Looks like DRM prevented to watch movies in many theaters yesterday ( www.theverge.com )

From the article:

When we went to our seats, the wait staff let us know that despite the fact that the previews were playing, we wouldn’t know until the movie actually started whether we could see the film or not. If it didn’t work, the screen would just turn black. Luckily, the film went through without a hitch.

Holzkohlen ,

This is without a doubt the dumbest timeline

Mandy ,

What happened to this little new invention called filmreels?

frankenswine ,

Cinemas are mostly digital nowadays

Mandy ,

check out those videos of filmreels being set up in cinemas, really neat to see

Catsrules ,

Same thing that happened to the VHS.

Auzy ,

Screw the movie theatres anyway… Here in Australia, there are two big ones (Hoyts and Village), and both screw patrons by doing things like charging patrons extra money for booking online.

In fact, they ruined every joke in the simpsons movie for me (except one) by allowing ads to use clips from the movie. By 45mins of ads, every joke was ruined.

I really wish the big theatres here would f off, and get replaced entirely by small ones. I don’t pay for 40mins of sh***y coca cola ads.

I no longer go at all. It’s not a good experience, and its not even a good place to take a date

Zeroxxx ,

In my place they name it convenience fee.

For pete’s sake movie goers book online and help your fuxxing operations ourselves, you should be paying us or giving us discount not charging extra.

kumatomic ,

I’m afraid it’s spreading too. My partners pharmacy now charges a $1.50 “technology fee” if you refill online.

ShellMonkey ,
@ShellMonkey@lemmy.socdojo.com avatar

I could maybe get the fee if it was a small place just passing on the presumed credit card charge that goes with ordering online IF they provided a discount for paying cash. A lot of small shops around here do that because the extra 3% or so paid to a bank makes it that much harder to keep prices anywhere near the Walmarts and such.

conciselyverbose ,

It probably is costing them more because they're paying some obscene license to a third party for the online software.

kumatomic ,

I wouldn’t be against that if it were the case, but ordering by phone they didn’t charge the fee for using a card. It was only the next month when doing by computer. It was a small local chain, but a website user fee to refill is next level BS. Still our only choice when insurance discount cover medication and you have to pay someone to mix it in house to afford it.

conciselyverbose ,

I'm saying they are probably being charged some portion of website sales specifically by the vendor of the web service provider. Which realistically makes sense, because regular online retail already almost always takes a percentage and there are significantly stronger regulatory requirements around anything medical.

kumatomic ,

Yeah I doubt it’s much of that considering their crappy home brewed website without any type of real portal system. you literally have to email them a picture of your old bottle to get a refill. It’s almost a WordPress website. Almost. I disagree that it makes sense. That’s called overhead and should be figured into their operating costs. Otherwise I would expect customers that come in physically to do business to be charged a brick and mortar fee since I don’t utilize that “feature”. If it were my pharmacy I’d fire them like they deserve, but it’s my partner’s choice.

wowwoweowza ,

If only there was a technology that allowed theaters to play movies in an analogue manner that they were in 100% control of. That would be cool. Why hasn’t that ever been invented?

abracaDavid ,

Maybe we'll have that kind of technology in the future.

nutsack ,

im looking at a future that no longer has any working film production equipment because nobody has made parts for such a thing since the rise of digital in the 20th century

wowwoweowza ,

Somebody’s collecting all those old projectors and celluloid and that person is going to be the coolest person in whatever city they are in depending on the celluloid they also collect.

In fact — in Portland — a big assed projector would go over huge even today.

I think people are sick to death of the magic of digital streaming.

phoenixz ,

Nothing wrong with digital, just the drm part that sucks

taanegl ,
@taanegl@beehaw.org avatar

Yeah, and freighting, protecting and maintaining 30mm films in cans is a pain.

wowwoweowza ,

And the fact that your access can vanish for no reason at any time.

Also… internet crash. That’s going to be fun for folks.

burningmatches ,

There are lots of things that can go wrong with film.

tanglisha ,

The film caught fire when I saw Interview With the Vampire in the theatre. It was awesome.

wowwoweowza ,

Yes — but local projectionists maintain the ability to restore the ability to present the films.

