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IBM CPRM Plan Replaced with Similar Copy-Prevention Plan
Several people submitted the news that IBM withdrew its CPRM plan yesterday - some of them with blurbs like "We Won! Yay!". But only a few people got the additional information that it was simply replaced with another extremely similar copy-prevention scheme, this one from Phoenix Technologies, well known for their widely used BIOS's. Even though the committee responsible for this has been deluged with email in opposition, the CPRM group (led by Paul Anderson and Jeffrey Lotspiech of IBM) continues to press forward, distributing propagandistic lies about how the system will protect [sic] your fair-use right to access and use digital content. Update: 02/24 7:20 PM EST by michael : The Register has even more information from Andre Hedrick.
All the Phoenix proposal does, is provide a somewhat standardized way for doing vendor-specific extensions to the command set. Drive vendors *already* have the ability to do this - "vendor specific" command codes have been part of the ATA standard for years. Up until now, though, there was no way for a disk drive to report *which* vendor-specific command codes it implements, or what interpretation it puts on them.
The Phoenix proposal reserves a range of 8 command codes (previously listed as "obsolete") for the new "generic command" feature. It allows a drive to use these commands to implement *any* sort of vendor-specific features that the manufacturer and customer might want. The drive can make available a 128-bit code intended to identify the command set. This 128-bit GUID (Globally Unique ID) is *not* an encryption key - it's simply a way of identifying which command set the drive implements.
Vendors could implement all sorts of useful capabilities using this mechanism. It might be a way to support drive-based data compression, or to "tune" drive performance in customer-specific ways, or to retrieve information about the drive's health which goes beyond what's available in the normal drive error and performance logs. Heck, it could be used to implement a "play a tune by chattering the drive head back and forth" feature if you wanted to, or to issue "perk" and "pour" and "clean filter" commands to a robotic coffeemaker attached to an ATA interface if you wanted to do something that silly.
The Phoenix proposal is not a "similar copy-prevention plan". It does *not* enshrine any sort of copy protection algorithms, rules, keys, key management strategies, or licensing rules into ATA-6 in the way that the CPRM proposal would have. It says nothing about copy protection at all. I spoke with the gentleman from Phoenix who wrote the proposal, and he told me that it was an idea that he'd been thinking about for some years because he could see that it could have a lot of useful applications. The CPRM hoorah was what prodded him into actually writing it down and proposing it.
The *only* relationship between the Phoenix proposal, and any sort of copy control, is that the generic commands _could_ be used as the interface to a copy management scheme if a vendor chose to use them in that way. But, as I said above, vendors could ALREADY be doing this if they wanted to, through the "vendor specific" command codes that have been in ATA for years.
The Phoenix proposal also gives the drive user a way to shut off whatever generic command set is supported by the drive. This can be done either via the SET FEATURES command (disabling the generic features until the drive is physically powered down) or via DEVICE CONFIGURATION OVERLAY (disabling the features even across powerdown). The proposal states that these disable features "shall" be supported - which means that the disable is *mandatory*. A drive which was sold with a generic command set and GUID (of *any* sort) that could not be disabled, would be in violation of the ATA-6 spec - this would cause the drive to fail qualification at a *lot* of customers.
The T.13 committee is not going to be "registering" generic command sets, their 128-bit GUIDs, or their interpretation. That is *strictly* up to the drive manufacturers and their customers (assuming that the Phoenix proposal passes, that is). That's the biggest reason why the GUID was spec'ed with so many bits in it... a drive vendor can simply pick a GUID for their feature set at random, and not have to worry about the chance that another vendor will choose the same GUID.
As I said, folks, I think we won one this time around. The committee members were well aware of how much public upset there was over CPRM. If IBM hadn't withdrawn the CPRM proposal, I believe it would have been voted down. I can't predict the future, but I personally doubt that they'll ever try to reintroduce it.
The bigger battle to come will almost certainly lie elsewhere - in the courts, and in Congress.
The T13 web/FTP sites seem to be going through some changes at the moment (this was mentioned at the meeting), and I don't see a copy of the Phoenix proposal on-line yet. Keep your eye on the technical-documents directory. The proposal will be document e01112r1 when it's posted there.
Read through it for yourself and see what it says. And, if you still have concerns, come to the next T.13 meeting, in April - they're open to the public, they're free, and no preregistration of any sort is necessary.
"I don't see the problem here."
The problem is that the "copy protection" thwarts both illegal copying and copying that falls under fair use. You don't have to believe that proprietary software is evil to find that disturbing.
In contrast, there's lots of activity over at LinuxBIOS.
However it's perfectly legal to override it.
It's merely a safety measure to limit the top speed of the car to stay within the design parameters of the tires, or other parts of the car. It's not mandatory for manufacturers to implement it.
Re: argument, I had first wanted to point out that Capitalism, while better than the other systems we know about, isn't perfect, and is hopefully not the end all be all of economic models. And secondly, you hd said: "I don't understand how you can believe that a physical item can be owned but a non-physical item can't" in the context of copyright, which I went into at great length.
/. copyrighted content has never been shown to be ownable property nor been declared by law to be. When you become tyrant supreme of the world, feel free to change the law, though I'll still be waiting with baited breath as to what definition of property you'll use that can be extended to words. Please stop resorting to 'Because I said so.'
Remember my lad, it doesn't matter if you believe that people have the right to own it and that it's property, it matters if it can be reasonably shown to be ownable property and if your friendly neighboorhood government decides that it is. In the US, which is generally a good starting point for these discussions on
Re: property, I didn't say you had to be able to destroy it. I said you had to be able to dispose of it. Give it away, sell it, destroy it - they all count. As you note, different options may be needed for different items: land is tricky to destroy. It's pretty easy to give or sell it though. Books are well known on the other hand for being really easy to light afire.
Oh, and for streaming video, sorry, no. While the 'owner' may be able to make contracts with people regarding the creation of and lending of copies, he cannot prevent users from capturing those copies against his will. Maybe they have hacked the streaming protocol or client to save it to disk. (shouldn't be awful in Unix, which is good at doing that kind of thing I'd think) Maybe they have a videocamera pointed at the screen. And it still wouldn't matter, because as long as someone looks at the output, and remembers, that will be a copy that the 'owner' has no power over. Unless you plan to let copyright holders lobotomize people at will. (which doesn't exactly fulfill the goals of copyright does it?) The same thing goes for destroying the copies. The copies that they wanted made may be destroyed. But they couldn't do anything about other copies.
I do agree a bit with what you say about agreeing to terms. But not altogether. First off, if you didn't agree to the terms and used it anyway you're a copyright infringer, aka pirate. Not a thief. There's a slight difference. (you know - MSDOS wasn't quite DRDOS. Burglary isn't precisely identical with robbery. Affect isn't effect. Laypeople might not realize or care, but that doesn't eliminate the difference)
Secondly, if an author makes their work available under onerous terms (e.g. willfully give up fair use, first sale, etc.) do they deserve full copyright protection? Personally, I wouldn't think so. Rather like people who encrypt works but claim that they were published. More attention has to be paid, IMHO, to the long term effects of these practices, and the responsibility of authors if they wish to be afforded the luxury of a copyright.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
If you want to replace everything from operating systems to games with Free/Open Software then I suggest we start looking into ways that would alow the community to fund developers to write these programs full time.
Developers will only be able to devote themselve's full time if they can afford to do so. Since free software isn't about price, and all about freedom why is it that the users of Free Software do not provide the developers with the resources required to better serve us?
-- You can be a geeklord too
Where the hell did you get that idea? There is no legal basis for this. And who is "everyone"?
___
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Based on their past behaviour, I should think the big media corps will persuade governments to slap a big levy on hard drives that don't implement access control, so the ones that do will be cheaper.
This ought to be illegal under computer misuse legislation. Sadly I don't think it's practical for real people to use this against corporations.
This legislation is already in place in the UK, leading Ross Anderson to conclude that he is an international terrorist (though not for economic reasons).
--
"In the land of the brave and the free, we defend our freedom with the GNU GPL."
"You're gonna need a bigger boat." - Chief Brody
> Your third condition is that it is possible to destroy it. How does, oh, land, fit that requirement? Sure, you could nuke it, but for most of the 5,000 years of civilization, land was permanent.
I believe ploughing in salt was the traditional way of destroying land's agricultural value, which, for most of the 5,000 years, was all that counted.
--
rant
Very nice commentary on other media sources here:
Like so many Register stories, CPRM bypassed the trade press almost entirely en-route to the national and international media, where it made the front page of the San Jose Mercury, and was covered by many national inkies including The Times and The Independent. But look in vain for coverage on Wired, or the CMP networks, and apart from one tragic effort - which failed to mention the boycott - it went ignored by the CNet/ZDNet conglomerate too. That explains the title of our FAQ on the topic.
Well, believe it or not, ZDNet still refuses to tell you anything about CPRM. Today ZDNet reporter Rob Lemos (hi, Rob) turned in a sterling story on the subject, but it was published only on CNet's site, and not by ZDNet News. Keeping the news away from your readers is quite a challenge for news editors, and must merit some lovely glass Anti-Journalism gong all of its own.
