Slashdot Mirror
Gilmore On Hardware-Restricted Content
An unnamed reader links to John Gilmore's explanation of just why it's a bad idea to let companies (Intel in particular) cave to industry demands for so-called content protection in hardware. The upshot is that if such measures really are built in, the general-purpose computer may not have long to live.
Isn't that what they are after?
A machine to play your cd's/dvd's, a machine to do mail/web/stuff, a machine to do games..
Hell, it would be a lot easier for them, no OS-es to worry about, no copieing to worry about, and more to sell to everybody!
-=- I heard rumours about an OS called "Social Life", heard of it? Is it stable? -=-
if intel starts doing crap like this, it could help AMD if where lucky. more busness to amd = bigger budget = better processors.
HOw is it an upshot to get rid of the general purpose computer? I kinda like mine. Any way they would have to get all compaines to agree to do it the same way in hardware, if one company decides not to do it then its useless anyway because evryone will use there chips and stuff.
Oops....you'll know what I'm talkin about in a bit.
Amendment III
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
I would like to see a 3rd amendment challenge to this.
After years of losing money to users pirating games, music, videos, and anything else that can possibly be pirated, the companies are now cracking down and trying to save their dwindling markets. I see nothing wrong with this, it is simply companies trying to stay in bussiness. It's because of the people who pirate software that we have these measures now.
And don't say that everyone should just move to free software, we all know the quality issues and how 'well' open-source companies fare.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
The sad fact of the matter is that as long as a product does at least the minimum requirements, people don't care. That's why eBay can get away with pop-up ads. That's why people buy software with EULAs which take away their right to fair use. That's why we cave in and sign up just to read NYTimes articles. That's why we put up with BFAs and inane copyright restrictions on slashdot. It's why Microsoft gets away with charging people over and over for the same operating system, just because they buy a new computer.
Computers, the internet, the world could be so much better. But people constantly settle for mediocrity.
Companies like AOL Time Warner, Disney etc have been calling for this for ages. They're terribly worried that their huge back library of movies, songs etc will produce a lower and lower income each year as people illegally copy things rather than buy them at (inflated) prices.
Video Game cheats, hints a
The upshot is that if such measures really are built in, the general-purpose computer may not have long to live.
What does that quote above have to do with the article? How is that an upshot? In the end of the article it says that if copy prevention is placed into computers what's probably going to happen is that no one will buy these as non-lamed systems will still be more flexible in working with other systems.
Of course this may not be true as many people and companies buy from outfits like Dell, which already makes only Intel, how long before the RIAA gets Dell to sign a license that makes them copy protect every computer they make? No one'll stop buying Dell because its -dell-
Still, I can't see anyone who rolls their own ever going for this. I know that you can't digitally drive speaker elements there must be an analog signal going to the coil inside of each speaker it'd be trivial to cut open the speaker and solder those wires to a standard male plug, plug them into your audio in on the sound card and hit record...
Disclaimer:The "Human" attached to this account is unresponsible for anything unless it wants responsibility.
Since when does the concept of intellectual property benefit anyone at all?
I'm sick of corporations and their self-promotion
This one IS appropriate for the YRO section. You should have the right to buy any computer, with or without copy protection in hardware. Of course, this is not a right that's very well protected by the Constitution.
.NET runtime included, or if AOL wanted to madate inclusion of AOL software(Ironically, MS, Sun, and AOL have been pretty successful at distribution of their clients, even without legislation).
Efforts to force inclusion of hardware copy protection are simply the work of a special-interest group. It's as if Microsoft or Sun wanted a law that mandated that every computer have the Java or
That's what Hollywood is trying to accomplish, to use legislation to build their distribution channel. Get off your asses and figure it out yourselves.
Intel and other honest manufacturers should stand fast and say, "We are not the world's policemen. We sell general purpose equipment and we make it as flexible as possible to attract the broadest range of customers.
Intel is not "world's policeman" but it is working with "world's policemen".
You can't hold the man who makes pencils responsible because a bookie used a pencil to write down a bet. And you can't demand that he design a pencil that can't be used to write down a bet."
Even if you design such a pencil, an 13 years old hacker from Russia will do something and enable the pencil to do anything.
uh, nm
And who ends up paying for the technology to allow them to restrict content? We do.
Ideas like encrypting audio between playback device and speakers, HDTV copy protection and any other method they come up with will eventually get to market. Ask questions and know before you buy.
Don't buy your own set of shackles.
The only way this will fly is through legislation. Intel has a few smart cookies working for them. I don't think they will do this unless they are forced. For two reasons: You can't alienate your customers. More than a few corporate suits and home users would be a little miffed about this. Two: Something like this will probably cost quite a bit of money.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
I'm not sure how likely the hardwired "content protection" scenario is... but, a pessimist by nature, I think we should start preparing as though it is going to happen. :)
The simplest version is if Intel unilaterally decided to cave in to Disney, AOL/TW, RIAA etc. and build its own hardware with little censor chips in them. In this case, the response is straight-up economic. Turn to alternative hardware vendors. I don't just mean in your personal purchases. Slashdot readers who are sysadmins or IT specialists at corporations should start preparing their explanations of why the company really should move away from the risks inherent in having unintelligent censorware control the use of potentially mission-critical data. If large corporate clients start abandoning Intel as a result of content-control, you can guess which product-line will get scrapped pretty quick.
