Implement DRM content protection

[litemover]

It would be great if you were able to authorize a computer like in I tunes to copy protect your Content via DRM.

This way, you won't see your own content on other people's shows as I have.

Managing content and keeping people with portable drives from snaking it off you is a big issue.

Christian Choi

[Gian]

I do not know if I agree or disagree on that...

I know is BAD and SAD use other's people content on the servers.
We here have a policy of TRASHED all the custom content the Client brings, just after the show, in front of the client, unless asked otherwise. Like we will be doing a Tour, or doiong that particular client again.

That way, the client (Designer, Company) be more likely know we will be not using any custom content on other shows.

Is hard, but all word is trying to take DRM out, like Apple itself (as you mention before) has a strong lobby to get DRM out of theier store. They are already sellin g DRM free content, and called iTunes PLUS.

Also will be hard to keep all the licenses and all working fine, like ArtBeats will have one license, Digital Juice another one, my Client will hire 3 diferent content guys (that happens a lot on my world here) and each one will have a diferent one.

I do not think this is the way.

Just my 2 cents...

Regards

[litemover]

For I tunes related stuff I do not think that it is the way either but for content I do. On every show I've worked on, I personally have tried to delete the content off the machines but I am not afforded the luxury of time to do this. Either they pull the plug or the servers are backstage or near the sources and when it's time to load out, everyone cuts power first thing.

I usually also work with 6 to 8 servers on most of the show that I'm doing and they are usually located backstage, not FOH so I have no way of knowing what is going on back there with my stuff.

Itunes music and video is a lot different then the hard earned content you make or pay for. A typical season costs aroun $39, while an album costs 9 or 10. Content costs at least $5000 per show.

There must be a utility out there that can apply DRM after you are done editing it with your team and if there isn't it would be great if Richard would implement some sort of copy protection control within Catalyst itself and perhaps a companion program that you could run all your content through so it stays on the machine and will only work on that particular machine unless you de-authorize it with your password. You will have the full option to delete it off the machines upon end of show. It would also be a good idea to have a protected remote command that is called "Delete all folders on shut down" with a confirmation and password protect so that you don't inadvertently delete your content on remote shut down. If power gets cut it would auto resume the next time Catalyst booted up in case power was cut to the machine before it had a chance to finish. This way on the final shut down procedure, all your content would be deleted and you would be ensured that it was gone.

Before I started making a lot of content, I spent over $20k in stock and AE starting templates. I would also shoot a lot of DV and HDV and use that, I slowley became well versed at ae and Maya and started creating my own content I would load up every folder that I owned and had a system of knowing where each piece was. It alowed me to be able to have a huge amount of content on a machine, unfortunately, I started seeing my content on other machines, I number and name it uniquely as well as flop xdissolve any non looping material so it is easily reognizeable, especially my custom content.

It really gets to me that I flipped the bill and created content for someone else to have the same degree of freedom to cover their songs. I've seen my work pop up on Profile and Digibeta from times when I had to run everything through the Truck (TV shoots) and I just don't think it's right.

DRM or something like it would eliminate this problem and make Catalyst's stock rise in a lot of people' eyes. No other server has content protection and if Catalyst did, it would make it a no brainer to always use it.

For me, content protection is more important than any special effects or color FX, other than the playback modes, I would be happy with a server with content protection above all other features.

Christian Choi

[litemover]

I have one more comment to make and that is that this all of course would be an optional feature that you could use at your discression, so what harm would it do to have it?

Christian Choi

[samsc]

i have thought about this kindof thing -

there is no quicktime or operating system level support for anything like this.
which means any mechanism would have to be sort of proprietary - and possibly difficult to manage.

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the main problem being everything would have to be converted to some intermediate file format - then it would not be viewable outside the target application - not viewable by any other application - even if you were the owner/creator of the footage -

[jasonrudolph]

I know it is possible to do, as the Mbox has this exact feature, you can protect your files and they wont play on another machine. I dont know exactly how they do it, as I havent used that feature yet, but I know its there.

Jason

[FxDrew]

Is there anything that can be done using the File Permissions or is that treading into angry sharks with lasers attached to their heads infested water?

[samsc]

Is there anything that can be done using the File Permissions or is that treading into angry sharks with lasers attached to their heads infested water?

i think i found a hint once that there might be a combination of flags that prevent copying. i didnt have time to dig deep enough.

[samsc]

I know it is possible to do, as the Mbox has this exact feature, you can protect your files and they wont play on another machine. I dont know exactly how they do it, as I havent used that feature yet, but I know its there.

Jason

it is possible -

[litemover]

I would be totally wiling to run my files through a conversioin utility for Catalyst. If I needed to edit the file, I would just edit it and run it through the conversion again, simple. For thos of you who don't care about this feature, you wouldn't need to use it.

It would also be cool if it was DRM because there are so many DVI extenders that preserve DRM, this would make it impossible for the truck to record your digital work, they would be able to record it anologue but if you used Thinklogical DVI fiber extenders or Gefen DVI ST fiber extenders instead of Imagepros, you would be protected to some degree wherever you send your digital DRM content.

This feature would really make things so much more honest and I would have no fear of my several thousand dollar library getting snaked as I've either made or purchased every piece in it and it's over 5000 files long. There are some disks I paid $900 for, all of the Getty Image stuff is very expensive and they won't bend on prices even on bulk, $700 per disk is insane but I've paid the price on several occasions when I first got into the content game. Unfortunately, it is unprotected and still on half of one of my client's machines which means it has traveled to who knows how many external hard drives.

I think it's a very neccessary feature to have but it does rank just under having a Midi driven/driving touchscreen HUD, well about equal.

Christian