DVD FOR ON-DEMAND DISC PUBLISHING Ensuring digital content security and preventing unauthorized duplication

On Demand Digital Publishing™ DVD Copy Protection

I. Executive Summary Illegal DVD Copying — Unauthorized copying prevents digital content owners and distributors from capturing all of the revenue to which they are entitled. Protecting Stage Twos discs from unlawful duplication can mean the dif- ference between profitability and loss for content owners. Stage Several key factors must be understood in order Ones Stage Threes to maximize protection without creating technical compromises, workflow delays or financial risks. Hardcore Rippers

Traditional protection methods do not sufficiently address the most pressing issues facing this ever- Stage Ones: The least technical and often evolving industry: workflow efficiency, protection least successful rippers. strength, and most importantly, playback com- Stage Twos: Spends time looking for rip- patibility. Nor do they meet the protection needs ping tools online. of on-demand disc burning environments. Stage Threes: Uses multiple tools. However, the technology for on-demand DVD Hardcore Rippers: The most techincal and most publishing, combined with on-the-fly anti-rip copy successful rippers. protection and superior playback compatibility, is now possible thanks to an innovative software solution that offers content protection for publish- Stage Twos comprise about a quarter of all ers using recordable . pirates. They are more likely than Stage Ones to participate in ripping forums, and they spend This white paper reviews and explains the protec- a lot more time trying to copy. They may also tion choices and optimal configurations, and search the Internet for ripping solutions to spe- discusses the new technology. cial titles.

Stage Threes are distinguished by their use of multiple ripping tools, which they deploy in II. Background, Challenges, combination. They have heavier involvement in Opportunities multiple ripping forums than do Stage Twos, and thus more acquired knowledge. They represent Of all the emerging threats to the television and about 10 percent of the pirate universe. movie industry, unauthorized duplication tops the list because of the enormous and on-going Hardcore Rippers are the most technically economic damage it does. In a recent In-Stat sophisticated and focused of all content copi- survey, half of television and movie industry pro- ers. Though they make up only five percent of fessionals said they considered piracy as a threat all pirates, Hardcore rippers are of particular to their bottom lines; over a quarter of those concern to the industry, because they post surveyed said they had suffered revenue losses frequently to online forums, and even mentor due to the illegal theft or reproduction of their Stage Ones and Stage Twos. They also beta test intellectual property. new ripping programs, and provide their testing People who choose to make illegal copies come feedback to these forums. in several levels of sophistication and dedication. They range from rippers with a primarily oppor- If there is any good news emanating from the tunistic mindset, to those who have, in essence, ripper universe, it is the fact that most rippers made content theft their life’s focus. are on the lower end of the sophistication/dedi- cation scale, and are not making a business out Stage Ones are the least technically sophisti- of stealing and selling content. cated rippers. They make up the majority of the pirate population. While they tend to rip low to While movie and TV piracy garners most of the medium volumes of content, their success level is publicity, piracy plagues the digital content pro- disturbingly high. duction and distribution marketplace as a whole. 