The two other scenarios are legislation and regulation that will prevent anyone from seeking out alternatives, by making those alternatives illegal. This is more problematic, because slashdotters punch well below their weight politically. However, in both cases there will be a political "hook" - in the case of legislation, one can write one's congresscritter (for whatever good that will do), and in the case of FCC regulation, there will be a notice-and-comment period. So take notice, and make comments
As a penultimate line of defense, there is always the courts. In addition to the obvious first amendment claims, there could be an interesting "restraint of trade" (antitrust) claim based on denial of "essential facilities" (computing services).
In the long run, however, I think the answer to content protection is, "fine, go take away your ball and go play with it by yourself. I have a better game now." When all manner of content (not just free software) is made without any desire to restrict it, and when that content is both quantitively and qualitatively superior to restricted content, there will be no point to having hardwired censors. Even if people all use "approved" monitors and computers, they will be using them to view "free content" (free as in free speech, not free beer). So the "oligarchy" will wither, and there will no longer be any significant force pushing Intel to continue making hardwired censors...
How likely is that end-scenario? *shrug* Ask yourselves.
Hardware companies are smarter than that ... aren't they? Why would you build a product that no consumer wants? So that people wont buy it?
What a brillian business strat.
I am not sure anyone could "bury" a general purpose architecture as the PC has become; no one piece "defines" it any longer, nor is irreplaceable, right?. If Intel doesn't work for us in the future, ditch them as their have always been competitors. Support those who design, engineer a stand-alone generic, hardware reference platform that has uses beyond the home (data logging, control, robotics, etc.), allow people to buy the components individually, and THEN layer an OS (Linux?) onto it; this would keep it difficult to attack legally as the hardware would have very justifiable existence on it's own.
...and all new hardware required, and implemented horrifically draconian anti-copy-anything protection which both took away the ability to copy for reasonable use, or took away nick the l337 h4X0r's ability to copy 'stuff', ancient second hand hardware, free hardware, is going to become rather desirable. Best start warehousing a few spare boxies.
:D
OK, that's tongue in cheek, but it's one end of an extreme where computers are pushed to being made less and less useful. When I look at it bringing about such strong change like that, it feels it can't happen. Am I being too optimistic?
Besides - if all your old hardware gets too slow - buy a few more and beow.... you get the idea
a grrl and her server
Perhaps you mean solder then?
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
We are not in war and we are not being forced to house soldiers.
If Congress can declare "War On Some Drugs," why can't Congress declare "War On Infringement"? In that case, it wouldn't take very much of a stretch to see that the ©-chips are "soldiers" in such "war."
Will I retire or break 10K?
Well, the way I interpreted it, and we all know interpretations can vary among people, was that without the PC, Roberta Williams and her game design compatriots can no longer make those shitty "Adventure" games which are more of "guess the obtuse logic some crazy chick came up with" style game.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
I've said this before, but it's important and needs saying. The most important part of what Gilmore is saying is the bit about 'A mandate from all concerned parties' without consultation of consumers. You just know that the 'content industry' would argue that consumers are /never/ going to ask for their rights to be curtailled, but that's exactly the point.
The *essence* of copyright is that all the people got together and said 'Let's curtail our rights, let's say that if any of us wants to copy something that someone else wrote, they have to pay for it, for a limited period of time'. They did this to promote the public domain - to get more stuff written by allowing authors a temporary monopoly on their works.
But the point is, the moment the public mandate for copyright is gone, there can be **no** justification for copyright. It's not a moral right. It's not a natural right. This isn't like saying that we shouldn't kill people. The point is that it's a mutual agreement on the part of a population, for their own gain. And the moment society decides it doesn't get anything from copyright any more copyright is defunct. You can't argue 'But copying is *wrong*'. It's not. All that is wrong, and all that would make copying wrong, is if everyone in society has decided to take on this copyright burden, and a few people decided they would be freeloaders.
As it is, I think that time has come. Clearly people no longer thing there's anything to be gained from copyright. I'm inclined to agree. Once, it took a long time to copy a book, and if you 'published' something, copyright was your only protection from other people selling it. But as it is now, the moment you start selling a book, a CD or whatever, you can publish so many copies that there would be no point in others trying to sell the same thing. Once a book is on the store shelves, nobody is going to type up the whole book, lay it out, and print it - there just wouldn't be any point. The person that got their first would be such an advantage due to having a head-start that they'd make tons of money anyway...
The music industry losing money? Amazing how many albums are still going platinum, double platinum, etc. even with music pirating. Movies? Spider-Man made $114 million in it's first weekend. How much more will it make before it's done? But, oh wait, those movie studios are losing money.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I won't buy a harddisk where I am not in 100% control of what is on there, no way no how. I will never allow a company to buy it, as it more than likely will affect the business negativily (not being able to make proper backups, harddisks refusing to copy files, compiles going down the drain, servers fucking up).
