Managing Rights Management

Will BD+ Be Hacked In The Near Future? Slysoft Says Yes

The blogosphere is alive with the songs of BD+ being hacked by Slysoft. This noncommital note from Engadget's Darren Murph is an example of reasonable "wait and see." Others are more enthusiastic about Slysoft's comments, for example this posting on CDFreaks.com, which quotes Slysoft as follows: To prove them right... Read more →

Watermark Related Patents Issued

Both of today's issued patents concern the use of watermarking. Assigned to the University of Rochester (NY), the first describes techniques for data hiding via phase manipulation of audio signals. Assigned to Inventec Appliances (Taiwan), the second describes ways of protecting the copyright of digital video works in part by... Read more →

Adobe, Does DRM Increase Company Valuations?

Rethink is a London based market research and consulting firm whose publications I've been reading for a while. In a word: smart. Their article, "Will Adobe drive the biggest deployment of DRM clients in history?" is one of the few must read pieces I've seen in some time. They suggest... Read more →

Microsoft blocks FairUse4WM v2

So says George Ou: Just over a year ago when hacker “Viodentia” wrote FairUse4WM and broke Microsoft’s Windows Media DRM scheme wide open, Microsoft responded with record urgency in a mere 3 days. But when Viodentia came back as “Divine Tao” and wrote a second major revision of FairUse4WM this... Read more →

Watermarking Patent Applications

Recently published patent applications often indicate what individuals or companies are thinking about and perhaps how DRM and related technologies may be evolving. Both of today's applications deal with aspects of watermarking. The first discloses techniques for remote control signaling using audio watermarks and is assigned to Verance. The second... Read more →

Comcast Admits Delaying Some Traffic While Confessing to Some Blocking

In response to accusations by the Associated Press and EFF that it interrupts certain P2P traffic on its network, Comcast denied blocking BitTorrent traffic. Instead, the nations largest ISP said that it employs traffic shaping technologies to manage bandwidth during peak traffic times. According to the Associated Press, however, a... Read more →

Watermarking Patents Issued

Both of today's issued patents deal with watermarking. The first addresses techniques and devices for packet watermarking and efficient provisioning of bandwidth, Scott Moskovitz, Inventor. The second, no assignee given, describes ways of embedding additional information in document data. 7,287,275, "Methods, systems and devices for packet watermarking and efficient provisioning... Read more →

AP Confirms Comcast's P2P Filter

The Associated Press reports tests confirming that Comcast interfers with P2P subscriber traffic. Additional tests indicate that Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, and a business class connection to AP headquarters did not interfere with the same P2P file transfers. The article suggests that Comcast is using technologies from Sandvine to interfere... Read more →

Forworld Electronics Co., Ltd. Added To BD+ Adopters List

Taiwan-based Forworld Electronics Co., Ltd. has been added to the list of companies who have signed the BD+ System Adopter Agreement with the BD+ licensing entity. BD+ is a second security layer (in addition to AACS) for Blu-ray discs. Read more →

User Generated Content Principles

The copyright principles issued by a coalition of media companies is published here. Read more →