2006-05-01, 21:58 | Link #43 |
Aegisub dev
IT Support
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Florianópolis, Brazil, Pale Blue Dot
Age: 38
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I don't see how exactly would DRM work. Will you require a specific player to decrypt the video, or will you do the decryption on the codec level?
If it's a specific player, you force everyone to use something that they might not exactly enjoy. Will there be a Linux port? Meaning that it will be open source? It would probably have to be open source on Windows anyway: if you make it DirectShow, it'll be trivial to write a filter to sneak between the decrypter and the decoder, quickly voiding the DRM. If you make it based on ffmpeg, your software is then licensed under the GPL, and you'll have to disclose its source - with the source disclosed, it's easy to modify the program to make it dump the output stream to disk. If the decryption is on the codec level, what exactly stops you from using DirectShowSource() to transcode it to whatever you want? For example, a DVD, which is, I suspect, what people transcode to to sell bootlegs. The result is that you will do no harm to those who are truly unethical, while crippling everyone who just wants to watch the damn anime. If the key is stored remotely, you won't be able to watch it on your laptop while you travel, on your standalone player, on your computer if your connection goes down... |
2006-05-01, 22:09 | Link #44 | |
I see what you did there!
Scanlator
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2006-05-02, 02:26 | Link #45 | |
Translator, Producer
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Age: 44
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Hey, that actually might be a useful thing. Fansub groups operate their own "sub servers" which contain the group's scripts, etc. When people want to watch the show the program logs into the server, downloads the sub files, and plays it back with a "certified" raw obtained somewhere else, and then deletes the subs when done (or as the show is being played, even). The advantage of this is that script updates could be done in real time, and errors/corrections could happen without any reencoding or rereleasing. Also, if a series is licensed, the scripts are no longer served, and people are left with a bunch of raws with no subs. (Of course, people could still copy the subs down by hand, but then that's always the case ).
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2006-05-02, 03:25 | Link #46 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2003
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(The theory here is not just encryption/decryption and basically unworkable in reality for various reasons. Note there is no actual DRM here! The point is to make it a fucking pain in the ass to automate decoding as opposed to just transcribing the subs.) Yes, that was my idea that was quoted in the first post. Except you would need to implement some kind of encryption to prevent a direct packet capture (SSL+ ECE)*, and you would need a program that could request the packet that contains the subs exactly at the right time and then dump the packet immediately. If there is a sub file lying around it can be found, copied, and then freely distributed. (See, in theory, this is possible, in reality, this is very hard.) There is nothing to stop someone from transcoding the subs just like there is nothing to stop someone from taking a cam video of a movie. Also there is the "online" vs "offline" issue but meh. Release a nice standard xvid version with slightly lower than normal quality to encourage people to buy the DVDs. *I am very aware of how packet captures work. Someone is going to go "just wait till the packet is decoded". This is why you would ultra-fragment the sub so that the amount of work to get all of this information out is insane. Someone can probably do it, but the amount of time it takes to do that will be painful enough that someone will not bother. You can also pad it with bad data and make it so that the data is "encoded->packet encoded->sent->packet decoded->subfilter accepts packet and checks that it matches the requirements and then displays it". By requirements, I do not mean "oh, take the 5th letter where the letters are off by 1", this means something like "contains the bitmap information for the letter in a matrix". Now we are in OCR theory and we all know how reliable OCR systems are.... Last edited by bayoab; 2006-05-02 at 03:41. |
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2006-05-02, 03:48 | Link #47 |
I have enough, I'm gone.
Join Date: Dec 2005
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It might be possible if all groups agrees to do it, if not, the groups that uses DRM will just be abandoned by the leechers and no one will download their work. My view on this is, if you're afraid of getting caught, don't fansub.