The day I notice that I have bought a CD that I can't play in my computer or portable CD player I will go back and raise hell, I will refuse to ever buy that crap.
Why oh why do they have to punish people who want to buy quality versions of CDs/DVDs etc. Give me great quality and great price and I will buy, make me WANT to buy your products, give me a reason. Bullying me will piss me off. Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest you get pissed too.
This guy really knows how to avoid the /. effect.
- Pimp
I like computers, women and computers... in that order...
Also, the 2nd ammendment says each citizen has the right to own weapons to fight tyrannical governments, if necessary. In the 18th century this meant rifles, today we may need digital weapons as well.
"I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; If I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am responsible for everything I do."
(Robert Heinlein, "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", 1966)
I am not sure anyone could "bury" a general purpose architecture as the PC has become; no one piece "defines" it any longer, nor is irreplaceable, right?
I define a PC as a computing device with these qualities:
The irreplaceable part is a BIOS that will try to load any kernel you throw at it without complaining that the kernel is not signed by the hardware vendor. Otherwise, you merely have an embedded system.
Will I retire or break 10K?
is that you can't copy them. If I had a DVD player that could record video/audio it would become a useful technology. Until that time it's a HALFWAY good technology. If the computer gets crippled it becomes a HALFWAY good technology too.
Why the hell does anyone want to take an extreemly useful technology and limit it. It's like the ability to drive anywhere I want is a very usefull technology but if the governemt decided that automobile manufacturers had to put devices in the steering wheels to prevent people from turning left makes it a HALFWAY good technology.
HALFWAY ain't good enough for the car and it's not good enough for the DVD and it sure as hell isn't good enough for MY computer.
lunky> c++; lunky> do{;}
and all new hardware required, and implemented horrifically draconian anti-copy-anything protection which both took away the ability to copy for reasonable use, or took away nick the l337 h4X0r's ability to copy 'stuff', ancient second hand hardware, free hardware, is going to become rather desirable.
You're not the first to think of "pre-ban computers" along the lines of "pre-ban assault rifles." If you're interested in this line of thought, read more: Google pre-ban cbdtpa
Will I retire or break 10K?
The original item is dated November 2000. Intel announced their chipset for "secure monitors" somewhat before that. As far as I know, though, no monitors with that technology ever shipped as products.
Oh, I had thought it was the inability of the motion pictures industry to come up with original plots. Instead of paying more for better script writers, they chose to use more and more digital effects, whose cost is going down all the time, and just copying their own old scripts.
That's why they are always lobbying for extended copyright periods. For instance, ho would care to watch "Gladiator" (2000) if they could watch "The Fall of the Roman Empire" (1964) for free? By keeping the older films under their control, they can force new "digital fx" versions to the public.
I can spend the next 20 years banging away on my hand-built Athlon box running FreeBSD-4.4, and if I have to buy new parts, I'll import them from outside the US. Most of the shit's made in fuckin' Taiwan anyway.
Gilmore's main points:
1) The costs of copy protected systems aren't paid by the "content" holders -- they are paid for by consumers. Essentially, you will end up paying more for a less capable computer, while Disney laughs its way to the bank.
2) For a copy protected computer to work, every peripheral -- from monitors to speakers -- must have copy protection built in. Think you're having trouble getting your Wintel box to behave now? You ain't seen nothing yet.
3) This is all being decided by government, so that no rogue manufacturers can ship non-protected computers. If that weren't the case, Apple might skip imposing copy protection, and we'd see 75% of Wintel users buying Macs so that they could avoid copy protection.
Gilmore seems puzzled by the fact that Intel isn't telling the content companies to cram it. Obviously, Intel must think it's financially in their best interest to side with the content guys. Why they feel this way hasn't been answered.
It seems the pivotal question here is: will the Hollings bills require all manufacturers to build end-to-end protection throughout their computers and peripherals? If not, what degree of protection does the bill require?
A wrinkle in this that nobody has thought of. Suppose end-to-end encryption is required. Each company's protection would be a little different, as we're talking about hundreds of components from various vendors. It might turn out that Apple or AMD sort of messes up their encryption (oops!) -- and by that "mistake" captures 75% of the computer market. After all, would you rather own a machine with rock-solid protection, or one that has a huge chink in the armor?
I know I'd want to buy my computer from the supplier who was most competent at designing machines and least competent at providing 100% protection of content.
Want to start a successful computer company? Just hire designers who don't know or care about ensuring robust protection.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
it was there to protect ideas so others would innovate
That's why the Constitution only grants those rights to Authors and Inventors. Thoday, the holders of copyrights and patents are, almost always, corporations.
Another distortion of the basic idea came when they started granting copyrights to people who performed the works. Actors are not authors, singers are not authors. They are just doing a job, and should be paid - just once - for doing it, like all other workers. Why should Britney Spears or any other singer be paid millions for singing a song that someone else, probably a 9-to-5 office worker, wrote?
