DeCSS, crypto, law, and economics

Matt Blaze mab at crypto.com
Wed Jan 8 20:32:46 EST 2003


> > Isn't it about a million times more probable that the industry's main
> > concern was PEOPLE RIPPING DVDS AND TRADING THE FILES?
> 
> Well, zone locking helps curb this because it *reduces* the market for each
> copy. The finer the zone locking resolution, the more effort an attacker needs
> to make in order to be able to trade more copies.

Huh?  DVD region coding doesn't prevent this at all; ripped decrypted
DVD mpeg files could be played anywhere.

The DVD region code scheme would, however, be mildly effective in reducing
the utility of (encrypted) DVD images by making them playable only on
players from the original market.  But as others have pointed out, there
aren't any consumer DVD writers that can write out an entire image, so
this wouldn't happen anyway with current products.

By the way, import region-free DVD players *are* available, quite
legally, within the US, as are non-region 1 disks.  Kim's video in NYC
is one source.  They are all unfamiliar off brands, however - you won't
find Sony or Matsushita (deliberately) producing one.  The main reason such
players aren't more popular or commonly available here is not the DMCA,
but rather lack of consumer demand.  Most popular movies are available and
cheapest on a region 1 version of the release. It's people outside North
America who buy most of the multi-region players, primarily to take
advantage of the region 1 market.  North American consumers of multi-region
players and other regions' disks are mostly just fanatics like me who
have less mainstream taste and want the few disks that aren't available
for region 1.





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