Apparently Amazon is now running the most current version of Flash Media Server v3 with the RTMPe feature and SWF hashing both enabled. From Reuters updated story we find out that Amazon appears to have made some changes. I assume they are probably also denying all non-RTMPe connections as suggested in Adobe’s recent security bulletins.
While not utilizing file-level DRM such as the FMRMS solution, Amazon’s updates will raise the level of security they are applying to all of their content providers’ content. Is it 100% secure? NO. Is it more secure than other similar Flash-based services on the web? YES.
This just in. Kevin Towes, Product Manager for Flash Media Server, has published a blog entry as a direct public response to this article. His blog can be viewed at:
http://blogs.adobe.com/ktowes/
Kevin pretty much breaks Reuters off in his posting. It’s hard to believe Reuters even published that article after reading how miserably wrong their writer was about the product he “wrote” about. I can understand using the wrong word to describe how a piece of technology works or not providing the entire background but being completely wrong about every point you are trying to make, IMHO, is unprofessional and irresponsible journalism.
On another note, recently quite a few people and customers have been asking me what technology is required to deliver encrypted Flash Content.
First and foremost you will need a Flash Media Rights Management Server license.
Below is a list of additional required technology from the Adobe FMRMS Website:
Operating Systems:
-Red Hat® Linux®
-Microsoft® Windows®
[JAVA] Application Servers:
-JBoss
-BEA WebLogic
Databases:
-Microsoft SQL Server
-MySQL
-Oracle
Clients:
-Adobe® AIR™
-Adobe Media Player
There is a complete PDF about FMRMS located here.
Friday, while I was on a plane to Toronto, Reuters released a very suspect story titled: “Hole in Adobe software allows free movie downloads.”
Beyond making numerous technical mistakes in the piece, the author claims that an application exists that will allow anyone to record a stream from any site using Flash Media Server to stream video content. On Thursday I similarly received emails from several users claiming similar possibilities using free software applications.
Early today I received an informative email from the Sr. Business Development Manager of Dynamic Media at Adobe. Because I am under NDA at BuyDRM as part of the FMRMS developer program, all I can pass on is that Adobe emphatically denies the claims made in the article by Reuters.
As a baseline, Adobe is pointing all Content Owners and CDN’s and FMS admins to the recent Knowledge Base article “How to protect video content (Flash Media Server).” There Adobe provides a multi-faceted approach to deny this form of illegal recording including denying all RTMP connections, using SWF hashing, using a custom Server Side Access Script and of course deploying encrypted content via FMRMS.
I have submitted some clarification questions to Adobe and once I get responses I will post updates here. The only thing that I would be generally concerned about is the basic premise that Adobe’s basic RTMP protocol is now dead and _all_ traffic leaving an FMS server must now be encrypted. My gut instinct says that this will drive up CPU utilization on all content and decrease the amount of content each Flash Media Server can deliver. Again once we learn more we will update this piece.
This just in: I was just relaxing on the couch re-watching the President’s $1T [as in Trillion] pitch to bail out America when my cell phone started blowing up.
A few seconds later I am on the phone with Patrick Hiatt, our EVP Business Development, from San Jose at the Streaming Media show and he’s asking me if I saw the MMS message he sent and what did I think?
I looked at my MMS inbox, watched the most current message and almost dropped the phone in shock.
Apparently we are doing some great things over here at BuyDRM because we won our 2nd and back-to-back Streaming Media Magazine Reader’s Choice Award in the Content Protection/DRM category.
Um yeah. So here’s to everyone that voted for us, our customers and friends and the megatronic team here at BuyDRM please raise your glasses up and toast with me. Hip Hip HOORAY!!
-End selfless promotion and back to the festivities.
Sent to suggestions@bside.com re: FantasticFest.com
Dear b-side,
I was quite excited to see the FantasticFest.com site and all the great movies on there. Wanting to take a look further at how I might download these movies so I could watch them offline, I looked around your site for a Faq about the movies only to find a misinformed series of statements. I have to admit I cringed when I saw the section of your site about DRM.
Without delving too deep let me just present my issues with item #4 on your site located here: http://www.bside.com/help/downloads/
4. The future of digital distribution is DRM-free distribution. The movie business is 3-5 years behind the music business in figuring this out. Apple is pushing hard, and even the majors are starting to catch on with EMI announcing it would sell all of its music DRM-free on iTunes. For a compelling overview on the future of DRM, check out Steve Jobs’ Thoughts on Music.
If anything the music business is an oddity of business sorts. Nothing they have done in the past 5 years to “save their industry” has worked because with one fell swoop they sold themselves down the river to Apple who completely marginalized the value of music so they could sell more Apple hardware. To the contrary Apple is not pushing hard to drop DRM and never has. In fact Apple’s proprietary DRM platform, FairPlay, is merely designed by Apple to prevent 3rd parties from selling encrypted content to iPods. If Apple wanted to drop DRM they could and would. They don’t. They also don’t license their technology to 3rd parties. If they did, every record label and studio and TV/Cable network in the world would license it. You only have Apple to blame for not being able to playback content you buy on other sites on your iPod.