If the intent of the Constitution were to be applied, only people who wrote something, be it books, plays, screen scripts, music, watever, would be entitled to own copyrights.
don't be such a pessimist! just spread the word and fight the good fight ;)
Lock him in a cage until he is no longer addicted.
Why are people switching from old videotape to DVD? It's the addons - no degredation of quality over time, extra interviews, a smaller disc, you can play a DVD on your computer, or whatever else it is that Joe Consumer happens to like. Laserdiscs didn't have as nice a "feature set" as DVDs, and we can see how few people actually have laserdisc players...
If the content industry wants people to use rights-management hardware, they have to make the hardware desirable (or pass a law banning everything else...). And if they don't make the hardware SIGNIFICANTLY better than the stuff we all have already - our boxes, our DVD players, etc., then the market is going to drop "rights management" like a hot potato.
And if the content industry actually DOES create a better product, and gets the market, I say more power to them! Then, and only then, are they actually working in a capitalist economy. But I don't see that kind of creativity on the part of the content industry, or whoever else wants "digital rights management."
A witty [sig] proves nothing. --Voltaire
Want to start a successful computer company? Just hire designers who don't know or care about ensuring robust protection.
In other words, you are saying that Microsoft products will dominate the software market if the Hollings bill passes?
I'm reminded of the Apex DVD player in which the engineers "forgot" to remove the "loopholes" menu which enabled switching NTSC/PAL, setting region, and disabling Macrovision. I immediately bought one.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
Spare me the crap. Since when are the media businesses failing? I have yet to see a major media outlet come remotely close to bankruptcy _ever_.
Piracy as a term is a joke anyway. There are numerous reasons why it's good.
1. Try before you buy.
2. Equalization of overpricing.
3. And most importantly, free movement of expressions and ideas, the way things should be.
The society in which we live that is, in effect, fairly unchangable by any one person, needs to change. We can not possibly hope to better ourselves as a species while we're squabling over our paychecks.
A money-less society is of course utopian but if we can't go all the way lets at least try to make it some of the way. I'm not saying the people that create music and movies and other forms of entertainment shouldn't be compensated. I'm saying they shouldn't be grossly compensated, as a majority of them are.
And it's only common sense that the industry middlemen are jokes in suits. To those people: stop leeching off of other people's talent and whining when you don't have enough cash to buy that island you want.
To those people that their rebuttal will be: "Stop pirating! You're the leech". I find that comment silly, I profit in no way from any piracy. I may not have to pay exorbitant amounts of money to have the artists' (and in some instances, others' like the government) make an impression on me and keeping me from being bored for an hour or two. But face it, if you do pay the outrageous prices they ask, you're part of the problem.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
I hope this bill gets passed. The REAL upshot of it will be that peeps outside of the US will buy equipment from Asia & the EU (that will circumvent copy protection messures) and avoid US manufacturers altogether. And many within the US will import and still keep rippin and warezin.
As it is the USA has garnered a lot of bad feeling interneationally since Bush came to power, and I for one am sick of the USA attempting to thrust its legislation down my throught. Dont get me wrong - America is a great country with many fine people - but your politics SUCK!!
Go ahead, do it - see if the rest of the world gives a shit as the US economy goes into a nose dive!!
Scope
This document sets forth requirements to be imposed on certain products that receive unencrypted digital terrestrial broadcast content to protect such content against unauthorized redistribution [outside of the home or personal digital network environment].2 The document assumes that the requirements will apply in the United States, although it is anticipated that the requirements could be modified, as necessary, for use in other jurisdictions.
Got that? The conspiracy knows that it's going to have to extra-territorialize if its going to acheive its ends, and it's rarin' to go.
I don't agree with piracy (and I think the whole Napster thing was a bigger SETBACK than anyone realizes). BUT, no system is perfect. There are losses and inefficiencies involved in any kind of market conduit, and the digital realm is no exception. That having been said, I think there's a difference between taking measures to minimize piracy, and extracting every possible nickel and dime from your revenue nodes (formerly known as customers). The proposed methods are particularly insidious, because they shackle the vast majority of those who are honest. This has already become more trouble than it's worth for me (which is why I don't buy, rent, or steal CDs, videos, or DVDs), and with any luck, mor people will begin to see the light. There IS life on the other side.
This one IS appropriate for the YRO section. You should have the right to buy any computer, with or without copy protection in hardware. Of course, this is not a right that's very well protected by the Constitution.
... one with virtually no rights and few liberties, and one we are now going to be very hard pressed to change.
It is a right very well protected by the constitution. Any powers not explicitly granted the federal government by the constitution are reserved for the states, for municipalities, or for the people (10th amendment).
The Federal government has been granted no explicit authority by the constitution to regulate the sale or construction of computers.
The problem is that the government hasn't been abiding by the constitution for at least 70 years now, so we really can't expect it to start now.