Ye gads, how long can they keep it up?
The content providers have money, lots of it. And they are sharing it so they can make more money.
My concern is that once you give them control of your computer how long will it remain "your" computer?
If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
WTF are you talking about? I'm an atheist, you moron.
-
> How big of a deal is this really going to be?
This is a troll, right?
> I will be the first one to sign up for this
> if it will lower the retail cost of games and apps
OK, let's pretend that you're running a big for-profit software company. You find a way to cut costs (actually, someone else forces changes in the tools that people use to eat into your margins a tiny bit; does anyone have real numbers on what software theft costs in the US?). Do you pass that long to your customers? Do you give all the "hard-working developers" raises? If you said "hell no!", you pass CEO 101.
So tell me again why this isn't such a bad idea?
canadian socialism? how many people has that killed, and how does that compare with the people that capitalism has killed? (remember to count everyone we killed in iraq against capitalism).
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
See the Register article on the same topic.
It gets a modest thumbs up from ATA guru Andre Hedrick:
No, it's copy prevention. Copyright enforcement means it would only step in if I were to attempt a copyright violation. I have numerous good reasons to make copies, all valid under the "Fair use" doctrine. These are attempts to prevent me from making legal copies. If you want to call it enforcement, then you could also call frying someone in the electric chair because they might kill someone "enforcement" .
-jhp
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
Let's see it this way: mandatory copy prevention mechanisms are just a pain in the ass for user and manifacturers, and unreasonable as it is, I doubt it would ever be popular. OTOH, optional copy prevention mechanisms are somewhat less evil, but they can be as bad if they ever become widespread (i.e. try surfing the web with cookies disabled, as someone pointed out in another post).
Now thing are presented to the mass as if you have only two choices and you have to choose only between them. Basically, they are trying to force you to choose between something evil and a compromise. But when you are faced with two options there is always a third option: the status quo (no compromises at all).
Briefly: the media industry asked for 200 and obtained 0, the media industry now is asking for 100 (which is the goal of the media industry, and is less unreasonable than 200, but still unreasonabe). People accepting this compromise just because is less evil than what was originally proposed are just pawns the media's game.
Phoenix. The ones who've always made the extremely minimal BIOSs with the bizarre bugs (I've NEVER seen one that was bug-free), then want to sell you a new BIOS instead of giving you a flash update. Yeah, that's a company I really trust to do copy protection in hardware. They can't even get their core product right, how does anyone expect them to get it right in a new product designed around someone else's specs?? I can see it now -- copy-protection chip bug keeps you from accessing your own data that you just wrote. Don't say I didn't warn you!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
OH MY GOD!
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Every computer user in the world has copyrighted data on their comptuer. It may be legal (free software, or an owned copy of windows), illegal (MP3s from Napster or pirated version of windows), but copyrighted none the less. Thus copy protection is an issue for all users.
Second, this brings up a number of fair use concerns. I like to think that I am entitled to rip and mp3ify CDs I own, store them on my hard drive, and upload some subset of them onto my portable MP3 player. The RIAA would like me to pay for each copy I have, and to pay each time I upload a song onto my MP3 player. A sucessful copy protection scheme would give them a means to enforce this.
This is the important part: Even though my actions are perfectly legal, the DMCA would make it illegal for me to bypass the encryption to allow me to do so.
Another important concern I have over this kind of software is that it requires a "trusted" copy command that contains the keys necessary to decrypt the content and doesn't allow the data to be subverted to a non-protected representation. This means, any software that can access "protected" materials needs to have direct hardware access, since it must bypass the OS (or be part of it). This effectively means that you have to have tools like cp and media player execute in kernel space. Now who thinks this is a good idea?
The RIAA and others eventually hope to abandon copyright entirely, since it was created by a bunch of bleeding heart hippies who think that consumers still have rights. In the future, if they get their way, acceptable use will be governed not by laws, controlled by unreliable congressmen (who have this nasty tendancy of not staying bribed), but by technology that allows them complete control over uses of their so-called property.
:)
Since subverting content protection schemes, even for completely legal purposes is now illegal, as soon as they manage to widely deploy these technologies, it will be illegal to make even fair use of copyrighted material.
We have already seen it with DeCSS and region coded DVDs, it is only a matter of time before the music industry catches up.
Write your elected representatives! encourage them to support consumer freedom and choice! They probably won't listen, but you can say you tried.
Who knows, it might raise their bribe threshold to the point it is unprofitable for the RIAA
Actually, what I'd like is if you could post a traceroute to them. Don't post the first part of the traceroute (unless you WANT everybody on /. to know your IP).
I'm trying to figure out if there's a misconfig on somebody's router or what. If so, and if I can deduce the correct entity to contact, maybe I can get them to correct the problem.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Might I ask where you guys are? It's not a name lookup issue, DNS resolves just fine. It's a "failure to communicate" - a traceroute dies:
7 p5-2.crtntx1-cr8.bbnplanet.net (4.24.117.65) 118.450 ms 110.531 ms 109.955 ms
8 pos3-3.core2.Dallas1.Level3.net (209.245.240.169) 144.880 ms 196.875 ms 146.190 ms
9 so-6-0-0.mp1.Dallas1.level3.net (209.247.10.101) 165.933 ms 178.693 ms 165.707 ms
10 212.187.128.161 (212.187.128.161) 235.667 ms 274.935 ms 235.741 ms
11 212.187.128.50 (212.187.128.50) 256.475 ms 256.279 ms 256.477 ms
12 212.187.131.7 (212.187.131.7) 259.357 ms 235.398 ms 240.713 ms
13 * 212.187.131.7 (212.187.131.7) 238.903 ms *
14 * * *
15 *
(I've deleted the first part of the traceroute)
www.eFax.com are spammers
I totally agree, but here's why it could fail: the same reason Linux is not 100% POSIX compliant. The average Linux-usin, slashdot-reading geek is not interested in open systems, probably because he/she doesn't really understand the implications of them. Open source gets a huge thumbs up, but what really matters, open systems, doesn't.
I agree that what you are proposing is easier to grasp, but I am afraid that there will still be the old discussion "opensource or bust", instead of focusing on the real issues.
Sigged!
It seems it could involve io busses, not necessarily BIOS code.
see posting AVIP - Phoenix's CPRM in IO busses??
.vortex
Time flies like an arrow -- Fruit flies like a banana
An 18 month old Phoenix press release
talks about 'Audio Visual Intellectual Property technology'
AVIP looks dusty and looks as though would require wide industry support from hardware manufacturers and it doesn't yet have that...
While trawling through Phoenix's site, do be sure to check out the link to inSilicon %^/
.vortex
Time flies like an arrow -- Fruit flies like a banana
This idea lives on today in the Playstation and Playstation 2. That's why you can't play copied games without a modchip.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Real simple. Create tests based on real-world fair use situations. Simply report whether the device allowed you to copy the information, or whether it did not. Since you are not employing any technological means to defeat the copy-protection, you are not running afoul of any laws, right(IANAL)?
Have a simple pass/fail chart with big shiny red and green check marks, so the customers will instantly recognize which products employ content-control measures, and base their purchases accordingly.
The big corporations.
The ones where PC upgrades mean bulk purchases of tens of thousands of units with accompanying big contracts to handle deployment and support. So, to those /. readers who have the good fortune (;-) to hold responsible positions in the IT departments in these places, a suggestion:
politely draw the attention of your IT purchasing section to this issue - the consolidated CPRM coverage at the increasingly essential The Register is a good resource - and suggest that it might be a good idea if they were to get in touch with their preferred suppliers and emphasised that they would be most unhappy if their control over their own data were compromised by pressures from third parties with no standing over its use.
Is there a boycot site already in existance or are people working on it. This must be stoped, it has to be boycotted and the boycot must be organized and publicized to have any effect. i.e. where/how are we going to get together on this?
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
You can turn cookies off too, but that doesn't mean you'll get far on webpages these days.
How long before we come to "you can turn off copy protection, but you won't be able to install anything on your computer"?
> If you don't want to buy a hard drive with copy
> protection technology, then don't.
Bad luck that IBM makes really good drives.
They keep spending resources on unworkable copy protection. Meanwhile, the public is becoming more and more used to free software (which, for a number of these applications, is the only one deployed - the corporate version's release having been delayed when the oh-so-important copy protection could not be verified as working). This means less acceptance of the protected model over time.
It's the old "first to market" strategy, only in our favor.
1. Phoenix are a bunch of whores. We're talking about the company that was gung-ho about selling advertising in their BIOS a year or two ago. Weather that ever went anywhere I have no idea because I've never had the misfortune of using a computer with one of their (by all accounts) craptastical chips installed on it.
