Why has Sony stopped copy-protecting its DVDs?
 

First, I'm not some pirate.

I'm a soundtrack fanatic, and I enjoy making my own 'isolated scores' by playing a CD soundtrack and playing a movie, then syncronizing them into a VCR for my own enjoyment.

I often do that with movies recorded off TV, but after trying to record some music (not on CD) used in the menus of "The Missing", (a Sony release) thinking I would have good sound but no picture, I discovered the picture was fine.

I played back a part of the film itself, and it was fine, so I ended up doing my own isolated score for the whole movie.

I only have two other Sony DVDs, being Spider-Man 1 and 2, and the first IS copy protected, but the second is not.

I suspect that only DVDs made in 2004 are affected by this, and the point of this thread is, how could Sony overlook such a thing?

Obviously, I am not looking to pirate anything, as my music-specific motives are clear, and why record a movie I already have onto a tape- there's no point.

No other studios seem to be affected that I know of, but I thought it might be worth mentioning here.

I think Sony is more interested in the video being compromised on a DVD.

Despite your reasonings and all, that sounds like an aweful lot of work with inferior equipment (read: non-professional mixing equipment) to produce an inferior copy (read: hi-fi sound at best).

Why bother? Isn't the CD soundtrack adequate?

Well, I don't even own a computer- I visit this site via my local library, so I don't have access to editing software/hardware.

Also, I just like the thrill of hearing my favorite music match the action on screen without other sound effects or dialogue, and also like hearing the little bits of music not found on the CD. (Hate me all you want for saying this, but I'm an unreasonable James Horner fanatic...let the bashing begin)

It is nothing more than a stupid little hobby I like to do because it's fun to see/hear the end results.

Because it's easy enough to copy copy-protected DVD's so they probably just gave up on it.

Hey good for you Nick! :thumbsup: I say use whatevers at your disposal to further your hobby. You're having a lot of fun doing it and obviously are a huge fan of the music searching out those parts that aren't on the soundtrack. I always get a thrill out of Horners music for the Star Trek films. I even noticed some similarities to his score for Wolfen.

On the copy protection front they probably finally woke up and realized that analog protection using Macrovision is a waste of money.

most of Sony's Warner's and MGM's dvds don't have CP.
Universal, DW, Fox usually have CP

I can understand wanting the missing parts from the film. I hated how the Braveheart(also James Horner) sdtk was condensed onto 1 CD. It was a 3 hour film! One of my favorite soundtracks. Luckily, they 'remedied' this with a companion cd a year later with the missing songs, along with some bonus tracks.

Enjoy your hobby. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Just to clarify, you're talking about Macrovision, right? I'm sure the movies are still protected with CSS (although that has been broken).

I would assume the reason is because mobody bothers to make an inferior VHS copy of a DVD anymore, what with movies and players so cheap now. Pirates just make a digital copy, in which case Macrovision isn't a factor at all. Macrovision does cost the studios money to license for use on their products, so maybe they assume it's better to save the money and not use it when the vast majority of copies made aren't going to be affected by it anyway.

Thanks, guys for the reassurance, and it's always nice to talk with friendly soundtrack fans who don't unleash the usual Horner hatred -wink-, and to everyone else, thanks for the replies regarding the copy protection, as I would think that at least some people out there would be wondering why a studio such as Sony would willingly (or not) overlook such a seemingly inportant step in DVD authoring -confused-.