Instead, for the sake of expediency over constitutional law, the courts routinely misuse the so-called commerce clause to extend the federal government's powers into all kinds of areas it is constitutionally barred from, but are nevertheless popular with the people to regulate anyway (War on Drugs, Child Pornography, etc.). By diluting the power of the constitution with these causes, irrespective of their legitemacy, we are now in a situation where real social and political pressures are coming to bear on our way of government (the Copyright Cartels' attacks on our most basic freedoms, the War on Terrorism and many of the unconstitutional methods being used to wage it domestically, not to mention the recent election debacle), and we no longer have a strong constitutional foundation to fall back on.
We sold it cheap in the name of "the children" to wage our War on Drugs, our War On Pedophiles, now our War on Terrorism and, comming soon to a computer near you, Our War On Copyright Violators.
The future is no longer terribly bright. Indeed, by selling out our most fundamental values for a perceived short term societal gain (who wouldn't want child pornographers jailed?) we've now insured that the future is a dark, bleak, ugly place
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Shoot him.
Yup.
Gilmore seems puzzled by the fact that Intel isn't telling the content companies to cram it. Obviously, Intel must think it's financially in their best interest to side with the content guys. Why they feel this way hasn't been answered.
Seems clear to me. Intel wants to voluntarily add content control mechanisms into its hardware before the government forces them to do it - on the government's terms.
if cars are made so they don't exceed the speed limit. We can just blame it on the speeders.
Evil is the money of root.
The pirates aren't getting what they deserve. They're still finding ways around the copy protection. The honest consumers are the ones getting the shaft.
Why yes I am paranoid! Thanks for asking!
He was making a joke, geddit? laugh.
Actually, the whole Napster thing woke me up to how sleazy the entertainment industry is. The debates surrounding the issue of Napster were also formative in my understanding of intellectual property and how it is a fundamentally wrong concept that's against human nature and harmful to vertical mobility and society in general. Before Napster, I sympathized with the RIAA's position. Now, I see them for the anti free marketers they are. I'll never buy a CD or DVD while the proceeds of the sale is being used to lobby my freedom away. So, at least in my case, the Napster debacle served a usefull purpose.
Historically, one of the easiest and most powerful ways of really changing things is to find new land and just start from scratch. I hereby proclaim that we must start a new republic on mars, with a new set of values.
This raises only one question in my mind:
What would it take to deny Hollings the democratic nomination in his next election bid? This is really the only way to stop him (others of his ilk will respond when they see him die a thousand deaths).
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
The 'content' companies like Disney etc. are trying to use legislation and technology to stop progress and allow them to keep making profits. This is such a short sighted view.
As a (hypothetical) example, take music CDs. A new CD costs £15 over here, and before I buy it I can hear maybe one song off it on the radio if I'm lucky. That's a big investment for something I might only listen to once. So I don't buy many CDs, and I rip oggs of other peoples' music.
But what if the music companies offered different versions of CDs? A cheap one, with just a paper sleeve and the name on the front for a three or four pounds, and a 'premium' edition with extras, proper case, lyric sheet etc at full price?
The fans will buy the full price disc anyway, and everyone else will buy the cheap one. Thus, more sales, less copying(why bother copying when you it doesn't cost you much to get a proper copy?). Greater listening audience means more fans in the future, leads to more sales of the premium version.
I get the music I want without breaking the law, the music industry gets to make its profits still. Everyone is happy. Or is this a dangerous communist anti-american view that will have FBI agents trying to get me extradited?
or maybe calling them dumb isn't fair. Rather, the average consumer does not know, or care, and may never even discover that their new piece of equipment has any such hardware copy protection. At best, they might try to copy a movie from a DVD to a VCR, find that they cannot, shrug and give up.
It is the same with Macrovision. Really, how many consumers will ask "will this one defeat Macrovision?" before buying a VCR?
That's what the hardware companies may be counting on. I know I would...
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
if I can see it or hear it then I will have it in a form that is not controlled by them. They cant stop it and they never will short of creating laws that have the death penalty attached to it. Even then I dont see it stopping. Documents,movies,video,music,audio,art. it will exist in open and unrestricted forms in greater numbers and shared rampantly no matter what they do or what they try.
Why? because the general populace will never be stupid enough to believe that when they buy a CD or DVD they didn't buy anything but are only holding a delicate license to view it a limited number of times until the morther company wants to revoke it for any reason. The general public wont put up with it... and we dont.. looking at how "protected cd's" get ripped and on Gnutella,kazza,opennap,etc... minutes after release is proof enough.
Hey Movie companies, recording companies, writers, actors, musicians.. Thanks for the entertainment, but try and tell me how to enjoy it? then you can go straight to hell and
It's time we all stand up and collectivally flip off anyone that is for content control.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
What would it take to deny Hollings the democratic nomination in his next election bid? This is really the only way to stop him (others of his ilk will respond when they see him die a thousand deaths).
Well.. The tech crowd is a small, but vocal minority. What we see and know as an incursion on our rights and freedoms, others see it as an attempt to thwart "hackers", etc. The media certianly is partly to blame for this.
...such as property rights. They are by no means a natural or moral right, but exists by the grace of a mandate from the public. As soon as that mandate is gone, everyone is free to go and steal their neighbour's car. What bollocks.