2. This strategy of changing the names of things that are controversial and aimed at stripping people of their rights JUST when their opposition is really gaining momentum seems to be real popular these days. I don't remember exactly what story it was (HDTV perhaps?) but it was this same goddamn thing. This is unfortunately a highly effective strategy for splintering opposition because most people aren't that well informed about the whole thing to begin with so if you launch a widely printed press release with lots of easy to read words saying "Oh darn, it didn't work out!" then just change the name and make sure the new name isn't "news" you've got it made.
So what the hell can we do when faced with this level of brute force bullshit? Well I say we make like the CoS and raise enough money to file spurious lawsuits against all the cockmasters behind these schemes. Let's see how they like being charged with MULTIPLE COUNTS OF GENOCIDE!
Capitalism is not the moral high ground -- there is just as much potential for misery, suffering and death as the result of it. The only significant difference is capitalism tends to promote more effort since the desire to accumulate property is extremely strong. If it weren't for this greed factor, I'm sure socialism or communism would work extremely well. The problem with the governments of the United States and Canada is not that, however, it is the fact that corporations are using our government to protect themselves and maximize their profits instead of having the government protect individuals. Government corruption is just an artifact of such a capitalist system working on itself.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Why do I get the feeling that IBM thinks that people didn't object to the *idea* of hardware based copy protection, but this implementation of it?
Stupid Cheap Guitars
Well, "socialist" shouldn't be a slur either, for exactly the same reason. For goods and services such as health care, education, law enforcement, rail transportation, road networks etc., socialism is the best system. I don't think even Americans would want their children to go to Microsoft Junior High, or be arrested by an RIAA police officer, or something like that.
Well, you have the democratic mechanism, although it's terribly slow. I guess both systems are based on the assumption that consumers/voters are well informed, and if they aren't, the systems don't work well. If people would have known what the DMCA said, I guess they would have made a deal out of it, and if people would know about CPRM, they wouldn't buy hardware which implements it. One big difference though is that a capitalist system adapts to the people with the most money, while a socialist system adapts to the majority.
Since both democracy and capitalism depend so much on informed decisions, I guess explains why powerful entities are so good at dealing with the media. Luckily the Internet, and sites like this, can be a way to eliminate that problem (I assume the CPRM committee was directly influenced by the media discussion, maybe even Andre's interview here).
Fortunately, lasers don't tend to cause any damage to themselves by reading bad discs ;)
Another computer "problem" for the average user and another excuse for incompetent or crooked repair people to say
:) )
"I'll have to rearrange the encryption scheme on your drive because you screwed it up"
or
"we don't cover the drive's warranty because you did something illegal for it to be in that state"
or anything similar..
That pisses me off, i *KNOW* that kind of stuff will be a nightmare for technicians or support staff... Oh well, get a crack, crack it, that's what's gonna happen.
Great, after BIOS for the CD-rs, Mobo, hacked firmware for the cell phones, this and that and that, we'll probably have firmware upgrades for the drives as well (well I hope so, people will crack the god damn thing
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Please tell me that you just forgot to put the smiley on the end of your statement.
Just stop and think about it for a second from a historical perspective.  Audio CDs when they were released were not copyable to recordable CDs for years.  Were they cheaper than tapes even though manufacturing costs were way less?  No.  DVD are still not able to be cheaply copied by joe-blow.  Are they cheaper than VHS tapes even though they cost way less to manufacture?  No.  Copy protection will *NOT* lower prices.  Why?  Because copying by joe-blow by and large does *NOT* hurt sales.  I guarantee that most people that copy stuff would definitely not pay for it in the first place.  So all copy protection does is makes things a pain in the ass for the law abiding citizen.
The 'average user' will take whatever comes preinstalled in that fruity plastic box that they paid big bucks for.
If they end up getting fucked over by it...
well, they'll just bend over and take it like a good consumer.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
Either that or copy control.
You confuse communism here with totalitarianism, the real reason these people can do what they do. It's like saying that because of capitalism, I have the right to free speech. One is an economic system; the other is a governmental system. It's entirely possible to have a socialist democracy (such as many European countries).
"On Thursday, the committee gave the go-ahead for Phoenix to further develop its outlined plan for a way of accessing restricted parts of removable media, in which ID numbers, encryption keys, or other codes could be recorded. The new method would be used for copy protection, but could also serve other purposes, such as enhancing security on removable media such as flash memory cards."
Sounds like more Commodore 64-style copy protection.
"Yes, we will hide some crap in a weird area of the disk."
But, to be verified, it must be decoded!
"Oh, so we will make the hardware do it."
Oh, so we crack this like we crack any other program- remove the checking, and the problem is solved.
Why is so much money being spent on this, when it could easily be spent on more useful things that aren't being actively attacked?
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
A related business opportunity also presents itself: Set up an equipment vendor that specializes in selling only stuff that would meet the OMI standard. Hell, guarantee that all your stuff meets the standard.
Or even set up a standard for equipment resellers that's the equivalent of being a certified organic grocery (not that there is such a thing - but there should be).
Or set up your meta-site, your Cnet or whatever, so that I can search for the best price on a 100 gig OMI-compliant drive, ranking certified OMI-only vendors first.
Get Lloyds of London to back policies to manufacturers and resellers to back up their OMI-compliance guarantees.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Just think how much more aware people are becoming! I had no idea about "Fair Use" until the Napster issue took off. I thought everytime you made a mix for a friend you were breaking a law! Now I am aware of a new right that I will vigorously defend.
My handle breaks slashcode, what does your handle do?
What the hell? You have 8 links in this article.
This some attempt to getting all of them slashdoted?
Good Work!
as of 20010223@1835CST, the ftp server that hosts the link for 'propagandistic lies' seems to be disabled, or the account name/pw changed. does anybody have a mirror of the pdf file? i'd be interested in reading it.
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
unless compliance with such an organization was government-mandated, nobody would submit their products and product specs to it for review. in that case, the review boards would have to "hack" the things in order to find out if they contained content control mechanisms, which not only would be illegal according to the dmca if such mechanisms WERE included, but would also fail to provide assurance beyond a reasonable doubt whether or not said mechanisms were actually present. in other words, without companies willingly submitting specs and items in a compliant fashion, the value of the organization's assurance would be questionable. this would thereby weaken the value of their 'sigil', and essentially invalidate their raison d'être.
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
"just connect this to..."
BZZT.
Liberty.
Why do the media corporations even have a seat at the table here? They don't buy disks--we consumers do.
Vote with your wallet.
--Mike
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
We need to fight back with proposals of our own!
This sounds (vaguely) similar to the RPC (Region Protection Code) that they have in DVD-ROM drives.
In all consumer drives that i've seen or heard of, they store the region code directly in their firmware, and allow you a limited (4-5) amount of times you can change it to another region.
This is RPC2.
With development models of the drives, the RPC1 drives, the region code isn't stored on the drive at all, instead the OS keeps track of it, so even if you've changed region the maximum number of times, you can reset the drive (delete the registry key or whatever) and you're back where you started.
Changing the RPC2 drive to RPC1 is as easy as doing a google search for the drive model number and a few other keywords (eg. RPC1 firmware download) and re-flashing the drive.
I'd imagine that the situation will be very similar with whatever scheme they force upon us with CPRM.
-- kai
Verbing Weirds Language.
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
I, for one, would like to think that owning a copy protected hard drive would not present a major difference from current hard drive technology for most users. The reason being, that most users aren't using their hard drives to store illegal or copyrighted data. As long as you are a responsible, law abiding citizen, there shouldn't be much of a problem with this proposal. Many readers (myself included) are a bit wary of using devices that feature copy protection, but if you think about it,
a) It probably wouldn't affect most users.
and b) If you are affected/restricted by owning a copy protected drive, you're most likely doing something you aren't supposed to.
As long as a copy protection scheme is fair to all parties, including the end user, and proper review and analysis is conducted prior to the system's implementation, copy protection will actually be beneficial to most users. Think about this for a moment: Hardware based copy-protection prevents unauthorized/illegal duplication of software. The end result of this crackdown on piracy would be lower costs for those of us who obtain our software through legitimate channels. I will be the first one to sign up for this if it will lower the retail cost of games and apps, even if it means giving up a bit of my privacy. After all, I've got nothing to hide!
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
good point you've made here. We should really be opposed to the optional copy control as well.
Hmmm. Let's think about this from an executive's perspective for a moment:
If you honestly think you'll see any savings, then I have a bridge I'd like to sell you...
-------
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
I know that this will get moderated to flaimbait as soon as it will get posted but I don't think that this is a big deal.
