p2pnet - rss feed: Bollywood ’secret’ DRM tactic
p2p news / p2pnet: A film maker in India believes he’s hit on the perfect DRM (Digital Restriction Management) solution.
Hide secret coding in “every single print,” suggests producer Firoz A Nadiadwala, quoted by the Times of India.
Along with California governor Arnold Schwarzenneger, Jackie Chan’s current role is as an MPAA advance man and as such, he, “complained about the bane of piracy in the film industry all over the world,” says the story. “On Friday, his lament was echoed by producer Firoz A. Nadiadwala.”
The major movie studios are reporting eye-popping revenues in the mega-billions, their highest-ever. At the same time, fronted by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), they say they’re being ruined by counterfeiters, whom they call pirates, and file sharers, whom they call thieves. They know they can’t beat p2p, so they’re trying to enjoin it.
The use of p2p technologies would solve many, if not most, of their physical sales and distribution problems in a digital world, a reality it seems they’re at long last coming to accept, luring BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen to the Dark Side as their first move.
Over in India, Nadiadwala is banking on DRM saying he, “borrowed the expertise of a Los Angeles-based specialist to secret code every single print that left the film laboratory,” says the Times.
Hmmm. Who could that be? And would the ’secret code’ be similar to the disastrous DRM spyware Sony BMG put on its music CDs? - one also wonders.
“If anyone duplicates a print, anywhere in the world, we will be able to catch the culprit immediately,” the story has Nadiadwala boasting.
Dream on, Mr Nadiadwala.
Meanwhile, the entertainment industry’s day as the Ultimate Consumer Controller is done.
Organized Music in the shape of Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal, Warner Music and EMI are trying to cram the genie back in the bottle with iMesh and Mashboxx, principally, as the stoppers. Peer Impact, pale and wan, doesn’t enter the equation.
Now the Not-So-Magnificent-Seven,Walt Disney Company, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal City Studios and, Warner Bros Entertainment Inc, hope to do the same, with BiTorrent as the plug, and Cohen as their dupe.
The Kiss of Death
However, it’s far too little. And far too late. The Big Four record labels are pinning all their hopes on the likes of Apple’s iTunes with its pitifully small (compared to what’s happening on the p2p networks) number of devoted users. But we know of at least three new allofmp3-type sites a-building, and you can bet there are others in the planning stages.
Organized Music is in fact thoroughly disorganized, doomed by its own ineptness as epitomized by the contents of a secret Australian court document, exclusively exposed by p2pnet.
In addition, for the first time, the Organized Music family is facing competition in the form of independent musicians who, thanks to the Net, are making themselves effectively heard, and loudly.
The major indie p2p file sharing companies may be lawyered into compromises with the labels, but behind them are legions of developers who’ll fill any vacuums created by the forced compliance of the commercial p2p companies.
Back in the film world, Hollywood flics costing millions of dollars to produce and featuring grotesquely overpaid ’stars’ have just become irrelevant.
The raging success of Finland’s Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning shows what a team of dedicated enthusiasts who know the Net can do.
Eminently affordable, easily (and quickly) downloadable, excellent quality, digital movies made by the new waves of indie film makers, coupled with 21st century online distribution techniques, represent the kiss of death for Hollywood.
And the only ones who’ll mourn its demise will be its shareholders.
Jon Newton - p2pnet
Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local political representatives. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance.
Also read-
Times of India - Producer uses ’secret code’ to fight piracy, November 27, 2004
bane of piracy - Schwarzenegger in MPAA movie, November 18, 2005
Dark Side - BitTorrent, Hollywood team up, November 23, 2005
secret Australian court document - Big Music Kazaa blunder: II, November 26, 2005
raging success - Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning, November 22, 2005
November 27th, 2005 at 6:47 pm
“And the only ones who’ll mourn its demise will be its shareholders”
I love that last line. sums it all up. Secret DRM? it’ll be broken in 30 minutes by a talented geek.
November 27th, 2005 at 6:58 pm
Yep, what a man can do, a man can un-do. The world has millions of talented people to undo any kind of copy protection.
November 27th, 2005 at 7:14 pm
This ’secret code’ scheme isn’t even DRM. It won’t prevent people from making copies of the work. It amounts to just put serial numbers on the prints.
Mr. Nadiadwala boasted, “If anyone duplicates a print, anywhere in the world, we will be able to catch the culprit immediately.” So Mr. Nadiadwala, how is this ’secret code’ going to track down the culprit when it’s on a print that is stolen one dark night from the studio or a freelancer working on it (a la ‘Sith’)? Hide an RFID chip in it somewhere? GPS-enabled celluloid? Or perhaps ‘Flick-Jack’, similar to a Lo-Jack, only it tracks down purloined movies instead of automobiles?
The principal difficulty with developing effective DRM is that it’s a complex solution to preventing a computer from doing something that it does virtually perfectly and incredibly efficiently: Copying an arbitrary length string of 0s and 1s from one location to another.
November 28th, 2005 at 6:16 am
who the fuck cares about india?
November 28th, 2005 at 9:30 am
Let me guess… you must be from the U.S.A., right?
November 28th, 2005 at 12:38 pm
I might be wrong, but this just sounds like the ‘digital watermark’ used in award ceremony preview copies of films. Especially since they talk about tracing the people who make the copy.
November 29th, 2005 at 10:15 am
what i’d like to know is what person would be stupid enuff to even download his movie? he makes worse shit than a horse, pig and diarrhoea suffering monkey combined. they’re just copies of shitty hollywood movies made even more shittier (if that were possible) by his “adaptation for indian audiences” *tries to induce vomiting*
he’d be better off spending all that money in a scriptwriter.
April 1st, 2006 at 12:24 pm
January 8th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Hats off, I hope he is reading. well maybe someone ought to tell him, what a waste. The movies come and go. no remembrance. but hats of to those who actually pay to watcch that stuff