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SSSCA Editorials
idiotnot writes: "This editorial from the New York Times, by Jonathan L. Zittrain, a professor at Harvard Law School, urges legislators to exercise caution in regulating the PC. Eisner, et. al. want to limit the PC's capability, which will limit what PC users are allowed to do. See this earlier story about Eisner's testimony to Congress. '[W]e should beware the haste with which some would sacrifice flexibility for control.'" Other readers submitted a story in Hardware Central and an AP article. Seems like the ruckus over the SSSCA is finally reaching the mainstream press.
Have you? It takes just a couple of minutes, and might mean a lot. This law scares the bejesus out of me, and I hope it does the same to you. Let your Senators and Representatives know.
Of course they didn't quite phrase it that way. Michael Eisner, chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, complained that the technology industry made it too easy for "people wanting to get anything for free on their television or computer or hand-held device." Peter Chernin, president of the News Corporation, worried that the Internet's "ability to empower the general public" would lead to the online theft of some of the contents of media companies' digital treasuries.
Both men want the next generation of personal computers to be unable to deliver unauthorized movies, music and other content, and they asked that Congress stand ready to intervene if industry failed to deliver the necessary technology to safeguard its products. A lone executive, from Intel, objected. The market, he said, not Congress, should dictate how technology works.
The debate on Capitol Hill between content providers like Disney and those who make the products to deliver that content, like Intel, was really a proxy for a much larger debate: What do we want our technology to do? How do we want it to work? And do we have any say in the matter?
For most forms of current technology, these questions have long been settled. No executives are worried about illegal uses of televisions or coffee makers, for instance, and no consumers need to worry that these appliances will crash or become infected with viruses and we would never accept it if they did. Our TV's and VCR's don't take ill when we watch infected programs, and our refrigerators never require rebooting.
Yet we have come to tolerate such problems from our personal computers. The PC's fundamental and unique unreliability flows from its construction as a so-called flexible platform a mere staging area for many kinds of software. The point (and bane) of a PC is, essentially, to run whatever software it encounters.
There are plenty of reliable computers: the controls of the modern Airbus 340 are fully given over to a computer, and video-game consoles consistently work as advertised, as do Aegis missile cruisers, cellular telephones and digital watches. All contain transistors. Can technologists figure out how to replicate the reliability of airplanes, telephones, watches and televisions in future versions of Windows and Linux, so that a mischievous 12-year-old half a world away can't erase a thousand far-flung hard drives?
Absolutely. In January Bill Gates sent a memo to all Microsoft employees declaring a new, overarching, even revolutionary mandate: Software must be reliable and "trustworthy." This new focus is both welcome and worrisome, because the very steps needed to secure our computers and networks can be the steps that will deaden them to continued innovation and creative uses while opening them to more intrusive monitoring by mainstream technology manufacturers and content providers.
Mr. Gates and the co-captains of his industry are producing blueprints for so-called "trusted" PC's. They will employ digital gatekeepers that act like the bouncers outside a nightclub, ensuring that only software that looks or behaves a certain way is allowed in. The result will be more reliable computing and more control over the machine by the manufacturer or operating system maker, which essentially gives the bouncer her guest list.
And as soon as there are limits on the software a PC can run, there will be limits on what PC users can do. That's exactly what executives like Mr. Eisner and Mr. Chernin want. They'd like software and hardware companies to build PC's to allow a publisher an exquisite level of control over a book or a song or a movie in the hands of a consumer. Trusted PC users might spend $1.95 for a single viewing of the latest Disney animated feature, or they might pay a similar amount for three listens of U2's most recent single. Security, stability, reliability and control.
Users may buy a trusted PC even if it won't show a digital video lent by a friend, because it will act less like a temperamental computer and more like a crash-free super-VCR like the just-released Microsoft X-box. But in the process of "improving" our PC's, the manufacturers and their partners will be able to determine what software will and won't be allowed to run, what we can and can't do with the information to which we're exposed, and what data about our online activities will be collected and sent to the manufacturer or content provider to assist in future marketing.
Use foobar/foobar to read the article.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
unfortunately, the tactic used in the poast has been to ust gradually reduce the feature set of the products gradually so that he never notices.
hopefully the best hope on this is the quandary seen in companies like sony. Sony music, I believe, grosses 4 billion dollars a year, while Sony Electronics, makers of mp3 players, etc grosses 40 billion dollars. In this case, I wonder which part of the company will win out, given the conflict of interest inside the company.
there are plenty such issues messing up the priorities.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Dog is my co-pilot.
