I run a entertainment company, I'm opening a DJ division, I want to give them external HD's with our library on

I want to restrict them from copying the data or corrupting it in anyway

I want them to have full functionality within serato i.e cue points, ID3 tag info, adding notes, colour coding etc...

Is this possible to protect the Hd in this way?

I need a Mac OSX solution and a PC solution.

Thanks

if you give them full access, i can't see a way to be done, and i doubt if there is one

Encode the data, a la DRM, and then provide your own proprietary decoder box. This box should have analogue-only line outputs, no digital outputs.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

EXTREMELY hard if customer has Physical Access.
You are looking at a million dollar development process, that could be broken in less than 2 hours potentially.

As this is just a storage medium, then even harder. As I understand it Serato doesn't support DRM files. At least I know not the older Apple DRMd music. I wouldn't see any serious DJ running analog into their kit, opens up all sorts of audio nightmares. Files just need to be there in digital format.

put it this way... can you name a technology/protection/similar that has not been broken?

I am using the hint that you run the company, and are asking here as opposed to a head of a tech dept
that your company doesn't have the resources a Sony or EA would have(which actually doesn't help them because none of their DRM has survived either). If you take FZabkars approach, then this is probably the best way for the "little guy" though I would hazard a guess that you are not versed in coding DRM schemes.. and development along with all the legal stuff, patents etc will surely be out of your price range, along with custom hardware dev costs.

I know that entertainment companies that have arcade machines have some crazy schemes.. Hard Disks with all sorts of "protection" reporting back of every access via internet/WAN, and all these can be nulled with Phy access.

Your system has to play the stuff somehow. So even if you only provide analog out, the actual boards are probably going to have chips with many features, and customer could just open it up and tap inside.

For an example of how far customers go.. Karaoke is huge with Asian people. I knew a guy that got a demo of a karaoke machine for 24hours, and the vendor sent with it a library of 200 Karaoke CDs. well the guy and a heap of friends copied the entire library in that time and sent the machine back.

I cant think of an easy way TBH.

Thanks for your feedback guys, this is really helpful

Ok so I'm ready to accept defeat on that front, is there anyway I could JUST restrict them copying the data as that is the main concern, giving a DJ over 50,000 songs and then copying them is a massive concern

Or alternatively moving in a different direction, does anyone know how I could protect my company legally if DJ's did decide to steal the data.

Thanks guys

Another alternative...

I give out unprotected hard drives, my concern would be viruses etc... transferring from computer to computer... how could I protect the hard drives from that

I would also be interested in updating the hard drives remotely, 5 - 10 hard drives, would it be possible to do a bulk update, adding new songs etc... how could this be done

Thanks guys.

I'm interested to know what model your company has to own the rights to 50,000 songs that also allows you to transfer them to other DJ's for public performance.

protecting the hard disks is not the issue, the issue is protecting the DJ's systems, which by extension would protect your drives. This is going to be the same way systems are protected currently. I do know some DJs that don't run AV or anything else that might interfere with their system come gig night. The same massive variance in how well this is done is similar to any other group of people. Unless you are going to provide the systems as well, best you re going to get is a signed terms of service.

updating remotely.. I am going to buffer that question with the answer that most of the things you have put forward is fundamentally outside the storage hard disks capabilities, but at the computer level.

I really think you have some hard problems to solve. It is unfortunate that the world is this way.. but it is just too easy to bypass protections / misconfigure nullifying protections / underestimate skilled attackers.