International: Bernhard Kirschner, Ground Floor, 173
Miller Street, North Sydney, NSW 2060 Australia. Phone +61 2 9954
9885 Fax +61 2 9922 4801
USA:Jeff Starfield, 1266 Soldiers Field Road, Boston, MA 02135-1003,
Phone +1 617 782 5884 Fax +1 617 782 5925
Europe: Kildare Borrowes, Bankside, Kidlington, Oxford, OX51JE, UK,
Phone + 44 1865 852 100, Fax + 44 1865 842 22
For Immediate Release
February 20, 2003.
Copy Protection Discussed at
"Disc Duplicating University" Conference
Fair use advocates agree that there are valid applications for copy protection
Several new copy protection products announce during the IDDA Disc Duplicating University Presentations
At the recent Conference at DCD Expo in San Jose, during the Disc Duplication University program, organized by the International Disc Duplicating Association, most of the afternoon sessions were devoted to Copy Protection, Digital Rights and control of content.
Speakers at the Disc Duplicating University made clear that there are two conflicting opinions on copy protection.
Speakers at the Disc Duplicating University made clear that there are conflicting opinions on copy protection.
There are those who own or control the content or Intellectual
Property, (IP), and want to use copy protection technologies to limit
or charge for its distribution, together with developers who believe
that they can satisfy reasonable Fair Use rights, and provide a
reasonable level of copy protection.
Then there are those who believe that IP is not only uncontrollable
when it reaches the public, but that it should not be controlled by
copy protection technology.
In his presentation at the conference, the view that copy protection technologies interfere with users Fair Use rights was expressed by Fred von Lohmann, Senior Intellectual Property Attorney of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF ), www.EFF.org, a group who advocate the freer distribution of Intellectual Property.
He said " The EFF thinks that CD protection is a bad idea. It is
part of the piracy problem, not part of the solution. John Alexander
Halderman's paper http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~jhalderm/papers/drm2002.pdf
on copy protection was highly recommended as the first authoritative
evaluation of Copy Protection technologies. CP drives users into the
arms of unauthorized channels.
A paper published 'The Darknet and the Future of Content
Distribution' by Peter Biddle, Paul England, Marcus Peinado, and
Bryan Willman, Microsoft engineers at http://crypto.stanford.edu/DRM2002/darknet5.doc
where they suggest that CP is not the wisest course. CP is like using
speed bumps to slow down flying airplanes. Once the product has been
compromised and published by a peer to peer network, it is available
to anyone who is able to use peer to peer. The "success" of the CSS
of the DVD, is not based on the protection, but rather the reasonable
price and quality features of the real thing, expressing concern of
the new SACD systems. CP technologies slows down innovation and
annoys users. Publishers have resorted to desperate measures to
protect prerelease discs, using the low technology of a glued shut in
DiscMan. A big problem is that many within the industry are not
prepared to discuss, and that many of the leaks come from within the
industry, particularly within the movie industry. If they want to
protect within the prerelease channel, the EFF has no objection to
that. The EFF is trying to gather information on unplayable CP
discs."
His views were endorsed by Robert Schwartz, General Council of the Home Recording Rights Coalition (HRRC), www.HRRC.org, who amongst other things we can thank for our freedom to use our VCRs. What is fair use? The Legal Test for Fair Use is embraced in Section 107 of the Copyright Act, which is determined on a case by case basis, making definition very difficult. The music industry needs to commit to an entirely new approach to its market for a royalty system from valuing control over payment. The DMCA is used by others who have no other remedies. The Boucher-Doolittle Bill, HR 107, see www.house.gov/Boucher, makes it legal to provide a product if it has commercially significant non-infringing uses, even if most infringe, and under the DMA cannot be guilty of "circumvention" under DMCA unless also infringe copyright, meaning that the defence of fair use is available. Also it strengthens the research exception, and requires explicit consumer labels. Do CP CDs violate the Audio Home Recording Act? The HRRC believes that they do if they prevent making a copy on royalty paid media. CP discs cannot use the "CD" symbol. There are signs that some in the record industry are preparing for change.