While most of you think it is ridiculous, and I'm sure you've thousands reasons explaining why it doesn't work; stay calm, and think about it. As you can see a lot of people doesn't even have a slight clue of it, we really need to voice out.
Even a professor at Harvard Law School would say something like that! Those guys are supposed to reach a certain degree of clue level. I always think they must be smarter than us in all aspect. Now you can see how serious the matter is - we are surround by professional Cluelessnesses!!
To add insult to injury, they want to redefine the reality to suit their clue level. The worse is that the reality would be changed so that sane people are considered insane and vice versa. It just happens.
Don't just sit there! Write to your senators to voice out your opinions!(write with plain letter, of course)
I'm very glad to see all the mainstream press that this proposed legislation is getting.
Hopefully, as more and more editorials criticize this law, the general public will begin to see what is at stake and demand that Congress abandon this Disney law.
It is not the role of the government to protect the revenue streams of industry; but somewhere and somehow this has become their sole occupation. In a democratic free-market, the government should ensure fairness (I'm not a libertarian, I have no belief in an entierly market-based system) - unfortunatly in our system the government seems only concerned with appeasing the largest corporations, with no regard for the people they are presumed to serve.
If we all stand up, and let our politicians know that "enough is enough" hopefully they will change their ways. And it seems like more and more "everyday" people are beginning to make their voice heard (witness protests in Seattle, etc.), but the corporate media does its very best to quiet this dissent.
Unfortunatly the American idea of freedom has been transformed, and what remains is solely a concern with the freedom to make money.
I thought the article missed the point. Many people are going to come away from reading it thinking, "I don't want one of these crippled computers, so I won't buy one, no matter how much I see ads for them." They aren't going to appreciate the fact that the media companies don't want this to be a choice we have--they want to ram these things down our throats. They know damn well that, given the choice, no one will want them, so they want to pass a law like the SSSCA to force the issue. That is what people need to understand.
But this article is a great opportunity for anyone interested to write a letter to the editor of the Times. Getting published won't be easy, but it's possible, now more so than ever, since the paper has given this issue publicity. So if you want to write, here's your chance. They have an e-mail address for submissions:
letters at nytimes dot com (munged to prevet spam)
I wasn't able to locate a postal address on the Web site for letters to the editor, but maybe someone else will have that available and post it here.
That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
What I can't understand is why the writers of bills like the SSSCA can't just bite the bullet and take the bill to it's logical conclusion. It exists for one reason and one reason only, right? Money. No one has argued anything else. The almighty Right to Compensation. Why stop at simple DRM and hope it doesn't get cracked in the first 20 minutes? Why not just let all the music in the world go free and create a direct music/artist tax for everyone. Cut out the middle man and have the people pay directly into the bank accounts of the copyright holders.
Seriously! Wouldn't this be incredibly efficient? Isn't this the logical conclusion of laws that are designed to guarantee profits for a particular group?
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
This could be such a boon to the Canadian IT sector!!
I dunno. Words. They're just fun. It's mindless crapflooding. I figure some people might have damaged their copy of /usr/share/dict/words
If so, they need a new one. I would be more than happy to provide it.
For example, I have no conceptual problem with restricting some traditional fair-use rights when it comes to renting movies. I don't think a renter needs the ability to copy the movie for either time-shifting or back-up purposes. Congress started with that basic thought, and ended up with section K of the DMCA that required copy protection on all new VCR's (CopyGuard/MacroVision). The problem is that the movie industry promptly screwed the consumer!
* They put copy protection on all tapes (and DVDs), not just ones for rental.
* The copy protection removes fair-use (that I think) should still be available in a rental situation: such as "quoting" a section of a movie for review or analysis.
* The copy protection does not expire once the movie becomes public domain, an issue that will cause our future historians fits!
Most the DRM systems I've seen proposed eliminate most of the rights/benefits consumers (and society) normally have under traditional copyright law. If the DRM clauses were put into a "shrinkwrap" contract, they would be ruled unenforceable (for example the courts quashed the publishers attempt to enforce a "do not resell" notice in a book). A DRM system combined with the DMCA anti-circumvention measures puts the consumer at the mercy of the system designer. Your only option is to not buy it, which may mean going without since the publishers/recording-industry are going to be loathe to make any non-DRM content available.
