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Reason Magazine on DRM
swankypimp writes "The new issue of Reason magazine has an article entitled "Hollywood vs. the Internet: Why Entertainment Companies Want To Hack Your Computer." The author discusses the watermarking of digital television as a springboard to Digital Rights Management on all consumer electronics and computers (as in the recently proposed Hollings bill). While light on the tech speak, it is a good summary of the political agendas behind copyright protection intended for those of us who don't constantly check the "YRO" section."
An interesting point is made by a News Corporation technologist - "music lovers already have gotten out of the habit of paying for records, which means an end to big profits and thus an end to big record companies", and he goes on to say that within five years the music industry will be a cottage industry. Is this really such a bad thing? Part of the reason why MP3 distribution has become so widespread is the general feeling of poor value-for-money associated with buying CDs. It's difficult to feel particularly guilty about copyright infringement when details of how the money you pay gets distributed are publicly available.
Personally, I'd prefer to pay money directly to a band that I like for their material, rather than line the pockets of record companies and distributors. While historically they might have served a useful purpose in increasing consumer awareness of the bands on their label, and in introducing them to wider markets, that function has been obsoleted by file sharing.
Media companies should just resign themselves to the fact that the days of large profits are waning, and instead concentrate on ways of inducing people to buy, rather than copy material - lower prices would help, for a start, but also bonus materials. By including, for example, printed material, with DVDs or CDs, it becomes more difficult for someone to obtain more than a partial copy of the work in question, so people would be more likely to buy (assuming the lower price was in effect also).
"But maintaining that model, in which big music companies play an important filtering role for audiences, depends both on large streams of revenue and on control of copyrighted works."
They don't seem to understand this point. Most digital consumers notice the irrelvancy of the "big record companies". What we want is direct support of the artist, and paying the artist for their work instead of the majority of a "CD" being used up in overhead. I think most will play fair, if the prices come down and the artist is more fiscally supported, not the farce that is going on now.
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
Copyright rights means that the public atributes to a partie the "monopoly" for publish of a content during a certain time as a trade-off for the publishing of the said content.
Diferent kinds of content have diferent timetables, but all end with the content become "public domain" when that time ends.
Nowadays, the publishers are forfeiting they copyright obligations to the public in three ways:
a) Not re-publishing when the content becomes out of print (thrus, the copyright should fall back to either the author or the public domain if they fail to make a reprint - like 6 months to make it available again)
b) Not providing the non-crypted version for public domain (one can't be sure that the copyright owners will be around when the content becomes public domain and/or that the crypto used to certify the DRM is publicly available to allow a clear access to the content - and thrus not require reverse engenearing)
c) By limiting the usage in absurd ways, they are forbiding fair use of the content in ways that overstep consumer rights (like time-shift, format-shift, educational use, accessibilities use, usability oriented interfaces and much more).
Just my two cents...
One way to understand the conflict between the Content Faction and the Tech Faction is to look at how they describe their customers. For the content industries, they're "consumers." By contrast, the information technology companies talk about "users."
If you see people as consumers, you control access to what you offer, and you do everything you can to prevent theft, for the same reason supermarkets have cameras by the door and bookstores have electronic theft detectors. Allowing people to take stuff for free is inconsistent with your business model.
But if you see people as users, you want to give them more features and power at cheaper prices. The impulse to empower users was at the heart of the microcomputer revolution: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak wanted to put computing power into ordinary people's hands, and that's why they founded Apple Computer. If this is your approach -- enabling people to do new things -- it's hard to adjust to the idea of building in limitations.
Very articulate framing of the issue: control versus empowerment. At first blush, this strikes as the best way to cast the issue to the general population. Nobody likes being controlled, and everyone likes being empowered.
The other issue, not mentioned in the article, is to manage the issue of the perception of theft. File sharing does not equate to theft. It does violate a license agreement in many cases, but it's not theft. File sharing creates more copies of the same thing, it does not move the thing from possession of person A to to possession of person B.
I think the tech world is at a distinct PR disadvantage here. RIAA, et al, have done a good job of equating the two. How can the debate be turned around, putting them on the defensive side of things: "This is not about theft, it's about your outdated, draconian licensing scheme designed to limit user empowerment?"
Software Wars
I do have a problem with the idea that these copyright measures are able to slow things down (which I sorta read in the article), what you are dealing with is a social problem and not a technical problem, Hollywood can put all the protections they what on DVD's TV etc and some bloke will just crack it as soon as it comes out (the same situation that exists with software) and to date most of their efforts, like SDMI, have been pretty lame. As for legislation, laws are only as strong as a persons ablity to enforce them and who the hell is going to pay attention to one passed, which only benifits large companies, Where there is no policemen there is no speed limit, after all.
At the end of the day thing like this are only going to annoy honest people.
