Apple Patents Anti-Piracy Technology

[Emergent]

Remember that Apple intends to make the cameras and mics on their phone much, much more powerful in the future (iphone pics and vids are now the number one contribution to flickster). The "iphones are too poor to pirate with" argument will only remain valid for a few more versions. They're most likely being preemptive with this.

It's still reprehensible.

 

[Duskflamer]

My only concern here is "What if the band playing wants to be recorded?" I'm not talking about some big-name group playing with all their flashy lights and huge packed stadiums of people, but if this technology works by, say, recognizing that there is a drum, two guitars, and a microphone in the view of what's being recorded, what's to stop this tech from preventing you from filming, say, a high school band who would like to encourage their few fans to tape the sessions so their image can spread.

I'm not saying it would be very important in the long run but Apple would have to be extremely careful in implementing this tech to make sure it only blocks what it's supposed to block, and nothing more, or else they're going to have a lot of complaints about legitimate videos being cut off because the phone thinks they're trying to pirate.

Also, Apple has to realize that they're not alone in the smartphone market. Patenting a technology like this actively prevents their competitors from using it, meaning people who want to be able to record performances with their smartphone may decide to pick up an Android or other competitor instead of sticking to their iPhone.

 

[aashell13]

Annnd we have reason No. 351 why I will never own anything apple...

 

[Nouw]

The only time I see this being useful is for Daft Punk's Alive concerts. And those are as rarer than...alien contact?

 

[zehydra]

Wow! What amazing and revolutionary technology! I hope for Apple's sake no consumer realises that all they would have to do to bypass such a restriction is to not use an iPhone.

For a great many people unfortunately, "to not use an iPhone" is not an acceptable alternative.

 

[TheRealCJ]

double post

What does it meeeeeaaaaan?! So beautiful!

 

[niceguy191]

Hm... Well I guess if a band still wants people to record them they can just not broadcast the IR signal that disables the phones... But if you do go to a concert that is sending out the signal, does that mean that you can't take a picture or video of your friend goofing off?Or what if you are witnessing an assault and want to get the scumbag on tape so they get put away? Or anything else in the whole venue for that matter? That's pretty dumb... Same with theaters in fact. Unless it can somehow tell not only THAT you are recording in the area that is "restricted" but WHAT you are recording as well it will lock out a ton of what people use the darn things for.

As a little side story, I saw Our Lady Peace at an outdoor venue last year, and during a song the lead singer (Raine Maida) took someone's phone that was recording out of their hand and proceeded to record the band from his vantage point on the stage and then all of the screaming fans before handing back the phone. It was awesome, everyone loved it, and you can bet that video will get posted online and give the band tons of free publicity. Why would we want to stop that exactly???

I'm a big supporter of being able to do whatever the hell we want with our devices whether it was intended by the manufacturer or not. It's mine, let me do what I want with it. If I break the law or something then it's my bad not whoever made the device, and if I do something awesome with it, that's because of ME as well.

 

[TechNoFear]

Thank you Apple!

You keep making me feel less dirty for specialising in developing MicroSoft based systems all these years.

 

[Plurralbles]

No, apple, I really do own the product you sold me. Screw you.

 

[PinkiePyro]

the museum part sounds cool but as everyone else has said everything else is just dumb

 

[Korskarn]

if this technology works by, say, recognizing that there is a drum, two guitars, and a microphone in the view of what's being recorded, what's to stop this tech from preventing you from filming, say, a high school band who would like to encourage their few fans to tape the sessions so their image can spread.

But if you do go to a concert that is sending out the signal, does that mean that you can't take a picture or video of your friend goofing off?Or what if you are witnessing an assault and want to get the scumbag on tape so they get put away? Or anything else in the whole venue for that matter?

C'mon people, the link is right there in the original post - you can click it to find out how this works.

It's encoded - so it's not going to do anything just because there happens to be two guitars in the room. There has to be a specific signal that says "If any iPhones are out there, don't record this", and the phone will ignore every other signal.

Second, it's IR based - that means line-of-sight and depends on which way you're pointing the video camera. Pointing at your friend goofing off? Totally cool! Pointing at a screen playing a movie? Potentially not cool.

Third, there's a bunch of stuff they can transmit - from "Don't record" through to "Photos are fine, just no video" or "Recording is fine, just no livestreaming". They can even transmit information so your iPhone shows augmented reality visuals like lyrics, artist history, or embed a high-def image of the presentation on the screen behind the conference speaker. It's almost certain that "Don't record" signals (i.e. ones that limit functionality) will be accepted automatically while "Augmented reality" signals (i.e. ones that could potentially rickroll your phone) will require users to accept them.

And ALL of this is opt-in BY THE ARTIST - the performer is the one who decides what signal is transmitted or even if they want to bother to enforce the copyright of the things they spent time and effort in creating in the first place.

 

[vviki]

Next news will be "Putting orifice detection on touch-sensitive screen to prompt spikes to come out of the phone in order to prevent it for being used as a sexual toy." That on preventing things from being used not as intended by their designer. On the other concert/film recording thing, I'm not sure IRDA will suffice for that kind of communication. Maybe some other wireless signal would be better.

To point out the obvious, this feature will probably easily be removed with some kind of jailbreak or something, also like not using your iPhail for once and an actual camera or indeed another kind of phone.

 

[Le_Lisra]

So... not use an iphone.

How's that gonna help?

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

Thank God Apple is the type of company which would patent anything. Now I just have to avoid Apple products for now.

 

[Kargathia]

So if you'd figure out what kind of IR signal you need to broadcast you can either crash everyone's Iphone, or insert watermarks in their photo's?

I see... massive amounts of Iphone photo's taken each day at places like the tower of Pisa... and watermarks of dicks in all of them....

*Trollface*

 

[subtlefuge]

So, how long until you pass by a restaurant and you are interrupted with a commercial for Wendy's? I bet less than a year.

This shit = ridiculous.

 

[meryatathagres]

Who in their right mind would ever use the absolutely awful camera on iCrap to record a bootleg tape? O,o Out of all the phones it has the worst camera, and wouldn't bootleggers use a dedicated camera anyways? I'm just baffled. But well, knowing iCrap, its just the next step to making people pay royalties for any photos they take to apple. Your iWeddingphotos now from iStore, only 1 iBuck each.
Ugh.

 

[meryatathagres]

*snip*

Do you do newspeak too? Orwell is rolling in his grave right now, apologist.

 

[meryatathagres]

I really think there are people that would buy fecal matter in a package if it was marketed as iCrap. Its getting insane really. Ok first of all, being for the most part restricted to the manufacturers own iStore was already bad. But now this. And the gps and traffic monitoring? Soon you iFools will be iZombies of an iApocalypse. >_<
Never have and never will buy Apple. Have used alot, noticed that "user friendliness" is an iMyth. Apple is like that Lacoste shirt. Same shirt from same sweatshop, just without the crocodile logo and without the extra 200% put on the pricetag.