can THEY tell if a movie has been ripped?

[ottobus]

I just went to my local video store to BUY a movie. I noticed a note on their door that said "WE CAN TELL IF THE MOVIES YOU RENT HAVE BEEN COPIED, WE WILL CALL THE AUTHORITIES".

Has anyone ever heard of this?

[check]

no they cant :p all ripping is is reading, you can't tell anything at all.

[ottobus]

I didnt think so. The owners of the store have told my neighbour that it will erase the disk. I have been doing this for years and have never erased one of my own disks.:p

[unskinnyboy]

Hehe, which place is this? Talk about scare tactics..

[laserfan]

Hehe, which place is this? Talk about scare tactics..Yeah, I'm imagining that it's a small shop that has seen its business drop way-off and is struggling with the reason.

Apart from locals who might copy & pass-around discs (which they should not be doing!) there are of course the new BB and Netflix services, not to mention sat. TV, that are likely eating-in to their customer base...

[ottobus]

Yea it is a small pizza/video store. I just thought it was funny, in such a small town they would do well to rent to pirates, it would probably boost there business. I copy my own dvds that I have bought. I am almost afraid to let anyone know that I can do it. It would get back to the store in no time. So the chances of people passing around burnt copies is pretty low.

[Waleska]

People who believe in that disk-erasing garbage, should be ignorant enough not to know how to backup a movie anyways :D

[Mug Funky]

what if you dub to VHS? :)

[neuron2]

Didn't you guys know that reading with the laser erodes the pits slightly and by measuring the signal to noise ratio, they can tell if you have read certain areas of the disk that aren't read by normal players?

Sheesh, the ignorance around here. :)

[CWR03]

Really, it would be like the liberry posting a sign that reads "We can tell if you Xerox our books!"

[dani82]

you should tell the owner to remove that sign, cause it's pretty much like saying "yes people, it's actually possible to copy a movie"

piracy doesn't not hurt the rental business much, sharing does

[CWR03]

Perhaps they're using reverse psychology. If someone decides to start copying the DVDs they've rented, what will they most likely do? Go rent more DVDs to copy. I'm doubting they're that smart though.

[Mug Funky]

hehe... in the old days of VHS certain unscrupulous renters would not only make a dub of the rented tape, but they'd actually cut the tapes open and swap out the spools, so the store got a copy in the original case, and the renter gets an original in a generic case. pretty mean stuff... the kind of genius that honest people would never think of.

[mod]

That sign sounds like: "Hey, don't rent dvds here if you plan to copy them! Go to another shop, were they don't care! Don't worry for us, we don't need your money". :D

[gameplaya15143]

hehe... in the old days of VHS certain unscrupulous renters would not only make a dub of the rented tape, but they'd actually cut the tapes open and swap out the spools, so the store got a copy in the original case, and the renter gets an original in a generic case. pretty mean stuff... the kind of genius that honest people would never think of.
Not unless somebody else beat them to it :p
Then they got a 2nd (or 3rd, 4th, etc.) generation copy and put a 3rd (or 4th, 5th, etc.) generation copy back :rolleyes:

Either way, thats just funny :)

[squid_80]

I've been in a similar situation, had to explain to someone that a DVD-ROM is by definition read-only media, and that means nothing I do to it (within reason of course) is going to change the data on it.

[Waleska]

Didn't you guys know that reading with the laser erodes the pits slightly and by measuring the signal to noise ratio, they can tell if you have read certain areas of the disk that aren't read by normal players?

What do you mean by normal players?.

[CWR03]

What do you mean by normal players?.
Ignoring that what he said was completely in jest, I'm sure he meant PC DVD-ROM drives rather than standalone players.

[Hard Core Rikki]

Didn't you guys know that reading with the laser erodes the pits slightly and by measuring the signal to noise ratio, they can tell if you have read certain areas of the disk that aren't read by normal players?

Sheesh, the ignorance around here. :)


HOLY COW !! Is that for real ? Sure I'd never had it figured out.

I thought about something else, like:
- having an autorunning program that installs
- monitors if some applications are USED (cant be that difficult)
- saves the result locally with date+time of use
- mails those to a website/ftp folder owned by that rental shop
- autodeletes itself either after a fixed period, or a few days after the DVD wich it was installed from was not run (meaning it was returned).