www.rimage.com 800.445.8288 DVD Copy Protection

Whether the concerned party is a large legal Type One: Content Scramble System publishing enterprise, a healthcare organization or a motivational speaker, they face the same (CSS) This is the standard method of protecting digital needs for content protection and control as the content for Video DVDs. CSS works by encrypt- marketplace’s more prominent entities. ing the content, which is then distributed on read- only media. The security scheme is defined in the Until recently, however, the creation of pro- player, typically as software, and enforces a set tected DVDs was tied to large production runs of fixed security rules. In order to allow off-line of stamped or silk-screened discs in response playback, players are pre-loaded with media to specific quantity orders. With the advent of decryption keys. market activities such as download-to-burn and movies-on-demand, a completely new technol- Authentication requires verification by a drive ogy and consumer paradigm has evolved, neces- and a downstream device or a host DVD player sitating solutions that keep the market ahead of (such as a PC software application or decoder copyright abuse, protect its sizable investments board) that are both legally licensed to use the in original content and meet immediate customer copy-protection system. demand. Despite the fact that CSS was cracked ten years Whatever the size or nature of the user, all have ago, it continues to enjoy widespread industry the same needs for a protection solution that is use, due largely to the fact that it is still a legally efficient, strong and provides optimal playback recognized form of protection. compatibility. Type Two: Bad Sector Insertion III. Traditional DVD Anti-Piracy This protection method involves the deliberate Technology creation of a number of corrupted data sectors The digital content industry utilizes several copy on the DVD that cause DVD copying software to protection and pirate-tracking tactics. Regarding correct these errors. Standard DVD players usu- copy protection for recordable DVDs, there are ally can ignore these sectors and write them out three basic techniques: to the new disc. In the process, the “bad” sec- 1. CSS encryption/decryption (built into every tors are automatically corrected by the software DVD player) and the recorder. The special playback software 2. “Bad sector” schemes, which purposely cre- actually looks for the original “bad” sectors and ate and burn bad sectors into the DVD itself will inhibit playback if it sees corrected sectors. 3. Content Alteration, wherein the structure of the DVD is changed to fool ripping pro- Inserting bad sectors on recordable DVDs re- grams, but does not impact the playability of quires a special DVD recorder with software-spe- the discs cific firmware modifications that allow the writing of bad sectors.

Content Scramble System Bad Sector Insertion Content Alteration (CSS) Encryption Intentionally corrupts content Places bad data in unused portions “Locks” content and makes it and confuses ripping software of the disc, confusing ripping software inaccessible to ripping software but preserving playback compatibility 

800.445.8288 www.rimage.com DVD Copy Protection

The major drawback to the use of bad sectors is their potential for negatively impacting broad IV. Technology Considerations As with any technology solution, digital content playback compatibility. In effect, adding pur- protection raises several key considerations, posely bad sector reduces the quality of the briefly addressed below. The ideal protection discs themselves. solution would address all of these. Examples of Bad Sector Copy Protection Solutions Playback Compatibility The first and foremost objective for any protec- ARccOS is a copy-protection system developed tion method is provision of superior playback by Sony that deliberately creates a number compatibility on the maximum number of DVD of corrupted data sectors on the DVD, caus- players and set-top-boxes. The best way to at- ing DVD copying software to produce errors. tain this objective — and to leave original media Though ARccOS was reportedly discontinued, content unaltered — is to encapsulate smart code several recent high-profile releases have used on unused disc areas, as opposed to coding it. Like CSS, this protection method has major weak sectors on disk content. However, the lat- vulnerability issues; pirates can apparently ter method has been the industry standard, due overcome it by utilizing any number of ripping in large part to the fact that encapsulation solu- programs. tions have not been widely available.

DVD-R-Movie PROTECT (by X-protect) also A Plague on All Pirates inserts forced errors on DVDs, making clean Any given protection type needs to be effective playback trickier. Pirates try to overcome this not only against garden-variety rippers, but to protection by employing ripping programs that provide moderate resistance to the most dedicat- are designed to identify and “fix” the forced ed and prolific of pirates as well. The conundrum errors. for digital content providers and distributors has been that they can have either excellent protec- FluxDVD (by ACE GmbH) is used by Cin- tion or great playback compatibility, but not emaNow, an internet-based, on-demand movie both, because the more robust the protection is, download and burn company, to prevent copy- the more it impairs playback compatibility. right violations. FluxDVD’s protection process creates discs with errors, which can pose play- Space Invaders back compatibility issues. Even the least space-invasive protection will eat up some territory; the questions are: “How much Type Three: Content Alteration territory?” and “What’s an acceptable level?” The third form of protection attempts to disable Ideally, less than one percent of disc real estate ripping programming without negatively impact- should be taken up by protection elements. Solu- ing playback compatibility. tions vary from 5% to 10% capacity lost due to protect. Examples of Content Alteration Passive = Good RipGuard (by Macrovision) is designed to It is a safe bet that no content owner or distribu- prevent or reduce digital DVD piracy by altering tor wants active code loaded on their system. the format of DVD content, thereby disrupting No computer owner wants special or secret ripping software. It also thwarts pirates by ren- tracking software installed on their computers dering the formatted section of DVDs unwatch- in an effort to protect against unauthorized able on some players. copying. The way to avoid this is by utilizing a protection solution with a passive software pres- Rimage Video Protect (by Rimage Corpora- ence. tion) is the latest entrant into this promising cat- egory, providing protection against ripping tools without sacrificing playback compatibility. More Overhead informatioin on Rimage Video Protect follows at Because of their significant impact on the rate of disc production, prep time and burn time are  the end of this document.

