Had an idea on how to defeat piracy of movies still in the theature

[Murloc]

cam rips are for retards anyway, this would be a waste of money.

 

[norseamd]

My idea is this, make a chip in all future cameras that pings every few seconds in a movie theater over a wifi like (not actual wifi but a special network for this purpose) the pings can be picked up by a special router which shows which room the pings are coming from then the staff could search the room with a device that pinpoints the pings and exposes the pirate. Just a thought. The camera would not ping anymore if it doesn't receive a ping back from the router.

so you would ruin all cameras just because you want to control movies most of the world never watches anyways

no

and i suppose you want to destroy any small company or amateur that would want to make cameras but might not put them in

and i also suppose you want to create a propietary standard that is controlled by a private business organization and scams fees out of producers while also trying to force them by law

profits by crony capitalism

 

[MongGrel]

Install and activate EMP randomly during the movie.

Had to chuckle.

:sneaky:

 

[sxr7171]

These old industries will fight tooth and nail to hold on their empires. Whether it's cable tv or the MPAA/RIAA.

This sort of thing has already been imposed on us before with all kinds of DRM we use. With the right lawyers they can force camera manufacturers to implement a location based technology that disables recording in certain perimeters. The tech has arrived with ibeacon, indoor positioning etc.

The problem here is that they need to enforce implementation in every theater a copy of a movie is sent to. And the implementation requires constant policing. Lest someone pulls a plug out somewhere.

A far better solution is to embed hidden data in the video image itself. This has been done already with "undetectable" watermarking of DVD audio. This watermark causes recording devices to enforce content rights. The requirement could be that every camera can read this watermark. Then the FW needs to be locked down. No more modded FW. Or this system must be hard coded into the image processing chips.

Given how protective these guys are I'm kind of surprised they haven't already done this.

I think closing this hole would be worth for them. But they need to contend with blu ray rips and I'm sure this move to 4k is what they want to have another stab at content protection. They will make whatever they use harder to break but as usual as long they distribute this content digitally one day someone will find a way around it.

They need to get clever about how to stay relevant. This means accepting they are going to need to be smaller more streamlined and less profitable. A certain segment of people of prime movie going age are going to find content without paying for it. Today's teenagers and college students are very computer savvy and cash strapped. It isn't like the 60s where you had to pay to watch the latest movie. That's never going to change here on forward. The only thing they can do is try to maintain the DRM for as long as they can and change formats. But 4k is reaching the limits of what people would consider a noticeable improvement. Just like CD -> SACD or DVD-A didn't catch on 4k -> 8k will be a hard sell.

 

[norseamd]

This sort of thing has already been imposed on us before with all kinds of DRM we use. With the right lawyers they can force camera manufacturers to implement a location based technology that disables recording in certain perimeters. The tech has arrived with ibeacon, indoor positioning etc.

apple has patents for shutting off phones or even disabling certain features

this has uses for ip but just as important this can be used to shut down citizens trying to monitor the government or companies and even meaningless shit

They need to get clever about how to stay relevant. This means accepting they are going to need to be smaller more streamlined and less profitable. A certain segment of people of prime movie going age are going to find content without paying for it. Today's teenagers and college students are very computer savvy and cash strapped. It isn't like the 60s where you had to pay to watch the latest movie. That's never going to change here on forward. The only thing they can do is try to maintain the DRM for as long as they can and change formats. But 4k is reaching the limits of what people would consider a noticeable improvement. Just like CD -> SACD or DVD-A didn't catch on 4k -> 8k will be a hard sell.

4k is a resolution not a standard

surprised no one tried to infringe ip on nonpatenable ideas

 

[chimaxi83]

OP, why do you hate freedom?

 

[leper84]

So instead of making things more difficult and expensive for your average consumer, why dont they make it cheaper and easier?

