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Apple's New MacBooks Have Built-In Copy Protection
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Nov 19, 2008 05:46 PM
from the presumption-from-on-high dept.
from the presumption-from-on-high dept.
raque writes "Appleinsider is reporting that the new MacBooks/MacBookPros have built-in copy protection. Quote: 'Apple's new MacBook lines include a form of digital copy protection that will prevent protected media, such as DRM-infused iTunes movies, from playing back on devices that aren't compliant with the new priority protection measures.' Ars Technica is also reporting on the issue. Is this the deal they had to make to get NBC back? Is this a deal breaker for Apple or will fans just ignore it to get their hands on the pretty new machines? Is this a new opportunity for Linux? And what happened to Jobs not liking DRM?"
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To Steve (Score:5, Insightful)
Sincerely,
Mac Fan who wants Blu-ray
Re:To Steve (Score:5, Funny)
Without seeming to flame (flame mode if you like), we've had experience of locked down platform with Apple's iPhone. Now Apple join Microsoft in having a locked down OS for media playback, nobody can feel smug or superior (apart from Linux users).
Parent
Re:To Steve (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:To Steve (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah. Nothing will play, but we're feeling damned superior about it.
Parent
Re:To Steve (Score:5, Informative)
Dear "Mac Fan who wants Blu-ray",
Any major company making a Blu-ray player has 5 options:
1) Do not support playback of copy-protected content. This means most Hollywood stuff won't play, so your Blu-Ray player is useless.
2) Try to hack the copy protection. You may fail; if you succeed then pay big fines and get a court order preventing you shipping products, for violating the DMCA. Go bankrupt. Your employees might go to jail.
3) License Blu-Ray. When playing back Blu-Ray, do not support external screens - restrict it to the laptop's internal display.
4) License Blu-Ray. When playing back Blu-Ray, require HDCP for any external screens.
5) License Blu-Ray, but ignore the license terms. Pay big fines and get a court order preventing you shipping products. Go bankrupt.
Which do you want? You may not like any of the options, but unfortunately there's no other practical option. Apple's choice of (4) is probably the least bad.
These options are due to the requirements of the Blu-Ray spec, and were demanded by Hollywood in exchange for their support. Short of government intervention, Hollywood are unlikely to support any HD format without DRM in the foreseeable future. And Hollywood own the US government (see Disney's perpetual copyright extensions to ensure that Mickey Mouse never ever leaves Copyright), so don't expect any action there.
Parent
Re:To Steve (Score:5, Insightful)
You forgot the best of all options:
6) License Bu-Ray. When playing back Blu-Ray, require HDCP for any external screens trough a updatable firmware. Then "leak" a "hacked" firmware (the original one) which does allow playback everywhere. And be sure, to make a big press release, that you will get "them" and sue "them", for creating such an incredibly well working "hacked" firmware *hint* *hint*.
At least that's what I would do. And I'm pretty sure some companies already did similar things.
Parent
Re:To Steve (Score:5, Informative)
BluRay has provisions for blacklisting players, so if Apple were stupid enough to do that, at some point in the future their users would insert a new BluRay disc which would revoke the keys for their BluRay drive, rendering it useless. I'm guessing Apple don't want that to happen.
Parent
Re:To Steve (Score:5, Informative)
Cry me a river, you fanboy. It is only insightful because it fits with your broken little worldview. Read the god damn article; it has nothing to do with Blu-Ray and everything to do with the iTunes Store FairPlay Version 3 DRM.
They implemented this crap because if they say no and stick up for their consumers they know they'll get passed by other parties as a content delivery method. They decided to be evil because it grants increased profits. Deal with it.
Parent
Re:To Steve (Score:5, Insightful)
Good luck finding a computer without it.
A 2007 MacBook.
The fact that the same video will play fine on a 2007 Mac but refuse to play on a 2008 Mac proves that the copy protection is not necessary -- if it was necessary it would be applied to all computers equally.
Parent
Re:To Steve (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to see you say that when asked the same question in a few years from now.
The cheap quip, "so use last year's machine" is so myopic that it's ridiculous. The principle is "DRM is bad" and, now that Apple have fully embraced it, I am no longer even going to consider trying a Macbook, regardless of what the Apple guys I know tell me about the wonderful OS.
DRM is bad, I do not want to support a company that buys into the whole attempt to control what I can and can not do on my computer.
Incidentally, if you think the DRM situation is getting bad now, imagine a world where all your computing gets done "in the cloud" (forgive me for using that idiotic buzzword) and you have no control over the platform you use to do whatever it is you want to do with your computer.
Big business wants to control your actions, so they can dictate what you need to spend money on. Recognize it. Fight it by not buying into it.
Parent
Re:To Steve (Score:5, Interesting)
Did you try to play it on an old projector/monitor?