www.rimage.com 800.445.8288 DVD Copy Protection major contributors to overhead costs. These fac- V. Tackling Transparency tors should therefore have as minimal an impact To be considered successful, an anti-piracy on the protection process as possible, regardless scheme must be effective, difficult to defeat and of whether the application is one-time in nature, — perhaps most important — transparent to users. or involves a multiple disk burn. Most digital content protection solutions read- ily meet one or two of these criteria, but not all Integration three. Where most of them trip up is in regard to Seamless workflow integration is vital; the addi- transparency, because, as noted above, the bet- tion of the copy protection option into the DVD ter the protection, the lousier playback will be. creation process should be unobtrusive and minimally time invasive. The acquisition of pro- tection licenses should likewise be seamless, with VI. Digital Watermarking No matter how ingenious a protection solution options for corporate and site licensing. is, it will be cracked eventually. That is why best practices include use of digital watermark- Keeping Current ing. Whereas protection methods are designed Much like the Borg colonies on Star Trek: Gen- to prevent or hamper piracy, watermarking is erations, pirates are constantly adapting and forensic in nature. finding new ways to get around protections. As the name suggests, digital watermarking is Software currency is one of the best tactics for akin to a currency watermark, in that it verifies keeping pirates at bay; vendors’ products must the authenticity of the content. In addition to therefore be flexible and updatable. providing authentication, digital watermarking enables the tracking of pirates, thereby making Application Compatibility their identification — and perhaps more to the Protection must integrate smoothly with other ap- point, their apprehension — more likely. plications, especially watermarking. The result of effective integration is a DVD that has both copy Watermarking is a very robust solution that protection and origin tracking security (also involves weaving minute bits of data through known as “double-dipping”). the entire stream of a movie, or any other type of digital content. These watermarks, which are Getting Focused invisible and inaudible, are embedded into and A key protection question is: Where should retrieved from digital content using a propri- the protection be? There are two self-evident etary algorithm. It is estimated that in a one-sec- options; on the recordable media, or on the ond stream of video from a DVD, which has an replicated media. What may be less self-evi- average size of five Mbps, a watermark would dent is that the protection techniques that can be about two bits of data. Watermarks are be brought to bear on recordable media are retained and detectable after the digital content much more powerful than those for replicated is edited, compressed or converted. media. One reason is that recordable protection techniques provide for traceability to an actual These data embeds, which typically include offender. Another equally compelling reason is date, time and place elements, also enable the that the recordable-focused techniques enable tracing of illegal copies back to their distribution alteration of protection protocols for each disc source. produced; such techniques make a universal crack less likely. In addition to its various functional anti-piracy el- ements, the interwoven nature of watermarking Why Be Blu? makes it hard for pirates to find and isolate the Copy protection has to be compatible not just watermarking data bits. Even if the bits’ where- with DVD technology (including DVD9), but with abouts could be ascertained, pirates would not whatever is next on the horizon, be it Blu-ray, be able to remove them without damaging the HD-DVD or any other format. DVD’s content.

