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RE: [dvd-discuss] Technology Admin comments



On Mon, 15 Jul 2002, Glendon M. Gross wrote:

> Doesn't this technology have the potential to engender a black market
> in the "Recoding" of DVD titles?  While I am mildly sympathetic to
> concerns about piracy of large numbers of DVD's and remarketing them
> in a different region, I also suspect that the DeCSS may actually
> facilitate a new kind of piracy by providing a motive for "crackers"
> to recode a DVD for different regions.  Then they would purchase it
> for one region and pirate it for the rest.  After all, what is the
> cost of a single DVD vs. the potential revenue of marketing it to an
> entire REGION?  They could easily buy one and then sell thousands of
> black market recoded copies.

As I understand it, the region information is completely separate from the
encryption used.  In other words, having DeCSS (or similar) available does
not help you in the least.   All you have to do is change the region code
area on the DVD, and you're done.  All you need is the ability to write
all areas of a blank DVD disk.

For the reasons you have mentioned above, that is why the industry has
"pre-burned" the sectors on blank DVD media that deal with the encryption
keys and region encoding.  That makes it more difficult for anyone trying
to burn copies, and oh, by the way - also prevents anyone outside of the
CSS licensed group from competing with them using copy-protected media.

> So then if I buy a DVD good for region 1 only, it should be fairly
> simple for pirates to just decode to an image file and then recode it
> for all other regions.  In effect, it seems to me that we have created
> a vast market for pirates with this technology that supposedly
> prevents piracy.  I think it is similar in some ways to prohibition in
> the 1920's;  the cure may be worse than the problem.

As I understand it, the image (or movie), is completely separate from the
region code.  There would be no need to recode anything with encryption,
just change the region number on the DVD.   So, DeCSS and the like would
be useless to you, if you were trying to change regions.

See http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/dvd-discuss-faq.html#ss3

<quote>
What region a DVD may be played in is determined by a single byte in the
data on the DVD. A region code of "0" indicates that a DVD may be played
in all regions. While most "official" DVD players are coded for one
particular region, there are some DVD players which are not. Some of these
players have been modified to ignore region coding, or to change regions
as the user wishes. Others allow a certain number of changes to the
player's native region before no more changes are allowed.

The legal implications of region coding are a matter of debate; there have
been discussions regarding whether region coding is legal, due to the fact
that it allows potential problems with price fixing and other forms of
market control. For these reasons region coding has already been outlawed
in New Zealand.

There is no technological relation between region coding and CSS
encryption; there are plenty of region-coded DVD's that are not
CSS-encrypted. According to knowledgable sources, the CSS player licensing
agreement however mandates that all CSS-licensed DVD players are also
region coded.
</quote>

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
> [mailto:owner-dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu]On Behalf Of Steve Bryan
> Sent: Monday, July 15, 2002 7:19 AM
> To: dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
> Subject: Re: [dvd-discuss] Technology Admin comments
>
>
> > That once we buy a movie or playing equipment we should be free to use
> it...........DVD should play on my laptop where ever in the world I take it
>
> At the risk of being pedantic I think it should be noted that if a DVD plays
> in your laptop it does not matter where in the world you travel: the DVD
> will continue to play. You undoubtedly understand that point but someone
> reading the comment might suspect the DVD would mysteriously stop playing
> when you cross a border.
>
>
>

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