Apple Patents Anti-Piracy Technology

[cfehunter]

Apple, patenting user restrictions since 2011.

Slapping your users with an enforced usage restriction with absolutely no benefit to them is not the way to regain that lost market share apple.

Y'know, all they'd have to do is figure out how to shut off the infrared receiver.

Or, you know, just cover the receiver that will block the IR.

Also this ^. It's light, it doesn't pass through opaque objects.
So it's a pointless user restriction that can be bypassed with duct tape.....

 

[Togusa09]

In this day and age of HD media, people are still prepared to watch shaky low quality cams from a handheld device?

And wouldn't the people filming this stuff for distribution be using a device that actually had a half decent camera?

Probably just sony trying to suck up to record labels and movie studios.

EDIT:

Apple, patenting user restrictions since 2011.

Slapping your users with an enforced usage restriction with absolutely no benefit to them is not the way to regain that lost market share apple.

Y'know, all they'd have to do is figure out how to shut off the infrared receiver.

Or, you know, just cover the receiver that will block the IR.

Also this ^. It's light, it doesn't pass through opaque objects.
So it's a pointless user restriction that can be bypassed with duct tape.....

Had you considered the idea of mounting the ir sensor in with the camera module, or making it part of the camera itself?

 

[Firia]

And this is why people Jail Break their iDevices. I am the consumer, and I will utilize my devices how I want; not how the businesses want me to use it. If I violate a law, that is on me. It is not up the apple to decide what I can and cannot do.

 

[hypermonkey]

Sigh.

Everyone has missed the point of this. Its not about stopping piracy, its about preventing non-apple devices from being allowed into gigs/theaters. See, once some theater adopts this technology only apple devices will be allowed to be used in the theater as they will be the only ones to have the tech. All other devices will either have to be switched off or not brought in.

I don't think this will take off at gigs since most bands don't seem to care about this, but it could work in theaters.

 

[TheIronRuler]

Apple Patents Anti-Piracy Technology

Your iPhone might soon detect whether you are recording that concert and shut itself off.

Piracy is a bad thing. We all know that, right? Right? But I'm also not a big fan of corporations taking away the rights of consumers to use their products in ways the designers might not have intended. Apple is patenting technology which will add the ability for future iterations of the iPhone to automatically detect whether the user is capturing video of a musical performance or a film presentation and disable the camera.

The technology involved is somewhat ingenious. Movie theaters, for example, already use infrared signals broadcasting to individual hearing-aid devices and Apple intends for future iPhones to detect these signals, clueing the device into the fact that its user is watching a film. If you decide to take out your iPhone and perhaps record the X-Men: First Class this weekend, and then possibly upload that file for everyone to see, then you are violating IP law. The proposed technology would prevent you from ever transferring the movie into bits stored on your phone.

The same goes for music concerts, except that performers would have to start blasting infrared signals out into the audience for it to be effective. This I'm actually in favor of, because the amount of schmucks holding up an iPhone at concerts has got to be reduced somehow. What happened to actually enjoying the show? What's with all the freaking pictures, people?

Another, even wierder possibility is for the iPhone to automatically place a watermark over any image taken, instead of disabling photographs altogether. So you might be able to snap a shot at that Lady Gaga show, but the URL to LadyGaga.com will be emblazoned all over it. Ugh.

Now, on the other hand, this tech could be used for good and not for evil, by allowing museums or other landmarks to blast infrared data to the iPhone so that you could get a description of the landscape or historical document you are seeing. Kind of like a digital tour guide without the dirty headset.

Source: Patently Apple [http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2011/06/apple-working-on-a-sophisticated-infrared-system-for-ios-cameras.html]

Permalink

Another reason why I don't have any of the apple products and will never buy any.

 

[teisjm]

As stated many times already, who honestly cares about some shaky bluury phone recording of a live concert, apart rfom the person who filmed it? I'd think hardly anyone, would actually want to spend time watching it.