Clearly people no longer thing there's anything to be gained from copyright. Is it really that clear? I never hear anyone complaining about copyrights, except on warez boards and here on Slashdot.
But as it is now, the moment you start selling a book, a CD or whatever, you can publish so many copies that there would be no point in others trying to sell the same thing. You have it backwards. Copyright might have been useless in the past, where copying books, movies and CD's was time consuming, expensive, and lossy. These days, copying almost anything can be done fast, without significant loss of quality, and almost for free.
Think for a minute. Without copyright, Joe Schoe could legally copy a movie for a friend, and W4r3z D00d could legally put up a new bestseller up on his site for downloading. Nothing serious? Without copyright, anyone can legally copy that computer game, that you spent 2 years writing, and that you have invested your live savings into for marketing and production. They would be allowed to copy it, and even sell the copies legally. At zero development costs, and their cost for copying being next to nothing, they will be able to undercut your prices anytime. And they can do it the day you release your game into the market. Where do you think that would leave content developers?
We should fight to maintain our rights of fair use, the right to own at least our copy of the copyrighted work (rather than having to pay per use), and to do as we please with that copy. The wish of businesses and private persons to protect their works and enforce copyright laws is a legitimate one, but we should not let our rights be curtailed. However, we still need copyright, people.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Intel has consistantly FOUGHT digital content mgmt from CEO on down (See recent Business 2.0 article asking Is this Man (Andy Grove) is Pirate )
AMD has said nothing on this and argued on Microsoft's side in antitrust court - and MS is very intent on installing in content mgmt. Wake up.
Even if people all use "approved" monitors and computers, they will be using them to view "free content" (free as in free speech, not free beer).
One of the nasty features of this sort of hardware "rights protection" is likely to be the tagging of any content WITHOUT DRM as "pirated". This is because the media companies know that no encryption scheme is crack-proof, and if they can't prevent cracking, they have to instead prevent anyone playing the cracked content. This has the added benefit of crushing smaller indy content producers who don't have the $$ or desire to use DRM. Surprise! Your "free content", distributed without DRM technology, won't play. Too bad, go rent "Men in Black III" instead.
Freedom: "I won't!"
1/If I had the choice to continue to designa dn build an architecture I'd invested billions maybe trillions in i'd want to protect it and not re-design it from scratch.
2/It will const INTEL shed loads $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ to implement
3/ intel will loose backwards compatability!! their mainstay of the x86 architecture so far.
4/ what happens when another company make s a more powerful processor that will be illegal to import; a foreign military gets it and we can't legaly make anything to rival it??
5/ Yey the NSA computers unless they can't run any security software won'y be able to check our private stuff. but they wont be able to read terrorist E-mails either.
6/ will I be able to bring my ARM laptop into the states because the processor does not have digital media protection on it?
Will an intel chip with protection work in Europe as we may not have protection enableled
7/ we already know the world can't settle on standards (or ignore Ip and ATM) DAB NTSC PAL etc etc. so will we have to have different processor ranges for each country? America left with Intel rest of the world AMD ?!?!?!
8/ will the sight on a M1 MBT work outside America
9/ FPGA companies will love it!!!
10/ And now we start wondering why cinema tickets are so expensive if they can pay intel to dewsign 8 processors in paralell which are identical except for 1% of the hardware.
11/ how long untill we can try adn unlock these devices I love the SDMI challenge
12/ at least open source hardware will take off!!
13/ I thougt politicians were supposed to serve teh best interest of thier constituents not their pockets!!!!!
14/ introdece an amendment wherby politicians can be held accountable to the death penalty for not representing the interests of those they "Represent"
I just read the BPDG draft specification. In my opinion, it is not that bad.
The BPDG would regulate digital television receivers. It would not regulate computers. It would not regulate speakers. It would regulate only devices capable of receiving digital television broadcasts.
The BPDG would not prohibit digital television receivers from having external outputs. It would just limit the outputs to being either analog outputs, or digital outputs with a maximum of 720x480 resolution with 48kHz audio.
I have heard that Hollings has a history of proposing draconian legislation (i.e. CBDTPA) in order to force compromises (i.e. BPDG). If Hollywood considers the BPDG an appropriate compromise, I say we give it to them. Of course, we should demand something in return. The CBDTPA would have to be killed, and legislation enacted to ensure that such a beast never darkens our doorstep again.
There will be laws to make Copy Restricted Hardware/Software restrictions forced on all manufacturers. And Children will certainly be some of those who break those laws so new prisons will have to be created. Something for the smaller human and younger mind. I call them Disney Prisons. Or Disney Pens (think Play-pen Something with bars on it). Every year it gets easier to find a reason to throw a child or juvenile in prison or charge them as an adult. I assume the guards will wear little mouse ears since they most likely will be required to teach the little offenders the rights and wrongs of copy infringement which will be material authored by Disney Studios. Graduate, promise to rat on your friends and get your own ears. And hey it will be good for the building business. They get to build more buildings (i mean prisons). Laugh now. Remember my words a few years from now.
The ironic thing is that none of these measures will prevent piracy. If anything, they will anger previously law-abiding citizens to the point where they will purchase pirated copies of things that they would otherwise have purchased legitimately.