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2006-05-02, 04:53 | Link #48 | |
Banned
Join Date: Jan 2004
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2006-05-02, 05:10 | Link #49 | |||||||
Two bit encoder
Fansubber
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Chesterfield, UK
Age: 39
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DRM is amusing. Consider this. You set up a DRM server. This could be a standalone, or sharing your group's website. You set this up with the intention of being "ethical", meaning that when you get that C&D, or when it's licensed, you can nuke the applicable keys and render all copies of that series dead (because they would need the DRM server to verify for playback). This would make the company much happier than the old method of C&D where you would pull the torrent only for it to appear elsewhere. This is of course barring DRM cracking and re-distro (will cover this later). It seems ideal for an "ethical" group, right? They get to sub a series, and the moment they are told to quit by some higher power they can do so, and also kill the existing copies. The fansubbers and licensors are reasonably content in comparison to current methods. The leechers on the otherhand are not. The leechers will require a live internet connection to be able to verify and view the file. There are a number of problems here. The first is, what if for some reason you do not have internet access at that time? Well it's tough, no fansubs for you. What about my HD-DVD player? Tough again. What about my handheld video device. Unless you have wireless internet on that, tough. You also get server downtime, crashes and the like. Oops; tough. As previously mentioned, you will be limited to what players support DRM. If we use MP4 as an example, there are few complete implementations of the parser, Osmo player is about the only one, and does not make for a good general player. It's more for reference and sanity checking. Thankfully, I do not see Haali being the kind of person that would add DRM features to his MP4 parser; and Haali's splitters are used by a damn lot of people. Now we move on to something a bit more interesting, and maybe not so obvious. Abuse. So you have an environment where your DRM keys are stored on the same server as your group's website, and leechers watch their subs and transparently verify with the server's DRM keys. Now we all know about C&D's, the company will usually email someone requesting the removal of the series. But what if they "can't find" or don't want to find an email address? Their option is to email the ISP and notify them that illegal content is available to download. Any commercial ISP won't like this, and will probably nuke your whole site (I had it happen to me once, but it was unrelated to fansubbing, it was just AMVs). So by going directly to your ISP, it means that the DRM keys are good as dead, but not only have they killed the DRM keys for their series, it means that all the other DRM keys go down with it, licensed or not. So now you have a whole bunch of disgruntled leechers, and you can't simply say it's licensed and expect them to be content with that, they will be irate that they can't even watch unlicensed anime, and that they now effectively have a whole lot of dead files on their hands. Think of those people that burn, CDs and DVDs are relatively cheap, but it still amounts to wasted storage. Even if you put the DRM on a different server, it wouldn't work because the file, would refer to the site set at time of muxing. The only alternative would be to re-mux and re-DRM the unlicensed series and put them on a different server. Very time consuming and messy, having V2's and V3's all over the place. Pre-licensing is on the rise. You will probably find that the idea of this is to cripple the "ethical" subbers. Those who won't sub licensed stuff. If it's licensed from episode 1, then in an ideal world, it doesn't get subbed (barring so called unethical subbers, but that's not the point here). There have also been C&D's from Media Blasters? If Japanese companies request fansubbing to stop, or not happen in the first place (such as those "Do not distribute online" type notices), and American companies go as far as to pre-license, or have a part in the production sponsor wise (so it's as good as licensed), then who's to say that they won't try other underhand tactics such as reporting a webserver of having copyright material even if the series is not licensed? They may have some series in sight, but not licensed as yet, and to stop you subbing it/distributing it, they may go directly to the ISP and get your DRM server shot down. Who's to say they won't just nuke your DRM server upon first site?. Nice, they've got you by the balls. Hopefully the days of groups hacking eachother and cutthroat rivalry are gone... Though if someone took a dislike to you and decided to take out your site/DRM server, it would cause a lot of disruption. Again, you are at the mercy of others. DRM wouldn't go anywhere. Think about it, with bittorrent you can distro thousands of copies. They might take out the tracker but it will appear elsewhere and spread just as fast. Now with DRM, once the DRM server is gone, that's it. End of story. All files distributed will want to refer to that server, which "doesn't exist" anymore. To a degree you give the licensors control over your distribution as long as they know of you, and as you know, licensors do not like distribution at all. The other thing, is that for every group using DRM, another would pop up and sub the same series without DRM. Just like you have now, oversubbing; you might even see more of it. It would probably give rise to a bunch of ego and speed subbers, "Our encodes don't use DRM" etc. Naturally, most leechers won't give a shit about the group using DRM, if it means they can get episodes that won't be rendered dead at some point. It's similar to what TheFluff said: Quote:
What I don't tolerate is invasive methods like DRM which require a web connection. That seriously cripples functionality in my opinion, and is seriously flawed because it relies on too many things such as the server being online etc.
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2006-05-02, 05:37 | Link #50 |
Banned
Join Date: Jan 2004
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@Zero1: While I'm at this point against DRM, you make it sound like fansubs are a right, not a privilege. The whole issue about uncontrolled fansub distribution is that 3rd party torrent sites/3rd party P2P networks (non-IRC, non BT) break this intended privilege and make it almost a right for everyone that downloads it. With DRM, you're basically saying that if you already have the file which you *could* play, you already have a right to play it. Nobody has the right to play anything illegal.
