Sony Tries Using Blockchain Tech For Next-Gen DRM (engadget.com) 100
Sony announced Monday that it's using blockchain technology for digital rights management (DRM), "starting with written educational materials under the Sony Global Education arm of the business," reports Engadget. "This new blockchain system is built on Sony's pre-existing DRM tools, which keep track of the distribution of copyrighted materials, but will have advantages that come with blockchain's inherent security." From the report: Because of the nature of blockchain, which tracks digital transactions in records that are particularly difficult to forge or otherwise tamper with, its application as a DRM tool makes sense and may also help creators keep tabs on their content. Currently, it's up to creators themselves (or the companies they create for) to monitor their contents' rights management. Sony's system could take over the heavy lifting of DRM. The way blockchain works allows Sony to track its content from creation through sharing. This means that users of the blockchain DRM tool will be able to see -- and verify -- who created a piece of work and when. Sony Global Education is the current focus of the DRM tool, but going forward, the company hints that the rest of its media -- including entertainment like music, movies, and virtual reality content -- may be protected the same way.
Re: Blockchain 1/1024th of Pocahontas' DNA! (Score:1)
A milli-Pocahontas if you will.
Idiots (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Idiots (Score:4, Interesting)
I am betting more the later than the former.
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The Switch is hacked. 5.05 PS4 Kernel Exploit? The XBoxOne has been popped open for homebrew, as well.
Cool. Interesting. * Prepares to research and mod up.. *
Trumpist? What? WHY?? *sigh* One-tracked mind AC troll. Nevermind...
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Considering they are still around and still use DRM that should answer your question sufficiently.
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Sony's reply to this. [imgur.com]
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Of course they did.
They learned that through DRM they could utterly destroy the second hand market and forbid the public from engaging in their right to resale.
They also learned that by doing so they would be able to rent the content to you forever, ensuring them a profit for doing absolutely nothing.
They also learned that the public is powerless to do
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Didn't they all learn - - from the BMG-Rootkit scandal - about piracy being a service problem - about tamper-protections only hurting paying customers before?
Evidently, they learned at least one thing: DRM in entertainment just forces the customer away, so they're using it in education, where at least in some circumstances the clients have no DRM-free alternatives.
Talk about perversion! (Score:2, Insightful)
Only SONY can take a technology intended to increase freedom, and turn it into a method of censorship! Good gawd! this company disgusts me. I stopped buying their products when they started putting malware on DVD's they were selling customers.
Re: Talk about perversion! (Score:1)
Seriously. Fuck Sony and DRM too.
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Only SONY can take a technology intended to increase freedom, and turn it into a method of censorship! Good gawd! this company disgusts me. I stopped buying their products when they started putting malware on DVD's they were selling customers.
That's the modus operandi for the wealthy in general. Hell the internet itself, which was a utopian vision of communication, has long since been weaponized as a tool for oppression.
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How is the internet a tool of oppression? I can send any message I want, to anyone, at any time, and encrypt it to boot. Sounds like Utopian free communication to me...
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Sounds like those tools are the tools of oppression, not the internet itself. Open a UDP socket, and I can send you encrypted traffic all day long. You have the freedom to write and control software.
What value added? (Score:5, Interesting)
I fail to see what value a blockchain adds here over, say, signed certificates. Can someone explain the added value to either content creator, copyright holder or consumer that requires blockchain?
Exactly, where is the benefit for the customer? (Score:3)
Re:What value added? (Score:5, Insightful)
But that makes zero sense. If they wanted, if there is real incentive, it is going to be trivial for some pirates to spin up a ton of servers to quickly perform a 51% attack. Or do you think sony is just going to spend millions of dollars having hash farms sitting there hashing away just in case a pirate attacks?
And more importantly, in the event the pirates successfully pull off a 51% attack, then what? Is everyone just going to roll over and say "well, the majority of hashing power has voted" and just give up on the ? No, they are going to say "well, that's not really valid anymore, so lets just ignore it and go with what sony says is legit". And now you've just invalidated the entire point of having a blockchain. "We can't trust anyone, so we'll trust the blockchain collectively...until we decide we can't trust the blockchain, at which point we'll just trust the entity we didn't want to simply trust at the beginning".