I think that everyone would agree that the content creator should have the last word over how his content should be used. The copy protection scheme in question gives an option to the creator of not copy protecting the content. The advocates of Napster and free content in general claim that freedom of copying the content is ultimately beneficial to the content creators in digital world. Assuming that this idea is true, they have nothing to fear - authors will simply choose not to copy protect their work and distribute it freely. Which implies that people won't use copy-protection.
according to the current legal interpretation of:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated" (fourth amendment)
this means that what we do in our own homes cannot be monitored, affected, or interfered with unless there is a federally-based legal reason. that is how they define the right to privacy.
according to the interpretation of:
"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." (fourteenth amendment)
this guarantees no state OR non-federal body can establish a law that would infringe upon that right to privacy (among other rights), including monitoring what we do with our home computers.
now, one could argue that once we purchase something and bring it into our home, we are responsible for knowing how it works. however, if there are no reasonable alternatives, we have some possible legal recourse.
there's no need to find a credible partner function for illegal music copying because it's not trying to be a corporate standard - leastways, not if the RIAA can help it ;)
i'm not accepting or rejecting the idea that copyright infringment is bad. i really think it's dependent on a lot of ethical attitudes that are personal. but i think the issue is that the big corps are trying to sell the public at large their blank media with built in protection because of the actions of a cross section of people. that, to me, is just outright wrong.
"even if it means giving up a bit of my privacy."
wow, and here privacy is one of them there constitutionally protected rights here in the USA, and copyright is not. are you outside of the US, or just don't care about what is and isn't truly "protected?"
Come on, stop and think: *intellectual property*? What kind of capitalistic, corporate oxymoron is that?
that oxymoron means that what i create is mine, and no one else can make a profit off of it without giving me credit. my stories, my art, my articles, my music - they all need to exist with my name attached to them.
that's really all it means. corporations simply abuse it, and have their workers sign away their rights to it because they're using corporate facilities to have their brainstorms.
There really isn't all that much difference between capitalism and communism, except that in Communism, at least you know who is doing the controlling.
In a lot of ways, the control Capitalism excerts is a lot more insidious, because in many cases, you don't even *KNOW* you are being controlled.
...this is getting out of hand
Under the DMCA, it is illegal to use a non-CPRM hard drive, because obviously the only use of such a hard drive would be to copy copyrighted data.
I love going down to the elementary school, watching all the kids jump and shout, but they dont know I'm using blanks.
I think I've just figured out something about the whole situation. The way I see it, Intel, IBM, and co seem to be pushing access control technology with almost religious zeal, despite loud protests from the general public, and organisations like the EFF. Why would they want to do this? At first glance, it doesn't seem to make good business sense:
So then, despite all these reasons not to use content restriction, why are all the major hard drive manufacturers and Microsoft seem so hell bent on implementing it anyway? For one, perfectly obvious reason: Because the protocols and keys will be a secret required for any kind of interoperability. They will obviously have to keep one or both secret, otherwise the technology is worthless, since it requires secrecy to operate. They can defend their need to keep the secret with the excuse that it protects copyrights (it doesn't), and hence they will not have to make it public. With the new laws against reverse engineering, even if somone broke the encryption, they couldn't use it without commiting a crime. This could effectively put a stop to competition in several types of software and hardware with one move. It's not about your MP3s, or you movies, it's simply a way of preventing small competitors becoming big competitors. If you think about it, this kind of technology could put a stop to innovation in more areas than just hard drives. It includes operating systems (Linux), motherboards (Various Taiwanese companies that don't have Intel's best interests in mind), and even video and sound cards, which will require encryption hardware to play encrypted movies.
What moron moderated this up? Its not interesting, its just another form of trolling.
I'm in southern CA, no problems from here...
as I don't actually have a Phoenix BIOS
I don't have one either, and after reading that article I can safely say that I never will in the future either...
Anybody know what happened with the boot ads?
I get there just fine as well...
Never underestimate the stupidity of people.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
bababooey indeed. Is it just me, or is the only good thing IBM have ever done is release purely black cases, monitors, keyboards and mice? (using an IBM monitor and keyboard. mmm. black.. shiny)
You've got mail. Pattern baldness. - Crow
IBM need to get their pooholes cleaned out before they start photocopying them.
You've got mail. Pattern baldness. - Crow
Copy protection doesn't always effect those doing wrong with hardware/software/etc. For instance, my brother has a older tv with a vcr connecting his dvd player up to it (doesn't have rca jacks in the tv, it's the only way he can connect the dvd to the tv). Anyhow, the dvd players form of copy protection is to make the picture look like crap (messes w/ the colors and light constantly) if it's connected to a vcr -- keeping people from making (good) copies...but for my brother, it's not keeping him from doing what he shouldn't be allowed to do, it's keeping him from being able to use hardware that he purchased for its main purpose -- watching movies w/ good quality picture and sound.
terradot, growing awareness
When will these companies ever learn that no matter what technology they come up with to copy protect their stuff, people are always going to find a way around it...it might make it a little harder to copy, but people will find a way to do it. They're just throwing money into a pit on this one.
terradot, growing awareness
I think you just wrote out what I was feeling - on the nose.
This whole control business is indeed getting out of hand. It definitely has to do with a trend of leaning away from democracy (which the US technically is not to begin with - we're close) and leaning towrds oligarchy - with the control being held by corporations. Perhaps I'm being a bit gloomy with that statement, and maybea bit paranoid, but I don't think I'm too far off.
I just wish there was a more effective way of trying to promote level-headed thinking, thinking about the "big-picture", rather than freaking out over control/protection issues. These companies need to try to find out why they think there's a need for this style of copy-protection - and fix that problem instead of adding in the protection. Why do people pirate software? Why do people download songs from Napster? Why do friends swap copies of games every now and then? Is it because we are "evil people, bent on subverting the rights of a company to make a profit"? I don't think so.
I'll leave this post at this. Just trying to feel out how others feel about this.
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
yeah, I didn't think so either, but I can dream, can't I?
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
I'm tired of hearing about it! When will they learn that this is not about the consumers!? It's about their profits. That's why I'm beginning to love Linux more and more each day. This copy protection scheme is just another way for the RIAA and all the other profit jerks out there to impede on genuine creativity. It's definitely not going to generate customer loyalty. Quit trying to control what I can and cannot do with my own stuff that I've purchased and just make a better damn product that does more, rather than restricts more!
I think the DMCA should be amended to require that a manufacturere MUST prominently disclose ANY IP Content Controls contained within his product so I, as an informed consumer, can avoid buying it.
Tomorrow is Open.
I think this is an excellent initiative. In addition to on-box labeling, OMI could also supply web access to disclosures of the license agreements found inside the box or encountered upon running the software. The OMI could further supply brief online analyses or categorizations of such agreements, a la Consumer Reports.
And (as Schwab further notes in posting #176) OMI could list on the website the software that had been voluntarily submitted for scrutiny, vs software the OMI took it upon itself to examine without the company's cooperation. This would get around the need to "convince" enough vendors to get on board at the early side.
In addition to no _technological_ measures restricting or enacting the items in the list above, it would be good to note what legal/contractual restrictions accompany the software. For example, there might be no technological restriction on duplicating data, but a legal restriction might be buried somewhere in the accompanying legal agreement.
Caution is warranted in the usage of the term "data". For example, if the OMI certifies that a piece of software does not have restrictions on the duplication of data, a company trying to do an end run around this might emphasize a distinction between "code" and (non-executable) "data" that could make things sticky. It might be best to state that there is not restriction on duplication of the software itself as well as any data operated upon, provided said duplication is in accord with fair use.
To stimulate the marketplace advantages of further product differentiation, it might be interesting to also monitor the following attributes (some of which overlap or expand on the above list), and decide on a disclosure mechanism flexible enough to notate them on the outside of a box:
- Whether the vendor forsakes (disavows any legal standing to, and any technical provisions for) shutting down or restricting usage of the product.
- Whether the vendor forsakes the collection of information (via network transaction or otherwise) unless said information collection is the explicit consumer-side purpose of the product and is understood to be so at the time of purchase
- Whether the vendor proposes product usage agreements that are not disclosed prior to the time of purchase; and a rough categorization of what any such agreements entail.
- Whether the product and any accompanying agreements restrict "fair use" in any way. (DVDs would fail this in the current legal state of affairs).
- Whether a hardware dongle is required for operation.
- Whether advertising is encountered (e.g., AOL bombards its users).
- Whether the product attempts automatic updates; if so, whether it allows the user to configure whether auto updates occur (bonus points for having default setting be OFF); and whether the user approval is required for individual update attempts.
- Whether there is transfer of ownership of data used (e.g., iTools' heavyhanded assertion of Apple's ownership of all data stored via iTools!).
- Whether the product requires registration to operate.
- Whether the product requires registration for support.
As suggested elsewhere, I'd guess that the EFF might be interested.I know I am.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
dude, I don't care if the creators of a particular work want to protect there work or not, keeping people from copying it is there problem not the problem of Hard drive manufacturers.
by blocking the media or worse the MOBO data buses they are restricting my rights, I should have the right to break the law in protest of that said law. when I do, it is then my responsability to suffer any ramifications.
my decision not theirs.
-The American people have overpaid; I am here to ask for a refund.
hey mabye this will lead open source companies to make more hardware!!!
-The American people have overpaid; I am here to ask for a refund.
that vaporware only seems to be somthing that we think is realy cool but companies always come through with the tech that we hate.
-The American people have overpaid; I am here to ask for a refund.
do you realy want to depened on the average computer user?
do you know who that is?
it is the millions who use AOL and think they are realy on the internet. then when you tell them that they aren't, they look at you like you are on crack.
yep real dependable.