BTW, if you want to talk about years of losing money to users pirating games, music, videos, and anything else that can possibly be pirated you might talk to the artists, authers, composers and performers about auditing practises at these poor suffering corporations. They have been cheating on royalties for years and using various illegal strongarm tactics. They are the last companies on Earth that have any moral claim to our sympathy.
Annandale pledge:
I wasn't surprised to see racists getting appalling numbers of votes in Austrai and France, because those countries have racists histories. But the sickness seems to have spread to countries that used to be thought of as libersl.
Yes, the MPAA and the RIAA bought the Congress in order to get the DMCA (ptui!) passed. But you guys seem to be on the verge of passing your own version, which looks to be every bit as oppressive.
I have no problem with writing a check to an anti-hollings PAC. But what about Boxer, Feinstein and the others? I'd be willing to contribute to money to whoever is running against any or all of them in the next primary. Depending on the opponents, I'd be willing to contribute money to help defeat them in the general elections.
Any other ways to subvert genuine free enterprise/capitalism where the
consumer interest are most important?
I'm sure those promoting such lessor value for more money are doing so
in a manner that is like addictive drugs. That it includes some sort of
self supportive dependancy.
Where the specific creation of a problem when one does not really exist,
supports and feeds the problems existance.
I.E. the catholic church very long running problem with sex, on one side
denying the natural human drive and on the other side suffering from
commiting sexual abuses. If they didn't make sex out to be so damn wrong,
they themselves wouldn't be so damn out of balance with nature in their
perversions to find that balance.
In the relative case of computer technology, GPL software doesn't seem to
have the sort of problems such an IP protection law would be relative to
or even needs to be considered.
What sort of unnatural imbalance would such laws cause, and what would be
the resulting counter balance?
The general purpose computer will go the way of the traction engine, in the end. I believe that the beige box will disappear into a wall appliance like the light switch, the TV will become the monitor, no one will be aware of it or want to be aware of it, except for a few hobbyists who like to write the odd program.
Microsoft - Where would you like to go today, Maybe Jail?
If every component of the computer is required to have a censor chip in it, then there is no chance. Manufacturers have a hard enough time complying with useful standards like ISA and PnP. There will always be manufacturers who don't comply and people will go buy their stuff.
Alternatively, if the CPU implements something to detect copy-protected content, then we'll just find new ways to process that content. There is no way that a general purpose CPU can be prevented from performing a particular task (given that the task can be coded in an infinite number of ways).
Prohibition didn't work in the past and it won't work now.
DROS - Open-Source Robot Software
"Once a book is on the store shelves, nobody is going to type up the whole book, lay it out, and print it - there just wouldn't be any point."
*cough* textbooks *cough*
The upshot is that if such measures really are built in, the general-purpose computer may not have long to live.
How the fuck is that an 'upshot'!?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Okay, let's assume this becomes U.S. law. Now, is the rest of world going
/billion/
to say: Hey, look at this new technology invented by the U.S. government
that will let U.S. industry control our computers and stereos and CD
players to protect the interests of giant U.S. media corporations. Wow!
What a fantastic idea! Let's adopt it!
I think not.
I don't see the Germans buying computers with U.S. mandated content control
chips for their parliament, or Sony putting in U.S. designed chips into the
CD players they sell in Tokyo, or the Russians forcing all tape decks off
their market that haven't been approved by some U.S. media consortium. The
idea that the U.S. can force the rest of the world to implement what will
be immediately seen as a U.S. designed and controlled crypto system into
every machine that blinks, beeps, or boots is so brain dead that you just
know it can only come from a member of the U.S. Congress.
This is the Clipper Chip all over again.
When it comes down to it, the rest of the planet doesn't give a rat's ass
if their citizens aren't cooperating when 20th Century Fox, Microsoft, or
AOL-Time-Warner try to make the next billion Dollars so that these
<I>American</I> companies can get richer, give that money to their <I>American</I>
stockholders and top <I>American</I> executives and maybe even pay <I>American</I>
taxes that help finance <I>American</I> infrastructure, or, to put it bluntly,
the <I>American</I> military machine. They'd rather see their citizens spend
their money on local bratwursts, sushi, or vodka: That way it gets fed back
into the local economy.
their citizens rip, copy, and burn anything out of America they possibly
can. If you are a Chinese CS student, you can either spend money on a
Windows license, which means that your Yuan would join those 40
Dollars that Microsoft is stockpiling to buy Iceland and turn the whole
place into a ski resort for their top executives. Or, you can pirate the
Windows CD, and spend that money on, say, a Chinese book on C programming
at your local Beijing book store and kick those running imperialist
pig-dogs with Red Flag Linux. China is interested in getting their economy
on an information age footage, and they need operating systems for that,
the less expensive, the better. Why should they want machines that prevent
that?
