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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."
One thing I found very interesting reading the article, which I had not considered beforehand, was as the author pointed out.
The digital videos they shot in 1999 may be unpayable on their desktop and laptop computers.
This is better further elaborated in the following passage...
There are some problems with this scheme. If Prince-ton computer scientist Edward Felten is right, a watermark that's invisible to the audience yet easily detected by machines will be relatively easy to remove. To put it simply, if you can't see it, you won't miss it when it's gone. Which is why the components of new home entertainment systems probably would have to be designed not to play unwatermarked content. Otherwise, all you've done is develop an incentive for both inquisitive hackers and copyright "pirates" to find a way to strip out the watermarks. But if the new entertainment systems won't play content without watermarks, they won't work with old digital videos or MP3s.
Now assuming the above is true and consider the worst case scenario of this bill coming to pass. Would this mean all those legitimate MP3s I downloaded from Epitonic and the Star Wars fan films would no longer be playable on new hardware since they lacked a watermark?
If this the case how would free content continue to exist and operate in this system, as they would obviously have to use watermarks just like copyrighted works if they want to be playable on the new hardware DRM systems. Ofcourse this sort of thing would piss of consumers and even some content providers.
aus.music.scrapbook
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
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.
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.
What's interesting is the genius of this approach - instead of hackers ripping off the movie industry, they would then be ripping off consumers - with every key cracked, more and more DVD players would become obsolete. Hence, both the tech factions and content factions stood to benefit from this arrangement.
The really interesting thing about this arrangement is that it is practical, though of limited effectiveness, and it requires no special legislation. If all copyrighted works were protected with such an encryption scheme, piracy would truly dwindle because the content providers could simply switch keys and render all of a hacker's previous efforts worthless. What really surprises me is that the content faction hasn't caught on. Here is a scheme which would allow them to literally make movies or songs unplayable after a certain length of time (say video rental...) and profit multiple times, and they are sleeping on it!
Instead, the content faction is fighting a losing battle against the tech faction. Computers, by their very nature need to make perfect copies to function, and any specialized hardware required for copy protection could simply be co-opted by a virtual machine. What is needed is a movie/music/book format which requires a licensed piece of hardware (say, a media board) to decrypt. Thus, those users who want to enjoy MPAA or RIAA licensed content would have to purchase a media board for their PC's, where as those who don't won't have their rights to create content taken away from them. Basically, there would be two types of content: unlicensed and licensed. Licensed content would require hardware decryption, whereas unlicenced content wouldn't. This solution works for both the content faction and the tech faction, without taking rights away from the individual to use their computers as they see fit.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.