That day will never come[1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_hole

I remember the days where they talked about making video cameras that would actually stop recording if they were pointed at a piece of media with special markers in it.

Nowadays people would use some kind of HDCP-breaking digital capture device, and regulating all video cameras is basically impossible with their ubiquity, but it's crazy to think about video cameras being modified against our will to suit the needs of one industry.

Those in power will always try to take control away from us. Don't let them.

It isn't all that crazy, it has already been done to printers:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/229647/counterfeit_money_on_c...

https://www.eff.org/issues/printers

And VCRs too. The original Macrovision technique relied on the low tolerance to noise in the old record-mode AGC circuits on first generation VCRs. But when VCRs improved to the point that Macrovision was ineffective, legislation was passed so that VCR manufactures had to include a special circuit to recognize the Macrovision noise bursts, and emulate the old behavior. (Source: my memory of an old article in an electronics magazine, so the above may be somewhat inaccurate -- the article may have been only referring to proposed legislation, or possibly industry self-regulation).

I remember hooking my first DVD player (I had just received for my birthday) to the family TV via an RF modulator, because the DVD player only output RCA and the TV only had a coaxial input. I tried playing The Matrix (the only DVD I had at the time), and the video constantly faded to black and back to normal every few seconds. In retrospect, I gather that was some sort of DRM implemented in the RF modulator, but I don't know if it has anything to do with what you're talking about.

That's not practical for video in most cases - dedicated pirates will find a way around it, but casual consumers won't bother. Duplicating HD or better video by analog means without significant quality sacrifices is much easier said than done.

Surely you only need the pirates to find a way around it as they will be the ones who distribute the free copies.

Yeah, until the video recorder on your cell phone gets a little nicer.

It would have to get a lot nicer. I work in film and shooting an image of a TV or computer monitor is often a pain, even with high-end cameras, due to interference between the frame rates of the camera and display devices, as well as light intensity. For high quality results the typical workaround is to just throw up a grid pattern on the screen in question and composite in the desired image afterwards.

Is it possible to get results this way, yes of course. Are the results any good, not really. Commercial pirates work with people in the exhibition sector, amateurs rely on known weaknesses in popular disc formats. You'd have to be pretty desperate to rely on streamed media as your 'original.'

Unless the playback hardware is DRM'd and encased in an impenetrable box, you don't need to capture photons and compression waves, just the output at the DAC, which can give you perfect fidelity to the original digital signal.

Yes, but who does that in real life outside the tiny community of extreme hardware nerds? Absolutely such things are possible, but they're increasingly impractical. It's the same reason that people promote widespread adoption of encryption; there's no encryption so strong that it couldn't be easily circumvented at the endpoints by really dedicated sppoks, but the sheer inconvenience is itself a safeguard against mass surveillance.

Only one person has to do it.

Beauty of digital.

As for the spooks, depends on what you mean by "easily".

Edit: According to a video[1] posted on Vimeo (which claims to be from a DMCA hearing) representatives of the MPAA appear to make recommendations on how to do the capture and they provide some tips that will increase the quality of the final product.

For example, hooking directly into the audio output; and, removing other light sources.

[1] http://vimeo.com/4520463

I think you might be confusing whether the DRM will be effective at stopping copying with whether many users will adopt DRM-restricted tools and platforms.

Nope, it will come aliright. You're just taking a black/white dichotomy. But they don't have to make it impossible - just inconvenient.

They can make it inconvenient to access the analog hole, but they can't make it very inconvenient to play the DRM-free copy once someone has captured it.

It will be the same problem as with current DRM techniques. It works now because it's still not fragmented yet. You will have your content available with your computer with particular updates and browser versions and for some reasons, it will never work with some combination of hardware + OS + driver + browser + country (especially with phones) and the result is people are going to pirate it anyway because it just works all the time, as always.