Also, fansubs are meant to be played on computer devices (PC, Mac, Linux). Even softsubs can't be played on a number of setups, including xbox, handheld devices and so on (if you know of any massively used setup that can play softsubs (without Linux on it), please correct me), so, what difference would a softsub DRM cause? |
2006-05-02, 05:48 | Link #52 | |
Banned
Join Date: Jan 2004
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2006-05-02, 06:52 | Link #53 |
Two bit encoder
Fansubber
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Chesterfield, UK
Age: 39
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I'm against DRM, not controlled distribution.
So you're saying DRM is a privilege? I can't see that you can call something a privilege when no one wants it to begin with. As for the comment about fansubs being for computers, what does it matter if someone wants to burn a DVD to watch it on their TV? If you read your fansubbing history book, you will find that once upon a time, people used to watch fansubs on their TV. They also had hard copies on VHS, so I don't see how watching subs on TV is any different from how it used to be. The "risk" of the subs being used as a replacement back then was as good as, or greater than it is today IMO (since they actually paid for the hard copy). As for softsubs, I thought they were supposed to be, "an insult to fansubbing". In that case your argument for softsubs on XboX, handhelds etc is void since fansubs wouldn't use them, right?. It seems you change your tune as and when it suits, just to be able to make an argument out of nothing.
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2006-05-02, 07:28 | Link #55 | |||
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Join Date: Jan 2004
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Technology of softsubs isn't bad at all, it's good, albeit less compatible with Linux boxes, but it's easier to rip/copy than hardsubs. If you can't stomach this kind of discussion, I suggest you leave it alone. |
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2006-05-02, 07:53 | Link #57 | |
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Join Date: Dec 2005
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The Xbox plays softsubs just fine. In fact it will play anything from an ISO to a RAR file without so much as a hiccup. The only exception is H.264 files where its CPU is just underpowered. Fansubs already infringe on property rights. Why add DRM and set yourselves up for yet another lawsuit. |
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2006-05-02, 08:26 | Link #58 | |
Excessively jovial fellow
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: ISDB-T
Age: 37
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All LytHka's points are moot because:
1. There is no DRM softsub solution (and before there is one, you'd need to implement (among other things) a VSFilter replacement, something noone has managed to do so far). 2. The industry has tried to stop piracy with DRM for years, and so far they have failed miserably at every attempt. What makes you think that you can do better? 3. I doubt there will ever be a DRM softsub solution, since the only two people in this thread who outright like the idea (LytHka and bayoab) seem to have about zero technical competence about both DRM and programming in general. Quote:
You have, however, also touched the heart of the matter: DRM can only work if the player is the property of whoever distributes the content intended for it. In other words: if you don't control the watcher's computer, you can't stop him from cracking the DRM and taking the subs. And don't listen to bayoab's bogus about encrypted softsubs etc. etc. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS UNCRACKABLE DRM. DRM is basically a cryptographical impossibility: you have a situation where the intended recipient is ALSO THE ATTACKER. It's impossible to protect a secret that you don't want to remain a secret, and that actually isn't a secret to begin with.
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2006-05-02, 10:09 | Link #59 | |
Banned
Join Date: Jan 2004
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I have to congratulate TheFluff here for figuring out that all of these are just hypotheses. As bayoab said, it's just fun thinking how these things would look like. Obviously, TheFluff missed out on that completely.
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*Meaning fansubbers obviously have no ownership even though their name is in the fansub filename brackets, ex. [Eclipse]Shakugan_no_Shana[CRC].mkv and a studio (or TheFluff) might think they are trying to claim the work. EDIT: Though, this is a really fun thread. It might be really amusing for TheFluff and others to point and laugh at these hypotheses, but I assure you, it's more fun watching the mighty pirate kick, bite and scream as if doomsday was already upon them. Last edited by LytHka; 2006-05-02 at 10:20. |
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2006-05-02, 10:38 | Link #60 | ||||||||||
Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2003
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Rendering streaming video that has been distorted => WMVs with copyright protection. Encrypting packets => Trivially possible. (I am very sure you are aware that Elliptic Encryption has a complexity such that you will not be decrypting it anytime before 2020.) Hooking into video players => Webcam capture tools. Servers streaming low quality data on demand => Shoutcast Checking for hooks and creating hooks => Viruses and rootkits. Quote:
Last edited by bayoab; 2006-05-02 at 10:58. |
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