2008, the year D.R.M. hits your T.V. December 7, 2007
Recently many television subscribers have started worrying about whether or not they will continue getting what they pay for. High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) has begun rolling out through many service providers and could be in use very soon. While this will only apply for premium channels and pay-per-views for now, who knows where it could extend. The service providers can not really be blamed for this as they all have contracts they have to abide by if they wish to continue providing channels to their customers. The content providers have mandated this protection if the service provider wishes to continue showing their channels or pay per-view-movies.First an introduction to the various DRM schemes that are in use. For those of you who are already aware of these feel free to skip ahead. In the digital realm we have HDCP. This protection is used solely on HDMI and DVI connections and it requires an authenticated and encrypted connection between the 2 devices in use, generally your set top box and your television. In the analog realm we have Copy Generation Management System – Analog (CGMS-A.) This is akin to Macrovision version 2. It basically tells your recorder what and if it can record. This limits the number of recordings or the possibility of recording at all, assuming that your recorder listens to the CGMS-A signal. CGMS-A is already in use on a number of premium channels such as HBO and Cinemax, however many dvd recorders either pay no attention to CGMS-A or to only one standard of CGMS-A of which there are two. Finally we have the image constraint token (ICT). The ICT tells the set top box or other high definition video source to reduce the output resolution over analog outputs if an HDCP connection is not present.
While HDCP may be bad, what could be even worse is the use of the ICT. This would restrict those who own completely legal high definition televisions from actually receiving a full resolution high definition picture, depriving the consumer of what they have paid for just because they may own a less expensive television or were an early adopter.
This mandate by content providers provides no real solution for piracy as the outputs that would be protected by HDCP, and eventually the image constraint token, are not even used by those who pirate content as capturing those outputs is much to intensive to do. The only thing this will do is cause headaches for consumers and for service providers who have to deal with the angry customers. This of course is a sad state of affairs for those early adopters who either own hdtv’s without DVI/HDMI connections or those that do, but do not support HDCP. The content industry is hurting those that have helped to create a market for high definition television, those willing to spend ungodly amounts of money early on to prove that there is a market out there.
So what can the average consumer do? Well for some providers the ability to utilize these DRM schemes has been contracted to be available starting on January 1st of 2008. At that time we will start to realize some of the extent to which these will be used. Until then start writing your television provider, favorite television studio, and the FCC. Inform them of the harm they are doing to the average consumer as well as the early adopter, all for something that will in no way stop piracy. Many people are expecting large class action lawsuits if these DRM schemes go in to use since not only will customers be deprived of what they have rightfully paid for, they are also deprived of the experience that they thought they would receive from the rest of their entertainment equipment.
- Posted in : Abuse Of Power, Action, Broadcast Flag, Cable, DRM, Defective by Design, Fair Use, Fair Use Rights, Media, Video
- Author : sasquatc4
Comments
So, wait… Does this mean that the tv my wife saved for 5 months to buy me as a ‘new house new toy’ (we had recently purchased a new house, it was a suprise) may not work properly, and soon?
well if you have purchased it recently (within the past few years) you should be alright. Just check your manual and see if it mentions anything about hdcp. But just about any tv made in the past couple years supports it. The main issue is for those who purchased them more than 5 or so years ago, they usually have only dvi ports which may or may not support hdcp.