Fred in question time, brought out the question CP that if there was a technology that both gave CP and allowed Fair Use, he would have to rethink his objections to CP, but that he believes that there is no such possible technology.
Amazingly there was one point of agreement between the
protection developers and those who were afraid of infringing on
'Fair Use Rights'.
There was agreement that it was quite legitimate to protect
software within an organization or between commercial organizations,
such as the recording studio, publisher and replication facility. The
moot point was whether it was both ethically right and practically
possible to protect content once it was accessible by the public.
Bernhard Kirschner, Disc Duplicating University Chair and IDDA President said "The IDDA can be described as agnostic on this subject, suggesting neither an opinion nor a solution. Generally, its members are middlemen and their interest is in remaining within both ethical standards and within the law, yet providing the best possible services required of its members clients, including the service of applying protection technology to duplicated discs when requested by its clients, who believe that they can better control distribution, especially within the corporate environment, using protection techniques."
"Less than 12 months ago when the IDDA first called for discussion on protecting CD-R there was no product and little interest, and now we have protection products for music, executable files and even pdf from the major developers in this industry."
Mr. Draak Murdock of Audible Magic announced the general
release of RepliCheck Version 2 with the ability to automatically
scan ROMs for copyrighted software programs. Just as RepliCheck has
the capability to identify over 3.5 million songs, this new version
is linked to a reference database containing over 10,000 software
programs. RepliCheck is available for demonstration.
The P2P Traffic Monitor is an Audible Magic appliance that passively
monitors the data traffic of a network and captures information about
P2P activity. Data of interest can be collected for reporting
purposes and individual transactions can be blocked in real-time,
based on data characteristics specified by the network operator, or
the data can be used to set policies for a bandwidth shaper or
firewall.
Please contact Draak at (408)399-6405 x 123 or email at d_murdock@audiblemagic.com.
Audible Magic also announced a program for small operators who are
IDDA members to access their technology at a nominal cost.
Mr. George MacDonald of First4Internet, http://www.xcp-aurora.co.uk/xcp1.asp, a UK based security systems developer announced their new product XCP1 burn protect for CD-R protection, and XCP2 for replicated discs, for music that is not only very difficult to crack, but does not infringe Redbook standards, and can allow as many backups as the publisher wishes. This would apparently appease many of the objections to copy protection. First4Internet have been working with Scotland Yard since 1999 content filtering area, such as identifying obscene images on the Internet. First4Internet have been working with the main 5 record companies developing the XCP protection, which wraps and protects the CD Audio content, while not playing around with standards and still conforming to red book standards. The protection adds about 4-6 MB per CD, and each mastering has different copy protection applied in different areas, making it not open to a generic hack. Originally there were problems with DVD players, but First4Internet have come out with a new solution. Can be played on XBox, and soon on the Sony PSD playback. A very high level of protection, will stop casual hacking. Music companies are finding that all too often their music is on the Internet even before release. There is both a Personal edition for the artist to protect their work from the studio, and the Professional version for the duplicator to make multiple copies from the protected disc. XCP can also allow specified number of copies with replicated discs, with say 5 burns or personal use, using the Aurora application within the disc, and the burns will be protected and cannot be copied further, meeting fair use needs. The copies cannot be copied from one drive to another.
'While theft of copyright is unacceptable at any level,' said George Macdonald of First 4 Internet, 'it is important to protect such content while providing the consumer flexibility to consume their music on their chosen authorized platform.'
Ms. Abbie Sommer of STARFORCE Technologies, http://www.star-force.com/products/pdfpro10/, who are a certified Adobe Development Partner, introduced STARFORCE PDF which is designed to protect any non-executable files which can be converted to PDF format, for use in Legal Briefs, manuals, e-books, CAD or architectural files, and other confidential material. Available for both CD-R using the STARFORCE special discs, and CD-ROM. Again in most cases unlikely to interfere with Fair Use.
