Google Misses YouTube Anti-Piracy Deadline

Google rings in the new year without its promised anti-piracy protection scheme

Although YouTube rang in 2007 with a virtual New Year's Eve festival complete with a performance from Warner Music, live performances and participation from hordes of online members, the company failed to meet its self-imposed deadline to implement anti-piracy protection on its site. In an agreement with Warner Music Group, YouTube promised in September to have an anti-piracy system in place that would feature an "advanced content identification and royalty reporting system."

The anti-piracy system to be in place by the end of 2006 was a part of a deal which allowed Google to distribute Warner music videos, artist interviews and other music-related content. When Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion USD in October, it was widely expected that Google's deeper pockets would give YouTube the financial backing to implement such anti-piracy measures.

Missing the year-end deadline could be seen as a virtual pothole on the road to a more controlled distribution channel, but YouTube still can save face by getting the system live within the opening weeks of 2007. "It is hugely important, especially from the rights holders' perspective, that the best efforts are being made to corral the stuff flowing through YouTube," said Michael McGuire of Gartner Research. "Rights holders are making specific bets on paths of distribution and are expecting serious effort to make uncontrolled distribution difficult for most folks to do."

For now, YouTube is leaving the ball in the user's court when it comes to copyrighted music by telling users that uploading content "shall be at your sole risk."

(c) www.dailytech.com

Newfangled DVD Copy Protection Apparently Cracked; Now The Real Fun Starts

Next-gen DVD players are already something of a joke. Despite their ability to play HD content, industry infighting over two competing standards has stymied their introduction, and their high prices don't help, either. But HD isn't the only new feature these players enable -- they've got a fantastic new DRM scheme, called AACS, too. But, just like pretty much every other DRM scheme out there, rumors say it's already been cracked. It's inevitable, really, and illustrates just what an exercise in futility implementing DRM is: it certainly doesn't stop piracy, as the content available on file-sharing networks indicates, and it simply raises costs and prevents honest consumers from using content they've legitimately purchased in the ways which they'd like. In any case, if AACS really has been cracked, it will be interesting to see the industry response. AACS is supposed to be able to adapt and be changed as time goes on. For instance, keys on playback devices can apparently be revoked and updated in order to allow the DRM to be updated and keep pace with cracks and hacks. However, simply not updating a player may not shield a user from updated DRM, since the copy-protection on discs will change, too -- and if a player hasn't been updated, it won't play the new media. Surely the movie industry feels great about this, and thinks it's really got one over on crackers and pirates. Here's the thing, though: whatever changes they make, the DRM will just get cracked again. And changing around the DRM and requiring updates and breaking functionality isn't going to hurt those people -- it's just going to frustrate honest consumers who won't understand why their expensive DVD player won't play movies any more.

(c) www.techdirt.com