I remember having to constantly dick with 2-3 install discs and a cd key where if 1) you lost it you're s.o.l. and 2) sometimes you even had limited reinstalls. Then Steam came around and made it cheap as dirt and easy as hell. The only people who pirate PC games now days are the assholes who wouldn't pay even if they had limitless funds.

Same thing with the music industry. We went from a $20 12 track CD with maybe one or two good songs to services like Itunes, Amazon or Play store that let you select exactly what you want for a reasonable price; not to mention streaming services like Pandora. I can't remember the last time I heard your average, reasonable person talk about loading up pirate bay to download an album.

So instead of going all psycho with it, why not lower the damn price of tickets and give the consumer some added value that makes seeing the movie in a theater more attractive 100% of the time for your average consumer?

 

[mnewsham]

reasonable person talk about loading up pirate bay to download an album.

anyone in the 14-24 age group that is unemployed. Unless they can get mommy or daddy to pay for it. But usually kids just pirate because it's easier than talking to their parents for money.

 

[Exterous]

Install and activate EMP randomly during the movie.

:awe: That would take care of people using their phones during a movie to. Think of all the lives that would save!

 

[PliotronX]

:awe: That would take care of people using their phones during a movie to. Think of all the lives that would save!

Literally!

 

[sourceninja]

To me it's not the price of the ticket that keeps me out of theaters. It's the experience itself.

Typically dirty theaters, loud annoying people and seating too close together so I have someone's knee in my back for 3 hours. I have a 60 inch TV at home. I have food at home. I can watch the movie naked if I want to at home. Just let me buy the blueray on release.

By delaying the in-home experience you are limiting my sales. I will inevitably be given spoilers and reviews that keep me from buying that blueray disk and instead waiting for netflix.

 

[DigDog]

here is how you beat piracy.

shoot the film. pick a scene and shoot some additional footage.

release the demos to reviewers. each disc gets a couple frames added; each copy has different frames added.

wait a week, go to movie2k and watch your film, find the leak, prosecute.

 

[gorcorps]

My idea is this, make a chip in all future cameras that pings every few seconds in a movie theater over a wifi like (not actual wifi but a special network for this purpose) the pings can be picked up by a special router which shows which room the pings are coming from then the staff could search the room with a device that pinpoints the pings and exposes the pirate.
Just a thought.
The camera would not ping anymore if it doesn't receive a ping back from the router.

This idea has a lot of problems:

1.) The "staff" is full of a bunch of kids, who frankly don't care and aren't paid enough to have that kind of confrontation

2.) These cam videos aren't handheld, they're stable so they're at least on a tripod. It's easier for the staff to make random rounds and they'd find a tripod anyway (some theaters already have staff walk up and down the aisle as the movie starts).

3.) From some stories I've read, it's the staff that's filming and distributing anyway.

In short: you're adding costs to a consumer device for a purpose that 99.99% of people don't want or see a benefit for, and it doesn't even solve the problem it was designed to solve.

Don't quit your day job OP

 

[PliotronX]

here is how you beat piracy.

shoot the film. pick a scene and shoot some additional footage.

release the demos to reviewers. each disc gets a couple frames added; each copy has different frames added.

wait a week, go to movie2k and watch your film, find the leak, prosecute.

Fingerprinting has been tossed around almost since the Napster days, I wonder if it's actually in use. The problem with it being publicized is that the more readily known about the process, the less effective it will be as leakers will just take those frames, blur the watermark, crop the barcodes, etc..

 

[PottedMeat]

Fingerprinting has been tossed around almost since the Napster days, I wonder if it's actually in use. The problem with it being publicized is that the more readily known about the process, the less effective it will be as leakers will just take those frames, blur the watermark, crop the barcodes, etc..

the only place i've heard it used is for those oscar screeners - anywhere else?

 

[JulesMaximus]

I have never seen anyone with a camcorder in a movie theater.

 

[brainhulk]

I have never seen anyone with a camcorder in a movie theater.

