Activating discs at point of sale?

[Grubert]

http://homemediamagazine.com/news/em...chnology-13981

The Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) has published threshold standards for “benefit denial technology,” which would allow for the disabling of DVD and video game usage until the point of sale — rendering stolen discs useless.

The standards are a result of “Project Lazarus,” an EMA effort to gather together key retailers, home video divisions and video game publishers to examine the possibilities of DVD and video game benefit-denial technology. “Project Lazarus” also is developing a cost-benefit analysis for the technology.

“The deployment of benefit denial technology would reduce shrink in video game and DVD stocks, increase open marketing of video games, reduce packaging, decrease labor costs, improve consumer access to video games and Blu-ray Discs, and make the categories more attractive for additional retail channels,” said Bo Andersen, president and CEO of EMA. “Given the myriad of potential benefits, EMA recognized the imperative to bring together major stakeholders to provide an impetus for further development and timely deployment of effective benefit denial technologies for DVDs and video games that are useful and effective for a broad range of entertainment retailers.”

The standards are available at http://www.entmerch.org/lazarus_standards.pdf

It's supposed to be 'transparent to the consumer' but I have my doubts.

[jw]

yea I read that.
My thoughts here from what I have seen at in the USA, especially at Wal-Marts is they fail to deactivate that security strip so people are gonna get pissed if they buy a movie and have to return it because the cashier didnt deactivate the Benefit denial tool.......Mass returns based on faulty equipment and lack of knowledge as well.

We will see, It sound like a good plan just needs proper training

[Petra_Kalbrain]

OH MY GOD!!! This has disaster written all over it! If for no other reason, when it comes to Blu-ray's already existing confusion with certain releases and required firmware updates, the public already have enough of a chance of being sent back to the store out of ignorance. This will be like throwing a gallon jug of gasoline onto a campfire.

[Marquoz]

If the salespeople are well trained, this is a great idea.

I don't see it working in practice though, it will be a complete pain! Imagine christmas rush with a bunch of new employees, they aren't going to remember to activate all the disks, and there will be tons of people POd on christmas day. Then they have to dig out their receipt and get it activated.

How many people buy a bunch of movies at once, throw them on the shelf and watch them at a later date? I know for one I do that if there is a good sale. Now keeping my receipt for it, that's another story, it usually ends up in the trash with the wrappers. Imagine me going back to the store without a receipt to get it activated. Don't think they will be willing to do that.

[tron3]

Over kill. A much simpler and viable plan is this one.

Each box receives a unique ID number. When the item is scanned and the sale finalized, the unique ID number is automatically transmitted to a central server database. This info is also printed on the receipt with another unique ID number in case of failure.

When the software is installed, any ID not in the database is denied activation. If you have a problem, call in the receipt ID number and get it activated. Naturally, none of these numbers can be used twice.

The major failing here is that you MUST have an internet connection to install the software. But if the software is stolen, there is no way to activate it short of a receipt or major "warez" hacking.

Dunno, just my thought.

[Marine Mike]

I personally like the idea, but feel that it will have poor execution due to untrained cashiers.

[roqdawg]

I would bet the next brainstorm after "activating discs at point of sale" would be "de-activating them at a later time"...sort of like that failed Circuit City DIVX idea.

This smells,

Roqdawg

[Dynamo of Eternia]

This is horrible for multiple reasons.

Primarily, the issue is that if the disc needs to be 'activated', then this means that whatever machine you are using to play the disc will need to be hooked to the internet to varify this.

If you have multiple players in the house, then they will all need to be hooked to the internet to verify use.

Additionally, what happens when a movie goes 'out of print'? I assume that any players the movie has already been activated on will continue to play it. But, I would imagine that eventually when certain movies go out of print, the servers or whatever that verify the disc will cease to exist.

So, if you replace your player after this occurs, and your new player doesn't have the varification to play the disc, then you can't watch your disc.

And odds are, the people who are really determined to steal these things will manage to find some kind of hack/work around where they can force a player to play the disc without this varification process.

So, in the end, many of the criminals will still get what they want, but the legit consumer is screwed.


The problem with plans and ideas like this is that they don't really take the potential long-term consequences and problems into account.

Yeah, IF the cashier activates the disc properly, and IF the buyer has their player hooked to the internet, when they put the disc in, it will work fine, and continue to work fine so long as that player is operational.

But, it does't account for all of these other problems that could occur when/if equipment dies out/fails or is replaced.