As for movies... Honestly, if you're gona pirate something, you're not gonna go for the crappy version filmed in a theater with an iphone, better versions will be up anyways.

Is it a specific infrared signal, or just infrared in general? good luck filming your friend flailing around on the Wii, if infrared turns off your phone.

Seriously, shouldn't they be developing awesome stuff instead of spending their time and money on stuff that'll make their product less popular?

 

[Twilight_guy]

Seems like it will have a lot of false enforcements. Lots of things produce inferred rays after-all. You could just be opening and closeing your garage door and BAM Iphone lock-up.

 

[incal11]

Piracy is a bad thing. We all know that, right?

Of course. Bootlegging (or "real" piracy) is wrong. Sharing is right
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,710976,00.html

 

[Kair]

I assume this is not the place to dispute the "Piracy is bad" bandwagon.

Though fighting ignorance should be appropriate everywhere.

 

[Vrach]

The same goes for music concerts, except that performers would have to start blasting infrared signals out into the audience for it to be effective. This I'm actually in favor of, because the amount of schmucks holding up an iPhone at concerts has got to be reduced somehow. What happened to actually enjoying the show? What's with all the freaking pictures, people?

Yeah, God forbid you'd want to take a picture of something you've enjoyed so you can share a bit of the experience with friends who weren't there or look back on it 10 years later and say "man, I remember the song that was on when I took that shot". I mean, cameras are for taking shots of yourself in the bathroom mirror and slapping them onto Facebook, not immortalizing moments of your life, didn't you know that by now?

Why are big companies so consistently stupid?

Apple has quite a knack for it. It's one of the reasons I'll likely never ever buy any of their products under penalty of death tbh. Fortunately, the iPhone doesn't have the monopoly on that market anymore.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Soooooo.... I'm out with my friends at a gig in some pub and I whip out my Iphone and start recording my mates having fun, you know, for remembering the next day. Only now the Iphone goes "WUZZAT? LOUD MUSIC AND MOVING PICTURES? Ya stinkin pirate!" *turns off

Yup, I can tell apple have fully grasped practicality. Fuck you jobs.

 

[LiudvikasT]

I would never buy a device of which I have no absolute control. That's why I never had and will have any apple products.

 

[Seijaku]

Only possible benefit of this is that I will have less of an urge to smack people at concerts. Fair enough if you are recording on a good camera but a phone, really?

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Apple patenting technology that restricts how it's customers use their device, just another day for Jobs & co. More and more my investment invan android phone is paying off.

 

[Tourmeta]

Parents are going to be pissed all over the world when they try to film their kids school performances.

 

[gibboss28]

Believe me when I say I am without any doubt 100% absolutely positively really really really really not being sarcastic when I say this: This. Can't. Go. Wrong. In. Any. Way.

 

[snfonseka]

Good thing I am not a "i" fan.

 

[Scabadus]

Apple have patented it, you say? Fantastic, that means my phone will never have this installed on it!

 

[joeman098]

Yet another reason i am never buying any thing apple *I* enjoy useing what *I* pay for however *I* want to use it. maybe they need to stop calling their products *I*(Blank) and start calling it ourphone ourpod ourpad since it seems more and more like you are just paying to borrow it from them put what they want in it use it how they want you to. overpriced junk I would love to see apple fall apart when people get smart and see how they run their company they expect you to buy a minor upgrade to a device every year. ugh apple makes me mad

 

[Korskarn]

Uh... I think people are reading this wrong. This isn't Apple saying "We decide what you can/can't record" this is ARTISTS getting to say "You can/can't record us".

If an artist/filmmaker is totally cool with you recording them all they have to do is... absolutely nothing. The default option is everything works normally. It's only if the performer prefers you not to record that they set up the broadcast system that shuts down the iPhone.

It's an opt-in system whereby the performer gets to choose whether to enforce their copyright.