Technology has just moved along (like it does) and instead of trying to stop the march of progress media companies have to change there business models to the new market, and not try to maintain the statis quo. CD sales are lower today because time which should have been spent creating a new format to replace CD's was spent lowing production processes and now that industry is screwed. Thanks to DVD's the movie industry may survive (who the hell is going to bother dl a 8 gig movie over the internet when they can just buy it), plus there is the experience of seeing the thing at the local multi-plex.
At most, all that is going to happen is someone works out a way to link all the Tivo's together, but isn't that what cable TV is today? just repeats after repreats and WWF. If you can't work out a way to make money in a medium where consumers are doing all the work, and even go to the extent of limiting this type of market from developing, then what hope is there for you. Instead of putting your heads in the secure media sand you should jump on the P2P bandwagon.
Pianist : Some jerk whos taught themselves how to type in rhythm
one of the best articles on the subject that I have seen at slashdot lately.
The PC I have now plays DivX files, mp3's and everything else just fine. I download my share of media from the net, and I am sure if they start putting watermarks in TC shows, the warez community will find some way to strip it out and make it availalbe, but the downside is that the new pc's that come out after this watermarking technology will not allow you to play unwatermarked content. I will therefor keep my current working PC as an entertainment box. By the time this happens, my PC will probably not be the one I want to use on my desk anymore, but it is more than capable of playing Hi-Res divx, mp3's and such. Tis would be the time i set up my roll-your-own PVR
One final problem though. Tecnology overlap. they launch all of this new watermarked content. No one is going to have PCs capable of playing the content. Why would anybody buy a PC that can only play watermarked content before the content becomes availalbe. They would be unable to play any content since none of the exiting content would have watermarks. Also, after the content is available even if some people upgrade to the newer stuff, not everyone will unless there is a VERY compelling reason to ditch all thier old working content in favor of getting ONLY the new watermarked content.
As the article points out "Just as computers make it possible to create remarkably pristine images, they also make it possible to make remarkably pristine copies" .
By the same definition "Just as home pro audio equipment is capable of creating music, they also make it possible to duplicate music".
I remember the introduction of SCMS crippled DAT recorders, which effectively killed off a nice media for semi-pro musicians (D2D was too expensive then).
I can see the reluctance of studio hardware and software manufacturers to introduce this technology as it will clearly impact on sales, but will it mean the end of OpenSource applications because *you* can remove the DRM components?
Scary
I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that people are so eager to pirate music online because of the ludicrously high prices of CDs. It's something of a consumer revolt. When CDs were first introduced, I remember hearing how cheap they were to produce and how someday they would be half the price of cassettes and LPs!
Yeah... garsh, and I believed it too.
No, instead what's happened is that the same product has been steadily creeping up in price to the point where it no longer makes sense to buy it. I stopped buying large quantities of CDs around 1995 or so, around the time they hit the $16-18 range.
So, nowadays, on the rare occasion that I walk into my local music store and see $20+ CDs, I laugh to myself. Very few artists can pull that kind of cash out of my wallet anymore (Pink Floyd, Rush, Bill Hicks... to name a few.) I have better things to spend my money on.
It makes me wonder. Why... why do content companies refuse to compete? Technology (specifically home computing) has become a formidable new source of competition for them and instead of leaping at the opportunity to compete, to take on this new challenge, they turn to bullying tactics (destroying Napter) and draconian, self-serving laws (DMCA, SSSCA, etc.)
I wouldn't pay $20 for a CD. However, I might pay $20 for a CD if it came with not just one CD of music, but maybe another CD of studio outtakes and/or alternate mixes. How about a multimedia CD that plays movies on your computer, maybe short documentaries filmed during the making of the album (nothing fancy, just an insider's view like what Pink Floyd did on Live At Pompeii), interviews with the band about the album, maybe even a live performance played in the studio for the benefit of CD buyers? How about beefing up the standard CD into something worth my $20?
After all, they are so cheap to produce... right? If the media is so cheap, give me content worth buying, you content providers!
For that very reason, I am more willing to buy a DVD than a CD. In fact, I've bought more of the former than the latter in the last year. I find all the outtakes and artist commentary and extras make the high price tag a little more reasonable. Plus, I see multiple DVD sets being sold for more-or-less the same price.
Hell, why not release an album on DVD, including all this music along with tons of extra goodies and content? Maybe a nice booklet with the CD (no cheap crap either... more like the high quality booklet that came with Pink Floyd's Pulse.) I would consider going back to spending money on CDs again. Not only would it make it worth my money, but the sheer quantity and variety of content would make it considerably more difficult to pirate this stuff over any medium.
If these so-called content providers (who, as far as I can tell, want to provide nothing of the sort) would try to compete, they might find that we can all get along. If they want to hide behind stupid laws that serve only to validate their own ignorance, then I say fuck them and their overpriced CDs.
My only regret is that the artists, who deserve the money, will get screwed in all this. Then again, given the sort of sleazy business ethics under which most content providers work, I'm sure artists are familiar with that feeling already.