They have micro cams now. Perfect for filming hidden sex tapes too

 

[poofyhairguy]

here is how you beat piracy.

shoot the film. pick a scene and shoot some additional footage.

release the demos to reviewers. each disc gets a couple frames added; each copy has different frames added.

wait a week, go to movie2k and watch your film, find the leak, prosecute.

They have done this for Oscar screeners for almost a decade. They even prosecute sometimes:

http://torrentfreak.com/man-faces-jail-for-uploading-oscar-screener/

Problem is that the window between a theater release and a digital release (ala DVD, Blu Ray, or iTunes) is getting shorter than ever, so the value of these review screeners is lower than ever:

http://www.wired.com/2012/01/oscar-screener-battle/

The problem for the industry isn't cam rips, or even telecines (which BTW completely gets around the whole "ruin the camera" idea). The problem is that NO form of digital drm is ever effective, nor are the laws that protect digital DRM effective.

 

[rudder]

How much money did captain america make over the weekend? The movie industry needs to worry more about the piracy overseas.

 

[DrPizza]

here is how you beat piracy.

shoot the film. pick a scene and shoot some additional footage.

release the demos to reviewers. each disc gets a couple frames added; each copy has different frames added.

wait a week, go to movie2k and watch your film, find the leak, prosecute.

I was thinking much the same thing. Since most theaters are going to digital, I don't think it would be hard to embed a code into the movie (that would transfer over to tape) similar to how data can be embedded into jpegs, etc. Find the leaked copies, and investigate to determine the origin. Since it's digital, it would be relatively effortless to do this. Though, with extra frames, it might be more difficult as that could (not sure how all the encoding works) unsynchronize the sound.

In fact, I'm surprised they don't already do this. I'd suspect that it's not a widespread problem - just a problem at a small handful of places. Determine the locations, and threaten that if they don't tighten their security, they won't be getting any more movies from any of the MPAA affiliated companies.

edit: this tab was open the last few hours while I sold a car. I see poofy already answered this.

Though, I find it amazing that the watermark that they put on the films CAN be discovered and removed by someone; seems that it should be able to be done in such a manner that it's impossible to detect.

 

[lupi]

Yes, because I'd want anything I bought cost a couple bucks more for a purpose that it would never be suitable for.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Though, I find it amazing that the watermark that they put on the films CAN be discovered and removed by someone; seems that it should be able to be done in such a manner that it's impossible to detect.

Some watermarks are that way. Such as cinavia for example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinavia

It is pretty hard to scrub cinavia out of a video. Instead most pirates just avoid devices that look for it (just like they would do with the camera suggestion in OP).

The issue is making a watermark that survives all common forms of media transfer that is unique to every theater that gets a copy of the movie. It gets to a point that the resources needed to prevent piracy from that angle isn't worth it when the whole thing will be on the net the second it hits iTunes anyway.

In the cases of Oscar screeners there were so few that unique watermarks were worth the time and effort, but for general release movies it is not.

I mean, maybe they would be doing that if CAM releases were still a big deal but they are not. CAMs mattered more back in the early 00's when people still had SD tvs so who cares if the quality is crap?

In 2014, most pirates wait until they can get a pristine copy of a movie (that they might then ruin with re-encoding but that is another issue).

 

[Fayd]

Though, I find it amazing that the watermark that they put on the films CAN be discovered and removed by someone; seems that it should be able to be done in such a manner that it's impossible to detect.

write a script that compares frame by frame two versions of the same movie from different sources. I don't imagine this is all that difficult. they probably use interchangeable key frames throughout the video and change one or two per review copy. that way, sound doesn't come unsynced.

 

[BurnItDwn]

you want to reduce piracy, how about
1.) Make it easier to watch non-pirated version of the movie
2.) Make it less expensive to watch non-pirated version of the movie
3.) Make movies that are unique/new. People will feel ripped off if they pay to see a copycat of another movie that they already saw.

 

[RelaxTheMind]

a little inside secret. a lot of the new digital film projectors have outputs. when is the last time you saw a movie theater employee that really gave a shit.