Ignoring all the practical issues with the SSSCA for a moment (and there are a bunch!), the only way the bill should proceed is if it guarantees that no DRM will hamper or eliminate rights in the copyright balance. I'm not talking about Disney's definition of fair-use either (which as best I can tell, is something to the effect that Disney can use public-domain material, but does not have to release any of it's own work into the public domain). To take my rental example, the DRM would have to find some way to accommodate all three bullets (not an easy thing to do).
To be fair, another slant on this is the definition of new "relationships". We can now think of two normal methods of obtaining a movie for example: "purchase" and "rental". The DRM proponents are trying to make new workable models. The original idea behind DIVX went something like this: Electricity used to be charged based on capacity. Edison would count the number of lights in your house, and set the monthly charge based on the potential capacity of how much electricity you might use. Once they designed a power meter (a very tricky area, even now), they could dramatically lower the prices and only charge you for the electricity that you used. DIVX would allow a very low charge per use (planned to be lower than a traditional rental charge), instead of a one-size-fits-all purchase price.
The DIVX problems make a good illustration for almost all the DRM schemes I've seen. I never heard of DIVX being cracked. Secure client software backed up with a centrally managed server can make things pretty bullet proof (up to the point it converts to something outside of the DRM scheme). But security aside, DIVX had a whole host of problems, which frankly I don't know of a way to get past. Aside: I've considered job offers at today's DRM companies, but many of them are just too sleazy. The typical attitude is that public domain and fair-use is unimportant - the copyright holders content needs to be protected at all costs!
* The most obvious issue, is that once the central DIVX system died, all the media became useless. This is the single largest issue with DRM.
* The discs were too machine specific (they did have some theoretical "sharing pool" for people who had multiple DIVX players, which I'm not sure how well it worked). Even if you paid for a life-time access (see above), you could not play the disc on your neighbor's machine.
* There was a large potential for "marketing abuse", since they had to identify each item played on the machine (they would know who played what media, how many times, etc.). Your only protection was voluntary agreement that the data collected would not be misused.
* You are at the mercy of the DIVX operations staff. They could change the price or terms-of-use any time they wanted to.
As to the practicalities of the SSSCA, I think the closest analog the computer industry has experienced is export regulations. I [unfortunately] have lots of experience of just how bad that can be! I worked for a company that used encryption in virtually all of it's products. We once estimated that approximately 20% of the company's resources were used to deal-with, design, and follow export regulations. Of a hundred employees, "only" 3-4 actually dealt with the regulations daily, but virtually the entire design team had to take them into account. What should have been a single product would be split into multiple products to fit the ever changing interpretations of the regulations (resulting in a dramatic increase in development, testing, manufacturing, and marketing). Believe me, very few people in or out of the industry have any idea of how bad the SSSCA would clog our technology industry up!
This SSSCA is laying the infrastructure for mass control, not only of software, but also expression.
I can forsee that the SSSCA will be applied so that ISPs are forbidden from accepting connections from non-'trusted' client computers.
'Trusted' computers would contain hardware-based digital certificates, so it would be easy for the ISP to determine if an open-source computer is trying to connect.
That's Linux gone in one fell swoop.
Next, the SSSCA will wipe out all independent software developers - 'trusted' OSs simply won't run software that doesn't have a digital license.
Digital licenses will only be available to approved companies, after passing a thorough security examination, and paying a fortune.
On trusted computers, programming tools will only be available to security-certified corporations. Any software written will have to pass an expensive security audit at source-level before being granted a release certificate (which would allow it to run on other people's PCs).
Media creation tools, such as desktop publishers, audio/video editors etc will produce secure media files that will only be able to play on the computer on which they were created - or, for an extra license fee, up to 5 other designated computers. Licenses to create media for mass distribution will cost a mint, and require security clearance.
Websites are next. Web browsers will only be able to access certified websites. Webmaster security certification will cost a fortune.
Email too - email clients will vet outgoing email messages through an 'Intellectual Property Clearance Server', which will scan the message's text against a huge database of copyrighted texts. So if an email contains more than a few words that happen to appear in the IP database, it won't get sent. The 'IP Clearance Servers' will also scan for phrases which are too controversial.
This is WAR, folks!!!!!
The most significant event in US history since the Declaration of Independence and the Civil War.
