Image Processing Reference
In-Depth Information
18.7.5
Rented Movies
Some viewers only need or want to rent movies for a couple of nights. That business
model has helped found huge chains of video-rental stores and for these consumers, some
kind of digital duplication process with embedded rights control would be ideal. You
might purchase 10 plays of a movie or rights to watch it an unlimited number of times
during a certain period.
For this to work, the system must be closed and inaccessible so that the material can-
not be extracted. That is very hard to do but streaming the content and charging on a user
account basis might be a way forward.
Some people will like this. Those who would rent movies are likely candidates.
Those who purchase the copies to keep will probably not be interested in this model.
18.7.6
Public Performance
Theoretically, public performance should be the most secure way to present movies to peo-
ple. In practice, it is likely that this is the preferred point of attack for piracy attempts.
Much wringing of hands and bemoaning of revenue loss have come out of
Hollywood, accusing the public of theft of movies which have found their way onto DVDs
that are sold in markets in the Far East and on street corners in Western cities.
Unfortunately, that does not tell the entire story. A significant number of these
pirated disks carry films that have not yet been released in the cinemas, let alone pub-
lished on publicly accessible media. Some of the originals that have been compromised are
samples sent out for preview by the movie companies (a.k.a. screeners). They are working
on making this process much more secure, but it is not the public that is at fault when a
film is “borrowed” from the projection booth at a cinema and duplicated on a telecine
machine without the distributor knowing.
18.7.7
Mobile Applications
Tracking people on the move and securing the content being delivered to their mobile
device adds some complexity to the problem. Properly identifying a device and user who
is authenticated should be no more complex than with a fixed-client system. It might be
more difficult if the mobile device moves to another commercial territory, which is cer-
tainly possible when users travel to another country.
Companies are beginning to develop products that address the needs of this market.
For example, DMD Secure offers a DMD mobile DRM system.
18.7.8
Broadcasting
The whole point of broadcasting is to deliver a single stream of content to as many house-
holds as possible. This is a very efficient distribution technique. In terms of rights control,
DMD Secure: http://www.dmdsecure.com/
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