Hashemian Blog Web Tools, Financial Markets, Technology Wednesday, April 11, 2007 DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 3  Up to this point I had downloaded a Star Trek WMV file from Amazon Unbox to one PC. Having experienced performance issues, I had copied it to another PC and learned that the WMV film was protected by Microsoft's Windows Media DRM (Digital Rights Managements). Finally I had dismantled the first PC and had built a more powerful PC to play the WMV file on. But when I installed the Unbox software and tried to import the film, I ran into errors. It seemed like Unbox was reluctant to grant a DRM license key. At this point I was ready to consider this experience a small loss ($1.99) and move on, but curiosity got the better of me and I surfed to Unbox's site to see if I had a recourse. That's when I discovered that the downloaded film came with two license only. I guess that's the copyright regiment that Unbox was enforcing to prevent users from copying the file to unlimited devices and acquiring licenses for them. It would have been nice if Amazon had at least mentioned that point at the time of purchase. Armed with that knowledge I decided to uninstall Unbox from the other PC and in doing so Unbox must have revoked the license on that box leaving the film with one usable license. I was finally able to successfully obtain a license for the file and watch the movie on the new PC without encountering any issues. Since the original PC was now discarded, I assume the first DRM license was lost forever. Perhaps if I had contacted Amazon and explained the situation, they might have reinstated that original license, but having finally been able to watch the episode in its entirety, getting the extra license was a moot point. I also don’t know if there is limit on the number of times a license can be surrendered and re-acquired. Based on my experience I have decided that DRM is just not worth the hassle. There are too many restrictions, at least with the Unbox implementation. You pay a decent sum to purchase a movie (I saw some for about $15), you have to use the 1-Click button, Amazon gift certificates are not accepted, then you have to install a software you may not want, then you wait for the download, and you can only get two licenses for it, and you need decent computer power to decrypt and play the movie smoothly. You can't even burn it to a DVD to watch it on your TV. A colleague explained that if my TV had an S-Video interface, I could hook it up to the PC's S-Video port, start the movie on the PC and watch it on my TV. Fine, but why not just purchase a used DVD for less money and avoid all the hassle? There might have still been other restrictions too. During the course of my research I ran into a number of posts that lamented the Unbox's licensing terms, such as the fact that Amazon can revoke a license for any reason without recourse. People were also wary of Unbox's software license agreement which essentially strips user's right to privacy and can freely wander around a PC and collect all sorts of information and relay data back to Amazon's servers. It reminded many of the Sony music CD DRM fiasco from a few years back. In that case the CD's installed a rootkit spyware on users' PC's which was nearly impossible to remove without damaging the operating system itself. I haven't read the Unbox's agreement yet, so I can't comment on that with authority. I don't believe that Unbox's DRM implementation is as egregious as that of Sony's. The version I downloaded allows users to deactivate the service and the startup program and the downloaded movies play fine. The Unbox program however does need to run in order to purchase, download, and acquire a license. All in all, I wasn't impressed with Amazon Unbox. I suppose the service does have its uses if you wanted to purchase a movie or a show on a whim, but there are alternatives that are cheaper and less onerous. By the way, the episode of Star Trek I downloaded was "The Enemy Within". It's one of the earlier episodes of the original series in which a transformer malfunction creates two Kirks with opposite personalities. One gentle and indecisive, and the other mean and aggressive. Ironically, Unbox might be Amazon's mean incarnation. DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 1 DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 2 amazon,amazon unbox,windows media player,drm,digital rights,star trek,s-video,windows media drm Labels: amazon, drm, star trek <DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 3> // posted by rh 0 comments Tuesday, April 10, 2007 DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 2  I have to admit when it comes to DRM (Digital Rights Management) my knowledge is pretty dismal. I always knew that it was meant to prevent piracy but not being a fanatic of music and movies, DRM was never in my priority list of things to learn. But when I tried to run the Star Trek WMV file I had downloaded from Amazon Unbox on the new PC using Windows Media Player, I was greeted with a dialog box informing me that I needed a license to play the file. When I clicked on a link to obtain the license, the dialog box simply opened the Amazon Unbox home page and then just left me hanging. Since now I knew that Unbox movies were DRM protected, I decided to learn some more about what DRM exactly is and how it works. A quick check with Wikipedia revealed that DRM is really an umbrella term referring to various technologies to protect copyrights. In this case Unbox was using the Microsoft flavor. That means the movie is encrypted at source only to be unlocked by a separate key that is referred to as the license. The key is basically a file comprising various restrictions such as the number of permitted viewings, duration of validity, and other data. It is stored separately from the movie file under the user's profile and if everything is in order, Windows Media Player applies it to the movie (or music) file to decrypt and play. Another notable feature of the DRM key is that it can be tied to the machine that it is downloaded to. That makes the movie viewable only on the exact machine that it was configured for, preventing users from simply copying the file to another PC (as I had done) and playing the movie there. I'm not sure what parameters are used to construct this exclusivity