Fuckin... just fuckin unbelievabail DVD copyright bullshit

[Darth Wong]

What (sending excrement) would do would be to reinforce the image that Sony executives doubltess already have about people who are opposed to this kind of DRM, that of them, essentially, being trash. As I see it, only trashy people, and biologists, put excrement in the mail.

If you think Sony is not interested in the "trashy people" demographic, you have obviously not seen Resident Evil, Pumpkinhead, Bad Boys II, XXX, or White Chicks, among other fine high-class presentations from Sony Pictures.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Hamel, your picture wants an FTP login before it will display.

My FTP space seems to have gone to shit. Never did that before. Gotta use ol retarded photobucket

edit: Fuck that, go to this page, it has a picture of the symbol you'd need to look for.

I have a bunch of DVDs from distributors other than Sony (Fox, WB, Universal) that have that symbol and were released since 2005 and haven't had a single problem with them in either of my players. The symbol seems to be an effort by the MPAA to add new awareness to copy-protection that's always existed.

My guess is that the incompatibility issue isn't connected to the symbol, but is something else being done by Sony.

[Stark]

Well, the symbol is 'voluntary', to indicate presence of copy-protection - not a specific form of copy-protection. Perhaps it's just a common symbol, and the disks that have problems with some players are using some particular form of copy-protection.

[Psycho Smiley]

Apparently, the problem is a new version of the ARCCOS system, which relies on deliberately corrupted sectors. If your player doesn't understand and follow the instructions to skip them, the DVD won't work.

[Loner]

Likely suspect.

[RThurmont]

If you think Sony is not interested in the "trashy people" demographic, you have obviously not seen Resident Evil, Pumpkinhead, Bad Boys II, XXX, or White Chicks, among other fine high-class presentations from Sony Pictures.

Perhaps watching their own films has turned Sony executives into hateful misanthropes who seek to exact revenge on their imagined version of the populace via DRM schemes such as this. Or am I being too kind?

At any rate, I maintain that sending excrement in the mail is repulsive and disgusting (unless you're sending the excrement to facilitate scientific or medical testing), although I do also assume (hope) that you were joking.

[Kamakazie Sith]

What crime would that be? Bio-terror?

LOL I doubt it, but it could fall under a number of other crimes under both state, and federal.

Maybe I shouldn't laugh; knowing the Bush Administration's combination of asinine "anti-terror" laws and rabid pro-corporatism, that might actually work.

Something tells me that the Bush Administration would make those laws far harsher, but I doubt they would be the first to write into the law making the malicious mailing of feces illegal.

[Darth Servo]

Damn. I'm going to go check my collection right now.

[Davis 51]

*Checks Limited Edition Box Set copy of FFVII: Advent Children.*

*Sees symbol*

Strangely enough, this DVD ran fine on my computer. Must be a generic symbol.

*Checks list of DVD's with ARccOS protection.*

Even stranger, it lists the R2 version of FFVII:AC has ARccOS protection.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

*Checks Limited Edition Box Set copy of FFVII: Advent Children.*

*Sees symbol*

Strangely enough, this DVD ran fine on my computer. Must be a generic symbol.

I've gone through my collection and have found about a dozen with that new MPAA copy protection symbol, all released between 2005 and now, and I've never had an issue with any of them on either of our stand-alone players (though for the record we don't play many DVDs on PCs):

Batman Begins 2-disc (WB)
The Fly (80s version) 2-disc (Fox)
The 40 Year Old Virgin Unrated (Universal)
King Kong (1933) 2-disc (WB)
King Kong (2005) Extended Edition (Universal)
Land of the Dead Unrated (Universal)
Mighty Joe Young (WB)
Planet of the Apes Ultimate DVD Collection (Fox)
Son of Kong (WB)
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (Fox)
Walt Disney Treasures - The Chronological Donald, Volume 2 (Buena Vista)
Walt Disney Treasures - Disney Rarities (Buena Vista)
Wizard of Oz 3-disc (WB)

Plus there's probably a bunch of family-owned ones with it that I can't get to at the moment.

Never had a problem with any of them, so the symbol isn't the issue. If it was there would have been some commotion going on a couple years ago.

[RThurmont]

The symbol probably aludes to the CSS, in that case. No clue as to why they only started labelling DVDs with it a few years ago, however.

[Magus]

A disk is a static medium - for it not to play, either the drive itself (unlikely) or the software you're using to run it needs to conform to the "standard." In short - get a new piece of software.

[weemadando]

Illegal. In. Australia. Aaaah. It feels GOOOOOD to say that. When Sony pulled that shit with CDs here it got fucked off quick smart. Can't say that I'd be surprised if they tried it again though.

[Arrow]

Going slightly off topic here, it looks like AACS is done, according to Ars.