-The American people have overpaid; I am here to ask for a refund.
that you tell them so they know why there profits decresed .000000001% from the lack of slashdoters buying there products :)
-The American people have overpaid; I am here to ask for a refund.
umm since when is a HARDWARE access control an implementation of SOFTWARE
-The American people have overpaid; I am here to ask for a refund.
yeah and reading the Guru article a few posts earlier I get the feeling that this tech will still alow a copy from the original but not one from the copy of the original.....if that is what it ends up to be then its not that bad.....since to be able to get a boot leg one would have to run an operation out of his or her house making it a much more conspicuous activity than p2p or IRC and such.....I could live with that as long as I can make unlimited copies from the original.
-The American people have overpaid; I am here to ask for a refund.
what!!!!they want to put it into my motherboard!!!! I say we go postal on all there asses.
-The American people have overpaid; I am here to ask for a refund.
Puting speed control devices into Cars so that it forces everyone to move at the posted speed limit.
IMHO it is mor dangerouse to do this because somone will learn how to diable it and many people will get hurt when he flies through traffic
CPRM is just bad
-The American people have overpaid; I am here to ask for a refund.
The'll take it all from you if they can!
If you don't want to buy a hard drive with copy protection technology, then don't. You can't tell me that every single vendor is going to put this stuff in -- there's a thing called supply and demand. Ever hear of the Apex 600A? Wonder why it sold so well?
If your new OS demands you have a hard drive with copy protection, don't use it, or wait a few minutes for those people who break copy checks on games to modify your OS. If your recording-industry-sponsored music sharing program demands a hard drive with copy protection, don't use it. I've yet to see a single industry music-sharing idea that holds a candle to napster and/or napigator, and we all know better than to believe WMA or SDMI are suddenly going to replace MP3.
Is it just me, or does Phoenix seem evil? These were the same people who planned to include bootup ads in their BIOSes. I'm not sure if that plan ever got off the ground, as I don't actually have a Phoenix BIOS ;).
Alex Bischoff
---
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
Does anyone have any details on what Phoenix's proposal is? The news article is lacking in content of this area.
I'm all for copy-protection. But only if it's of an ethical sort. In my book, to be ethical, it needs to follow four basic guidelines. All four of these are equally important, so don't go reading into the order or anything:
Of course, these four violate other guidelines than the ones I mentioned, but I used each of these examples because they're particularly well-known for the problem I listed them under.
Note that no known computer-based copy-protection scheme falls under these. But other methods work. Among them: competent law enforcement. There are many other ways to capture pirates. They're not as effective, but unlike the current popular methods they don't punish perfectly innocent people along with The Bad Guys.
----------
First, I like capitalism, but it has problems. The reason that I like capitalism is that when it's working right, and people are acting competitively, there's a lot of efficiency that results.
/. by myself and others, information cannot be owned. Non-physical items _may_ depending on their nature be owned, and in fact copyright is one of those, but that's not what the previous poster was talking about.
The problem is that none of the capitalists involved are interested in efficiency or competition. They're motivated by a desire to destroy their competition and get maximum profits.
Consumers in a capitalist system want producers to have minimum profits and pass the savings back. But businesses keep trying to become monopolies, and when they do they pretty much inevitably try to exert that monopoly power to get more wealth, ruining the capitalist landscape.
If capitalism had a built in governor that could prevent the system from degrading like that, it'd be totally sweet. It's not though.
Is there a better system? Perhaps. Has it been discovered? Sadly, no. Find me something better than capitalism and I'd be all for it. I'm not stupid; I want things that are good, regardless of what the name is. If Communism or Socialism were better I'd be in favor of them. As it stands, we're doing best with Capitalism, but it's certainly not good enough to make me satisfied.
As for property, you're an idiot. Sorry, don't mean to be flame-happy, but it's true. As has been explained countless times on
Unless you've got a better one, the working definition of property is that is is something that can meet three criteria. 1) that the owner be able to use and enjoy the thing 2) that they can let others use it at their sufferance 3) that they can dispose of it.
Information meets the first one just fine, we all know that.
But as for the second, when you let other people read your novel, you can't have it back. The manuscript, yes. The words, no. I can recite whole portions of books, movies, songs, etc. from memory. It's not unusual. But if I were to place them in a commercial venue, it would be infringement. Clearly my memories are sufficient to count, yet, my memories are clearly not ownable. Nor would it be desirable for them to be. People with photographic memories can and do read books once and never need to refer to a printed copy again. Yet if they read a book, it is not considered copyright infringement unless they copied it out again. Still, the information from the book was copied into their noggins and can't fulfill requirement #2.
The third is just the same. The author holds the original copy of a work in their head, generally. Then they copy it out to some medium. Copies in a medium may be protected, but not the intangible portion of the work - the exact words, the look of a painting, shape of a sculpture, etc.
Copyrights are entirely different. While no one can own the words in a book, they can own an artificial and limited right granted under certain conditions, for certain purposes by the government. This right permits them exclusively to make copies of the work without legal liability, for as long as the government permits it to exist. (which is regulated) The right is property - it can be used, extended or withdrawn to others, or given away or destroyed. But then again, it's not information.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
No, there's a difference.
If words can be property, there's no purpose in copyright law. But they aren't property. They can't be property, unless you adopt a Newspeak approach to language in which words can be what you want them to mean. (heh - words are property, love is hate, war is peace)
Copyrights do serve a useful purpose, when used as instructed. We haven't been for the last few decades though, and it shows. If there were significant reform in the realm of copyright - a drastic shortening of terms, laws emphasizing the utilitarian model, stricter requirements for registration and extensions of works, better archiving - it could be an extraordinarily good thing. However the concept that words can be property is offensive and quite wrong. It's possible to be for a good copyright system and against IP in about the same way that it's possible to be for moderate use of alcohol but against drunkeness.
Unfortunately our government is listening more towards moneyed interests and foreign powers than it is to us, the jerkoffs.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Yeah, it's a little older than WW2.
It was part of a speech by James Philpot Curran of Ireland. In 1790.
The actual quote is: "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and punishment of his guilt."
It gets paraphrased effectively enough though.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
If a quarter million Slashdotters each Paypal in a buck or two that might make a good start if it winds up in the hands of someone that can be trusted not to blow it all on administrative salaries like some "charities", and if that someone knows the right way to manage the project and the money.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I can e-mail you a copy of whatever Reg article you can't get if you let me know which one.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Nope, it's really easy.
First, you get a logo designed and trademarked. Then, in your Copious Spare Time, you evalute a bunch of devices. If they prove compliant, then you send a polite letter to the manufacturer saying, "Congratulations! Your Flabloden model #XP-Z7 meets the conditions for bearing the OMI compliance symbol. As you may be aware, OMI is an organization dedicated to promoting the values of [blah blah blah...] So that consumers will be able to more readily identify your product as safe, you are authorized to use the OMI logo on the specific-named product, and on product-related promotional literature and Web sites. Encapsulated Postscript and PNG files of approved logo imagery may be obtained from..."
Some manufacturers may choose not to bother, but their stuff still gets listed on the OMI Web site. So a central resource listing approved devices still exists, and people can still make informed choices.
Yes, it's a massive exercise in reputation-building. No better time to start than now...
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I know damn well it's up to us, not you, to dig for both sides of the story ... but that's just cold man. Do you really think the tripe 99% of us are going to send to these guys is going to have a positive effect on their stance?
--
Not in the USA, where "anyone with big bucks" ==* "government".
* I did put the "==" to make believe that I program in C, but in reality, I'm a Delphi junkie...
--
After all, I've got nothing to hide!
When you give the auditors the power to do whatever they please, someday when they come to check you out you will find the sad truth:
The auditor never leaves until he finds SOMETHING. If you don't believe me, ask any auditor.
-
Why the entertainment industry makes me sick:
(http://www.trond.com/brazil/b_faq02.html)
"Scheinberg's editors Bill Gordean and Steve Lovejoy created an edit which cut out many of the dream sequences and essential threads in the plot of Brazil, while splicing in all elements of humor and all usable footage involving Sam Lowry and Jill Layton, the "dream girl". If that wasn't bad enough, Gordean and Lovejoy also lopped off the entire ending sequence which involved Sam Lowry's interrogation (and eventual loss of sanity) by his coworker Jack Lint. Instead, they chose to end the film where Sam finally consummates his relationship with Jill, and escapes with her to the country. Also suggested was the replacement of Kamen's symphonic score with one of rock music - in order to "attract teens."
If that doesn't make you sick, I don't know what will. Anyway, after rereading the FAQ, it appears that this edit was not the one released in the US after all, but only due to a LOT of pressure:
"Universal finally opened Gilliam's 132 minute cut of Brazil at two theaters in Los Angeles on Christmas Day, 1985, later slowly bringing it across the country in a limited number of theatres with limited advertising."
I just wonder how many directors were not as 'lucky' as Terry Gilliam was.
