this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2024
967 points (99.0% liked)

Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

54746 readers
221 users here now

⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.

Rules • Full Version

1. Posts must be related to the discussion of digital piracy

2. Don't request invites, trade, sell, or self-promote

3. Don't request or link to specific pirated titles, including DMs

4. Don't submit low-quality posts, be entitled, or harass others



Loot, Pillage, & Plunder

📜 c/Piracy Wiki (Community Edition):


💰 Please help cover server costs.

Ko-Fi Liberapay
Ko-fi Liberapay

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

From the article:

When we went to our seats, the wait staff let us know that despite the fact that the previews were playing, we wouldn’t know until the movie actually started whether we could see the film or not. If it didn’t work, the screen would just turn black. Luckily, the film went through without a hitch.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] JCreazy@midwest.social 59 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (18 children)

I work at a movie theater and while we don't use Sony projectors, we were told to check all of our certificates to prevent this from happening. This sounds like a communication issue to me. Someone didn't do their job in time. Also in the article it says they wouldn't know if the film would work until it actually played. If that is either an outright lie or the equipment is designed horribly. On the projectors we use which are going on a decade old, the playlist won't even start if it can't verify that all of the content is playable and unlocked. We can see when our certificates expire as well so if all of these certificates expired at the beginning of the year. The theater should have already caught that and had the certificates reissued. Keeping in mind that this wasn't some sort of bug or glitch that nobody could have predicted, then disregard everything I said. DRM on movie theater. Projectors is an industry standard and all companies use it, not just Sony. Until the actual reason comes out, it's hard to say. If it's the certificates of the projectors themselves and not the movie keys which are two different things then yeah I could see how nobody knew what was going on. Especially if the projectors are discontinued. I do know that if our servers lose power and the CMOS battery goes dead, they will internally destroy themselves and never function again. This is to prevent piracy I assume.

[–] OfficerBribe@lemm.ee 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Not familiar with cinema projectors, but as I have gatherered from this forum problem is caused by KDM (used to decrypt movie) provider / reseller called Deluxe. Neither Sony or this cinema chain is at fault and problem indeed seems worldwide.

I do know that if our servers lose power and the CMOS battery goes dead, they will internally destroy themselves and never function again. This is to prevent piracy I assume.

Find it very hard to believe to be honest. Could this be simply some rumour from colleagues? Doubt any vendor would implement anything like this, drives could be simply encrypted to protect data if they ever get stolen.

[–] JCreazy@midwest.social 3 points 10 months ago

Yes, I deal with KDMs weekly but I'm not for sure if this issue was KDM related or if it was certificate related. As for the service destroying themselves, I've never personally seen it happen, but I've been told by upper management that they've seen it happen twice. I don't really have any way to verify the information but it wouldn't surprise me and I don't see why anyone would make that up unless they really don't want people messing with it, but it seems like such an unlikely scenario.

load more comments (16 replies)