Digital Cinema Specfication v1.4 includes anti-piracy guidelines

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On July 20, 2020, the Digital Cinema Initiative published version 1.4 of its DCI specification, which includes anti-piracy requirements.  Digital delivery is governed by DRM, a security manager, keys (containing usage/business rules), key management, and private messaging.  Security events, such as playback requests, are logged.  The security system also ‘shall support techniques to expose security attacks in process.’

As the movie is played, piracy countermeasures are applied to ensure that stolen content can be identified and traced back to an individual theatrical presentation. DCI recommends that forensic watermarks be applied to each frame of a digital cinematic release (2D or 3D) upon projection.  This, plus the ability to detect camcording in a movie theatre, are designed to help pinpoint individual acts of piracy upon analysis after the fact.

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Access the DCI Web site and the DCI specifications

Why it matters

DCI was formed in 2002 and is a consortium of the major ‘Hollywood’ studios: MGM, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Universal Studios, The Walt Disney Company and Warner Brothers.

As such, provides powerful guidance to set the agenda for content protection and anti-piracy practices that are applied within the framework of movie distribution and theatrical release.

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