Hmm, right. Perhaps Content Access Restriction then? Or just GREED for Global Rights Enforcement of Entertainment Data which captures the true essence of these measures :)
I very much prefer Copyright Enforcement Measures. I think I've read it somewhere on the register, cheers to whoever it is that came up with this =P
Alternatively, watching Terry Gilliams' Brazil[1] half a dozen times or so could enlighten him.
It's getting easier and easier to face the fate of Mr. Tuttle^WButtle I'm afraid.
---
[1] Preferably the European version and definitely NOT the unbelievably stupid US one. I can't believe the nerves they had to happy-end that movie. Hollywood makes me sick.
What support are you requesting?
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Hollywood put a happy ending on Brazil ?!
And I thought I'd heard it all...
Thank [insert focus of believe system here] I have a copy of the original.
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Oooooh...capitalistic. How terrible. Please propose a system which works better than capitalism. There are about hundred million dead people from Stalin, Mao, and other various Communist goons' experiments in non-capitalism.
I don't understand how you can believe that a physical item can be owned but a non-physical item can't. Of course, if you don't believe in private ownership of physical items, please post your address and leave your door open tonight. Someone will stop by and borrow your stuff.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
True socialism would be fully government organized redistribution of all goods and services. I don't think Canada does that, but it's been a few years since I've been there.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
I'm not even talking about the totalitarian aspects of the USSR. But they do logically flow from a lot of Communist theology. How do you force people to give up their private property and give according to their skills and only take according to their means? A one-way trip to Siberia was the prime motivator, since the kindness of people's hearts wasn't working.
This is a bit tangential, but it's interesting to note how many of the peace and love and sharing gurus are serious control freaks. Draw your own parallels to the rise of totalitarianism in the USSR.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
And these things have nothing to do with anything inherit in captialism. Collective farms and not allowing individual initiative have everything to do with communism. Try again.
Our punishment for socially unacceptable behaviour is not that different, despite our best efforts to convince us otherwise.
Yes, but our rules are different. Rather than THOU SHALL most of them are formulated as THOU SHALL NOT. It's easier to NOT do something than it is to do it. It's also more moral, IMHO, to hold people accountable for sins of comission rather than sins of omission. If you can't see the difference between the two, I don't have anything to say to you.
If it weren't for this greed factor, I'm sure socialism or communism would work extremely well.
Well, duh. You mean a system that works based on motivations that people actually have is a good idea? Wow! You know, if it wasn't for gravity, I bet I could jump really high!
-jon
Remember Amalek.
And I agree completely with you. I am one of the few people who doesn't mind paying taxes. I get stuff for them, even if that stuff is educating someone else's kids. It's all in my best interest, because it builds a better society.
What I was disagreeing with was the use of the word "Capitalist" as a slur. Capitalism is the best system yet devised to distribute goods and services. The distribution might not always be as equitable as everyone would like, but it beats all the alternatives.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
You mention three conditions for something to be "property." Your third condition is that it is possible to destroy it. How does, oh, land, fit that requirement? Sure, you could nuke it, but for most of the 5,000 years of civilization, land was permanent. It met your first two requirements, but not your third.
How about digital streaming video? It meets all three of your requirements; it can be used by the owner, the owner can lend it out ON HIS OWN TERMS, and it can be destroyed (the original is deleted). If you don't like the terms, don't use it. If you agree to the terms and ignore them, you're a liar. If you don't agree to the terms and use it anyway, you're a thief. Take your pick.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
For those who don't know, C-64 copy protection often seemed to involve intentionally messing up part of the disk in a particular way, so that when you tried to read from that part, you'd get an error code. Then, they'd just have their program try to read the disk in that spot - if there wasn't an error, or it wasn't the RIGHT error, it was obviously a copy ("Obviously", copy programs wouldn't copy errors, would they? [More advanced bit-for-bit 'nibbler' copiers popped up in short order that DID, so you could once again make functional backups of your software...but I digress.]) The problem is, every time the floppy drive hit an error, it would reset itself by "banging" the head repeatedly against the stop, eventually knocking it out of alignment.
Ah, yes, when I was in high school, I worked afternoons and weekends in the local computer store as a bench technician on C64s. Our number one service request was realigning the r/w head on the 1541 drive because of this. At $65 a pop (in 1980's money) it was quite lucrative...
Babies are cute because they have to be.
Unless you are a health care provider....In that case it is illegal to try to sell your services outside of the govt run socialist system.
Not so fast there with those conclusions, pardner! Socialist systems have no competition to spur them to improve. If the socialist service sucks, and no private alternative is available, then you are up a creek. I work in healthcare along side plenty of ex Canadian docs and nurses with all types of horror stories of how long people would have to wait for an operation to end their pain. And in many cases, the care simply would not be provided and the canadian citizen has to fly down to the states and get pay to get the care they need. It is illegal for Canadian docs to even offer alternative services to those of the socialist system. This is unlike the British system where there are private health care alternatives for those who aren't content to wait a long time to get service. It's all about options - options are a good thing from a consumer standpoint.
I would like to see private education companies compete for the business of running local schools (they would win contracts and use public buildings). Outcomes could be measured and contracts would be renewed on a merit basis. If the education company gets a good rep, then they'll get more contracts. In the current public school system, there is little pressure for schools to compete and improve.
I agree with you on law enforcement.
As far as IP relates to either Socialism or Capitalism, I think that IP is an inherently anticompetitive construct. I would like to see companies compete purely on the basis of timely delivery of quality products and services at the best possible price. IP adds artificial constraints to competition and in that sense is anticapitalist IMHO. Allowing ideas and patterns to become "capital" stifles the competition that is essential to capitalism.
Since both democracy and capitalism depend so much on informed decisions, I guess explains why powerful entities are so good at dealing with the media. Luckily the Internet, and sites like this, can be a way to eliminate that problem (I assume the CPRM committee was directly influenced by the media discussion, maybe even Andre's interview here). .
The importance of that statement cannot be understated. People are getting informed and a little organized. Hopefully groups like the EFF and such can become a more powerful voice of reason. But it's up to us.
Unfortunately, you are pretty much right.
I haven't got an mailing list email for it in a couple of months, and the last few were about LinuxBIOS.
I, however, will continue to listen and help out if other poeple do. I may be changing jobs soon (I'm fscking bored with my current one), and hope that maybe my next employer will like the idea. I'm looking at Amirix in my city who does embedded Debian and if they think so too (I'm specifically trained in embedded), there might be a chance for revival. I want to change my dev board design to PCI and make it better.
I'm giving my current employer one more chance before I take off (long story, even though it's a Linux company...).
Of all the projects I've been involved in, I thing OpenBIOS is the most important, though I haven't shown it lately...
If you're interested, I'd be extremely happy to talk to you. I still have a load of great OB email talking about the initial design issues.
Yet another reason to support OpenBIOS.
The major BIOS companies don't seem to like the idea of developing technology to benefit users. I wouldn't either, if I was stuck in that market. It gives them no competitive advantage.
Companies have tried and created better BIOS software but failed because the big guys can sell them cheaper, and will continue to do so by not caring about useability and such.
It seems the only way to actually improve it is to remove the financial burden on the developer's part.
This is an application open source is perfect for. Individual developers, chipmakers, and motherboard manufacturers can make a much better BIOS through collaboration and openness. SiS has already jumped on it, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory have created a temporary solution called LinuxBIOS, which is fulfilling a current need.
Costs go down for everybody at a point and a community will undercut companies like Phoenix. The end result is a better BIOS and an open system.
So far the only problem has been time and resources. Debugging a BIOS is more complicated than debugging a CLI app, and those of us already involved are quite busy with other things. We need to get over the first hump of a well planned initial design that satisfies all requirements yet allows for easy expansion.
Maybe someday...
Yep, we are capitalist, but not totally.
Neither is the US. The US has government owned companies that make money such as the US Postal Service.
Canada has more of these companies, we call them crown corporations. The belief is that some services are too important to allow them to go bankrupt. If they don't make enough money, the taxpayers pay the difference and we still get the service. If they make more money than they need, the money can go to other crown corporations such as health care and education.
That's how it's supposed to work at least. I am, for the most part, very happy with it. Essential services stay cheap for everyone and our health care and education remains fairly good, despite the low funding (I am comparing to the States here).
Over the last while the trend has been to spin some of them off, especially at the provincial level. Those ones sometimes end up having a hard time because of the potential outcries of increased prices but services and wages usually ramp up in the end, once it all settles. Larger companies are free to buy them as well.
I don't know of any totally capitalist societies out there, and I doubt it would actually work. Successful countries have done it with a careful mix.
What I see happening is that they will simply market 2 of everything, a consumer line and a "pro" line, with the pro line only available to actual businesses (maybe you have to show some actual proof - might be hard if you are an independent consultant).
To top it off, the pro line will be slightly more expensive (say, $200 for a consumer drive, while the pro drive is $250) - not enough to piss a normal business off, but enough to make consumers shy away from it via sticker shock, if they see what is going on, and can figure out a way around providing proof.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Buy CPRM-crippled disk drives, and then demand a refund. File an FTC complaint if they give you any hassle at all.