Parent
Re:To Steve (Score:5, Insightful)
PS There are surely ways around it.
Doesn't matter. I shouldn't be restricted. I shouldn't have to go 'underground'.
The fact that I can is irrelevant.
The fact that you could still get alcohol during the prohibition doesn't make prohibition any more palatable.
Parent
Would that include getting the free copy? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm thinking the easiest way around it is to just download a copy. Seriously, wtf, people - do you not like having customers?
I damn near gave up buying media of any kind because of copy protection, and so I do without. Yay Amazon MP3 store to the rescue. But I'm getting completely sick of this.
It's time to push Congress for a Consumer's Digital Purchases Bill of Rights that forces compatibility. If you want DRM so bad, it's your job to make it work.
Parent
Suddenly glad I bought the previous version. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Suddenly glad I bought the previous version. (Score:5, Funny)
Now you know how us Windows XP users have been feeling. :-)
Parent
Don't really care (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't buy any videos from iTunes: I prefer to rip my own.
Re:Don't really care (Score:5, Informative)
"I'm sorry Dave, but I can't let you do that."
Parent
Re:Don't really care (Score:5, Funny)
The barn door has not just been left open on the DVD format, someone loaded it into the back of a truck and sped off.
Parent
Questions? Answers. (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this the deal they had to make to get NBC back?
It seems likely enough to me. I guess I have no proof either way, but I wouldn't be surprised in the least to find that this was NBC's idea.
Is this a deal breaker for Apple?
No.
Will fans just ignore it to get their hands on the pretty new machines?
Yes. Just like they always do.
Is this a new opportunity for Linux?
No, since it won't hurt Apple.
And what happened to Jobs not liking DRM?
Nothing. That was a lie then, and is still a lie. Apple puts DRM in their flagship product, and you actually believe them when they spout bullshit about disliking DRM?
Re:Questions? Answers. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Questions? Answers. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Questions? Answers. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of Apple's growth for years has been tied directly or indirectly to multimedia. It's what's most differentiated them from Microsoft in the eyes of the common computer user. All of the big content owners demand DRM. So the choice was between DRM and corporate growth or no DRM and Apple going nowhere.
Parent
Re:Questions? Answers. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no gun to your head to pay taxes, just a financial threat (yeah, you can go to jail for tax evasion, but only because you can't afford to pay the taxes you owe).
If Apple didn't support DRM in iTunes, few if any of the labels would have signed on at the time. Even now, it's clear that the majors continue to believe it's a requirement, and would quite possibly not sell their music through iTunes, thus impacting Apple's bottom line.
I think it's an apt analogy.
Parent
Re:Questions? Answers. (Score:5, Insightful)
If this is true, why do Amazon an eMusic have such huge collections of DRM-free music? Is the difference between their catalogs and the iTunes catalog that big?
Parent
Re:Questions? Answers. (Score:5, Insightful)
So, under which laws Apple will go to jail if they don't put DRM in their notebooks?
Thought so.
Parent
Re:Questions? Answers. (Score:5, Insightful)
That was a lie then, and is still a lie.
I hate taxes. I try not to pay them.
Yet, in order to keep living outside of jail, I keep paying them.
Am I lying about hating taxes? Or am I playing the game that needs to be played?
The difference is that you're describing something that you see as a disadvantage. You dislike paying taxes because you wish you could do something else with your money.
Now describe to me why Apple dislikes DRM. As far as I can see, not only are they playing the so-called "game that needs to be played" but since they're the market leaders in that particular business, it also serves as a lock-in. If you've been buying your tv shows from iTunes for the convenience of buying stuff online, you know you can watch your stuff on the goal with an ipod. Better not buy a zune, your videos won't work there!
Ok, that's going too far. Nobody would buy a zune either way. However, do you want to set up a media center that lets you watch all those videos in your living room? The AppleTV is the choice for you! You sure as hell can't set up a mythtv box. If you buy a windows media center box from dell, that won't play those videos either.
So, I know why you don't like to pay taxes. Tell me again why apple hates drm?
Parent
Er, it's HDCP. (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think you can buy a mid to high end vid card these days that doesn't have HDCP baked in; I'm not surprised.
Note that I didn't say I was enthralled, just not surprised.
Will fans just ignore it? (Score:5, Funny)
will fans just ignore it
No. They'll start explaining why it's actually an advantage for the user.
Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't buy crippled content in the first place, it's just wasted, unused, hardware.
Two screen dilemma (Score:5, Interesting)
For someone like me who has a Dell 20" screen that supports HDCP, but also an Apple 20" screen that does not, we're expected to unplug one screen every time we want to watch something protected in this manner? Get real!
Re:Two screen dilemma (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of it as an implicit endorsement of piracy. If you can't play purchased media on your 100% legitimate hardware, then the choice is clear.
