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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.
"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.
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.
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.