Anti-Piracy in Asia Pacific
THEATRICAL PRINT THEFT
Theft of a film print from a theater, film depot, courier service or other industry-related facility for the purpose of making illegal copies is a serious form of piracy. Prints may also be purloined from legitimate advance copies used for screening and marketing purposes. At this stage, the pirate is able to make relatively high quality videotapes and optical discs from the theatrical print.
Signal Theft
The illegal use of MPA member company product on cable TV systems is another serious problem in the region. Pirates have made businesses out of supplying consumers with illegally received pay channels. This includes receiving signal feed from other cable operators and illegally transmitting it to additional households. Technical safeguards and a vigilant program aimed at prosecuting signal pirates exist and are enhanced regularly. The MPA is increasing the use of civil actions, and continuing its support of criminal prosecutions, to attack these illegal operations.
UNAUTHORIZED PUBLIC PERFORMANCES
‘Unauthorized public performances’ is another form of piracy wherein film product is exhibited without the permission of the copyright owner. This could include ‘public performances’ during which an admission fee is charged by an institution or commercial establishment that shows movies to its members or customers without the permission of the copyright owner. It could also include the ‘streaming’ of video via the Internet.
CONTENT PROTECTION
The mantra of consumers today is “I want to be able to watch any movie, at any time and at any place and on any device that I own”. MPA member companies are highly motivated to meet these consumer demands using the latest consumer-friendly technological solutions to deliver content in a secure and legal environment.
Content protection affords the means to create new business models by implementing flexible usage rights. There may be a different prices associated with different offers, for instance, watching with or without commercials. Content protection allows these different offers to be made and compete with each other for viewers. Here’s a summary of the latest trends in content protection in various platforms
Packaged media: Unlike VCDs, content protection has been introduced into DVDs through what is called Content Scramble System (CSS) which basically scrambles the content and making it unviewable when you make a copy of the DVD movie. Although the keys for CSS have been exposed for some time, CSS continues to be amended to address new and developing situations. It is currently being amended to include managed copy and download-to-burn models.
The next generation packaged media are HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs which can hold more than 10 times of a standard 4.2 GB DVD disc. These new discs herald the introduction of High Definition (HD) movies into the living room. Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray makes use of the new Advanced Access Content System (AACS) as content protection technology instead of the traditional CSS in DVD discs.
AACS is more robust than CSS as it makes use of 128-bit encryption instead of the previous 40-bit, making it a lot harder to crack. It also has revocation technology which can stop the movie from playing back in specific models of playback devices if they are non-compliant. Verance audio watermark also prevents the playback of movies recorded by consumer camcorders in cinemas onto HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs. Other content protection capabilities include software renewability, managed copying and download to burn and Content Generation Management System (CGMS) copy protection signaling for analogue outputs.
Cable TV and satellite TV services today require users to purchase a compatible set-top box to receive their transmissions. These transmissions are usually scrambled and encrypted. To authenticate their legitimate customers and to weed out the hackers, these broadcasters typically make use of a smart card that is inserted into the set-top-box. This form of copy protection is called Conditional Access – meaning that as a condition to access the protected content, you must have the smart card inserted into your box.
Free-to-air TV and redistribution control: Free-to-air TV remains the one platform that is largely unprotected in today’s digital age. Viewers are able to easily copy and share recorded TV programs. However, the unbridled copying of such content is infringing upon the rights of the copyright owners. TV is licensed for transmission in specific homes. However, in the digital world, the Internet provides a lossless, unlimited redistribution vehicle throughout the world.
Viewers who watch the free-to-air TV episodes in their country, like people in the U.S. who watch, say, Kiefer’s Sutherland in “24” on Fox TV and then upload the digital files over the Internet and make them available for all and sundry around the world with a broadband Internet connection. That means someone in Singapore or Hong Kong could watch the current episodes in the U.S. the same day or the day after the actual screening – long before the episodes are legally made available in their respective countries. These acts of what the industry calls unauthorized redistribution are hurting the broadcast industry because the revenue opportunities are affected by intellectual property theft. Advertisers may stop paying for content, and consumers may end up paying for such content as more of it moves to Pay-TV.
Japan, among other countries, have solutions preventing the unauthorized redistribution. It is most urgent that technological solutions are adopted to ensure digital TV is not redistributed without permission.
Circumvention Devices: Unfortunately circumvention devices exist that break these protected forms of content as described in the above. A circumvention device is any physical medium or digital file that allows for the circumvention of content protection measures put on films, videos, discs, etc. to secure the content. One such circumvention device is the software utility DeCSS. Other common circumvention devices include "black boxes" and other illegal signal theft boxes and Macrovision defeaters. A legal concept which protects copyrighted content from such circumvention is Technological Protection Measure (TPM).