Time for everyone to kick up the biggest fuss the country has ever seen.
Or else!
"He loved Big Brother"
-- last words of '1984' by George Orwell
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
(besides my two front teeth) is... a hardware RAID5 SCSI board, some 10K rpm U-160 SCSI disks, and rather more really fast DDR RAM.
I won't ever buy any of that crippled crap they're thinking they'll push on the market. I'll use what works, and they'll have to pry my system from my cold, dead hands before I'll ever install any DRM hardware. Let 'em come and try to take it away! I'll shoot 'em coming in the door!
AOL-TW, Vivendi Universal, Bertelsmann, Disney/ABC, and all those MPAA and RIAA pimps and their whore lawyers can kiss my ass!
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 00:41:38 -0800
From: Phil Karn
To: zittrain@law.harvard.edu
Subject: Your NYT editorial
Reply-to: karn@ka9q.net
Jonathan,
I was very interested to read your editorial on the SSSCA in the New
York Times. I strongly oppose the SSSCA, so I certainly agree with
your points about how much useful innovation has come from the
openness of the personal computer.
But I think you severely damage your own argument with statements like
this:
Users may buy a trusted PC even if it won't show a digital video lent
by a friend, because it will act less like a temperamental computer
and more like a crash-free super-VCR ?
There is absolutely no reason to believe that a "closed" PC
architecture would be any more reliable than an open one. Indeed,
there is plenty of evidence for exactly the opposite. If openness
implies unreliability, then why is Linux so stable while Windows
constantly crashes? Why is Linux so rarely affected by worms and
viruses while many thousands of Windows machines are still trying to
propagate countless variations of the Code Red email worm?
By tempting consumers frustrated with unreliable Microsoft software
with the false promise of "reliability", you are playing right into
the hands of those who promote the SSSCA.
Regards,
Phil Karn
Taking the bill to it's "logical conclusion" as you call it would be commiting a logical fallacy, invalidating any argument that you have against it. All you have done is set up a "straw man" that anyone can knock down.
It was supposed to be kind of ironic and sarcastic, actually, not really an argument.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
First, let me state that I do NOT agree with this bill or any restictive legislation like it. BUT, what would happen if it did pass? I see something akin to prohabition. Restrictive bill gets passed. Restrictive bill is repealed. Noone brings it up again. Roe vs Wade is an almost similar case. The bill's that never get passed never seem to go away.
Not that I can hack or mod or even as this bill would imply, CRACK, but I would if I could just for the sake of it. So they block the internet to 'unsafe' computers. Does that mean pirate net wouldn't happen. I figure that once the MPAA and RIAA see that the technology is as hard to control as the people they'll give up. This about who ended up running the show after prohabition. The son of a boot-legger. (JFK) We might actually need this BS to pass so we can all point our collective fingers at Hollywood and laugh at their failures. You never know, we might end up with a leader who knows what a boot-loader is.
Someone hates these cans.
298UGH3892HOEWIGH98H2UIEWHG89HGEE
298UH3G92H392RSIDHGHU98UWHEFE9239
23HFUSHHFHOIWE90G9UGHUIHG98UFQOIE
UI2OHG290239URJJHSUIHGEUIHG90EUFH
----
Can't read the above? That's because your SSSCA-compliant computer refuses to decode my SSSCA-compliant message, because you haven't paid Microsoft $1,000,000 for the right to legally decode messages sent to you by your constituents. That you got the above at all was only because I paid Microsoft $10,000 for a license to send messages to Congress.
----
Of course, the above hasn't happened yet. But it will, if the SSSCA passes. Because the SSSCA will give COMPLETE and ABSOLUTE control over what you are allowed to do and not do to only those corporations that are given the privilege to write the operating system and other software for SSSCA-compliant computers.
Some in Congress might actually regard it as a good thing that constituents are no longer able to communicate with Congress, especially by computer. If you are one of those, then I will make it my mission in life to make sure that you never get elected to any public office ever again.
Thank you for your time.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
In Australia, we have an old saying for a situation like this... Dont steal, the government hates the competition
By the looks of this bill, the music and movie industry in the states wants to apply our saying to their own means. It's a a pretty basic bill really... "we're right, you're wrong, give us all your money and we wont put you in jail for being a scum-sucking thief who wont give us money".