If you give up on your principles as soon as they are inconvenient, they weren't really principles to begin with. Likewise if you can stop trusting the blockchain as soon as you think it is compromised, it was never really trusted to begin with.
Re: What value added? (Score:3, Interesting)
Youâ(TM)re technically correct that all you need to do is do a 51% attack, but doing so is specifically impractical. Thereâ(TM)s a concept of agreed-upon finality, where you need to build a certain number of blocks ahead. For bitcoin itâ(TM)s 6 blocks, and every block would cost you a lot more money than just the amount of mined BTC to pay enough mining rigs to do so consistently for an hour. It would cost a few million dollars, assuming you could find a way to rent that sort of hashpower, wh
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I think the assumption here is that, given Sony's history with DRM schemes, it won't be a well-established blockchain.
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How can they tell where a file came from and so on?
Blockchain records transactions - and unlike a simple log "it cannot be faked". But blockchain will only record transactions that actually gets recorded.
Lets say my brother buy a Sony movie, and this is duly registered in the blockchain. So proof exist that my brother bought that. And he can pass the movie on, and register that fact in the blockchain and so on.
But I am a pirate. I copy his movie. I edit out all the trailers & other commercials. I cut s
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I mean, you can try. In the end, you'd have to use total monopoly power, pretty much, and stomp on anyone who wouldn't comply. And you're going to obsolete all those players, etc. that exist now. And people can still write open software, and crack your encryption just like they do now.
And consumer adoption of things like DivX went so well, too. /s
A distributed ledger is only a distributed ledger, not a control mechanism, and they seem to be missing this - there's nothing "new" that they get in terms of DRM
Re: What value added? (Score:1)
I suspect this will be much more like the use of chained signatures in certificate transparency logs (merkle trees) than it will like the bitcoin proof-of-work system. Sony has no interest in relegating ownership of their materials.
tbh, its hard for me to understand why they need something more than git and signed commits.
Re:What value added? (Score:5, Interesting)
My guess (and it is purely a guess, since TFS and TFA are so light on detail) is that transactions involving works will be logged in a blockchain. I buy a movie, and that purchase is linked to my particular account. I can then loan that movie to someone else, and the transfer gets logged. When it's returned to me, that's logged, too... Unless I happen to be disconnected from the blockchain-handling system, in which case I'd be stuck with the last-known state of property ownership.
If everything works like that, then a content owner could track their creation and see that I loaned a movie to someone... because apparently that's something Sony thinks they care about. Like many other DRM systems, it also allows Sony to revoke rights to works by authoritatively transferring them away, unless there's a crypto method to authorize a transfer (which is not indicated in TFS or TFA).
Pretty much, it provides nothing of technical value that wouldn't be served better by a central database. For marketing value, though, blockchain's an excellent choice right now.
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> Unless I happen to be disconnected from the blockchain-handling system, in which case I'd be stuck with the last-known state of property ownership.
That's highly unlikely, as that could be a hole to exploit. It's more likely the content won't play at all.
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If the system runs on a publicly-managed blockchain, and if the clients are entirely self-sufficient, and if there's a large enough userbase for manufacturers to support the scheme after Sony's bankruptcy, and if the chosen blockchain is still actively processing by that time... then yes, there's a chance the DRM will still function.
A simpler solution to the bankruptcy problem is to have the system fail-safe. If the DRM client gets a magic (cryptographically-signed) token, or is unable to contact the server
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Maybe it can prevent the bankruptcy scenario. DRM servers will never go down.
I'd like to think that was the goal, but it's Sony and we haven't (yet) passed any laws encouraging companies to ensure that if their DRM servers go down, their DRM will not be preventing people from using products they legally own.
Re:What value added? (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess the idea is media creators could create a public blockchain describing their works and every playerID or userCode license that has an authorization to disseminate their work. The description of a work could actually contain enough information about various watermarks and identifying features of their works to identify both legitimate copies and Identify decent-quality rogue copies containing an identical picture or more than 30 seconds or so of audio or video: then in order to disseminate ANY work, a compliant playing device would be required to maintain an online connection and take steps to identify what work is being played --- then in order to play a work identified as matching a protected one: the player would be required to login, userId, and apply for a player hardware Id Lease containing the player hardwareId and the manufacturer+hardware IDs of the monitor and every device in the viewing chain (May require submitting a payment); wait for a short-lived Play authorization to appear on the blockchain, and maintain an internet connection to (1) Verify every 60 seconds that the play authorization is still valid for this content, and (2) The player has to transmit all the blockchain records to the HDCP display monitor, digital sound, and every device in the chain, so.... (3) The HDCP monitor also verifies the "play authorization".
