NEW YORK (Reuters)- A security hole in Adobe Systems Inc software, used to distributemovies and TV shows over the Internet, is giving users free access torecord and copy from Amazon.com Inc’s video streaming service.
The problem exposes online video content to the rampant piracy thatplagued the music industry during the Napster era and is underminingefforts by retailers, movie studios and television networks to cash inon a huge Web audience.
"It’s a fundamental flaw in the Adobe design. This was designedstupidly," said Bruce Schneier, a security expert who is also the chiefsecurity technology officer at British Telecom.
The flaw rests in Adobe’s Flash video servers that are connected tothe company’s players installed in nearly all of the world’sWeb-connected computers.
The software doesn’t encrypt online content, but only orders sent toa video player such as start and stop play. To boost download speeds,Adobe dropped a stringent security feature that protects the connectionbetween the Adobe software and its players.
"Adobe is committed to the security of all of our products, from ourplayers to our server software. Adobe invests a considerable amount ofongoing effort to help protect users from potential vulnerabilities,"it said in a statement.
Adobe said it issued a security bulletin earlier this month abouthow best to protect online content and called on its customers tocouple its software security with a feature that verifies the validityof its video player.
An Amazon spokesman said content on the company’s Video On Demandservice, which offers as many as 40,000 movies and TV shows on its Website, cannot be pirated using video stream catching software.
However, in tests by Reuters, at least one program to record onlinevideo, the Replay Media Catcher from Applian Technologies, recordedmovies from Amazon and other sites that use Adobe’s encryptiontechnology together with its video player verification.
"Adobe’s (stream) is not really encrypted," said Applian CEO BillDettering. "One of the downfalls with how they have architected thesoftware is that people can capture the streams. I fully expect them todo something more robust in the near future."
HOW IT WORKS
The free demo version of Replay Media Catcher allows anyone to watch75 percent of anything recorded and 100 percent of YouTube videos. For$39, a user can watch everything recorded.
One Web site — www.tvadfree.com — explains step-by-step how to use the video stream catching software.
Amazon.com’s Adobe-powered Video On Demand service allows viewers towatch the first two minutes of a movie or TV show for free. It chargesup to $3.99 to rent a movie for 24 hours and up to $14.99 to download amovie permanently.
Amazon starts to stream the entire movie during the free preview –even though it pauses the video on the Web browser after the first twominutes — so that users can start watching the rest of the video rightaway once they pay.
"It’s the traditional trade-off, convenience on the one hand andsecurity on the other," said Ray Valdes, analyst at research groupGartner.
However, even if a user doesn’t pay, the stream still sends the movie to the video catching software, but not the browser.
Amazon’s Video On Demand is the Web retailer’s answer to decliningsales of packaged movies and TV shows and the growth in demand fordigital content that can be viewed and stored on the Internet.
Unlike Amazon, videos from Hulu.com, NBC.com and CBS.com are alreadyfree although the TV programs are interrupted by commercials. However,the stream catching software separates the commercials and the programinto two separate folders, so people can keep the programs without theadvertising.
Hulu.com, a video Web site owned by News Corp’s Fox network andGeneral Electric Co’s NBC Universal, was the big networks’ answer toYouTube, the popular video-sharing Web site where many users beganuploading TV shows and other content owned by media companies.
The networks scrambled to post videos on their own sites in a bid tocapture another stream of advertising revenue from a growing audience,but they have struggled with how best to show commercials which fundthe programing when played on the Web.
YouTube, which started the online video boom before being bought byGoogle Inc for $1.65 billion in November 2006, has also struggled tocash in on its popularity even though its user base continues tomushroom.
DESTROYING BUSINESS MODELS
One possible solution would be to protect the video with a digitalrights management (DRM) system. A Seattle-based company called WidevineTechnologies has a DRM system that can encrypt online videos usingFlash.
"The fundamental problem here is that Adobe’s lack of technology isnot allowing the business models to be preserved," said Widevine ChiefExecutive Brian Baker.
The lack of content protection, according to Baker, threatens all the business models used today to fund video on the Web.
Apple Inc, which sells movies and television shows at its onlineiTunes store, uses its own DRM technology called FairPlay, but it onlyworks for video bought on iTunes.
Forrester analyst James McQuivey said he doesn’t believe the videostream catching technology will entirely derail theadvertising-supported business model used by the networks for onlinevideo.
"It’s too complicated for most users," said McQuivey, noting thatfile-sharing services like BitTorrent already exist but only a smallpercentage of people use them.
"People want something easy to find and easy to use."
(Editing by Peter Henderson, Richard Chang)
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