News AACS group will fight bloggers

> Our servers are currently based in the USA

Good grief, why?

For exactly this reason it's worth avoiding.

Pardon me for assuming you'd been bright.

Phil

 

I find it odd at Bit-tech is hosted in the US. Any particular reason for that?

 

anything the AACS makes will be cracked in a matter of days.

 

Its cheaper ?

 

See, I'm torn here. I'm against the methods, scare-tactics and lawsuits several organizations use to protect their property, but I'm also in favor of their right to protect their property. I just wish the community and the organizations could find a middle-ground.

It seems the 1337 h4xzz0rz people are out there destroying all forms of copyright protection that comes their way like they have an entitlement and distribute ways to illegally obtain properties to stick it to the RIAA, MPAA, etc. In turn, these organizations just introduce newer, tougher, more intrusive forms of copyright protection. Caught in the middle are dudes like me who just want to watch a stupid movie. I understand that a lot of these crackers are trying to help get rid of the bane that is DRM, but they have to realize that the more aggressive they become, the more aggressive the organizations' DRM is going to become.

Ultimately I side against the big organizations because instead of attacking the problem they are suing 12 year old girls. They are trying to swat a fly with a rocket launcher. There's no reason multi-billion dollar organizations should be suing single moms for $5,000 because her kid downloaded a Fallout Boy song. Their entire handling of the problem has been a complete flop, and instead of trying come up with an appreciable solution they are just getting more and more arrogant and making their DRM more and more intrusive, and ultimately, that hurts the consumer.


*off-topic*

For some reason this reminds me of that guy who stole credit card information from the Cyber Cafe thing to try and stick it to Valve. He acts like some kind of robin hood and holds innocent peoples' credit card info hostage and tells Valve he's trying to help them by forcing them to update their security. As far as I'm concerned that guy belongs behind bars. I guess what I'm getting at is you can't kick a man in the balls for no reason and then say "should have been wearing a cup."

 

But it cost the hackers nothing but time and some experience to destroy the rubbish and intrusive DRM methods introduced by these big companies, but it costs them millions to develop new ones.

So one day they will give up - or so I hope.

 

Sooo...; they're going to sue everyone on the tubes?

 

It's at the same time funny and aggravating that AACS thinks the DMCA is enforceable all around the world and in every country that has a single PC with an Internet connection...

...but still, I don't think that's the crux of the matter. The key is in the wild (kudos to the Doom9 guys), AACS is already dead, people will be able to make their back-ups, watch HD movies on Linux and copy HD media until their 10 Tb HDD claim for mercy. The hackers have stuck it to the man, another battle against DRM has been won and we should all be glad for it. But posting the now infamous 09 key, knowing very well than you are protected by anonymity and that the one who is going to feel the heat are [insert yout favourite web site/forum/blog here] owners and administrators is a mistake.

If you are against DRM feel free to talk about it, write your politicians, vote with your wallet and be as vocal about it as you want. I don't think anybody is going to stop that on BT or any "techie" site. But by posting a key here you aren't encouraging any anti-DRM stance, just like those thousands of brave
armchair guerrillas that may have put the nail on digg.com's coffin while fighting "the man" from their PC's in their parent's basement. I'm glad it happened as it has made the common citizen more aware of DRM...but I don't really have digg.com in "My Favorites". Those that do, should be ready to see it sued to death really soon, and for what? For making public an hexadecimal key that is of no use to most outside the Doom9 forums? A key that, in case somebody doesn't still know, was already public in February and was easily available to those with the technical knowledge to make something useful out of it (like a future HD-DVD Shrink or BD Decrypter) which most of us aren't.

Heck, start your own blog and post the key if you feel so strongly about it, but if you do, do it somewhere where you are the one legally responsible of what's posted there. And I encourage you to read your local, enforceable intellectual property law before. Even if the DMCA is not enforceable where you live, many IP laws have lately started to make illegal the use, possession or publicity of anti-DRM systems be they cracks, keys or passwords. And make no mistake about it, it's not a matter of numbers being copyrighted as it's been said. It's a matter of those precise hexadecimal numbers, in that precise order are a mean to bypass a DRM system. You would have a hard time convincing a judge than posting them wasn't done with the intention of bypassing AACS encryption, making you liable and vulnerable to a sue.

 

And if you're in nations where such frivolus laws don't apply, can you simply flip them the bird in the very same way that TPB so proudly did?

 

Why not ?

 

It's just gonna hurt the consumer. Those of us that want to purchase our products will end up paying more for it. These guys whose life goal is to destroy these organizations for the good of the consumer are ultimately just hurting the consumer more.

 

The purpose of finding that key was to allow playback in Linux!

The movie companies didn't want HD stuff to be used on Linux

 

How will non-DRM products hurt the consumer ? In the long run, they will save millions that would otherwise have gone to R&D or licensing said DRM products.

The market will settle itself once DRM is gone from the picture.

I will buy original HD stuff, but I want to be able to play it any way I want for my personal use.

 

I think it hurts the consumer because the more these big companies spend trying to develope stronger DRM, the more these movies will cost. I don't think these companies will stop trying to develop stronger protection anytime soon. As long there noone in the movie business pushing for non DRM products they will never be under pressure do so. They will keep throwing money at the issue and will raise the prices we pay to make up for it.

 

Should DRM ever be discontinued, prices still wont drop. We'll hear some reason like "Savings from DRM research are being used to offset lost revenues now that our products are easier to copy," or something equally BS

 

Wishful thinking and far from reality. If studios had their way, every single piece of media would be ridden with DRM. You would have to purchase different copies of the same film/music/tv series to watch it on DVD, PC, iPOD etc. If it weren't for DVDJon and DeCSS, nobody could rip their DVDs to iPods or PSPs.

That would only be the first step though. HD media would probably have an Internet connection as a prerequisite and you'll likely end up going through micro payments (or not so "micro") every time you wanted to watch your media.

Since the advent of digital content and the Internet, the studios have an ultimate goal, a pay-per-view business model for all your media. DRM isn't there to stop piracy at all (even them know that's impossible), but to lock users into buying the same media several times.

 

Perhaps they should stop investing money in something that is defective by design?

DRM is inherently broken. As long as your eyes can see it and your ears hear it, you can copy it. And whenever you sell somebody a digital copy, you are selling him a "master" copy that can be theoretically replicated an infinite number of times without any loss in quality. Encryption doesn't work...as it has just been showed, you can't give somebody the message, the cypher and the key and expect it to stay encrypted for any significant amount of time.

Studios could as well make a pyre with all that money and rise prices with the excuse that "it keeps the artists warm" and it wouldn't make less sense.

 

If the prices are not going to drop then I would much rather have them without the DRM.