Among the watermarking solutions are RUN- NING MARKS™, VTrack, VideoMark and NexGuard. 

800.445.8288 www.rimage.com DVD Copy Protection

RUNNING MARKS™ (by Cinea) is a water- Rimage Video Protect guards against inappro- marking system designed for the consumer elec- priate copying of DVD content by encapsulating tronics market. It claims to offer unique, replace- data files in areas of the DVD disk that are not ment-based watermarking rather than the more read during playback. This solution not only typical single-ended solution. The manufacturer leaves playback compatibility uncompromised, it says that this system simplifies the current com- leaves original media content unmodified. plex watermark insertion process by separating the image of where to place marks, from the While no digital content protection solution is task of insertion. Content undergoes a one-time totally impregnable, Rimage Video Protect stops analysis, followed by creation of a small set of all known ripping tools, providing on-the-fly metadata that provides information on how to protection to pre-release content, screeners and insert the watermark. on-demand production DVDs. The solution is di- rectly built into Rimage’s software suite, ensuring Replitrack (by Philips) a turnkey watermark- seamless execution and streamlined workflow. ing solution for forensic tracking purposes and currently only available for video content. The Rimage Video Protect applications include distri- product comes as ready-to-install software bution centers, pre-release video (dailies), Oscar and works in conjunction with Rimage DVD-R screeners, web fulfillment for content owners, duplication equipment. It embeds an impercep- pre-sales distribution, pre-release audio, service tible, indelible identifier into the video signal. bureaus and content publishers. Replitrack digital watermarks are claimed to be extremely robust and inseparable from content, Rimage Video Protect is the first downloadable making them impossible to alter. The manufac- pay-per-burn protection system, ensuring ease of turer says that even after severe degradation use for small- and medium-sized media service due to scaling, cropping, compression or even companies. Video Protect enables users to meet camcorder copying, the pirated content can still customers’ disk demands without unnecessary be traced. waste, which can make the difference between order profit and loss. Videomark software casts and detects invisible When combined with a proven watermarking watermarks on digital content. The watermarks method, Rimage Video Protect represents the correspond to specific ID numbers, known as best strategy available for ensuring digital con- watermark keys, which are given to and used by tent security and preventing pirate-related profit the copyright owners to make exclusive water- diversions. marks.

NexGuard (from Thomson) is a watermarking VIII. Third-party Endorsements solution that embeds the date, time and place of and Evaluations projection into a digital motion picture’s image Rimage Video Protect’s high playback compati- and soundtrack during play-out in movie the- bility has been verified in two independent tests, atres. When the information is extracted from pi- which also confirmed the company’s claim that rated materials with NexGuard’s detection and Rimage Video Protect is a passive solution that recovery system, it pinpoints the exact source of does not install software or modify users’ com- the “leakage.” puters. The tests were conducted by Intellikey Labs, Los Angeles, and Next Generation Securi- ty Consulting (NGS), Surrey, U.K. Intellikey Labs VII. Rimage Video Protect is recognized by the world’s top entertainment, Rimage Corporation has just announced a pas- media, manufacturing and software companies sive, encapsulation software solution known as the market leader in quality assurance testing as Rimage Video Protect. This technology is a for optical and digital media content. NGS is re- completely integrated, turnkey pay-as-you-go garded as the world leader in the discovery and application that represents the most state-of- publication of computer security vulnerabilities. the-art capability available for ensuring digital content security and preventing profit-killing unauthorized copying. 