When corporations are in charge of everything, humanity is a powerless minion holding its icky tiny gruel filled bowl and whining, “please, sir, May I have some more.”

EdibleFriend ,
@EdibleFriend@lemmy.world avatar

watch a literal half hour of ads and then maybe, if you're very lucky, you get to watch the movie you paid for.

JackbyDev ,

Why show up on time? Most theaters have assigned seats now. Just show up 20 minutes after start time.

captainjaneway ,
@captainjaneway@lemmy.world avatar

Why? Cause I'm a loser

Lunachocken ,

My friend likes ads in the cinema. It doesn't compute.

JackbyDev ,

I like them (the trailers) but I see a movie mostly every week so it's not important I see them all every time because of repeats.

azerial ,

Alamo Drafthouse plays strange ads.. a lot of times they are movie reels from ages ago that follow the theme of the movie or it's a voice mail from an angry guest about how they got kicked out from the theater. Usually this: https://youtu.be/1L3eeC2lJZs?si=Z4i3cHrZ-twfVD_S or weird shit like this https://youtu.be/Ze5kyR3ogso?si=jTRIC-q6bcOjNHvC

uriel238 ,
@uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

The way we murder DRM is by it affecting the business bottom line.

This might be an offense worthy of litigation if Sony is not sufficiently contrite.

It’s telling how unfriendly the DRM is, that it doesn’t inform the protectionist of problems until the minute the show starts.

Sony is a real dick.

SapphironZA ,

DRM only affects paying customers. It plays no role in effectively combatting piracy.

Only good service and good pricing is effective against piracy.

uriel238 ,
@uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

While I completely agree with you based on the data, DRM is absolutely sold to publishers on the pretense that it combats piracy, at least with keeping paying customers from engaging with media in ways the publishers don’t like (such as lending content or selling that content used in a secondary market).

And yes, the more draconian their restrictions, the more they drive people to resources that provide cracked or DRM-free content. That said, Sony is notorious for going to extreme lengths to severely limit use of their content outside narrow consumption, often with obligatory ad-viewing, driving people to either piracy, or avoiding Sony content at all.

At one point, I might have been interested in playing Horizon Zero Dawn and went from buying it, to getting a refund to thinking about pirating it to eventually deciding I cannot be bothered. But then I steer clear of most AAA game companies, now.

Exulion ,

I mean unfortunately denuvo has been pretty effective lately. It's not uncrackable but not a lot of effort is being put into it other than when Empress feels like it.

lordicarus ,

Missed an opportunity there...

Sony is a reel dick

exocortex ,

I worked as a projectionist in 2009 when the cinema got its first digital projector in order to be able to show Avatar in 3D.
At the start of the movie no one actually knew if it would work. Due to the movie being encrypted - with every cinema in Germany waiting eagerly for the password - No cinema was able to play the movie. But everywhere cinemas were packed with people.
Because of fuckups somewhere in this incredibly stupid system the movie was delayed about half an hour (IIRC) nationwide. With no-one knowing if it would eventually work - especially nice for the people working at the cinema having to deal with angry audience members.

At the same time the 2D 35mm film-version we also had started without any problems (it was massive and pretty dicey to carry it around).

brbposting ,

Is there any reasonable level of IP protection/DRM which may be employed by movie studios?

Should all films have simultaneous worldwide cross-platform releases, never theater only? If not, it seems some kind of defenses on the high-quality digital files for theaters would be a rare case where DRM seems somewhat justifiable… assuming it’s robust (beyond mergers/closures of the provider), and consumers never have to think about it.

Would love to hear arguments both for and against any protection schemes for any film ever.

overzeetop ,
@overzeetop@lemmy.world avatar

Re: reasonable levels - You can have fail safe or fail secure. Those are two mutually exclusive options. Locking people out of content, whether it be consumers or a partner organization (like a theater) is the price of security (fail secure).

There is no condition where mild DRM is valuable to anyone. For consumers it constitutes a hurdle to use of content they have purchased without hindering non-purchased copies from being reproduced and distributed. No DRM allows the latter; unbreakable DRM ensures the former will be substantially affected at some point.