Parent
Excellent news! (Score:5, Funny)
And thus, by his hand, a gift was bestowed. His people would, with Him as a purveyor of protected premium content by day and by night, be led away from the old and to the new monitor of their desire.
Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
This article is totally misleading. It's just HDCP. The media has to be HDCP aware in the first place.
If you don't by defective DRM laden media, then you do not have a problem.
In some ways, this is actually a GOOD THING. Now the hardware can actually communicate with other media devices that demand a HDCP connection.
So to SUM UP, all the PIRATED MEDIA WILL STILL PLAY.
Re:Lies (Score:5, Informative)
Now the hardware can actually communicate with other media devices that demand a HDCP connection.
No such devices exist. HDCP is strictly transmitter enforced. All HDCP-enabled display and audio devices are fully capable of doing their job without HDCP being turned on.
However, by enabling HDCP on their video hardware Apple has actually increased the opportunity for compatibility problems. If the Apple video hardware tries to do an HDCP handshake and fails - for any number of reasons, like data corruption or a bug in the implementation on either end, etc - then the end result is likely to be a completely blank screen (it should be obvious that if HDCP is turned on, but isn't working right, the only logical result is for the video hardware to stop transmitting, else it risk transmitting sooper-secret-video in the clear). There have been many reports of just this sort of handshaking failure with all kinds of HDCP-enabled devices like ps3's, blu-ray players, amplifier/receivers, etc.
Parent
DisplayPort (Score:5, Informative)
This is all part of DisplayPort, the display connection. Like HDMI, the digital display connection for HDTV gear, DisplayPort includes an end-to-end encryption mechanism. (Take a look at HDMI/HDCP.)
The end-to-end secure data path is something the HD content providers insist on.
Unauthorized playback protection != copy protect (Score:5, Informative)
Playback protection is part of a strategy of copy protection, but it's not the same thing.
Playback protection can hurt me even if I'm *not* trying to copy the media in question, which is my main objection to it.
Copy protection is arguably more legitimate, but it does depend on the specific copyright laws of your jurisdiction.
Up here in Canada the fair use doctrine suggest that it *should* be legal for me to rip a copy of a DVD for my personal playback in another medium (it's roughly the same as making an audio cassette copy of a vinyl record.)
I'm generally of the view that the companies that market media products should focus on improving the quality of those products in order to encourage us to buy them, rather than branding us as criminals. Then again, I still buy music whereas some people seem to not do that at all anymore.
So... (Score:5, Funny)
Get pissy with me and I'm gone. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a mac user. I've used Linux for 11 years now, I've used Windows back in the day for StarCraft or when it was neccesary for work (and on my jobs workstation) and I use OS X today whenever I want zero-fuss integration and need to run the Flash IDE to draw up some RIA components. I still use Debian and Ubuntu aswell, however.
I'm typing this on my Mac Mini with Tiger - with the pricey but neat new aluminum mac KB attached - and my last computer purchase was the famous classic 12" G4 macbook, trusted subnotebook of hackers and geeks all around the world. The fluorescent light needs longer time to fully light up, but after 5 years it still is a piece of integrated hard- and software that I love to use on a regular basis. In a nutshell: I'm a computer expert and I like my macs and I can name solid reasons why I do.
Apple has a rock-solid multiplier in me, as I - as most geeks - am the opinion-leader in all things concerning IT and computers for at least 50 people that know me well enough to know my profession. I can inmediately think of at least 3 people who have gotten macs also due to largely my influence on their decision.
That aside I can only say: Get pissy with me and I'm right back to Linux on x86 only. As soon as I have to fuss around with media not playing on my computers I'm gone, mac mini and 13" unibody MacBook be damned. I'd rather fuss around with half-finished OSS projects or crappy printer integration on a dell laptop that looks and handles like a piece of shit than having some DRM scheme wasting my time. If Apple even thinks about pressing the lock-in game, I'm gone and I will stop recommending Apple instantly. And I'll start discouraging people from buying them.
My 2 Euros.
Re:Obligatory Apple reality check (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that, in a sane society, a company makes a profit for its shareholders by producing products that customers want to buy, and in general by treating the customer as king. Remember the old phrase, "the customer is always right."
So how does screwing over your customers and making them angry equate to making a profit for your shareholders? The giant media companies aren't the ones giving money to Apple, it's regular people buying their hardware, software, and stuff on iTunes.
Parent
Re:Obligatory Apple reality check (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that the obligation is getting twisted into "make a profit for shareholders soon", with an almost total lack of concern for the long term.
Apple is actually one of the better companies in this regard, but a lot of companies are running into trouble because they think that shareholder value means pumping up their upcoming Q7 results no matter what.