www.rimage.com 800.445.8288 DVD Copy Protection

Intellikey Labs Test Results three which had not. NGS also tested two Audio CDs In a nutshell, Intellikey concluded that any that had been protected with Rimage Copy Protect desktop player that can play a DVD can play a audio copy control software. NGS determined that Rimage-protected disk. there were no unexpected, undesirable or malicious actions taken on any of the three systems on which Intellikey Labs tested Rimage Video Protect the protected DVDs were played. embeds on +R and –R DVDs. Both versions were tested for compatibility on a 103-DVD player IX: Conclusion subset of Matrix 5.10; this subset represents more Efficiency, vigorous protection and superior play- than 83 percent of all DVD players sold in the U.S. back compatibility are the three biggest needs fac- between 2003 and 2005. ing digital content producers and distributors. Until now, it has been virtually impossible to attain all The +R embed loaded successfully on all but two three. Rimage Video Protect overcomes this prob- of the 103 DVD players. The no-loads occurred on lem with an on-the-fly, encapsulation-based pas- the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Panasonic DVD-RV32 sive software solution that inhibits ripping and disk players, which represent a mere .39 percent of all copying software, while leaving original media DVD players sold in the U.S. between 2003 and content unmodified. 2005. When combined with a quality watermarking The –R embed loaded successfully on all but one method, Rimage Video Protect represents the best of the 103 DVD players; Microsoft’s Xbox 360 was way for users in the digital content production and the only player on which the disk failed to load. distribution marketplace to protect their profits and keep pirates at bay. NGS Test Results Sources “Digital Content Protection: How Anti-Piracy Technolo- gies are Transforming Digital Media.” by Don Labriola (5/16/02). From ExtremeTech www.extremetech.com, 7/06/07.

Rimage Video Protect Playback Compatability “Survey: movie, TV execs see piracy as threat.” Austin Based on independent research analysis Business Journal, 1/04/05.

After testing protected DVDs on three different “Universal adds anti-piracy watermark,” by Carlos Mar- tinez, San Fernando Valley Business Journal, 10/03. operating systems, NGS concluded that “…(Rim- age’s) DVD protection technologies behave in a “Forensic Watermarking Technology Incorporated safe and secure manner when introduced to a into On-Going 4,000-Screen Digital Cinema Rollout,” user’s computer system, and behave as described 2/23/06. From TECHNEWS, www.technologynews- by Rimage.” daily.com, 7/03/07. “Digital Watermarking Alliance Reports Industry De- NGS performed an assessment aimed at verifying mand for Anti-Piracy, Imagery, Broadcast Monitoring the company’s claim that Rimage Copy Protect’s and ID Security Solutions Continues,” 6/11/07. From copy protection mechanisms did not insert soft- yahoo! Finance, biz.yahoo.com, 7/03/07. ware onto operating systems; NGS’ self-described role was “to determine conclusively whether the “Top D-Cinema Manufacturers Choose NexGuard™ to technology would take any unexpected, undesir- Combat Piracy,” 8/16/06. From DCinema Today, www. dcinematoday.com, 7/03/07. able or malicious actions when a DVD protected with the technology is played on operating “Self-Protecting Digital Content: A Technical Report systems platforms supported by” Rimage Copy From the CRI Content Security Research Initiative.” Ko- Protect. The three operating systems on which the cher, Jaffe, Jun, et al, 2002-2003. From Cryptography solution was tested were Windows, Intel Mac and Research, www.cryptography.com, 7/18/07. PowerPC Mac. “General information about digital watermarks.” From EWATERMARK.com www.ewatermark.com, 7/20/07. NGS tested six DVD videos, three of which con- tained material protected using Video Protect, and www.philips.com www.cinea.com 

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Rimage Corporation Rimage Europe Rimage Asia/Pacific 7725 Washington Avenue South Rimage Europe GmbH Rimage Japan Co., Ltd. Minneapolis, Minnesota 55439 USA Albert-Einstein-Strasse 26 3-15 Kanda Nishikicho Chiyody-Ku Toll Free: 800.445.8288 63128 Dietzenbach, Germany Tokyo 101-0054 Japan Fax: 952.944.7808 Tel: (49) (0) 6074 8521 0 Tel: +81.3.5238.8465 www.rimage.com Fax: (49) (0) 6074 8521 100 Fax: +81.3.5238.8463 www.rimage.de www.rimage.co.jp