[humorix] DRM Failure Causes Studio To Lose Entire Movie Production

[James Baughn <jbaughn@xxxxxxx>]

DRM Failure Causes Studio To Lose Entire Movie Production
January 17, 2005

HOLLYWOOD, CA -- If you were looking forward to the sequel
of "Battlefield Earth", you'd better sit down for this. The
entire movie production, including 95 hours of footage, was
lost earlier this week in a catastrophic DRM  (Draconian
Restrictions Management) failure.

"It's all gone," said the president of B-Movie Studios. "We
lost everything.  All of our copies of the film have been
rendered useless because we lost the primary DRM key and we
no longer have any legal way to decrypt our own content."

Last year, the studio made headlines by becoming the first
company to adopt the "BlindfoldVision(R)" encryption system
to prevent employees and other hangers-on from leaking their
movies before the release date.

"I tried to warn people about all of the bugs in the
BlindfoldVision system," said an anonymous underling at the
studio.  "But nobody would listen to me.  I'm sure we could
probably develop a way to decrypt our own movie, but that
would clearly violate the DMCA and could result in
deportation to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean."

Don Revolta, the star of the movie, was relieved after
hearing the news.  "I only participated in this bomb because
of contract obligations.  Thank goodness for broken copy
protection schemes!  I never want this film to see the light
of day..."

The studio has threatened to sue DracoSoft, the company
peddling the BlindfoldVision system.  However, a DracoSoft
spokesweasel said, "Our software does not contain bugs! It
says so right here in our glossy product brochure!"

After some prodding by this reporter, the spokesweasel
finally admitted, "Okay, okay, it's possible that our
solution contains an intermittent known issue... or
twenty-three.  However, our EULA clearly states that we are
not legally responsible for any losses, even if we are
technically responsible.  So there!"

An anonymous employee at DracoSoft commented off the record,
"We could easily find a way for the studio to recover their
footage.  However, that would provide an opening  for
pirates to get ahold of other assets protected by
BlindfoldVision, such as the soon-to-be-released prequel to
'Ishtar'.  And that would be bad."

The MPAA downplayed the severity of the situation.  "This
might seem like a failure for copy protection, but it is
actually a clear demonstration that this technology really
does work against pirates," said an MPAA lawyer with a
straight face.   "No longer will actors, directors,
producers, gaffers, grips, and other movie industry
employees need to fear going hungry because of evil pirates
stealing their work."


--
Humorix:      Linux and Open Source(nontm) on a lighter note
Archive:      http://mail.nl.linux.org/humorix/
Web site:     http://www.i-want-a-website.com/about-linux/