restriction, but I assume a number of items such as the BIOS, CPU, and the network card are polled to create a unique identifier. Now I knew I had to obtain a new license to watch the Star Trek episode on this new PC and that meant installing the Unbox on the new machine. After downloading and installing the software, I imported the WMV file into the Unbox program and I had the file unlocked. The film was playing smoother now with fewer jitters but since this PC didn't have any speakers and the monitor quality was poor, I decided to use remote desktop from the original PC and watch the film that way. No luck, remote desktop just doesn't have the repaint power to handle a movie and I was back at the same position as before with lots of interruptions and jumps. I knew it was time to replace that original PC with a more modern machine. I had been wanting to do this for some time anyways. I had just the PC and now was as good a time as any to upgrade. So I dismantled the old PC, scavenged as many parts as I could and tossed out its shell. I always dread upgrading PC's. Being somewhat picky about configuring the new machine exactly as I want, it takes me days to get a new box to a level I am comfortable with. But in this case once I had the new PC running at a tolerable level, I decided to give the film a try. Having gone through the experience before, I copied the WMV file to the new PC, installed the Unbox program and attempted to import the file to acquire a new license for it. But that's when I hit yet another surprise. I'll conclude the saga in part 3. DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 1 DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 3 amazon,amazon unbox,drm,digital rights,drm license,windows media player,wmv files,encryption Labels: amazon, drm, programming <DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 2> // posted by rh 0 comments Sunday, April 08, 2007 DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 1  I have been running the Amazon Unbox ad banner atop my site's pages for a while now, but never used the service until recently. Unbox is the name of Amazon's TV and movie download service that went online a few months ago. So in the spirit of using what I advertise, I decided to take the plunge and give Unbox a try. Not that I'm much of a TV or movie buff, but why advertise something I don’t use myself? I suppose the first thing I should have done was reading the system requirements, but true to my personality I promptly skipped that part and started downloading the Unbox application from Amazon's website. The download and installation went pretty smoothly and soon I had the Amazon logo showing up in the system tray. Next came choosing a title to download, but before doing that I wanted to try a free clip just to see if everything was in order. I scoured Amazon's Web site and then resorted to a number of Google searches, but came up empty-handed. How could this be? I had just installed a program and didn't even know if it was going to work. All Amazon had to do was to provide a short, measly, home-made clip for users to test the program. I guess their plan is to force users to pay for a download just to kick the tires, revenue right out of the gate. I'm really not that versed in the motion picture field, but the movie prices I saw (in the $15 area) didn't seem so appealing, I'll stick with our Netflix subscription, thank you. Finally I chose an episode of the original Star Trek series for $1.99, cheap enough for a test, but then came two unpleasant surprises. First, the only way to buy the title was with the 1-Click button. Apparently Amazon is going all out for the impulse and buyer's remorse on this one. Second, I had a small amount of money in my gift certificate account, enough to cover this purchase. But unlike the usual purchases where Amazon pulls money out of the gift certificate balance, they went right for the credit card I had on file and hit me with the charge. Annoyed, I wrote an email to their customer service. The next day I received a reply confirming that gift certificate balances can not be applied to Unbox purchases. Why? Other than greed, I couldn't come up with a reason for this absurdity. After the purchase step was finished, I awaited for my next surprise. I opened the Unbox program and noticed that the nearly 900 meg file was finally being downloaded. As the progress bar passed around the 20% mark, I was given the green light to start the episode and that's when I got my next surprise. Admittedly this one was my own fault. The PC I was using didn't have enough muscle power to play the file. It was playing alright, but very choppy with numerous sound and image interruptions. I thought perhaps things will get better after the file is completely downloaded. No such luck, the episode was unwatchable. So I decided to search the Internet and learn about what exactly Unbox was downloading. I eventually found out that Unbox had downloaded a WMV (Windows Media Movie) file to my hard drive and that was the file the Unbox program was trying to play. After locating the WMV file in "My Videos" folder, I decided to bypass the Unbox program and play it directly using Windows Medial Player and I had the same bad results. After fruitlessly fiddling with the Windows Media Player's options for some time, I finally decided that the hardware was just not capable of handling this file. To test my theory I copied the WMV file to a faster PC on my home network. The PC is more powerful than the original but has a small display and no speakers, just the PC speaker. Still good enough to check out the playback quality. I fired up Windows Media Player and opened the WMV file. That's when the next surprise hit me in the face, in the form of DRM (Digital Rights Management). Was I able to resolve the issues and finally watch that Star Trek episode? I'm sure you're at the edge of your seat, begging to find out. I'll continue the Amazon Unbox saga in part 2 of this story. DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 2 DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 3 amazon,amazon unbox,unbox,drm,digital rights,windows media player,wmv,star trek Labels: amazon, drm, star trek <DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Amazon Unbox, Part 1> // posted by rh 0 comments

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