeb / Yahoo article summarizes recent responses to various DRM components of Microsoft's Vista (nee Longhorn) OS.  Snippets:

Hollywood May Demand DRM For Large Drives

According to this Scott Fulton piece in Tom's Hardware Guide, Hollywood is concerned about huge disk drives coming to market in the not too distant future. Snippets:

Intel, Linux, and DRM

eWeek has an article on Intel's increasing support for the Linux operating systems that says:

DRM In Hardware

Tom's Hardware site has a useful article by Wolfgang Gruener on the need for consumers to understand DRM. The context is a discussion with graphic chip company ATI. Snippets:

Is DRM A Factor In the Apple Switch to Intel Chips?

A Wired article says that the interests of Hollywood and DRM for protecting video are among the reasons why Apple is strongly rumored to be announcing later today a switch from IBM-manufactured chips to those of Intel. Snippets:

More commentary on Intel and DRM

Last week I pointed to one article on Intel Pentium D's DRM support. Here are pointers to a couple of other stories.

UK's Digitmag says this

HTML Fix IT says Intel is "Sly"

Intel quietly ships Pentium D with DRM

According to Computerworld downunder, Intel has shipped its Pentium D  chip and related chip sets DRM enabled. Snippets:

Specialized Hardware Platforms

Silicon Valley watcher Tom Foremski says to look for the evolution from open platforms such as the PC to more market-specialized hardware platforms that bundle hardware, software, and content. I'm not sure that Foremski is right that consumers will resist buying PCs with chip-based security and DRM. Despite the bad mouthing, iPods are doing just fine. And I'm not sure most consumers would know the difference. At least some of the ones who do know may want the increased security including better identity management that comes with chip-based security.

Snippets:

Windows Chip-based Security and DRM

An article in the online edition of the San Antonio Express [registration may be required] reviews Microsoft's security plans for the next major release of the Windows operating system code named Longhorn. In my view,  DRM should be built from the chip up and when Longhorn finally gets here, system security will take a major step forward.  Snippets:

Longhorn is the first Windows version to implement Microsoft's vision of boosting security by placing cryptographic keys in special silicon chips that would be built into PCs. Currently, such encryption locks are stored as data on a hard drive. But it is much more difficult to crack a chip.

Can trusted computing hardware deliver security without locking out competition?

Microsoft announced its forward direction for hardware-based security. The Register's article is here. Snippets:

Secure Startup will combine full-volume encryption, integrity checks and the hardware-based Trusted Platform Module (TPM) to detect malicious changes to the computer and protect the user's data if the laptop is stolen, the software giant stated at its annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC). The Trusted Platform Module is a standards-based hardware design created by the Trusted Computing Group, of which Microsoft is a member.