Digital rights management through Premiere

[Jon Doughtie]

Some aspects of that would be dependent upon the law in country in question. In the US, DRM may not interfere with protected Fair Use, for example, and that includes recording for timeshifting.

I can’t speak to the particular case in question. One thing for sure, though – DRM can be circumvented. Your client should be aware that no copy-protection scheme is fool-proof, and that should be part of their expectation.

System:
Dell Precision T7600 (x2)
Win 7 64-bit
32GB RAM
Adobe CC 2014 (as of 7/2015)
256GB SSD system drive
4 internal media drives RAID 5
Typically cutting short form from HD MP4 and P2 MXF.

[Andrew Kimery]

[Jon Doughtie] ” In the US, DRM may not interfere with protected Fair Use, for example, and that includes recording for timeshifting.”

Are you sure that’s the case Jon? For example, the DMCA specifically prevents people from defeating/circumventing DRM even though DRM prevents people from doing legal things such as space/time shifting media.

More on topic, I have not heard of applying DRM to ProRes and while it may be possible, to Jon’s point any DRM can be broken so the client should be prepared for that. And possibly be prepared for angry emails if the DRM some how conflicts with the system the South American broadcaster uses.

[Simon Mercer]

Thanks for the responses. You’ve essentially confirmed what I was thinking, which is that it’s basically impossible. Especially with screen capture software and all the other toys we have available as editors. I guess my next port of call is a lawyer who might at least be able to draft us a warning document to go along with the file.

[Jon Doughtie]

Hi Andrew – yes, that is my understanding regarding Fair Use and DRM. The precedent goes back to Disney vs. Betamax. Otherwise, none of us would be timeshifting much programming, and I am doing it almost daily, as are many other folks.

DMCA does indicate it is illegal to bypass DRM. Doesn’t mean that people will not do it. The most common method is insertion of a digital-analog-digital transition in the process. I am not endorsing that behavior, mind you – I simply acknowledge that people do it.

System:
Dell Precision T7600 (x2)
Win 7 64-bit
32GB RAM
Adobe CC 2014 (as of 7/2015)
256GB SSD system drive
4 internal media drives RAID 5
Typically cutting short form from HD MP4 and P2 MXF.

[Andrew Kimery]

[Jon Doughtie] “Hi Andrew – yes, that is my understanding regarding Fair Use and DRM. The precedent goes back to Disney vs. Betamax. Otherwise, none of us would be timeshifting much programming, and I am doing it almost daily, as are many other folks.”

Not to get too tangental in this thread, but Fair Use is not related to space shifting (ripping a CD and putting the music on your compute or MP3 player) or time shifting (recording something for later viewing). Space shifting and time shifting are related in that in both instances the courts ruled (the Betmax case in the 80’s and the Diamond Rio case in the 90’s) that people had the right to do those things for private use where as Fair Use is a specific portion of copyright law outlining a very limited set of circumstances where someone might be able to use copyrighted works for news, academic and/or analysis/criticism w/o needing to get permission from the copyright holder.

Getting back to DRM/copy protection… even though the courts ruled people could do it there was nothing to say that companies couldn’t use copy protection to prevent people from doing it. That’s the sole purpose of copy protection is it not? The wrinkle that the DMCA added was making it illegal to defeat DRM. So, for example, even though court precedent gives people in the US the right to rip a DVD or Blu-ray to a personal computer for private viewing the DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent the DRM and the presence of the DRM makes it impossible to copy the media onto a computer. The DMCA is basically media companies successfully doing an end run around the Betamax case and the Diamond Rio case. In the mid 2000’s a US court found that DVD ripping software was illegal and that pretty much signaled that the DMCA trumps the individual’s right toe space/time shift media.

The only exception I know if is a few years ago the US Copyright Office granted an exemption to documentary filmmakers which means documentary filmmakers can legally circumvent the DRM on a DVD (not sure about Blu-ray) in order to capture the footage off the disc.