Only a few days after Corel issued a WinDVD update to close the hole opened by AACS hackers, the folks at the Doom9 forums sent word that they have found yet another way around the copy protection for high definition discs. This time, the method involved the Xbox 360's HD DVD add-on drive to capture the "Volume Unique Keys" as they were being read by the drive itself. Rather than just point out the crack, we're going to take a closer look at how this crack was accomplished, because one of the hackers involved in the crack says that it's more or less unstoppable.
Related Stories

* Corel updates WinDVD to stop AACS hackers
* Blu-ray, HD DVD crack becomes a crevice
* Hacking Digital Rights Management
* HD DVD reportedly cracked, but difficult to verify

The latest attack vector bypasses the encryption performed by the Device Keys—the same keys that were revoked by the WinDVD update—and the so-called "Host Private Key," which as yet has not been found. This was accomplished by de-soldering the HD DVD drive's firmware chip, reading its contents, and then patching it. Once that was done, the firmware was soldered back onto the drive.

Despite the technical difficulty of performing this hack, it does offer some advantages in the race to beat AACS copy protection. "They cannot revoke this hack," said forum member arnezami, who has been at the center of much of the AACS cracking recently. "No matter how many Private Host Keys they revoke we will still be able to get Volume IDs using patched xbox 360 HD DVD drives."

In addition to being irrevocable, the hack has the potential to make future decryption even easier. "This hack/technique enables us to figure out how the Volume ID is stored on the disc," arnezami explained. "It's very possible we would figure out [...] how the KCD is stored on the disc. Knowing that and being able to teach a PC drive how to read a KCD will open the door for what I called third-generation decryption."

While this type of decryption (reading keys directly off a PC drive by sidestepping part of the encryption process) is still not a reality, it may not be too far off. The main issue is the cost of purchasing standalone high-def players by the hackers, but as prices for these come down, this problem will slowly go away.

Although AACS has proven much more difficult to fully crack than the copy protection on regular DVDs, it is unlikely to remain only partially cracked for very long. The real problem with trying to create an "uncrackable" copy protection is that the media must come with the keys used to decrypt it somewhere on the device and the media itself. Hiding these keys in different places—security by obscurity—merely delays the inevitable. Of course, for the content providers, any delay is still better than no delay at all, so expect the battles between copy protection and hackers to continue.

Emphasis mine; the hackers got to the hardware, so stick a fork in it.

The last paragraph is really funny. The content provides have to realize that "if you can see it, you can steal it", so all these multibillion dollar protection schemes are ultimately worthless. At what point does the copy protection become so outrageously expensive, and/or so intrusive to the consumer, that the industry finally gives up?

Edit to remove gloating.

[andrewgpaul]

Someone should file a class-action lawsuit. It is absolutely ridiculous that the company can pretend that a tiny little "do not copy" symbol is a reasonable warning to the consumer that the disc has been crippled so that it might not play in all DVD players.

In fact, the use of the official DVD logo may be fraudulent in this case. The DVD logo is not just a pretty symbol; it denotes compliance to the DVD standard, and these discs are not in compliance with that standard.

I believe Philips have already insisted on this in the case of some copy-protected CDs. I don't know who owns the DVD trademark; I'd suggest contacting them, but I doubt they'd care.

Someone really should point out to Sony the hypocrisy of selling both copy-protected discs and DVD-burners

[Spanky The Dolphin]

I believe Philips have already insisted on this in the case of some copy-protected CDs. I don't know who owns the DVD trademark; I'd suggest contacting them, but I doubt they'd care.

The DVD Forum, and I believe they would care, since what Sony seems to be doing most likely violates the format's compatibility standards.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

This popped up on the IMDb's Studio Briefing today:

Sony Films Won't Play on Sony DVD Players, Say Reports

Complaints have begun appearing on some tech websites that copyright-protection coding on new releases from Sony, including Stranger Than Fiction, The Holiday, Casino Royale, and The Pursuit of Happyness, has made them unplayable on certain DVD players. One person complained on an Amazon.com discussion board that when inserted in Sony's DVP-CX995V player, the disks "load up to the splash title screen and then load no further, then after about 60 secs the player turns itself off!" The writer said that when he contacted Sony he was told that the company was aware of the problem and that it was working on a firmware update. The writer then asked Sony, "Would it not be a good idea to test changes you intend to make on your DVDs at least on your own equipment so that if you find a problem you could have the firmware update available instead of not only inconveniencing, but alienating your own customers?"

http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2007-04-16/#film3

[RThurmont]

As an update on this, Sony has apparently solved the problem (by offering to replace the disks).

So I would encourage all of you to review the details contained there, and call the 1-800 number that is provided ASAP.

If this is in fact a true resolution (as opposed to the initial "resolution" of the rootkit scandal in 2005), I would rather hope that no one went to the lengths of shipping any dog poop to them.