DVD Protections: USA, Europe and the rest of the world.

[castellanos]

Hi there:
I opened this thread because I am interested to know about the DVDs protections and/or differents laws in all the world.
Usually, I see on the board people talking about problems of ripping and differents DVD protections like Sony ARccOs, found it in films like "The Forgotten" or many others.
I am used to work with DVDs from region 2 and 4, I've made a lot of backups also from very modern films that actually should have one of that prtections, but never faced one problem ripping one of them (I am talking only about region 2 & 4).
I started making backups with DVDShrink & DVD Decrypter early versions, and in the case of DVDs from different regions as my drive, I used DVD Region Free since 3.60 version... never faced a problem. In fact, the only time I thought it was a kind of "new" protection, it was really a media error!!!
So finally, It came to my mind: Are that protections made it only for USA (because the law system) or I was lucky in my backups?
Please, feel free to express meanings and/or information.
Greetings! :)

[Fantasma]

Hello,

I live in a Third World Country and copy protection comes from USA products such as DVDs and VHS tapes, our region is 4, but it is very rare to find a region 4 DVD here, local products are copy protection free. At first, when DVDs started to become popular, a few big stores started to sell DVDs region 4, but soon the customers started to return them or complained because they could not watch them, this was due to the fact that the DVD Players purchased locally or brought by those who can travel were region 1!.

After some time people started to catch up, and the stores now sell region 1 DVDs or sell exclusively region free DVds like the Apex.

All of the DVD rental stores in my country only hold region 1 titles, and I can tell you that they are protected.

We have no problems here making copies of CDs or Casettes, most of them are from local bands, this kind of activity is what makes the singers and music bands so popular, some musicians even recognise that they have reached the top thanks to piracy!.

We have laws like any country, but there is no witch hunt like in the states, suing someone is very, very rare.

[ppera2]

I live in south-east-mid Europe. DVD's published in last year usually don't have any copy protection. Especially cheap editions available at newspaper shops.
On other side I saw some attempts to confuse ripping and/or shrinking programs. One publisher always advances audio by 4-5 sec.
DVD Shrink was unable to make reauthoring of DVD where main movie was divided in 2 parts, but it was perfectly copyable on DVD5.

Experienced backuper can find the way relatively easily in such cases.

I had lot more troubles and mindwork with crappy made DVD's. All problems were by idiotic made framerate conversions.
Most common error is 24-25 fps made by framedoubling (sometimes combined with blur). It's relativelly easy to fix with Decomb.

Then I saw one Croatian edition (Ispod crte), what was really weard. First, it is NTSC (in PAL land). But I saw jerk in every second. After some time, I concluded that it drops 1 frame per second. It looks that they made 25-24-3:2 pulldown. Of course it was impossible to fix this.

Even stupidest was Serbian edition of 'Laurel Canyon'. They made some 24-25 fps conversion via field doubling, but totally screwed up, and sometimes reversed even (source frame) order. Every motion has some kind of oscillation therefore. I tried to find pattern, and was able to fix video for max 3 sec duration, but pattern wasn't consistent. Plus, AVISyinth has limit in argument numbers, so can't fix too long sequences.

Russian edition had anamorphic interlaced (telecined) video, what resulted in awful playback at standalones. It was easy to fix - I IVTC-ed with Decomb, and converted to PAL, non-anamorphic to avoid vertical upsize.

It was little off-topic, but I think that can be interesting.

[castellanos]

Thanks for the replies.
In my experience ripping DVDs from regions 2 & 4 I got normal encryption and CSS keys, actually very normal in this days... but nothing like ArccOs. I just wonder why in USA is so "protected".
Greetings! :)

[m1ckran]

I find that R2UK DVD's are protected but DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink can handle them all. Occasionally, discs apprear that stump DVD Shrink, like Garfield and Finding Nemo, but upgrading to latest versions have solved the problem.

I am more concerned with a friend's experience with The Grudge (R2UK) and I wonder if anyone else has any feedback. Both my friend and I have always resisted the temptation to buy pirated copies (available in most pubs for a fraction of the retail price) because it's unethical and it just "feels dishonest".

On buying The Grudge from a local retailler, my friend found that it would not play on his DVD player. He owns an old, three or four year-old Yamaha player that was considered to be very good at the time of purchase. Cleaning the laser head made no difference; but the player still reported "no disc". The DVD looked undamaged. This retailler would not exchange the disc or refund the money because it worked on his cheapo supermarket brand player.

On mentioning this in the pub, a pirate offered to sell him a copy at 20% retail with a money-back guarantee, saying that the retail DVD contained copy protection so severe that old-style players do not recognise them as DVD's. It worked.

My friend now has a choice. Does he dump his player and buy a new one so that he can continue to buy expensive retail DVD's, or does he buy pirate copies. He feels that the pirates are more concerned about their customers satisfaction than the studios. And he feels foolish because he could have bought a pirate Grudge three months before its official release.

I don't know if extreme copy protection exists in the UK, but my friend is now convinced. He owns a Sony TV, Sony home cinema and Sony stereo hi-fi. He was a fan of Sony quality. Since being told that the protection is sourced by Sony, he maintains that his next hardware purchase will be a different brand.

I don't know what I would do if I were in his position. What would you do? Is his experience consistent with copy-protection schemes?

Whether his experience is due to protection or not, the anti-piracy stance of the industry has alienated one customer and driven him to pirates who he considers can be trusted more than the multinationals. Ironic that the DVD in question was The Grudge.

