Thursday, May 19, 2005

DVD + RFID = Fingerprint Please

Researchers in Los Angeles are developing a new form of piracy protection for DVDs that could make common practices like loaning a movie to a friend impossible.
University of California at Los Angeles engineering professor Rajit Gadh is leading research to turn radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags into an extremely restrictive form of digital rights management to protect DVD movies.
At the store, someone buying a new DVD would have to provide a password or some kind of biometric data, like a fingerprint or iris scan, which would be added to the DVD's RFID tag.
Then, when the DVD was popped into a specially equipped DVD player, the viewer would be required to re-enter his or her password or fingerprint. The system would require consumers to buy new DVD players with RFID readers.
Gadh said his research group is trying to address the problem of piracy for the movie industry.

[This reminds of the lines from David Byrne's "In the Future"
In the future everyone's house will be like a little fortress.
In the future everyone's house will be a total entertainment centre.]

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