All I can really see is the computer industry going to hell and taking the rest of the world economy with it. If this law comes to pass, I will not want to buy something from the states because it's cheaper anymore, why should it... all of a sudden, I cant use my computer do make my own music CD's, I wont be able to back up my original software media. I wont even be able to back it up to the hard drive. Hell, the way I read this law, I wont even be able to backup my hard drive in case of a computer crash
Considering that there are a lot more people outside of the states who would have brought hardware from the states because it is dirt cheap than there is in the states. I really dont see the hardware manufacturers bending over to get shafted because of this law. Why make two identical products (one with the SSSCA crap in it) when you only have to make one and not sell it to the US.
I think that it will be cheaper for them to move offshore and stop dealing with the draconian laws of the USA than it will be for them to stay in the states and suddenly have to build a separate manufacturing line to build their products for internal US use. Why should they, they have already spent billions on the current crop of production plants that are working just fine.
How do you think that the defence department is going to react when they develop a custom, top secret, piece of software for their network and they have to submit it to the SSSCA inspectors just to make sure that it conforms to the standard...
I really dont think so...
So is the US government going to really welcome something like this that stops them from being able to innovate and develop their little programs. Ohh I forgot, they wrote the law... so I guess that means that their hardware will be exempt from the law. Ahhhh, it's good to be the king (to quote Mel Brookes, History of the World Part 1)
and now we are back to that old saying in Australia... Dont steal, The government doesnt like the competition (and neither does the MPAA and the RIAA)
This is my view of the SSSCA and it's effects on the rest of the world, it is meant to be a semi-humourous view and should be taken as such. Flame me if you want, but just consider the point of view from outside the cube. If you dont like the implied repercussions, write to your local representative and get them to check out anything that disturbs you.
*** I had a
It sounds like what the media companies really want are network computers or set top boxes, as defined over the last couple of years.
They *aren't* ubiquitous, despite being available more cheaply than PCs and offering more manageability and lower costs to corporations. This says to me *the public don't want it*.
The media companies want to limit access to their content? What's to stop them using the network computers that already exist and simply limit their content to those platforms? It could be done *right now* without the need for legislation.
Deleted
As a transplanted Vermonter of 20+ years, I think you should place the blame properly, and not with Jim Jeffords.
Blame instead the Religious Right, who have been transforming the Rupublican Party into something Jeffords no longer could reconcile with his conservative-centrist views. I'm an Independent, have never registered with any party, and never will. I vote for whomever I think/feel will do the best job, regardless of party affiliations. That includes Jim Jeffords.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Seriously, no kidding. The pornographers have cracked the problem. They know how to make money out of the Internet where content can be copied perfectly.
Copy their business model.
Deleted
Hope my lawyering background doesn't bias me here, but I thought he did all right for a lawyer.
Too much time on the freedom vs. reliability thing.
Sure, making reliable machines means curtailing freedom, but not the freedoms he thinks. It means curtailing the freedom of developers to do bad things in the code they write, not curtailing their freedom to deliver capabilities to the consumer.
What he missed altogether was the potential for reduced reliability as the result of systems designed to keep you from doing things. As with all things done by mere humans, there will be bugs, there will be shortcuts, there will be...oh, you get the idea.
The end result will be things that don't work that would work in the absence of controls.
OTOH: He is bang-on about letting the market decide and bang-on about the ultimate loss of utility that comes with content providers' desire to clamp down on PCs.
What i've never understood is, if the RIAA or MPAA folks don't want people to make copies of digital works, why do they keep releasing digital works? If there's no CD available, then i can't copy it.
Piracy is a social problem, not a technical one, yet the recording industry keeps insisting on technical solutions. They released products into the market place which people realised they could use in new and interesting ways which hadn't occurred to the industry folks. So now the RIAA is stomping around shouting, "Wait! Wait! That's not what I meant!" Well, that doesn't mean we need to legislate the rights of the consumer. It means the recording industry should be smarter next time.
You shouldn't get federal legal protection for making stupid business decisions, you should get the opportunity to learn from your mistakes. It seems like we're going about this whole problem bass-ackward.
YOu have an intersting point. My guess is as a creator, you'd be paying extra for the privelage of being able to create. Perhaps the publishers become a rubber stamp organization where they merely certify your work is in a DRM format. You'd pay a fee for that and that fee would go to the publishers.
I'm sure the publishers have thought of this and will move to some kind of service or certification clearinghouse. Maybe they'll even provide the tools squeezing software comapnies to work for them or not at all.