[foxyshadis]

Spyware & rootkits never delete themselves. Once someone has a little unauthorized power over your system, they want total control.

And yes, that scheme is used all the time in games, especially Starforce. Occasionally music cds and movies (Sorpranos comes to mind) but not often, usually they try to break standards as much as possible instead.

It's an interesting theoretical question, whether weak read-once sectors could be developed that could test whether a normally impossible-to-reach PGC was read. Of course, to test them you'd have to read them! Perhaps you'd have to use a special very-low-power laser.

[Adub]

I am starting to get paranoid. Everyone stop talking!!!!! We cant let the "authorities" hear this!!! ;)

[Ebobtron]

@neuron2

Ha,ha ha ha ha erode the pits, ha ha ha ha I am still laughing.

Wow that is a good one.

[Shinigami-Sama]

Spyware & rootkits never delete themselves. Once someone has a little unauthorized power over your system, they want total control.

And yes, that scheme is used all the time in games, especially Starforce. Occasionally music cds and movies (Sorpranos comes to mind) but not often, usually they try to break standards as much as possible instead.

It's an interesting theoretical question, whether weak read-once sectors could be developed that could test whether a normally impossible-to-reach PGC was read. Of course, to test them you'd have to read them! Perhaps you'd have to use a special very-low-power laser.
differant wavelength to test?
a safe one?
it is an intersting idea though

[dvd man]

talk about calling your bluff.........

[Waleska]

Ignoring that what he said was completely in jest, I'm sure he meant PC DVD-ROM drives rather than standalone players.

So PC DVD-ROMs can read parts of a DVD that standalone players won't?.

[kururu]

maybe if you combined the above suggestions with some radioactive isotopes with relatively short half-lives sprinked throughout the disc, you could detect how quickly the last laser read the disc, and if it is above 1x speed, you could assume it was ripped and not watched.

[neuron2]

Ha,ha ha ha ha You think I'm kidding? :)

[unskinnyboy]

maybe if you combined the above suggestions with some radioactive isotopes with relatively short half-lives sprinked throughout the disc, you could detect how quickly the last laser read the disc, and if it is above 1x speed, you could assume it was ripped and not watched.
Well, I could always claim that the disk was spun at >1x speeds because I had to rewind my DVD. Let the prosecution lawyer try telling me that I don't need to watch my movies from the beginning!

This is my high-end DVD rewinder I don't leave home without..

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/1937/dvdrewisomed9dc.png

[mike_lee]

Rent some movies then take them back the next day with the complaint "I want my money back, these movies have been copied." Depending on how hip you look you might even be able to add, "like 20% of the brightness and color is gone." Watch how quickly they reverse themselves.

[foxyshadis]

Having actually seen copies at rental places I wonder how competent the clerks are at spotting them. Not the shiny blank dvds with magic marker, heh, but the semi-professional crud you find all over ebay & amazon, with full-color printed paper labels, but what's inside is the same ol' dvd shrink or dvd x copy output. I guess most people woudn't care, it still looks better than digital cable broadcasts.

Last time I spotted one I was checking out the clerk just shrugged, but I refused to take it anyway.

[Waleska]

Blockbuster DVD's are so badly damaged I don't think someone would be able to spot a non-eroded part anyways.

[SvenBent]

Rent some movies then take them back the next day with the complaint "I want my money back, these movies have been copied." Depending on how hip you look you might even be able to add, "like 20% of the brightness and color is gone." Watch how quickly they reverse themselves.

now this is just genius.
now they either have to pay you back or lose face and admit they are wrong.
win/win situation

[celtic_druid]

Then they can claim that they check for copying upon each return, so that if there was any copying done, it was done by you or say that they need to check, go out the back have a coffee or whatever, then return saying that no it hasn't been copied.

[clutch]

Just as likely as microsoft being able to monitor the circulation of a chain e-mail. FUD. Fear Uncertainty Doubt.

I got a chuckle out of that one.

Clutch

[blutach]

I fear this thread needs to be copied and stuck in Decrypting!!!

Regards

[dani82]

last week, we rented Firewall, i could tell that it was ripped, 1st, the quality was sub-par, 2nd, it started to skip after awhile, but the biggest give-away was the color purple

[Ebobtron]

You think I'm kidding? :)
DVD are stamped like cds are are they not, how can you erode the polycarb

[unmei]

with heat energy like induced by a laser >>