--Rick
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
"the perilous irony of the digital age."
There is no irony here, Michael. The fact of the matter is that this country was founded as, and will always be, a pirate nation. As much as our government enjoys defaming China and like nations for the rampant piracy within their boundaries, from the beginning of copyright law in the United States the laws were purposefully worded in order to stimulate the society and promote the progress of the arts. Thomas Jefferson best explains the copyright clause of the Constitution in an 1813 letter.
"Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody."
The framers understood that it is absolutely necessary to protect the ideas of an individual, for the purpose of encouraging the creators in society to create, but such protection should not, and must not be extended beyond the point where they are beneficial to society. This is why the Constitution portions out 'limited times' of protection as the sole enumerated power granted to the congress in order 'to promote the progress of science and useful arts.'
The tactics of Disney, and like distributors, are an affront to the tenets which this country was founded on. Their most recent success, the CTEA (Copyright Term Extension Act) was the last straw for some Americans, and the arguments will finally be heard by the Supreme Court. (The Supreme Court granted certiorari in the case of Eldred v. Ashcroft, challenging the constitutionality of the Copyright Term Extension Act) The extension of copyrights for ideas created decades ago is not an attempt to promote progress, and it is stretching the definition of 'limited terms'. In fact, as Federal Circuit Judge Richard Posner noted, "creative works are both an input and an output in the creative process; if you raise the cost of the input, you get less output." It is easy to forget how much of the creative process depends on the works of others, for inspiration and motivation. Judge Posner eloquently posits the belief that at a certain point, protection of source material will begin to hinder more than help the arts which it attempts to nurture. This has obvious occurred in the case of the CTEA. There is no societal benefit to extending the copyright of Mickey Mouse. Walt Disney will certainly not be inclined to create more work. And at the same time, those in our society who would have used the new material that entered the public domain as a source for their creativity have been stifled. Consider what the greatness of Shakespeare would be if Hollingshed had been lost or hidden from him.
View the whole essay here.
I think you've stumbled upon an interesting point here.
If I can't record music or videa without clearing it through a media company and getting that "watermark" then my First Amendment rights have been trampled.
Forget consumers, copy protected CD's and even Fair Use [it is copyright ] - forget all of those Simpsons episodes you recorded from TV.
These systems are un-Constitutional because they limit your ability to express yourself where you see fit. If it's a grass roots campaign or a song your band is working on - you can't do it!
Just reminds me of this Simpsons song that is on mp3 here.
It will take an Amendment! And like Heston, they will get my DVD/VCD/MP3 player from my cold dead hands.
Get your Unix fortune now!
But for now, nobody's asking ordinary people what they want.
So i'll ask, what do you people want? the ability to send digital videos of your home movies to friends.. or to have your computer totally restricted in what it can and can not do..
On a side note here.. It seems that Microsoft is all pretty gung ho while stay quiet about DRM technology.. Mostly i think because they can profit off of it by blending it into the OS, which makes me wonder why other DRM software companies don't seem to worried that Microsoft will dominate this software field as well... any thoughts?
will it mean the end of OpenSource applications because *you* can remove the DRM components?
... and you'd have to follow this chain of logic all the way down to the lowest level of computation, down to the electronic circuits etched on the chips.
This is actually an interesting paradox. The whole philosophy of DRM, digital watermarks, etc. is to make it not just illegal to circumvent copyright, but impossible.
By this logic, the source code itself would need a watermark to prevent the removal of the DRM components -- but this would be no good if you could just strip it out before compiling, so the compilers would have to be rigged only to allow watermarked source code. Of course, then you'd have to make sure that people weren't running binaries made with the old compiler
Like a virus, mandatory DRM legislation would infect everything it touches. It might start with something seemingly innocuous, like music and movies -- but it would eventually consume software, hardware, and the very act of computation itself. I agree with the author that the DRM legislation being pushed by the "content" industry (and certain of our esteemed elected officials) would effectively destroy the digital computer as we know it.
Cheers,
IT
-1: Jon Katz-like title
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
Hardware can be hacked as well, but it probably wouldn't need to be. If the physical format of the protected work is in computer memory or dvd or similar accessible format then a software translation layer can be written.
I have a big problem with MPAA and RIAA leveraging their monopoly control over the entertainment industry to create barriers to entry for amateur artists and new artists. (If a player can only play "official" content then amateurs are excluded.)
They already killed one format (DAT) with their paranoid ramblings over unauthorized copying.
I don't want to sacrifice all forward movement of technology just so I can hear the latest Britney Spears "song" on my DRM-enabled, otherwise disabled computer.
I understand they have concerns and I might be willing to listen to them if they were to shorten the copyright length to 20 years instead having copyrights last into all eternity (I'll be dead, my children will be dead, my grandchildren will be dead, close enough to eternity in my book.)
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