This SSSCA is certainly legislatable, but hardly enforceable. Ya can't stop people from owning compilers. The US IT economy would stifle itself so fast that foreign heads would spin, no other country would enact similar legislation, and the US IT infrastructure would collapse. That's IFF they actually tried to enforce such legislation.
I do not fear this legislation. Part of me hopes the bozos actually pass it and enforce it, even though it would make me a criminal, just for the sheer fun of watching all the resultant confusion build up as various deadlines approach.
I gather one of the goals for terrorists from Timothy McVeigh to al Qaeda is to sow so much confusion that the target system gets more and more restrictive and finally collapses from within. Sort of like carrying any argument to the extreme just to show how ridiculous it is. This SSSCA is just the ticket to make a mockery of all intellectual property.
Infuriate left and right
I've had the same thought. The SSSCA will have two long term effects since every dirty trick in the book will be used to keep challenges to it away from Supreme Court until Shrub gets through packing the court.
One, since Europe and Canana are going in for the same insanity, Asia will be the fount from all future conmputer innovation springs. This crap simply isn't going to over in large swaths of Asia and it will they who have the cool toys that the rest of us must dream about. As a corollary, tech companies in this country will take a severe beating since no one is going to want to "upgrade" to this crap. Imagine that, my little K6-2 500Mhz will MORE capable than a 4 Ghz Itanium 7 DVD player. This will only have about a million wonderful effects on the economy.
Two, computer technology in the Western world will be quickly degraded back to 1977 levels. Let's face it, a lot of are going to be building computers out of whole cloth in our garages again. We'll probably wind up having to reinvent everything done in the past 25 years once the insanity has run course. Since the public nets will be similarly degraded we'll have to roll our own there too. Once we manage to reinvent the Commodore 64, it'll be back to the BBS. Way to go Mikie, Jackie and Hilary! I hope you're reallllyyy happy with yourselves. I hope everyone here knows how to solder!!
To all the people who wrote there representitives, and told other people about this bill, Thank you.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Users may buy a trusted PC even if it won't show a digital video lent by a friend, because it will act less like a temperamental computer and more like a crash-free super-VCR
Saying that copy protecting my computer will make it more reliable is like saying that putting copy protection in my car's CD player will improve my gas mileage.
Bureaucracies move slowly. The DMCA came into being in 1998 I think, and only now is Europe looking into their own version. The proposed SSSCA has an 18 month waiting period, I think. It would probably take another year or two for the government agency to propose rules if industry doesn't. Then there will be court fights. Meanwhile, the ugly truth will gradually leak to the mainstream press, and the hideous implications come to light. I doubt the implications would be ignored at that point. Instead, the damned law will be repealed and some sanity restored, and Hollywood will be exposed like the fools they are, just as they were for not liking reel-to-reel, cassettes, VCRs, etc. And I see this as the last of those battles -- any new copying technology from now on will be computer based, and tough bananas for Hollywood.
It will be an interesting few years. I would not be surprised if Hollywood wakes up at some point and waters down the SSSCA just because they too will begin to see the collapse of IP if they push it to the max.
Infuriate left and right
I'm going out on a limb here becuase I don't know enough specifics.
Digimarc several years ago introduced a watermarking plugin for PhotoShop. Now let's say that that watermarking technolgy becomes the chosen DRM technology for images. The SSSCA allows Digimarc to sell the plugin. IIRC the SSSCA explicitly allows for monopoly control of DRM technologies. So what prevents Digimarc from making money here? I read the SSSCA to explicitly allow money making off DRM in the same way that the DVD forum makes money off licsensing the DVD playback to manufacturers.
Also remember that real power arrives from distribution, but also from exposure. You may have the best program since sliced bread but if nobody can see it then you are very unlikely to ever recoup your costs.
Thanks for the reply. I hope you are right and I am wrong!
Had an article today about taming the consumer
h tml
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/11/opinion/11ZITT.
It talks about taking control away from the users. It also mentions Microsofts "trusted" PCs. The author seems to think mainstream userse will gladly buy a computer with limited capability if its easier to use and less likely to crash (more like a vcr, gaming system, etc.)
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
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The other option, a stronger DRM, is that you can't transmit files at all without DRM; no DRM == piracy. Say goodbye to sending copies of your digital photos to your family, unless you want to pay a certifier.
Starting to get the picture?
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.