The DRM could be combined with a proprietary audo/video encoding package: which would be protected by a patent,
and in order to enforce the DRM policies -- licensing the patent to decode would require that all decoders made available
be only "Compliant players". After every 3 or 4 years, there would be a new encoding/decoding package with a new patent,
and a mandatory online instant update for Compliant Players to remain compliant and be able to continue playing content
that involves removing the hardware's capability to decode media packages that are more than 2 versions behind --
and media leases can no longer be issued for older versions of the media to ensure by the time patent expires - nothing in consumers' hands can play that format anymore.
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I fail to see what value a blockchain adds here over, say, signed certificates. Can someone explain the added value to either content creator, copyright holder or consumer that requires blockchain?
Buzzwords. They'll probably figure out how to jam AI in there in the near future as well.
Quick and easy way to do watermarking (Score:2)
Blockchain BS (Score:5, Insightful)
Repeat after me, folks: Blockchain is a buzzword for a logbook.
That's it. There's no "inherent security". It's just a log with a checksum. Any can tamper with that log as much as they like, just making sure that they control enough of the verification process to authoritatively say their claims are genuine.
Seeing and verifying "who created a piece of work and when" is not really ever a problem in copyright cases. The real problems are how much of a pre-existing work was used or referenced to make a derivative work, and whether the derivative work is sufficiently creative enough to stand on its own.
With so little detail, it's difficult to speculate on precisely how Sony thinks this technology will benefit anyone (including themselves). So far, the only people who benefit from industrial use of a blockchain are the people selling a blockchain as a solution.
Re:Blockchain BS (Score:5, Insightful)
99% of the time, blockchain is way more work for something that could be much more efficiently handled in a central database. Where blockchain really shines is when you want a system whereby no individual parties are trusted. Hence, the reason why it's so useful for cryptocurrencies. It can have other limited uses for things like smart contracts, but it seems way to many businesses are trying to use blockchain just so they seem relevant.
Same thing happened with NoSQL 10 years ago.
Re:Blockchain BS (Score:4, Funny)
Where blockchain really shines is when you want a system whereby no individual parties are trusted.
That makes sense then - no-one trusts Sony, after all.
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Where blockchain really shines is when you want a system whereby no individual parties are trusted.
Haha, still no. For a no-trust blockchain to work, you have to trust that the distrust between the parties is enough that there will never be cooperation in excess of 50% of the accounting. Since oligopolies tend to form when big players would rather split a market than compete with each-other, we already have proof that eternal hostility between major parties is not a stable state.
For a time, a no-trust blockchain may operate as intended, but it is a precarious state and will fail into a more stable mode
Re:Blockchain BS (Score:4, Interesting)
It's more about transactional integrity. Blockchain is more trivial to code and execute than you might think.
If one takes a vetted (!!) inventory of music and film and media and whatever, and wants to bank it among a group of producers, artists, media companies, and consumers, this method can work to achieve a transaction history of who owns what with what stipulations, and it's wickedly difficult to game.
Not that DRM works. Rather, this is transactional integrity for the lawyers and apps that will be used to assert "rights".
IMHO, it's folly and a waste of money, but rights protection is a mantra in the media business. I allows Wall Street to believe that there is asset protection, therefore stock value and price. In actuality, that's the real "customer" for this blockchain effort. And that's the charade's target: share price.
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this method can work to achieve a transaction history of who owns what with what stipulations, and it's wickedly difficult to game.
Rather, this is transactional integrity for the lawyers and apps that will be used to assert "rights".
So it's a normal collection of license contracts, but now with dependencies on a processing network. Lovely.
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Anything, any kind of doc or media can be stored in a blockchain. Content doesn't matter, but it becomes part of the record and non-ambiguous.
It's costly and totally draconian. Makes Wall Street very happy. Will customers be happy? Currently agreed-upon statistics say: um, no.