Banzai51 ,
@Banzai51@midwest.social avatar

Pay attention boys and girls, this is also what they want to do with over the air broadcasts with the ATSC 3.0 format.

Mango ,

Can you elaborate?

salami0 ,

DRM but over the air, consumers hate it, investors love it, it’ll make everything worse, it’s the future!

Lev_Astov ,
@Lev_Astov@lemmy.world avatar

Do investors really love it? Is there anyone as stupid as the group-think whole that believes that will stop even one act of piracy?

All these idiotic measures have clearly driven more people to piracy...

AceFuzzLord ,
@AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee avatar

I doubt the investors are smart enough to understand the technology behind it. All they probably hear and fully understand is the part where they can potentially make more money in the long run.

CADmonkey ,

Money people are literally too stupid to understand anything other than line go up or line go down. They were told line would go up if DRM, so that's what they want.

Banzai51 ,
@Banzai51@midwest.social avatar

So broadcast TV currently broadcasts on ATSC 1.0. You get an antenna and a box or TV that has a digital tuner and you’re good. Industry is pushing for ATSC 3.0, which allows for DRM. So even though they are broadcasting on the public airwaves, they can decide you can’t watch. It sets up the local broadcasters to be the new cable with ever increasing prices AND play king maker on devices by choosing which can and cannot produce tuners. In my area, 5 channels have ATSC 3.0, and 1 of them turned on DRM. Meaning I can’t watch it because HDHomeRun devices aren’t approved, likely because it has the ability to record. Luckily, that channel still broadcasts in ATSC 1.0, so I can still watch it for now. 3.0 isn’t a fully adopted yet, but that can change in the future (2027?).

Got_Bent ,

So at some point, it'll be impossible to get emergency broadcast alerts without a subscription to something, right? Like who's gonna turn on a TV or radio that they can't use in anticipation of some emergency they can't predict?

Banzai51 ,
@Banzai51@midwest.social avatar

Exactly. There is a huge potential safety issue.

shrugal ,
@shrugal@lemm.ee avatar

I'm sorry, but I think that's a little far fetched.

Are you really suggesting that we run the risk of being too disconnected to receive emergency messages?! In an age where everyone has a smartphone on their person at all times, as well as at least a dozen internet-connected devices in their homes, offices, classrooms etc?!

decisivelyhoodnoises ,
@decisivelyhoodnoises@sh.itjust.works avatar

Yeah this was nonsense. Like it is mandated to have a TV always on to receive such emergency broadcasts. Same thing can happen to someone not having or not using a TV

KairuByte ,

Ah yes, let’s put all our bets on cellphone infrastructure. Because that never goes wrong.

shrugal ,
@shrugal@lemm.ee avatar

You do know landlines are still a thing, right?

KairuByte ,

Landlines are not part of the emergency broadcasting system. TV and radio are.

JackbyDev ,

This is like assuming everyone has a car because most people do.

shrugal ,
@shrugal@lemm.ee avatar

It's not, because the statement is much more accurate in the case of internet-connected devices, and for emergency messages it's enough to have someone around you who has one (e.g. a neighbour). I guess it would be really hard to find someone - in the areas where this change is made - who doesn't have access to such a device in that sense, maybe even impossible.

JackbyDev ,

Most people don't have diabetes.

Welt ,

And fear overpowers intelligence yet again.

YoorWeb ,

Remember that time when they've added rootkits to 22 millions of audio cd's? You've guessed it, the installation was automatic, hidden hidden and their software had vulnerabilities. Fun times.

banneryear1868 ,

Reminds me of how many times outages to corporate software has been caused by some bullshit with the licensing management.

JCreazy , (edited )

I work at a movie theater and while we don’t use Sony projectors, we were told to check all of our certificates to prevent this from happening. This sounds like a communication issue to me. Someone didn’t do their job in time. Also in the article it says they wouldn’t know if the film would work until it actually played. If that is either an outright lie or the equipment is designed horribly. On the projectors we use which are going on a decade old, the playlist won’t even start if it can’t verify that all of the content is playable and unlocked. We can see when our certificates expire as well so if all of these certificates expired at the beginning of the year. The theater should have already caught that and had the certificates reissued. Keeping in mind that this wasn’t some sort of bug or glitch that nobody could have predicted, then disregard everything I said. DRM on movie theater. Projectors is an industry standard and all companies use it, not just Sony. Until the actual reason comes out, it’s hard to say. If it’s the certificates of the projectors themselves and not the movie keys which are two different things then yeah I could see how nobody knew what was going on. Especially if the projectors are discontinued. I do know that if our servers lose power and the CMOS battery goes dead, they will internally destroy themselves and never function again. This is to prevent piracy I assume.

