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What's The Future of DRM?
Cdgod asks: "I am working on a thesis regarding DRM (Digital Rights Management). I would like to get it published and instead of having the regular recycled net material, I would like to hear opinions and thoughts on how it should and could work. Think 20 years in the future, how can you see your world with DRM in place? Will it cost you a few pennies every time you look for the time on your watch? Are you limited to only coping that CD 3 times before it is locked forever? Can you think of uses where DRM will actually give the user more rights? Try to think outside the current models in place, such as video on demand, purchasing music online, and DRM e-books. And yes, I will be arguing that the current laws are not taking the user's point of view, but of the large media companies." My personal thoughts on Digital Rights Management (copy protection, for laymen) is that as long as it interferes with the user's use of the material, it's not worthwhile. Most of the current solutions which have been proposed seem more like draconian measures that will be forced down our throats...whether we like it or not.
Slashdot previously covered this. The Letter from 2020 is here.
To me, this seemed like a pretty plausible outcome of DRM.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Really effective DRM (that is, DRM that's based on something other than the DMCA to make it "effective") would require some fundamental changes in the world of computing devices (of all sizes). Regardless of the strength and cleverness of cryptographic packaging technologies, if there is a pathway through the computer for digital plaintext then the DRM scheme is ipso facto defective.
On the other hand, the introduction of pure hardware schemes that retain the cyphertext of the protected material until it is transformed (within a tamper-proof sanctioned device) into perceivable media (image on screen, sound from speakers) would have a chance of real effectiveness. Now this would represent a profound change to the way we normally think about computing devices and about the freedom we have to put together systems of any type using whatever basic parts can be found. Such work would still be possible of course, but DRM-protected media would be unusable without the presence of secure tamper-proof decoding hardware.
The need for such hardware (which, by the way, is not sci-fi: check Intel's work on secure digital interfaces for digital flat-screen displays) implies a controllable market, since some organization would have the power to issue or not issue licenses and keys to manufacturers.
Bend Over
The really interesting problem in DRM is not what happens on the desktop, because on-line/live-time subscriptions aren't too hard to do by issuing new licenses repeatedly.
It's in the portable market where DRM will sink or swim. Right now, very few portables fully implement SDMI or anything else. All but a few lack the secure clock required to prevent people from beating dates by rollback.
The ones that do implement clocks or real security are proprietary and have low market share, like Sony's WMA-wrapped ATRAC3 devices.
Share and Enjoy!
http://www.freesql.org/sssca.htm
This is a common (and old-fashioned) view, but recent scholarship suggests that it isn't really true. The Renaissance was a period of increased exploration and scholarship, but it wasn't particularly exciting technologically. In a real sense, it was a response to the great technological strides that were made in the late Middle Ages- widespread use of water power, the introduction of gunpowder weapons, deep-water capable ships and navigating techniques, and printing using movable metal type.
The changes in political, social, and economic situation that was characteristic of the Rennaisance depended heavily on those Medaeval technologies, but it didn't add to them very much. It was gunpowder weapons that allowed kings to consolidate centralized power, and to resist the church. It was printing that encouraged scholarship and free thought. It was water power that overturned the old fashioned industries and led to the great rise in cities. It was developments in navigation that led to over seas exploration. Those things were the cause of the Renaissance, not its effect.
That's not to say that the Renaissance is necessarily a bad model. To a substantial extent, the Renaissance was a social and political response to technological developments that overturned the basis for existing society. There was a strong backlash from entrenched powers who wanted to fight against the new technological developments and keep the existing system that was opposed by others who tried to establish a new system. To a great extent technological progress was slowed simply because the existing technologies hadn't been fully assimilated yet; it took a while to integrate everything into society. I personally wonder if there isn't going to be a similar backlash and slowing of innovation sometime soon for similar reasons.
[Note: I'm also ignoring the exceptionally Eurocentric tone of the above (a number of those technologies were actually imported from China rather than independently developed in Europe, so obviously somebody's innovation wasn't being choked off) because one can reasonably argue that treating Europe separately makes sense. After all, the DRM won't necessarily be world-wide, so looking at how moves to stifle innovation in one place affect that place can be accurate even if they are centered on one culture.]
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
I think that Col. Klink is actually confusing Xerxes with King Canute (or Knud).
Canute's courtiers, during their profuse brown-nosing, claimed that Canute was "So great, he could command the tides of the sea to go back". He made his point in return by having his throne carried to the seashore, and he sat on it as the tide came in, commanding the waves to advance no further. The point being that kings, while `great' in the minds of men, were nothing in the face of God's power. Were Canute an atheist, he would no doubt have done the same thing, only citing the "power of nature".
This reminds me of a headline from The Onion book: "World's Largest Metaphor Hit By Iceberg".
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});