Mr. Brian Mantz of Smarte Solutions, Inc. http://www.smartesolutions.com/press_detail.tmpl?SKU=312728202567053 announced that their piracy management suite has been successfully deployed by major clients, which to date has proven strong against any and all hack attacks while maintaining extreme flexibility and unique methods to manage piracy (not just prevent piracy) opening the opportunity for new revenue channels. Smarte's suite can be deployed on CD-R, CD-ROM and CDR-ROM (a product that was announced at the show by ODC, Optical Disc Corporation hybrid orange book standard stamped and recorded media. The key advantage is that either the stamped or the recorded areas can carry protection software, and the recordable area can be customized.) When using Smarte Solutions the software is protected while in the development stages right through to distribution. Smarte Solutions can protect jpeg, api and pdf files. Smarte Solutions also offer a product for developers desk, which is then put through their program producing copy protected discs. Additionally to the copy protection is the capabilty to produce a unique serial number for each disc, compatible with Rimage publishing systems, producing discs that as well as fully copy protection, each individual disc can be serialized or fingerprinted to make tracking easy. Smarte Secure is IP protection, and although it has been on the market for several years to date there has been no published crack of any customers software protected by Smarte Secure. Smarte Manager is a license technology to control distribution, control network licensing, with flexibility based on the requirements of the developer or customer. Smarte Key is a combination of protected media and serialization, with a back end system to authenticate the user. For example in a game Smarte Solutions, Inc., allow the user to play up to a certain level, then prevent further use without authorization. Smarte Solutions offer such a wide selection of solutions, and through examining the customers needs, then suggest a solution.
Mr. Greg Wible of CrypKey Canada,
www.crypkey.com, who have been offering protection systems for
over 10 years, described their battle worn software. Announced their
new ADP - Authorized Duplicator Program, which allows ADP
participants to offer locking and unlocking services, focusing
exclusively on software protection. The nature of the software
business is such that the product has a shorter shelf life than
music, so by the time the hackers have cracked Version 2 of a
program, the developer is shipping Version 5. CrypKey is in the fence
building business, has over 2,000 BtoB clients, in 60 countries,
primarily software developers. CrypKey have a backend server, Casper,
that automates the unlocking basis .With the ADP you send the
software to CrypKey, who will protect the software. CrypKey can
either offer the unlocking themselves, or you can operate your own
Casper system. Version 6 of the software will protect against
Ghosting Clones, debugging tools and rogue keygens. Crypkeys new
stealth software uses obfuscation to spread the protection technology
over the disc, making debugging more difficult. Version 6 prevents
hard drive cloning by recording the drives serial number in the
protection. CrypKey have customers from Botswana to Redmond. we are
now seeing Copy Protection decisions made by the marketing department
instead of the tech department.
CrypKey now offering a special program to IDDA members.
Doc Witness, http://www.doc-witness.com, presented a video of Amos Loewidt showing their unique combination smart card and disc. The card harvests the computers embedded serial number, and remembers which computer(s) it is authorized to run on.
Macrovision, http://www.macrovision.com announced SafeDisc which had previously been available only for stamped discs, was now available for CD-R.
Says Kirschner: "The copy protection developers have noted what the public and the market are asking. All this exciting and useful technology will be used to prevent piracy within the corporate and production process. Software is being adapted to both limit the distribution by the public, and protect the Fair Use rights. By working together we will be able to use technology to both protect Intellectual Property and satisfy the public."
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As the DDU Conference finished so late due to the questions and interest of attendees, the Founding Meeting for the International Copy Control (Protection) Association was adjourned, and will be held during MediaTech at the Mandalay Bay Hotel on 13 May 2003. See www.copycontrol.org as details emerge.
See http://www.discdupe.org/i/dcdexpo.htm for information on the product releases and the conference.
For more information: Bernhard Kirschner, IDDA President, on 1-213-713-3773, or brk@discdupe.org.
There is a one hour DVD video of the copy protection presentations, and a one hour DVD of the ethics discussion and are available from info@discdupe.org, at US$20.00 per video, plus postage of $5.00.
-RELEASE ENDS-
