[Macworld]

Post your comments for EFF: Apple DisplayPort DRM will lead to more piracy here

[zulusafari]

Wow, I have the new macbook pro and adapters, but have not yet attempted to play content on an external monitor/display/projector. I will this weekend. I am sad to hear about this. Shortsighted is definitely the proper term for this. Apple, shame on you!

[jnwassi3]

yea, this is real crap! There seems very little reason to buy film on itunes with this kind of restriction. Can you play a dvd in a macbook on an external non certified screen?

[zulusafari]

jnwassi3, I'm guessing no. For the longest time you could not play a dvd on an external monitor at all. So I bet you can't now either.

[zarchanalin]

What everyone needs to do here is stop blaming Apple for this. Have any of you read any of the documentation and contracts on the iTunes store? Do you actually believe that Apple wants to go through the cost and hassle of programming DRM that that know will eventually be cracked, only to do it all over again when that happens? Apple is forced to use DRM for their content or not be allowed to sell it. I really wish people would stop complaining about Apple for having DRM that they do not wish to have.
I don't have the link at the moment, but previously in this blog it was mentioned about the fact that they are being sued for DRM and a link was included to the companies official statement on DRM. If you read that, and then go digging around the Apple documentation sites, you will find the information. Apple is required by the content providers to use DRM. Blame the content provider, not Apple.

[GadgetDon]

The latest QuickTime patch will fix it for standard definition protected content (which all movies available for sale from the iTunes store are). The spec supposedly says that only High Definition is affected, and the response to an unsecure output is supposed to be downgraded to standard definition.

[ibeetle]

zarchanalin said:

What everyone needs to do here is stop blaming Apple for this. Have any of you read any of the documentation and contracts on the iTunes store?

Unfortunately, most people will only see the words "Apple" and "can't play". Couple that with Apples Legacy Free ideology and it is easy to jump to the conclusion that this is all Apples, Steve Jobs, Bill Clintons, and the fault of those liberal activist judges out of touch with American values.

[NaOH]

The thing that amuses me about the apparent furore that this issue is causing, is how so many people appear to want Blu-Ray playback on their MacBooks.
Blu-Ray requires HDCP to play high-definition content at full resolution.
It is part of the standard, and has been that way since its inception.
If anything, this appears to be one indication that Apple are indeed putting the pieces in place to allow for Blu-Ray playback as part of Snow Leopard.
As someone who is in no way enamoured by DRM, I would actually prefer that the Blu-Ray standard were changed to remove its reliance on DRM. (The studios would have the CHOICE to apply DRM, as opposed to it being a built-in requirement of the technology.)

[adobephile]

This article is stupid. It's like saying putting locks on doors leads to more burglaries. NOT. BURGLARS lead to more burglaries. PIRATES lead to more piracy. HDCP is simply a "lock on a door", a reasonable impediment, a few steps better than NO impediment, to unethical people copying higher-quality content.
Apple would be irresponsible NOT to do something like this in its efforts to provide means to deliver IP digital content.
Steve Jobs once said that pirating (stealing) corrodes the character. So this ambulance chaser, von Lohmann, is saying this HDCP DRM encourages piracy? Hah. That's a little backwards. The character of a would-be pirate is ALREADY corroded if the person has or can justify copying digital IP.
I've got Handbrake, and I've used to copy a few movies to my iPhone. But I bought the DVDs originally. That's where I draw the line, though. I wouldn't copy friends' disks or DVDs borrowed from a library. It's an ethical choice.
No, you can't legislate/enforce/restrict/DRM people into being "good." But you also don't just throw up you hands and say "To h3ll with it!" and do nothing.

[pdbreske]

How will the use of HDCP DRM affect the Apple TV? I purchased a plasma HDTV to take advantage of (among other things) an Apple TV's high def capabilities and I'd be extremely unhappy if I were not able to watch HD content from iTunes because my one-year-old set isn't HDCP-compliant.

[GadgetDon]

The problem with DRM in general as a locked door and the way the MacBooks had handled HDCP stuff prior to this latest QuickTime update, is that the only people who encounter the door are the paying customers.

As a means to stopping piracy, DRM is completely ineffective. If it can be played, someone sufficiently technical can break it to remove the DRM. And given the worldwide easy transfer of bits, once someone has broken it, it's available everywhere. Anyone who wants to pirate Hellboy can get a copy that will play on an external monitor at the full resolution. You can even find ripped Blu-Ray high def copies if you look around.

But, if you were honest and paid for your copy from the iTunes store, prior to this latest QuickTime Patch, it wouldn't play on the external monitor. So your experience as an honest, paying customer is WORSE than the experience of the pirates. And at some point, people say "OK, what am I getting for this?"

HDCP is all about "Oh noes, we can't let people hook up a recorder to the video output of a device and record it." Minor problem, that isn't where the hole is, people just break the DRM of the source.

I only blame Apple for letting it ship with the original problem in place, where legitimate protected standard definition stuff wouldn't play on an external monitor, that's not part of the HDCP spec and was unreasonable. The post-patch situation, where standard definition plays but high definition either won't play or gets downgraded to standard definition, is forced on them by the media companies (and I do think this is a step towards Blu-Ray, the first ladle of that bucket of pain Steve mentioned). But it's not good, and it breaks the biggest rule of marketing--your paying customers should never have a worse experience than the freeloaders.

[GadgetDon]

I have an Apple TV connected to a non-HDCP compliant TV. As I understand it, it plays high definition stuff, but downgrades it to standard definition. So, rent the standard definition movies, not the high def. Their version of standard def is still pretty good.

[bynkii]

Right.
Because if Apple came out with a similar standard that was not HDCP-locked, of COURSE the EFF would move HEAVEN AND EARTH to make it the new standard on EVERY PLATFORM.
not.

[pdbreske]

Well, that sucks. Guess I won't be buying an AppleTV.