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More About Copy Control on Hard Drives

Posted by michael on from the what-do-you-mean-cp-doesn't-work dept.

ErikSev writes "I know there's already been one /. story about this, but The Register is running a few more that might be of interest regarding the whole scheme to put copy protection on hdds. First is the proposal, then Alan Cox and RMS' responses, and finally the IBM spin on the whole deal. This is definately something we need to be afraid of."

5 of 344 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe RMS is right by scruffy · · Score: 5

    Maybe there is no compromise between free and proprietary software, or perhaps between free and proprietary information in general. This proposal is just one more indication that the proprietary side simply wants total control over what you can read or see or hear and when you can do it.

  2. Re:This can't be done in hardware by weave · · Score: 5
    Read the articles. I don't know if it's fearmongering, but consider that you now have the means to use a piece of "unapproved" software to view your DVDs and IT IS ILLEGAL.

    Will free software become extinct through judicial order soon? Will Linux become an circumvention device?

    I would *think* not since it should be easy to prove that Linux's sole reason for being is not to circumvent this protection scheme, but who knows these days... :(

  3. What about lesser-known makers? by JoeShmoe · · Score: 5

    I can't see any reason why a hardware manufacturer would be stupid enough to implement this. Hardware makers want to sell units. Anything that ticks of customers is not going to sell units.

    What's going to happen is IBM and others will make these drives, meanwhile overseas companies like in China will continue to make non-compliant drives and everyone will just buy them instead.

    Frankly, I think if I was a stockholder in any company that makes hard drives, I think I'd want to make it very clear that caving to SOFTWARE interests is finacially a stupid move.

    It's like 3COM implementing dongles for the PalmPilot to appease software developers. A) it costs 3Com a lot of money B) makes the devices more expensive C) pisses off customers who now have to deal with it and. So, if 3COM did it anyway, their shareholders could sue them for it.

    Hardware manufacturers should be like backbone providers and common carriers. It isn't their jobs to regulate or restrict content.

    - JoeShmoe

    --
    -- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
  4. Re:A suggestion for our side by Anal+Surprise · · Score: 5

    The Register, in their series of articles, suggests copy control, which, I agree, is direct, and to the point. This is exactly about control over copying. Right now, the user mostly has it, modulo SecuRom and a few other copy protection tricks, but the companies want it. Badly.

  5. Tides are changing... by autocracy · · Score: 5
    For once, people seem to be uprising against something that they don't like instead of just dealing with it. What I mean by this is that nobody liked the region coding in DVDs, but only a few people bothered to do something, and DVDs are selling like hotcakes anyway. Part of the reason is that only a small portion of people are really affected, and those that are found a way to circumvent the problem. But what's going to happen with hard disks?

    The real differences here are that everyone will be affected, and that the coding won't be easy to circumvent. You see, the hard disks will be made with the coding, well, hard-coded into them. And the principles behind the idea are outragous. It's like telling a person "Yeah, you paid for the book, but you'll have to send us an extra $5 every time you want to read it again." Tell me that doesn't piss you off.

    The concept behind Pay Per Read (PPR) is that the people you pay have to have access to your computer. Ergo, companies will gain complete and total control over your computer. Once your can give direct signals to the hardisk, you can do anything you want!

    So, if you disagree with anything I've said above, please reply to this comment. I'd really like to hear why having to pay to read a book every time doesn't piss you off.

    Now, to take a different view, hardisks aren't licsensed in the way that DVDs are. That means that hardisk makers aren't bound to follow the coding standard. That means that you'll likely end up with 2 standards: encoded (E) and (N) not encoded. However, the E manufacturers will probably want software to recognize that their drive is an E drive. Uh-oh. That means game/software makers can keep their software from being installed on your computer! So now we're back to the "it's-a-problem-again-dept."

    So, if that prophecy comes true, what will happen then? Well, you'll end up with a lot of consumers who are even more pissed off. There are 2 solutions to that (for the companies). 1) Team up and beat down the revolt (which, surpriseingly enough happens often), or 2) Give up and go home.

    Obviously, you've got to get a lot of people already using the E drives to implement that strategy and be able to use solution 2. So, as long as an initial uprising happens, we'll be OK, right? Probably. And it most likely will happen (everyone, admit it or not, breaks at least one copyright law a week. It's like speeding. Everyone does it, most people do it often, some don't do it often, but everyone does it.) So, since none of what I said above is going to happen, I've needlessly spent 20 minutes pondering and pecking at my keyboard...:(

    Conclusion: Make sure you go against copyright protecting drives!

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