Parent
Re:Obligatory Apple reality check (Score:5, Interesting)
That's why consumers don't have a problem with it. The only ones extremely opposed to Fairplay are the idealists who are against the very idea that they can't be trusted to obey the law. Those types of people aren't in the target market for iTMS anyway, so Apple isn't hurting at all by making profit for shareholders, appeasing media content providers, and giving (actual) costumers what they want.
Parent
Re:Obligatory Apple reality check (Score:5, Interesting)
So how does screwing over your customers and making them angry equate to making a profit for your shareholders? The giant media companies aren't the ones giving money to Apple, it's regular people buying their hardware, software, and stuff on iTunes.
I'm sure I don't like DRM any more than you do, but before firing off like that, have a look at how Apple has made use of their DRM monopoly with Fairplay. They've consistently dictated prices over the RIAA monopolies and won. They are using their lock on DRM to act in their own best interest, which also happens to be their customers' best interest.
Apple IS telling the giant media companies to go f*** themselves on price hikes and more oppressive DRM restrictions in favor of their customers needs/demands. I think the most magnificent/ironic aspect of the whole deal is that if it weren't for the DMCA, the RIAA could simply reverse engineer a compatible version of Fairplay and be done with Apple. The media monopolies cut their own throat by lobbying for a law and then allowing someone else to exploit it first. You have to find that at least a little bit amusing.
Now if we could just convince Apple that locking developers out of the iPhone really IS a bad idea, I'd have nothing bad to say about them.
Parent
Re:How many people care? (Score:5, Interesting)
There are vanishingly few "screwed over" customers "angry" about HDCP. Most people never even see the "restrictions" on their "freedom." They subscribe to cable, buy their BluRay players, buy their disks, and it all works just fine. If they didn't, then these stories would be in Time Magazine (or, better yet, TV Guide) and not on Slashdot.
For a couple reasons:
1) Consumers are retarded. I know of lots of people with HDTVs that watch the game stretched and distorted on an SD channel and think its the bees knees. Some of them even have access to the same channel in actual HD and don't even know it.
These people wouldn't know HDCP had downsampled their blu-ray on their non HDCP compliant device unless it hit them over the head with hammer.
And savvy people, the ones who know, mostly just buy compatible hardware.
2) The reality is HDCP really isn't screwing that many people over... at least not yet. That shoe hasn't dropped yet, and it probably won't drop until its obsolete, and people start fuming that their blu-ray disks don't work anymore on anything. And that's not going to happen for a while.
In my opinion DRM in general isn't going to hit people HARD until something MAJOR gets taken down while the DRM they use is in wide use. e.g. Apple closing the iTunes Music store is probably the only thing that would do it -today-. So far all the DRM hits have been minor league... Major League Baseball killing their drm format, or first generation blu-ray players not working with new discs... stuff that only hits small early adopter markets.
Sooner or later though, something big will get taken down, and people at large will sit up and notice. Probably won't be for another 10+ years though.
Parent
Re:How many people care? (Score:5, Informative)
In this case, he hooked up his laptop to a projector and got the Not Authorized Display.
D'oh!
Parent
Re:How many people care? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's only a matter of time. Slashdotters are just the amphibians of the DRM-world, we are more sensitive to small changes in the climate than the average organism. The levels of idiocy imposed by hardware and software manufacturers has not yet reached its zenith.
"Normal" people will start getting angry pretty soon, when they can't hook together ordinary AV hardware and have it just work, and when their seemingly physical media of various kinds mysteriously stops working under certain circumstances. The market for DRM-free gear will also grow, I predict (it already exists, and is a touted feature on some hardware and software).
Parent
Re:My guess is this is what they had to do (Score:5, Informative)
....buuuuuuut..... they don't HAVE Blu-Ray drives....
Parent
Re:old (Score:5, Insightful)
Please go back to Digg. Slashdot is not better than Digg because of the timeliness of the stories. Slashdot is better than Digg because of the user community.
Parent
Re:What will fanbois think? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Sensational Much? (Score:5, Informative)
This is NOTHING like the all-pervasive DRM that infests Visturd(TM) at every turn
I run Vista and I'm not really sure what you are talking about. What extra DRM does Vista have that XP does not? Whatever it is, it is definately not "all-pervasive", or I would have noticed.
Parent
Re:Sensational Much? (Score:5, Informative)
Just ignore it, it's a Slashdot myth that Vista has some magical form of DRM that "slows down" everything on your computer. That's as specific as it ever gets. If you ask for evidence of it, they always link to the same one article that refers to MP3 playback on a beta release as "proof."
I've asked about this about a dozen times, and I've never gotten a satisfactory reply. I've also asked for repro instructions for a series of actions that would result in the magical DRM blocking a user action. The simple fact is that the only DRM in Vista is in WMP; the same way the only DRM in OS X is in iTunes. There's no horrible conspiracy, and your computer isn't being "slowed down".
Parent