Encoding copyright protection into my DVD's

Holy Harry

Holy Harry

Well-known member
I will soon be working for a local club, making a DVD of a football final. I decided I could make financial life easier for the club, and get a better deal for myself if I don't charge for the work done on the day and editing afterward, but instead charge each of the players for a copy, and any supporters of the club who want copies too. I believe there will be quite a demand for the dvd's so it should work quite well.

Only thing is - I've become a little concerned that there's going to be a bit of ripping and burning between friends and neighbours, thus greatly reducing my income from the venture.

I tried using the copyright management option on my DVD Studio Pro/Mac Pro, but I get a message in the log, "This device does not support copy generation management. The disc will not be protected".

Ok, so I know that if someone really wants to copy a DVD, they'll find a way of doing it, but I just want to discourage any casual copying between friends.

Is there anything I can do with my current set-up, or is there software I can download... or is the whole thing just too much of a pain in the a**, and I'll just have to put up with pirating as a fact of life?

All comments much appreciated!
 
Unfortunately no it's a catch-22. You would need to replicate DVDs to get any sort of copy protection and that would be also breakable. That's going to require several weeks turnaround time and about $1,000+ for min 500-1000 discs. I'd suggest instead asking a flat fee for 50 DVDs at a time and they can give them away. Much simpler on a technical/getting you paid. That or maybe you get the players to sign discs and sell as collectibles so pirating holds less appeal.

-Noah
 
Yes! I really like the signed disc idea - nice one, Noah.

In retrospect, considering what you've just written about replicating, I guess an upfront bundle agreement would have been better.

Maybe I'd better look on this as a learning experience, and also maybe the copying won't be as bad as I'm thinking... guess I'm going to find out pretty soon!
 
I tried that once before and due to a lack of copyright protection saw my orders tumble. I wont do that type of deal again. Every second person knows how to beat copyright protection anyway these days, maybe not that high, but its extreme.
 
I've had a slight brainwave. I could compress the footage to a very high quality, and maybe add it to the DVD twice in DVD SP 4, then burn it to dual layer. Reason being.... pretty much everyone owns a PC with basic single-layer copying ability, but very few (i'm guessing) have the facility to burn Dual Layer discs... here's some typical Dell offerings for the family...

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/desktops_better?c=ie&cs=iedhs1&l=en&s=dhs

So, ok - it's slower, and the discs are margainly more expensive, but it may be enough to deter casual copyright.

Maybe?
 
I think you might be onto something. I could be wrong but this is similar (in theory) to the protection used for a certain Will Ferrell movie. I can't say which but it rhymes with Talladega Nights. lol....

Granted, I'm no authoring guru but I've seen some tricky disks and the "too big to copy" idea is interesting. I was also looking for a VOB randomizer that creates false "info" files and bad vob's but is still playable.

As you're well aware, it seems most software freaks have devoted their time and energy to cracking, not protecting, this stuff.

Anyone - feel free to correct me if I'm wrong... just trying to help out Harry. I think it's an interesting problem. The best protection I have seen has always been creative file structuring and dummy sectors, not MacroVision or Sony's solutions. Some small independents are safer than the big boys that claim to be on the forefront (W_Bros.).


please note: All of my research is strictly for fair use educational resourcing. I in no way condone DVD piracy.
 
Actually most Macs and I suspect many PCs that are made in the past 6-12 months or so will have dual layer DVD burners.

My 2 cents..as noted, copy protection usually takes longer (and often costs more) to work into a project than it would take someone to defeat it. And copy protection hamstrings legitimate customers who want to make back ups or use their legitimate copy in another format. So it fails in two ways...it doesn't protect you and it hurts your legitimate users.

Business models need to take this into account and make money in new and more creative ways, be it up front or through advertising or with value added.

In the original idea of doing a project for a football club, maybe the club could use the DVD as a fund raiser (which the autograph idea would help also) and pay the producer up front and make the cost of the DVD to cover both production and fund raising. The theory would be that pirating would be less likely because the pirate would be hurting their team. Many pirates believe they are just stealing from some nameless corporation, put a face they care about on it, and it would be less likely in my opinion.
 
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