What do you think the IBMs and Maxtors of the world would do, if they had a million returned units on their hands? Per FTC rules, they can't resell them as new.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You probably shouldn't use the term "copy protection" -- use "copy prevention" instead, or perhaps "copyright protection".
"Copy protection" is a vague and dangerous term.
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
IBM isn't the entire ATA commitie. Intel has a big part, and they've already said that copy protection would *not* make it into ATA for harddrives.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
For the past several days I've been unable to get to www.theregister.co.uk. I'd assumed maybe they were having problems, and spaced it off. But with /. showing a link to them, it would make me think they are reachable from some places. I've even tried to traceroute from a few of the places on www.geektools.com, with no results.
Anybody give me a spot-check on this? After all, how can I read the links this story refers to if I cannot get packets to the servers?
www.eFax.com are spammers
So let the hard drive industry push ahead with their own plans. If they want another rerun of DivX, that's fine with me.
Do domain names matter?
I think it's a great idea. It would help bridge the cognitive gap between the complex world of content-control and the simple perceptions of consumers. However, I think it will be very hard to persuade the first few manufacturers.
I was really offended by that quote. Why should there be any compromise at all? Why shouldn't the customer, who's paying for the equipment, get what he wants? How did these so-called content providers become worthy of consideration in a transaction which does not involve them?
to DCS101 :)
(DMCA Copy Stopper or something like that)
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Time to return to the log cabin in Montana...
You're right - copy prevention would have been a better term.
My bad.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Taiwan is a country
It was nice knowing you. The Chinese secret police are surely already on their way from Beijing to Tianenmen your ass.
--
________________________________________
Don't blame Windows--if you were a Microsoft operating system, you'd have problems too.
So when the media distorts things like DeCSS and makes it sound like those "hackers" are equivalent to those that break into other people's systems, tell them this: There is a BIG difference (morally and legally) between using a Slim Jim to break into someone elses car versus breaking into your own (e.g. you left the keys inside or the door locks froze in the winter, etc).
It should be the same with computers. But the DMCA changed that. Any code which restricts your rights is illegal to bypass. Content providers have legislative power to set their own copyright law for their products. Unlike legislators, they aren't elected by the people.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
And sadly there appears to be no exemption in the DMCA to bypass a system which damages hardware.
Not that the exemptions in the DMCA matter anyway, Judge Kaplan ignored all the ones the DeCSS defense raised. In addition to ignoring the fair use and constitutional issues. Ignoring the rights of the people under the Constitution is quite the norm.
And the DeCSS case proved EVEN IF you can afford good (or great, like Martin Garbus) lawyers and you are legally right, you can still lose. They did.
If your actions hurt the corporate/government complex, they'll hang you. (figuratively for now, but if "economic terrorism" [i.e. your action destroyed a companies "right to profit" and caused them and our country money] legislation comes around - in 20 years it may well be literal - something like THAT would disuade people from posting DeCSS, etc like nothing else would).
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
We see this often -- people will use any arguments they can against their favorite enemy, whether or not those arguments can rationally go together. If you don't believe in intellectual property, then you should be against copyrights of any kind, limited or not.
Either side is arguable; I tend to agree with those who push for limited copyright protection, but can see that the "anti-intellectual-property" argument has some logic to it as well. But you destroy your credibility if you try to argue both.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Capitalism's greatest enemies are successful capitalists.
--
Dyolf Knip
Kind of like "Napster helps independent bands" is a sad effort to try to find some credible partner function for illegal music copying?
What these guys are doing is trying to pull the same kind of scam over our eyes.
There is an old quote, going back to WWII, and maybe even back to the revolution in various forms:
"The Price of Freedom is Eternal Vigalance"
I hate to say it, but it seems to be truer than ever. It used to apply just to governments, etc.; now it applies to anyone with big bucks.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Great idea! Sign me up.
sulli
RTFJ.
What's the big fuss? I'll tell you. Why should you punish many for the actions of a few? Why should raid 1(mirroring) become useless or the network storage industry go under because the RIAA is greedy? Why should my life as an administrator become hell because people download music and I can no longer backup my data? I don't give a rat's ass about the RIAA, nor do I listen to "popular" brittany spears crap music that is out today. Why should the hard drives in my servers be crippled because the music industry is pissed off?
This has nothing to do with them. As an IT professional, I have no sympathy for them. As an IT professional, I resent any technology that makes my job hell! FSCK YOU RIAA! Just because some dork is downloading songs is no reason to cripple perfectly good technology. So, what is next, I ask you? I have some good examples.
I can buy a single container of Dannon yogurt and a gallon of milk and make a tub of yogurt using the Dannon as a starter. I can then infinately make yogurt from that yogurt. Is Dannon going to sue me because I'm replicating lactobacillus acidophilus bacteria? If I buy an expensive cook book and learn how to make a delicious tortellini dish and then I show others how to do it, I am a somehow a bad guy? If I share this information with ten other people and they in turn show others, am I going to be targeted because some Italian italian cook lost money on book sales? Where are we going to draw the line?
In the first of the two aforementioned examples, do you really see me having to sign a non-disclosure agreement stating that I will not use their yogurt to make more yogurt - In other words, I will not copy? There is already a piracy tax placed on certain types of blank media. Will there be a piracy tax placed on jugs of milk to recompensate Dannon because I have not bought their yogurt but merely replicated it by using warm milk?
The RIAA has become way to hungry for power. They are trying to extend their reach into an area where they have no right to interfere. The problem here is, if I tell people they can't share recipies out of a cookbook I wrote, I guarantee you those people would laugh at the idea. So what's next? Are we going to shutdown kinko's because pages of books can be copied at their facilities? Will libraries suddenly only store "hard to find" and "out of print books" so that Amazon can churn a profit? The answer is NO. Why should the RIAA be any different?
Great idea, although the first thing that comes to mind is that Matsushita (IBM's co-conspirator in the CPRM deal) is by far the largest maker of decent cheap CD-Rs and depite a pathetic --perhaps fatal would be a better term-- time to market, they'll eventually be the largest producers of DVD-R. /. story I suppose. It could take off. Who knows. These optical storage suckas might be irrelevant anyway.
So, for optical media you're kinda trapped by the fact that a small group of Japanese companies own the market. I'd be interested to hear from someone who knows better, but I am under the impression that all, and I mean ALL, CD recorders are manufactured by large Japanese firms. I've lived in Taiwan for many years and although Taiwan makes some of its own CD readers, I'm fairly sure that there are no Taiwanese companies who make writers.
So, what's the point here Steve? Well, a local company might be willing to feature the logo on their boxes to boost overseas sales (locally, it wouldn't be worth much) but I don't think there are any CD-R companies in Taiwan that do direct imports to the States without strict OEM agreements with their Japanese --uhmm bosses. And since those guys are the ones pushing for the CPRM, I don't see them featuring this logo real big on the boxes.
So, that's just optical media. And, as I posted below, I think the Japanese have screwed themselves there by their own arrogance in that particular market. PC firewire cards and accompanying external hard drive cases are all the rage at the local shops in recent months along with the 4X IDE motherboards, so the DVD standard can go to hell with it's proprietary copy control crap and Matshushita will get what it deserves for holding its cards so long.
But as Schwab pointed out, optical is hardly the only place this logo would be used. Flash memory is something much more native to Taiwan and I think Taiwan is a country that is open for business with the Open Source community as long as their hands aren't tied by deals like they probably have in the optical market. The government partially operates the big chip fabs, but it's usually in conjunction with lots of smallish companies. The smallish indepent hardware conpanies in Taiwan might be a good place to pitch this. Open Source is quite popular among Taiwanese computer geeks.
Then there's hard drives and those are mostly coming out of the good ol' USA. Now, I'm not talking manufactuing obviously because those are probably in Malaysia/Singapore, but coorporate headquarters who might be doing the logo side of the box design and all that. Hey, business is business with them there fellers. If it can move product, then so be it.
On the other hand, a lot of these companies seem highly sensitive to their product package designs. You may have noticed the cheapo IDE Seagate drives come in a package that says "Seashells Patent Pending" Gag! I'll take a trademark on the stupid pun, but patented? With that kind of overzealous IP crap going on, you have to wonder if they're going to be open to this sort of idea.
Got to start somewhere though. If you put the log on the web, it might not be that hard to send a little form letter around the island. I could translate it. Well, if it ever gets to that point, it will be a new
After all, Phoenix is a BIOS software and the one post quoting the "ATA guru" said that this new Pheonix plan allows you to use certain undisclosed OS's, or tools thereof, to simply re-organize your boot sector more to your liking. That being the case, it doesn't look like it's really about hard drives.