[Villain2100]

Also how would this work with rentals i.e. blockbusters etc.

Sorry if this has already been mentioned above.

[Barbie-Shrimp]

Originally Posted by Villain2100

Also how would this work with rentals i.e. blockbusters etc.?

Yeah, if it doesn't work for rental, then it would be impossible to sell/trade/lend etc. too.

[Villain2100]

Originally Posted by Barbie-Shrimp

Yeah, if it doesn't work for rental, then it would be impossible to sell/trade/lend etc. too.

Yeah exactly, say i buy a bluray and want to lend it to a friend, i can't cause of this activation junk, it would make the whole technology a lot less unser freindly.

[YoodinVranks]

Also, remember the release day for Iron Man... The disc wouldn't play because of to much traffic at the BD-live host server (or whatever). You could get around it by turning off your internet connection, but what if the disc wouldn't play without being able to verify the disc...

[Ascended_Saiyan]

Originally Posted by Barbie-Shrimp

Yeah, if it doesn't work for rental, then it would be impossible to sell/trade/lend etc. too.

Originally Posted by Villain2100

Yeah exactly, say i buy a bluray and want to lend it to a friend, i can't cause of this activation junk, it would make the whole technology a lot less unser freindly.

I would think that this only needs to be "activated" once. After that, it's just like a regular "old school" disc. For the rental chains, it wouldn't work UNLESS it could be deactivated and reactivated repeatedly (by some in-house equipment).

[Branden]

is this benefit-denial a type of phone-home technology?
i can only imagine this screwing the legit consumer far more than it deters theft.

[jw]

Originally Posted by Branden

is this benefit-denial a type of phone-home technology?
i can only imagine this screwing the legit consumer far more than it deters theft.

no its a merchant deactivated strip, If stolen or not deactivated it wont work. If this happens I wont buy another used disc from ebay, thats for sure

[Ascended_Saiyan]

Originally Posted by tron3

Over kill. A much simpler and viable plan is this one.

Each box receives a unique ID number. When the item is scanned and the sale finalized, the unique ID number is automatically transmitted to a central server database. This info is also printed on the receipt with another unique ID number in case of failure.

When the software is installed, any ID not in the database is denied activation. If you have a problem, call in the receipt ID number and get it activated. Naturally, none of these numbers can be used twice.

The major failing here is that you MUST have an internet connection to install the software. But if the software is stolen, there is no way to activate it short of a receipt or major "warez" hacking.

Dunno, just my thought.

Your idea could work if there was a phone number to an automated system for those that don't have an internet connection. Also, some companies would have to be entrusted with the code generating algorithm for rental chains, etc.

[Ascended_Saiyan]

Originally Posted by jwbbud

no its a merchant deactivated strip, If stolen or not deactivated it wont work. If this happens I wont buy another used disc from ebay, thats for sure

Yep. I can't think of any solutions for that one.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by Ascended_Saiyan

Your idea could work if there was a phone number to an automated system for those that don't have an internet connection. Also, some companies would have to be entrusted with the code generating algorithm for rental chains, etc.

But, how would that work? Even if the retail chain, itself, or the person over the phone 'activates' the disc, in order for this 'activation' to actually do anything, the player, itself, would have to communicate with something.
The disc, itself, cannot be altered after purchase to make the activation work.

With that being the case, how would this activation thing work without the player connecting to the internet or something first? Since the disc can't be altered, and since the player (in your scenario) isn't communicating with anything, then how would any supposed 'activation' at the store or over the phone have any effect what-so-ever on how the disc will work (or not work) with that player?

The only way for this to work would be for the player to connect to the internet.

[dadkins]

El Loco Nightmare.

BAD IDEA!!!

[tron3]

Originally Posted by Ascended_Saiyan

Your idea could work if there was a phone number to an automated system for those that don't have an internet connection. Also, some companies would have to be entrusted with the code generating algorithm for rental chains, etc.

Maybe I should market the idea. I'd be rich and hackers all over the world would hate me. Just amazes me how stupid some of the solutions have become.

Back in the "old days", you couldn't copy a CD. No one had the hardware. Then people simply loaded the software on many computers. Companies got smart and required the CD to remain in the drive to operate the software. Again, no one could copy the disc. It really shone a bright light on the pirates of the day because they were the first complaining about the CD format.

In any case, hardware is the only thing close to a copy-proof solution.