[dragongodz]

if you read the Decrypting section of the forum you will find a couple of German dvds also have protection.
also i note that the latest anydvd says this
Added support for a new version of the "Sony ARccOS
protection" as found on "The Forgotten" (UK), "Little Black Book"
(UK) or "She hate me" (UK)
since films such as the grudge and the forgotten were released first in the U.S.A. thats why they had the protection first. however Sony appear to be altering it for other countries aswell.
also note that at the moment only a small amount of dvds are using(testing?) these protections so dont think that you have to worry about the majority of dvds, you dont.

give LIGHTNING UK! a chance to test these dvds with DVDDecrypter however and i am sure he will overcome any changes needed. :)

[castellanos]

Well, I live in Germany and I never faced one of that protections before... may be I was lucky enough, may be not, but I think that if there are some sony ArccOs DVDs going around here, are not so hard like in the States. I 've read that "ArccOs" has many variations.
I remember that the film "Shrek 2" RPC1 started to have ripping problems, but when I made my first backup of that film (RPC2) I dind't have any problem at all, and the same case with many other films.
Greetings! :)

Edit: Sony has been many times going around protections, in fact, they are behind the CD Game protection SecuROM (Sony DADC), no wonder why they put their hands in DVDs too.

[dragongodz]

Well, I live in Germany and I never faced one of that protections before... may be I was lucky enough, may be not, but I think that if there are some sony ArccOs DVDs going around here, are not so hard like in the States.
as i said it appears to be only being done on a few dvds at the moment. so you wont have to worry about it unless you buy one of those specific dvds.

[castellanos]

Exactly dragongodz!!
That's a good point and exactly what I mean. When the film appears here in Europe (after USA) it comes no so "well protected" or only with the usual protections. Is that because the law system, or they don't care at all the Europe market? (Film industry).
Greetings! ;)

[dragongodz]

exactly what I mean. When the film appears here in Europe (after USA) it comes no so "well protected" or only with the usual protections. Is that because the law system, or they don't care at all the Europe market?
see but that is where you are getting it wrong. you are saying that Europe is not getting many arccos dvds while the U.S.A. is. its not. the U.S.A. is only getting a few dvds with arccos at the moment and at least some of these titles such as the forgotten and little black books also have arccos when they are released in Europe aswell.

so to sum it up, all countries are are only getting a handful of dvd releases with arccos currently so there is no special treatment for any.

[Nematocyst]

m1ckran wrote:
Whether his experience is due to protection or not, the anti-piracy stance of the industry has alienated one customer and driven him to pirates who he considers can be trusted more than the multinationals. Ironic that the DVD in question was The Grudge.

Typical. Copy protection schemes are generally not good for they companies that use them. What happens is that they inconvenience their paying customers, and the pirates have little or no trouble defeating the schemes. If your product has a small niche, then there are some reasonable arguments for using such schemes. But for mass market products, you are ultimately alienating your own source of income.

Here's my opinion. If you want to send the RIAA and the MPAA into chapter 11, give them what they are asking for-- undefeatable copy protection. They love to say that uncontrolled pirating is leading to reduced sales, yadda yadda yadda. What _will_ kill them is if they ever succeed in preventing people from doing what they want with media content that they paid for. You can argue the legality of doing various things with DVD content until you are blue in the face. If people can't change the format to suit their needs, strip out offensive material, strip out ads, create custom playlists, or anything else they can think of, people will stop buying the content. It doesn't make one bit of difference if it's legal or not-- they'll stop buying content they can't control.

[m1ckran]

Could it be that the studios might be releasing limited quantities of arcoss-protected discs to gauge public reaction? And if I buy The Grudge, mine might carry normal protection? Seems an expensive thing to do as far as production costs are concerned.

I asked my friend to lend me his original Grudge to see what DVD Decrypter makes of it, and report the results here. Unfortunately, he was so naffed off that he threw it away!

Laws change so quickly (and secretively) these days that I doubt anyone can keep up with them. At one time, laws were based on commonsense but the opposite now seems to be the case.

I have dozens of audio cassette compilations recorded from paid-for CD's, LP's and musicassettes, and used for in-car entertainment. Apparently, the transfer from one medium to another is now illegal. It appears that I am now a criminal.

I have also copied my movie-only DVD backups to VHS for the kids. Kiddies hands can handle a chunky cassette better than a DVD, VHS is more rugged than DVD and will better withstand rough treatment. Apparently I am now a very bad criminal.

I've been told that the only way I can legally copy anything is to use my old Betamax video recorder (stored in the attic with my beautiful but redundant Philips openreel tape recorder) because Betamax is no longer legally considered to be a recording medium. It might be worth something on eBay!!!

Apparently, when we buy a cassete deck, VHS recorder, CD recorder, minidisk recorder, or dvd recorder, we have no right to expect to use them to record anything!

A thought. If arcoss protection contravenes the DVD standard, the digital disc should no longer be described as a DVD but as DVD-Style. The studios could be liable to prosecution for selling something that is different to its description on its packaging. Also, since the disc is not a DVD, any text on it or its packaging describing it as such would be legally void. Which means that copyright would not exist on the contents of the disc. Perhaps arcoss is a good idea!

Sometimes I wish I had been a lawyer. Must be fun!

Personally, I'm still reluctant to use pirated DVD's. I have never bought one. Similarly I've never bought pirated computer software. But I have to admit to being less certain than I was a few months ago. As my friend says, "You can't expect a dog to come running to you after you've kicked it in the teeth."

Perhaps I'm over-reacting to what should be an unimportant feature of life in general? Is the whole world going mad or is it just me?