DVD, on the other hand-- I think that's more where this is at with Toshiba and Matsushita. And this is where it has been for so long. The Japanese have totally blown that market. Price competitive DVD-R is so overdo it's gonna end up a stillborn product and this continuing game is just drawing it out further and further. There are alternatives to DVD for home content --stacks of cheap hard drives-- and the main forms of IP this ridiculous debate is targeting are movies and audio both of which are mostly used by people in their homes.
Thanks for not using the Industry's propaganda terms like "copy protection". "Copy prevention" is more accurate, but the best term to use would be "access control".
Damn, I sound like RMS..but...everytime some writes or says those propaganda words, they are implicitly supporting the Industry's arguments!
You must be one of those listening to the 'propogandistic lies'. Have you ever heard of the MSDN program? You get just about every piece of software and development tool that Microsoft publishes for less than $2000 a year for 'development purposes'. 'Street' value on this software is easily tens of thounsands of dollars. These prices are set arbitrarily. This 'theft induced price raise' is a complete fabrication.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
If you are sued, then the proscribed measures are in place, and OMI certification is denied. QED :-).
As for getting manufacturers to submit to testing, that would happen on a "pro-bono" basis, at least initially. Since an OMI certification currently has no value in the marketplace, manufacturers would have no reason to seek it. So studies and certifications would be done in a sort of "Consumer Reports" manner. Once OMI compliance becomes a consumer requirement, manufacturers will seek certification directly.
It's a risky proposition -- the risk being that the public may Just Not Give a Damn -- but I think it's worth a try.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
[..]
remove the checking, and the problem is solved.
You know, I'm not big-time "hacker" (or "cracker", for that matter) or anything, but I can say that the very first thing I ever did with a computer that I could call a real "hack" involved exactly this issue.
For those who don't know, C-64 copy protection often seemed to involve intentionally messing up part of the disk in a particular way, so that when you tried to read from that part, you'd get an error code. Then, they'd just have their program try to read the disk in that spot - if there wasn't an error, or it wasn't the RIGHT error, it was obviously a copy ("Obviously", copy programs wouldn't copy errors, would they? [More advanced bit-for-bit 'nibbler' copiers popped up in short order that DID, so you could once again make functional backups of your software...but I digress.]) The problem is, every time the floppy drive hit an error, it would reset itself by "banging" the head repeatedly against the stop, eventually knocking it out of alignment.
Many years ago, I owned a copy of "Stellar 7" for the Commodore 64, and this one was particularly egregious about copy protection. As I recall, it read errors from the drive four times when you started loading, two or four times when you started a game, and two or four times every time you progressed from one level to another.
I got really tired of listening to my floppy drive knocking itself to pieces whenever I wanted to play a game, so I dug out a sector editor, found the bit of code that said (essentially) "if you don't get this error, stop" and tweaked it so that it would continue whether the error was there or not. Then I copied the disk sans errors, so I could play without ruining my floppy drive.
[sniffle]...ah, those were the days
---
"They have strategic air commands, nuclear submarines, and John Wayne. We have this"
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
I have always maintained that the more draconian copy protection schemes are the better it is for open source software.
Right now one of the main reasons MS has such a huge monopoly on office software is because a huge number of people pirate their copy. Add to that the millions of copies that are pirated worldwide and you see what I mean. All of these people have zero incentive to explore lower cost, free or open source options because they can get office for free.
Imagine if nobody in the entire world could copy office!. Overnight the market share of perfect office, star office, smartsuite etc would rocket upward. Especially overseas where people would drop office like a hot potato because paying for it would mean giving up a years wage.
To fight this MS would have to drop their prices drasticaly which would be a good thing for everybody. It also would take away another cash cow from MS and that would be a good thing.
War is necrophilia.
Dear Sir:
If at any time in the future, I purchase a Quantum storage device and discover that it has been crippled with CPRM, I will return it and demand a refund because such a device is defective.
If I encounter any reluctance on Quantum's part to pay this refund, rest assured that within the day I will both file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, and also instruct my attorney to register a class-action suit against Quantum for knowingly selling a defective product.
Unlike software manufacturers, you don't get to hide behind a disclaimer of implied warranty. A disk will store and retrieve what I want it to
store and retrieve, without any big-brother bullshit, or it is unfit for the purpose for which it is marketed and sold.
Please refer this note up your chain of command.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
is there any? am I missing something??
--
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Copyright law in the US is not based on the concept of intellectual property. The founding fathers believed in property as an absolute right which was recognized, not granted, by government. However copyright is an artificial right created by a government for a utilitarian reason - to encourage the arts and sciences. Copyright is not a governmental recognition of a natural right.
Therefore, it's quite logical that people who do not believe in intellectual property are upset at the perversion of copyright law.
Copyright is now being extended and defended on the basis of the 'intellectual property rights' of the copyright holders. There are no such rights.
That's how I feel today about all these news reports - the Feds teaming up against alt2600 in the DCCS case, Napster all but gone, and now these proposals to prevent our own information from being traded about.
Yes, I understand the need for copy protection - I hate it when folks sell pirated copies of games because I know that's money that should have gone to a hard working developer. But it seems that corporate interests have gone out on such an insane bend to make certain that the people who might rip them off don't - even at the expense of the privacy and freedoms of law abiding citizens.
Probably the worst part is the possibility of what might follow. There was a joke made that the RIAA will sue people who sing copyrighted songs in the showers. On Ubersoft they have a joke about a gigantic company's word processing software preventing the federal government from prosecuting them for illegal actions by detecting what words are typed and changing them.
And that's what makes me so depressed about these articles. It always starts off for "the good" reasons - copy protection good, so copy protection technology has to be good too. The problem is that we all know we can't trust other people to make our own decisions for us, and the second that the power is taken out of our hands, the possibility for corruption is there. What happens when the "copy protection" technology is modified to not allowed "unsupported" or "illegal" software (ie: "dangerous" GPL software that doesn't make the corporations any money).
That's the problem with the copy control schemes. I don't fear people taking my words and claiming them for their own. I fear the people who might prevent my words from being seen at all in the name of "the good of the business" interests.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
It seems there should be better fora for floating this idea, but I can't think of what they may be, and it seems time is no longer on our side. Thus:
The biggest problem is that the copy control technologies are insidious: They are inserted into flashy, cool devices or software without informing the customer they're there, thus thwarting their desire (or not) to avoid them. For example, did you know the latest WinAmp contains copy control measures from InterTrust? Of course not. AOL conveniently "forgot" to tell you.
We could create a list of products, companies, and/or technologies to avoid, but then the copy control philistines would simply change the names of their stuff on a regular basis, and the fight would devolve into a shell game. This lets them say, "Oh, no, we stopped incorporated CPRM at customer request!" and then fail to tell you that it simply got renamed to ICST (Insidious Citizen-Screwing Technology). You're still screwed, but they get to play PR games with us.
Thus, my proposal: I propose the creation of the Open Media Initiative, a non-profit entity whose charter is to analyze new digital hardware and software, and report whether they contain copy control measures. The Open Media Initiative (OMI) would promote the following values:
Note that only technological measures are addressed. Social and legal restrictions are free to exist (or not); the OMI simply prohibits their ensconcement in code or hardware. (For the purposes of the OMI, executable programs are considered data.)
Devices and software meeting this three-pronged test shall be eligible to use an OMI certification logo on their products, so that consumers will be able to immediately identify compliant, safe products, and avoid non-compliant ones. A list of products receiving certification would also appear on the OMI's Web site.
Yes, publicizing OMI and the OMI logo, at least in the "traditional" manner, would be horribly expensive. However, as things stand now, if you're a member of the tech community, and are rightfully repulsed by these encroachments on the freedoms we worked so hard to build into our systems, explaining the issues to, say, your grandmother could be a laborious process. However, if you could simply tell her, "Don't buy anything unless it has this logo on it," the problem is considerably simplified.
By way of example, current CD-ROM burners would be eligible for the OMI logo, as would Linux and the most recent rev of Unreal Tournament. SDMI-enabled MP3 players, Windows, and Quake3:Arena would not.
So, who's with me?
Schwab
(Dear Lord, what have I let myself in for?)
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Having user-controlled copy control is as bad as having mandatory control.
Why? Because choices like this are seldom left to the user.
Take cookies, for example. The technology exists to disable them. Suddenly, you can't use many sites, because they require that cookies be enabled. Similarly, if the OS allows you to disable CPRM copy control, a small loader can just say "hey, this program is on a CPRM-protected media! you're fucked! here's how to enable CPRM..."
It's infuriating, really. This "optional" gambit is just another attempt to force us to pay for technology that adds no value.
from the cnet article: "It is a compromise between what an end user expects to be able to do and the content providers' wish to protect their material," he said. "We are not trying to take away users' rights or capabilities."
i don't see how either statement can be true. protecting copyright by restricting the usage of blank media DIRECTLY interferes with what an end user expects to be able to do with said blank media. and hiding it under a blanket like "the plan isn't JUST about copy protection, but also about enhancing security" is an obvious and sad marketing effort to try to find some credibile partner function for copy protection.
now, i know the average consumer isn't the best educated person in the world, but do they really expect computer users to fall for this plan?