Will that stop them? Um, no. Will Wall Street be happy? Maybe. Could astute public policy change this? Probably not, because public policy is inevitably guided by bribery, and rarely by altruism and common sense.
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If trust is your problem, cryptography is your solution. There are crypto systems that allow a consensus of several parties to validate another party's claims.
Blockchain, by itself, is just a log where each entry includes all of the previous ones. It's useful when you want to have a small checksum to validate that the whole log hasn't been modified.
If a historic log being modified is your problem, blockchain is your solution... but that's usually not actually your problem.
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So let's say a court decides in a lawsuit that Sony does not actually own some content, given that Sony failed to reimburse the true content creator. Would that mean that de-facto ownership away from Sony by changing the blockchain even if Sony refuses to accept the court order?
Or maybe more practically, if a court rules that fair use applies to copies of media and games, and that Sony can no longer forbid customers from exercising their legal rights (to make backups, do time shifting, lend or resell the p
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Found the libtard. Blockchain is revolutionary and makes securing everything from elections to video games UNBREAKABLE. It forms the basis for an amazing little thing called Cryptocurrency, you might have heard of it (except probably not because you sound stupid).
Public Ledger of Piracy (Score:2)
Cool. Now we'll all have a way to prove to each other how much media we've pirated.
Two Words: (Score:1)
Analog Hole.
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Which means nothing when nearly zero Bluray players, consoles, set-top boxes, etc. made in the last 5 years or so have analog outputs.
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HDCP is already broken. And the pixel-to-retina interface is still very much analog, in any case.
Good luck (Score:2)
From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
This might actually be good for games? (Score:1)
I'm going to play devil's advocate here and say that I would welcome blockchains / logbooks for digital video games. Done properly, one could finally actually own their copy of said game. Picture this: you purchase a digital PS5 game, play it, finish it, complete all the extras, etc., and then choose to lend it to a friend. The blockchain associated with the game would mean that you could simply transfer it to them. Hell, you could even have a system where you sell it to a third party.
It would end up bei
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I was under the impression that once it was "sold" to you, it remained in your library even if the store stopped selling it.
Does some license say otherwise? If not, aren't we back to "fraud"?
So what happens to analog hole and re-encoding? (Score:4, Interesting)
It is very hard to stop pirating. Pirating and boot legging is rampant in India. One film director was bemoaning that he got a congratulatory call from Dubai on his new movie on the day of the release. The company had not even begun movie distribution talks with any Dubai distributor at that time. But Bollywood thrives, they know they are going to get the money in the first week and that is all. Then the content is essentially public domain. People take clips and interpolate with some politician's speech and create funny sequences. They play the sound track and record themselves lip synching (called dub-mash) and redistribute. No one pays any royalty or digital rights. Even if a dub-mash goes viral it does not top the charts because it gets immediately boot legged into hundred you tube videos and the viewer count gets fragmented.
Through it all it some how thrives and makes some money for the creators.
Stupid begets stupid (Score:2)
This is DRM news I can get behind. Trying to develop an absurd concept using an absurd system that is designed essentially to absorb and destroy capital investment is glorious. The question is whether or not the negative reinforcement will be enough to make them stop trying. Sadly I suspect not.
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The best commentary from a software company that I've seen so far is that it was costing them a non-trivial amount to deal with the support requests from "customers" who cracked software, then thought that they should get support from the company.
How can we help avoid situations like this, especially for smaller companies? I'm sure it can be done, and *believe* that DRM isn't the answer, but I'm not sure how to best... do it. If you only accept support requests online (maybe only *opening* them online?) the
Ah, Blockchain... (Score:3)
Is there anything it can't make worse? Mind you I don't think this will make the DRM harder to crack, just pointlessly inefficient. There's no distributed trust problem to solve here so it makes no sense to use a blockchain. A centralized database would be just as trustworthy and more efficient by an astronmical degree.
What has blockchain done for humanity so far? Empowered our criminal ownership class and driven another knife into our planet's back.
Never Buy Anything Sony (Score:2)
Please don't feed the bears.
so you need to be on line all the time + bandwith (Score:2)
so you need to be on line all the time + a bit of bandwidth (if you need to keep the block chain synced all the time)
Did DIVX need to dial in for each play?
What will be the incentive to be a node? (Score:2)