Instead, Jobs has mandated that they continue to use DRM to drive their competition to go attempt to compete with them sans DRM. If you sake a look at EMI’s sales figures on iTunes for their “DRM-free” tracks you will find that they are in fact selling at about a rate of .33 to every 1 DRM-enabled track. Why is this? Because consumers don’t care and won’t pay more for something without DRM when the track they buy with DRM works fine on their iPod and on iTunes on their PC.
Why is this? Because that is where consumers of iTunes listen to music. They also have the right to burn this music to CD and do with it what they want. The point being that all of Apple’s DRM-free competitors together don’t come close to equaling the market leadership of Apple using DRM.
If you really believe that hyped-up tome that Steve Jobs published and you truly believe he feels that way, then how can you explain his complete unwillingness to drop DRM and his advances in the DRM arena as it relates to movie rentals and soon the iTunes subscription music service? Apple has sold more DRM-enabled music than every site on the Internet combined and they are not for dropping DRM.
I think you have a done a great job with your website and your Flash presentation is great but the information you are presenting on the page above about DRM does a disservice to content owners who may find that DRM enables their businesses to grow. As a pioneer in this space who has helped literally hundreds of businesses monetize their offerings over the years, I would extend to you the offer to review your thinking with you in the hopes you can clarify what you are publishing and provide some truth to it as well.
Regards,
Christopher
P.S. I hope you are using FMS 3 with RTMPe on. If you moved to Flash for downloads you could also build your own player on AIR and have one file for streaming and downloads. This might not only save you some encoding time but some hosting dollars.
I have been watching the Spore DRM debate now for about a week and today it hit a high note. After seeing nearly 2500 reviews on Spore on Amazon of which 2200+ or so were negative, the product is still #8 on the Amazon Bestsellers list for Video Games and associated hardware. Conveniently situated between “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed” for PlayStation and The Wii, Spore is doing quite well given the feeble attempts of freeloaders the world wide.
This campaign to trash Spore’s viablity using negative ratings seems to have, if anything, just wasted a lot of hot air and keyboard strokes and propelled the game right to where EA was hoping it would go
Comments ranged from:
ice grizzly says:
There is no justification to steal some ones product.
DVD is copy protected. So every one should just download from torrent ??.
PC market is screwed up because of cheaters like these. There is absolutely no reason to cheat or steal. If you dont like DRM dont buy. Play some thing else.
To the more visceral:
R. Corace says:
I found this to be VERY interesting. It was over in another forum here on Amazon.com. I think this user has chimed in a few times here in our Spore disscussion. I’ll let you guys be the judge:
C. Tempel says:
I work for EA and it’s a good thing =)
C. Tempel says:
This is no joke. DRMs are created to protect the consumer, not limit them. Imagine if you had unlimited installs! You could walk into an internet cafe and install the game to every computer there .. giving anyone who wants a free game to play. Where does that leave the developer? Bankrupt. We limit the installs to make sure you the consumer won’t do this and that the consumer get what you paid for … a nice little package to play in the privacy of your own home up to 3 installs in 3 different spots. Studies show there is no reason anyone needs to take one game and play at more than 3 locations … after extensive study … we found that those that install 4 or more times are doing so illegally to bootleg a game and pirate it off.
C. Tempel says:
You’re the clueless one. I don’t need to explain the obvious. DRMs are the new wave for gaming to protect both the consumer and the developer. If a developer has no money to make games due to bootlegging through unlimited installs then why don’t you tell me who makes these precious games for you? Are you going to take up the reigns? Didn’t think so. So hush and just deal with the DRMs as they are … the bodyguard of gaming.
C. Tempel says:
Honestly, if you’re installing the same game 15 times then you probably should get a new computer that can handle the only 3 installs that are scientifically necessary. Sounds like this is more of a user-problem rather than a hardware problem. Instead of pointing fingers at the company and DRM, perhaps you should point one at yourself.
The last time I looked right before my wedding Mitch Singer was pushing a new framework for media consumption called Open Market. The concept, feebly mangled by loser bloggers as a “Last Ditch effort for DRM” seemed well received even in the face of the Sony RootKit DRM scandal and Sony’s near total abandonement of their own DRM Schema “OpenMG” which had powered the Sony CONNECT storefront covered previously here on The DRM Blog.
Yesterday news began appear of the public launch of a much larger vehicle named the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem which reports to be a consortium of Hollywood Studios, Consumer Device Manufacturers, Software Companies and Retailers is slated to be unveiled in January at the CES show. More to come here at the DRM Blog on this breaking story.
Keep Austin Weird! Or was it wired? For me the past two Months in Austin have been wired and weird and wonderful all at once. I recently married my beautiful fiancee Pearl and am now happily living here in Austin while managing BuyDRM’s expansion and product roadmap.
It’s exciting, time consuming and rewarding to say the least.
While I was “gone” it appears we have had some decent announcements in our space which I will proceed to comment on. In the meantime enjoy a shot from the festivities and stay-tuned as I melt down this keyboard getting caught up.
-Pearl and Christopher Levy August 30th, 2008
