DRM, Fair Use, HDCP and Vista, Part 1

This started off as a series of posts over in the Over Clocking Union. I've put it all together here because I think it would be good to have it all in one place.

This is just a quick primer to give you a little background on the where and why of some of the related DRM technologies and why some people do and don't want it.

Lets get some basics out first. 2k and 4k.
Movie production has moved pretty fully into the digital domain. The original film (when film is used) is scanned in at what's known as 2k or 4k. These are short hand for basic resolution. 2k and 1920x1080 are pretty close resolutions. 4k as you might imagine is higher end. I'm keep this general because the detail specs don't really matter.

An average movie is done at 2k, a high end, quality matters gets done at 4k. Spiderman 2 as an example was (if I remember correctly) scanned in at 4k, but due to cost, the effects were done at 2k as an example.

HD-DVD and BluRay allow movies (HD movie for short) to be displayed at 1920x1080 which as stated above is pretty closed to 2k. The primary difference is that the HD movie has been compressed by one of several potential codecs which reduces quality slightly but at a level that should be tolerable or even unnoticeable to the user.

If you were to release a HD movie using standard DVD encryption then movie pirates would have a near perfect quality copy of the movie. This near pefect movie could then be pressed and sold around the world and would rob the studio of profits. The more money a movie makes the more likely it will have a sequel or at least allow the people that produced the movie to go out and make another one.

So, copy-protection is important at some level to discourage. That level is of course up to much debate.

Copy-protection in it's basic form is a method simply used to discourage a user from making a casual copy of an item. As an example, DVD copy protection was broken years ago. As such, many DVDs end up on torrent sites and if you want a movie, you don't have to pay for it, but you run risk of violating law and being fined or doing jail time.

Most movies are below $30US at release and the price falls from that point on. After several years many movies can be had for less than $5. Even though DVD protection has been broken, movies are still sold every day and a large revenue stream is created from them.

The average user (that means NOT you if you are coming here) cannot copy a DVD without a level of effort. Therefore if they want to see a movie, they must rent or purchase it.

Audio CDs do not have copy protection, as such it is much easier for them to be copied. Audio CD sales have slid. Some argue that it's a lack of quality material being released, others argue that it's the lack of copy protection. Regardless, the lack of protection has made it much easier for people to copy audio cds and from casual observation on my part, less technical users are able to do it easily and they do share purchased content. One purchase as an example might be shared with three or four family members. However would the original content have been purchased by each person if they could not casually copy materials is open to debate. It would seem that there would at least be an increased chance that more content could have been sold.

Generally, legal content purchasers are older and have more disposable income. Content copiers tend to be younger, with less income, however more of it is considered disposable and they are a highly targeted demographic.

Note, this can also be broken down into nations and regions but this gets very political very quickly. China as an example has had an issue with piracy. Average income in China vs. average income in the US is an interesting comparison. There are many wealthy Chinease however there are huge numbers of poor which causes the statistic to skew dramatically. As such is seems understandable that a movie that sells initially for $30 US might sell for $1 in China. I'm going to use China as an example, but this should in now way imply any negative statement, it's simply an easy example.

With this in mind, content-industires (I'll say Hollywood from here forward as it is a good example). Want to discourage casual copying and would prefer to stop all copying.

A simple economic example:
Movie X gets made. The cost for it is $100 Million. In theatres the movie makes $100 Million so they have broken even. They have not lost or made money.

The movie was also copied from a theatrical showing. This copy is of lower quality than the film. Regardless within hours it is now in available for sale in China. Several versions are available. One which is done with subtitles and one has a native language voice over. The second one represent an added value and sells for more in order to pay for the workers in China who did the voice over. Hollywood in this case has made no money from this transaction and actually considers this a loss of potential revenue.

A period of time passes and the DVD version of the movie is released. This creates the first real profit for the movie. And now the studio's investment is beginning to earn money. At the same time, this DVD is copied an released in China. Again, there is a subtitle version and the native language version. The DVD represent a significant increase in quality over the original movie and sales will continue.

There are ways to combat this. This is where DRM comes in, but first the alternative method is to sell the movie in China on DVD with the hollywood version of native-language at the same time as the film first release. This would allow for legitimate sales. Hollywood is starting to do this. It has it's own issues, but it does help create a climate where piracy declines.


DRM::

So, the other way is to make copy protection that cannot be 'cracked' in the history of man, very few encryption systems have not been broken. All 'digital' encryptions systems are flawed in that brute force can over time yield the orginal content. The time taken to do this however can be extreme which would render the content no longer valuable. If a copyright on a work lasts 100 years, but it takes 101 years to break the encryption then the movie would have been free at this point anyway).

The other flaw is that content must be decrypted and the method for decrypting can be discovered. DVDs were cracked because the decryption system was easily visible in the Xing decoding software. Once the methodology was discovered multiple decryption keys were discovered (not present in the Xing software). This meant that it was no longer feasilble to encrypt in such a way that only the Xing key would no longer function.

As an HD-Movie is considered to be of very high quality there is an even greater concern over the potential for copying. This has given rise to DRM.

DRM means either Digital Rights Management or Digital Restriction Management depending on who you talk to. Your rights in the case of DRM are restricted to only playing certain content in certain devices in certain ways.

In order to enforce DRM the content must be protected typically via encryption to prevent you from having unrestricted access to the content.

DRM may specify that unless a playback device is certified end to end (media goes in, movie is displayed) it may only be viewable in a restricted form. That form can be reduced quality, both in the form of picture resolution and sound quality.

In order for unknown compontents to be certified, they must meet certain standards so that high quality end to end play back can be achieved. In the case of HD movies, the restriction is that in no way should the data be accessible in an unencrypted form until it's final display. In this case, on your HD viewing device (1080p monitor as an example).

This may mean that the chips on the motherboard cannot have exposed pins, or points of electrical contact that might allow a user to extract a digital signal. (This is an actual specification.) DVI as an example is not a valid connection as the un-encoded data is available for recording and the recorded data can be easily reconstructed back into an unencrypted video file. HDMI is also not valid as well for the same reasons.

HDCP basically (as I understand) continues to pass an encrypted signal to the display device. The device then decrypts the display in such a way that the signal is no longer reconstructbale, or that the effort of doing so far exceeds to value of doing it.


The issue the becomes what happens when the certified chain is broken. In some cases, this means that certain unencrypted output points are disabled. In other cases it may mean that quality of these outputs is severely degraded. If your 1080p display cannot accept HDCP input then your 1080p display may not have any display advantage over a similar sized 640x480 display.

Consumer reaction to this will most likely create a large level of dissatisfaction. Increased consumer disatisfaction can lead to a technology failing.The failing of a technology such as HD movies means a significant delay before users with higher end display systems can take advantage of those displays and that results in a general economic slow down in the industry which in turn stifles innovation.

The question then comes down to how much DRM is enough?

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Next is about Vista and DRM. I don't really think MS is trying to kill PC gaming, I just think they are shooting themselves in the foot and the end result could be they do kill off PC gaming.