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Content Control in Mobile Devices
BigJim.fr writes: "Mobile operators envision the handset as the ultimate closed platform providing an opportunity to regain end to end control over content distribution. Right to replay from Total Telecom provides insight into how they imagine user-hostile digital right management systems in the near future." Excellent article.
This article is really nothing but a bunch of statements beginning "I believe ......"
Don't bother reading it. You will learn nothing. Unless , I suppose, you really want to know what Mr Duhl believes.
"By definition a standard drm is less secure than a proprietary one," says Gregg Makuch, senior product manager for mobile product and services at Seattle-based Realnetworks.
Yes, security by obscurity, that well known way to make your product more secure... anyone else scared by people with this sort of mindset potentially having so much control over what we will and won't be able to do?
This post will enter the public domain 70 years after my death, unless Disney buys another extension.
It would have to be priced accordingly, though
It's like going to see a movie: You know it will only be there once, at that time, in that theater for that price. If that's clear, nobody will ask to take a copy for use on any home theatre.
It would have to be priced accordingly, though. Overpricing will triger piracy.
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
number (5380).
They may have to improve SMS maniability as it is far too uncomfortable.
The sms is answered immediately to validate the email address given in the sms and after a confirmation, the content is sent to the listener's mailbox.
Immediately ?
Are they sure ?
And why would somebody buy the right to play an MP3-like on a shitty phone loudspeaker when they actually hear it on a good radio at the same time? If they really like the song, then they may wait until its has ended to buy it, wouldn't they?
A micropayment of EUR2 is deducted from the phone bill, and the licence is sent separately
to the same mailbox, or as a present to a friend, all within seconds.
So:
When the listener opens his email he finds the track and licence in his mailbox and may play the
music.
So it'll take some time to actually hear what we wanted to hear when we were too busy purchasing it?
The content owner - in this case Radio 538 - has the choice to allow cd burning or not;
to listen for a week, a month, or forever - whatever they agree to with the artist can be set in the business model.
Content owner ?
What about public domain songs ? (see my
They will be thrown out of the media?
And why do the song "belong" to the radio (content owner)?
don't they mean the "distributor"?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
"By definition a standard drm is less secure than a proprietary one," says Gregg Makuch, senior product manager for mobile product and services at Seattle-based Realnetworks.
You cannot implement DRM without some form of encryption and time after time, closed proprietary encryption routine have proved to be flawed. Security through obscurity cannot be relied on to remain secure.
Examine three possible scenarios:
1) They develop a perfect, crack proof, implementation,either proprietary or open standard. Great (for them)! But how likely is this to happen?
2) They develop a flawed (crackable) implementation of an open standard. This is quickly broken and all media content released up to that point, which will be comparatibly little, becomes available. They patch the flaw and issue an automatic upgrade to the firmware. (This is likely to be possible - if they want to control content then they are likely to want to have control over the platform too - and if it isn't, well, people often upgrade their phones quite often anyway.) Then version 2 gets cracked, and so on until they get it right, probably at about version 5.
3) They develop a flawed implementation of an proprietary method. This gets cracked too of course, but probably takes a little longer. Hence, a greater volume of content is now available unprotected. The patch and recrack cycle continues until they get it right.
From the media owner point of view scenario 1 is preferable and they lose out the most with scenario 3. Scenario 2 is a workable compromise.
Which is most likely to happen?
This sig is a figment of your imagination.
Of course, you can also make a point of continuing to use your old mobile phone, and only upgrading to models a couple of years behind the curve as they drop in price....
Who the hell do they think will pay for media streamed to handhelds? I can only vaguely imagine such people (the types that leave their cell phones on in the opera house). I won't shed a tear if it turns out that MS milks them.
Besides, if portable devices are connected to the internet with decent bandwidth, I'm sure that computer-only services that provide media without DRM will make a mobile device frontend, and you'll be able to get the same media on the handheld. Still, I don't quite see the point, but maybe that's a sign I'm getting old.
Just because it is technologically possible it does not mean it makes *sense*. The end effect of this behaviour is utter egoism, nothing else. I understand a musician needs a beer or a pizza from time to time. I also understand he/she does her stuff primarily for their own satisfaction. Making money off it is a welcome side effect. If we start to pervert this into its contrary, we better get prepared to have transponders implanted, and after an afternoon's walk through the park we're getting charged for 'services' we did not even dream of using.
Maybe those technocrats and lawyers should have their EQ checked. Good night when making a buck is the only or primary motivation for anything...
Use The Source, Luke!
It's interesting that no mention at all is made in the article of the fact that the success of any DRM scheme is utterly dependent upon the legal foundation of DMCA-like laws. The details of the various schemes are unimportant, and their currently escalating sophistication is simply a passing phase. Eventually it will become clear that all that matters is the threat of criminal punishment at the hands of compliant governments. All these fancy cryptosystems will devolve to the ROT-13 level of complexity.
This is not meant as a joke or a troll. Why, in the long run, should anybody invest in expensive complex technologies when simple cheap ones satisfying the letter of the law will suffice? As successive DRM implementations fall before the incessant pressure of educated people bent on their defeat, corporate interests whose profit stream rests on control of their "intellectual property" will throw up their hands and cry "terrorist!" to a Senate committee. Mark my words.
That's not good enough. This is so actively hostile to users, why should it even be allowed to exist? It needn't. An aggressive response would be far superior, I think, to a passive one.
-- 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.
Don't buy what you don't want. It is that simple.
I see this attitude a lot on Slashdot, and every time I do I think, "Could you bury your head a little further in the sand?"
Statements like "Don't buy it if you don't want it" really do nothing to address the fact that digital rights management *is* being rolled out, that many if not most people *will* buy into it, and that this will change the legitimate options left for others.
Think automobiles.
Once upon a time, if you didn't like the new-fangled horseless carriages, you could simply "not buy what you didn't want" and ride your trusty steed or horse-drawn carriage instead. How many horses do you see on the roads now?
* * *
When something become ubiquitous, it changes people's mindsets. Ideas that once seemed unconscionable begin to seem not only bearable but familiar and preferable.
Just not buying DRM yourself isn't enough. We all have to organize and work together to defeat strong DMR if we want to continue to enjoy free (as-in-liberty) information ourselves.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
Yeah, it all sounds very, very scary... Big old Telesaur Rex
gnatching his teeth, and growling at the top of this lungs...
except for the fact that 802.11 is still here and still not
monopolized by the telesaurs. Oh, by the way,
hotspotting with 802.11 to not chew up their precious
cellular spectrum is seen as very attractive too by the
telesaurs, hence you'll eventually see dual mode wireless
widgets even if nobody got the bright idea that hooking
up to a cheap 802.11 network -- maybe for free in various
places -- would be a cool thing to do with your cell
phones and wireless widgets.
But the real thing that makes the garden walls most
suspect as a business model is all it takes is for one the
telesaurs to blink and plug it into the Internet. AOL
thought they had the ultimate walled garden too,
but in the end they finally blinked because there was far
too much content elsewhere and people would have left.
This isn't exactly the same, but the prospect of lots of
cheap 802.11 coverage (ie, retail, business, airports...)
which will clearly just drop directly off onto the Internet
will make their garden walls a lot more like a tar pit than
a gold mine.
-- Mike