JonEFive ,

Curious about something, maybe you know since you work at a theater. I seem to remember hearing that a theater has to pay royalties each time they show a movie and that newer technology can track and report this automatically. Does the latest technology automatically track this as I recall? And if so, would playing a movie as a test count as a showing?

JCreazy ,

While this certainly may be possible, I don’t think it’s tracked to that degree. Theaters pay to lease a film and the studio decides if there are special rules for being shown. Some smaller known movies have deals with the theaters to show the film at a very low cost in order to get people to watch it. On the first weekend most of the ticket profit goes to the studios and then every week the profit to the studios gets lower and the theaters get more of that money depending on what was agreed on. Some movies like the Taylor Swift concert film could only be shown after 12:00 p.m. and only Thursday through Sunday for example. Say there was a busy night and we sold out of a show, we could cancel a different show and play that sold out movie in another auditorium to fit more people in. This is fine for most studios except for Disney, if Disney finds out that you cancel one of their films to show a different film, they will not be happy. As far as I know we can show movies and definitely as long as we have the keys active for them and I don’t think the specific amount of time is reported back to the studios, we are just required to play it a minimum amount of times.

jelloeater85 ,
@jelloeater85@lemmy.world avatar

Don’t fuck with the mouse?

Scrollone ,

Too bad the mouse is now in the public domain :)

ramjambamalam ,

Exactly. I’ll fuck Steamboat Willie in my Rule 34 art if I want, just as God intended.

DonPiano ,

I do know that if our servers lose power in the CMOS battery is dead and then they will internally destroy themselves and never function again. This is to prevent piracy I assume.

Holy shit, DRM needs to fuck off and die.

JakenVeina ,

or the equipment os designed horribly

I find this entirely believable. There’s a LOT of equipment out there designed for profit over user experience.

But you’re right, it’s not really worth speculating over.

WindowsEnjoyer ,

Sir, I must ask - what are the chances that emplpyee might steal a movie? Or is it not possible because of DRM?

JCreazy ,

I guess if someone really wanted to they could even with the DRM but the DRM just makes it more difficult.

OfficerBribe , (edited )

Not a cinema guy, but assuming those movies are encrypted with modern standards, it is practically impossible if you simply would steal the media. Could be done if you could tap into the original playback device where movie plays and pull decrypted copy out of it.

Edit: As per this AES 128 is used so good luck if you ever stumble upon an encrypted copy.

lud ,

Probably very low due to the DRM. Cinema leaks are extremely rare since they are encrypted and all that.

lingh0e ,

I’ve gotten bad keys from the studio before, usually when we were doing advanced screenings. It was a relatively quick fix… I think the longest delay was ~15 minutes. I never had to cancel a show because of it, certainly didn’t have to close the entire building.

For as much as I loved the convenience of digital, I really miss the days of 35 film.

JCreazy ,

35mm was a whole thing and while I miss the nostalgia, I certainly don’t miss the upkeep and the problems with film. Digital is so much easier. I feel the biggest issue with digital is if a problem goes wrong, there’s really not much you can do outside of standard problem fixes. If it’s an internal issue. You’re just screwed until the technician can fix it.

lingh0e ,

I agree that moving to digital saved so much time, and I’ll never miss brainwraps or thrown platters… but working booth shifts threading projectors were some of the happiest times I had running theaters.

JCreazy ,

Thursday nights were an event for sure. Building up new movies, breaking down the old ones.

OfficerBribe ,

Not familiar with cinema projectors, but as I have gatherered from this forum problem is caused by KDM (used to decrypt movie) provider / reseller called Deluxe. Neither Sony or this cinema chain is at fault and problem indeed seems worldwide.