No, what will happen if that law is passed - and remember, we're talking
about the country blissfully that is ignoring the fact that the rest of the
world has basically adopted one common mobile phone standard (not to
mention the metric system), still transfers money by sending slips of paper
in the mail, and who live with a television standard that is aptly named NTSC
- Never The Same Color - is that those people in Taiwan and Korea will
happily produce hobbled computer, CD, radio, TV, DVD and other parts for
the U.S. market, while continuing to ship the free technology to the rest
of the world. Hey, it's a global economy with billions of people hungry
for computers, and only about 270 million Americans who's computer market
is saturated anyway. What would you do?
Now because Content Controlled America is getting specially made parts,
they immediately miss out on the price cutting effects of mass production.
In other words: Hardware and electronics prices in the U.S. skyrocket,
because the other 5.75 billion people on the planet are using the old,
free, trusted, mass produced hardware, while Americans effectively have to
have every chip custom built. What we have after a few years of this is a
/hardware fork/ - the U.S. goes off into one direction, the other countries
in the other.
In the mean time, U.S. customs has started rectal searches of all
long-haired males coming back from Paris, France to make sure they aren't
smuggling free RAM into the country. You can't buy a CD in Britain because
they won't run on your content controlled player - just like the DVD
regional codes, but for real. And your TV station doubles the number of ads
during the next Olympics because they had to pay for those signals to be
transfered into U.S. content controlled format...
Great idea, guys.
Hire M$ programmers?
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
Interested in AI? MACR
The only group to profit from such a scheme are equipment makers in Taiwan, Japan, China and Europe who are not bound to these bills. I bet in 2008 there will be a war on smuggling similar to the war on drugs being fought now.
:)
Ships sailing off Mexico with hidden compartments full of harddisks for the LA black market... Gibson's sprawl comes to mind.
Regards from Hong Kong, the city that might have a tech future after all
Oliver
Well, on the one hand, there's M$'s apparent eagerness to get into the anti-piracy club. Their patent on a DRM OS, the WinXP activation nonsense, etc.
On the other hand, there's their historic ineptitude in matters involving security.
So yeah. Microsoft will dominate the market. But get this: they will do so for the exact opposite reasons that they dominate the home PC market today. Right now, they own it because they have the most features and ease of use and this unfortunately results in poor security. Post-SSSCA, they'd have poor security fortunately resulting in the greatest allowance of features and ease of fair use.
Dyolf Knip
You are right.
You know, I find it very funny that the same people who bitch and moan about tactics and methods of Hollywood and co. actually finance such actions by buying more DVDs, CDs and seeing more movies!
If you want it to stop, stop buying that garbage! That's the only way to make a difference. Not by bringing up some age-old constitution which is not honoured by the legistrators who sold out decades ago.
You vote with your wallet. Remember that.
For a simple reason. A world where every digital-to-analog device contains strong encryption (to enforce copyright) is a world where any fanatic, terrorist or plain nut can use the same strong encryption for secure communications with his allies.
No way the goverment would go for this. In fact, I think this is the *only* reason it hasn't happened until now. We should be thankful for the NSA for fighting commercial encryption tooth and nail. They have given us at least a decade of encryption-free hardware.
If it weren't for them, companies would have taken notice of the potential of having encryption built into sound cards, digital TV sets, etc. Even into codecs such as MP3 (shudder). And people would have gone for it, because it would have been packaged together with the amazing improvement in quality offered through that decade.
What happened instead is that the commercial world is only now becoming aware of this, and is hampered by the huge installed base of unencrypted hardware and by the fact that (at least in audio) no significant improvement in quality can be offered to bait the hook.
That's why they are focusing on video, where there's no such installed base and the quality improvement is still possible.
Of course, it is as easy for a terrorist to send a video clip to his partner as it is to send a audio segment or a text file, so I'm counting on the NSA to block them there as well. If they manage to stall this for another decade, this whole issue would blow over and "content protection" would become completely irrelevant.
Who would have thought the the NSA would become *THE* champion of consumer rights, freedom, and privacy...
THANK YOU NSA! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!
I think that copy-protecting computers is a *very* bad idea, considering that they take functionality AWAY from the computer bought with your money. But, if someone "copy-protects" the computer, I'll be the first in line to download the crack to remove it. Better solution: Copy-protect Windows. That piece of crap needs a smaller support base anyway.
I hate those losers who can't come up with a decent sig. Oh, wait...
if we don't file share copyrighted video/music
content with anyone but ourself.
with yourself is fair use, with others is theft
even if it is from bastards like riaa.
if we don't come up with our own content control
system that protects fair use, they will do it for us.
geeks in denial hurt only themselves
Suppose I write a program to create 5 megabyte files full of random bits, and leave it running forever. What happens when the program writes a file which is exactly the same as a James Brown mp3? Did I violate anybody's copyright?
> Obviously, Intel must think it's financially in
> their best interest to side with the content
> guys. Why they feel this way hasn't been
> answered.
They probably hope to snag an exclusive license from the content providers.
I am not a consumer. I am a citizen. I both consume and produce goods, intellectual and otherwise.
If I am a consumer with my rights of authorship and fair use stolen from me, then so are you.
But no-one's complaining about not having to be a computer scientist to record TV shows so let them encrypt all they want in hardware.