I do know that if our servers lose power and the CMOS battery goes dead, they will internally destroy themselves and never function again. This is to prevent piracy I assume.

Find it very hard to believe to be honest. Could this be simply some rumour from colleagues? Doubt any vendor would implement anything like this, drives could be simply encrypted to protect data if they ever get stolen.

JCreazy ,

Yes, I deal with KDMs weekly but I’m not for sure if this issue was KDM related or if it was certificate related. As for the service destroying themselves, I’ve never personally seen it happen, but I’ve been told by upper management that they’ve seen it happen twice. I don’t really have any way to verify the information but it wouldn’t surprise me and I don’t see why anyone would make that up unless they really don’t want people messing with it, but it seems like such an unlikely scenario.

D61 ,

I mean, my home is filled with ancient laptops that we use until they explode, its a pretty common occurrence when trying to watch something streaming the ads would load just fine but the actual show wouldn’t actually load. So… shrug

june ,

Curious how I’m supposed to pirate the theater experience.

This doesn’t really seem like a problem that piracy can solve.

C126 ,

The theater just projects pirated copies rather than DRM copies

Appoxo ,

I would laugh so hard if they downloaded a version with chinese subs because they are not good enough to find better versions.

Kyrgizion ,

You can watch pirated movies in a virtual theatre in VR. It’s quite impressive really.

JCreazy ,

Someone working in a movie theater could just take the file and send it to other movie theaters and then they can play the movie whenever they want without paying the distributor. They could also just upload it onto the internet so anyone can watch it. It’s essentially to keep theater operators honest.

lightnsfw ,

Except people can do those things anyway so the DRM is all just creating problems for the honest ones.

JCreazy ,

Yes I’m aware but if the DRM wasn’t there it would certainly be easier

Mango ,

The theater pirates the experience for you!

vsis ,
@vsis@feddit.cl avatar

I also assume it’s an expired certificate.

See, this is what happens when certificates are not renewed automatically.

The article says the projectos are discontinued. That’s probably the reason no one is monitoring these certs.

Another glorious benefit of DRM.

Blackmist ,

1st Jan? Smells like an expired certificate somewhere in whatever chain of DRM bullshit they use.

KSPAtlas ,
@KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz avatar

Most likely

alamodrafthousesucks ,

Fuck them. Alamo Drafthouse is a bad company who got bought out by a hedge fund. They treated their employees like they’re slaves. They used to make people clock out to clean the public bathrooms and theaters. Their justification “you get tips”.

All the food is gross and handled by the most subservient drug addicts or drunks they can find.

They replaced a lot of experienced management with fresh grad students who had no culinary experience and the blame was shifted to the back of house staff.

If you ate at any of them you probably ate stuff that fell on the floor because since the wait staff is afraid of both the management and the customer they’d take it out on the cooks who give free floor seasoning to impatient people when accidents happen.

I saw a cook impale their foot with a knife, the manager make fun of them, they rinse the knife, sanitize it in dish, and they chop up mushrooms with it. I reported it to the health inspector and my car’s windshield happened to get busted when the camera didn’t work.

june ,

Similar experience when my local restaurant/bar theater got bought by regal.

PopShark ,

Uhh relevant username?

spacecowboy ,

They created it specifically to post that.

Exulion ,

Only focusing on the knife thing. What else did you want them to do with it? xD

VikingHippie ,

Display it prominently as a warning to any other feet thinking of stepping out on them. Gotta make sure they toe the line. Third foot pun.

Die4Ever ,
@Die4Ever@programming.dev avatar

Interesting thought experiment lol, what’s the difference between the knife stabbing a human vs an animal (meat)

JJROKCZ ,

Nothing lol cleaning it and continuing to use it is the proper response. The human needs medical attention, the knife just needs soap and hot water

SpaceNoodle ,

Humans are animals made of meat

Die4Ever ,
@Die4Ever@programming.dev avatar

Yep, which is why you don't need to throw out the knife lol

dutchkimble ,

Probably, the issue was that he asked for no mushrooms.

Lipriv30 ,

When did they get bought out?

TheBat ,
@TheBat@lemmy.world avatar

2021

variety.com/…/alamo-drafthouse-bankruptcy-end-123…

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
  • random
  • All magazines
    •