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DRM Helmet

prostoalex writes "In his weblog on O'Reilly Network Gordon Mohr suggests the ultimate solution for the music and movie industry to plug that analog hole. The solution, of course, is a helmet with built-in Digital Rights Management system that would automatically "fog up" any time you lay your eyes on something that you haven't bought license for."

22 of 209 comments (clear)

  1. Zaphod spins in Douglas' grave by DrSkwid · · Score: 4, Funny

    hhgttg

    Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
    Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

    er wtf.

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  2. Girls? by mr.+phantastik · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oh god..Not only do I have to smooth talk a girl into bed, but now I have to smooth talk her into selling me her liscence just so I can see what I'm doing..great.

    1. Re:Girls? by liquidsin · · Score: 3, Funny

      What if she's GPLed? Oh, you probably wouldn't want her anyways then...

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  3. An even better solution... by Skweetis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If we take this piracy/drm/et al mess to its logical conclusion, the only foolproof solution is for the distributors to stop distributing content altogether.

    1. Re:An even better solution... by konstant · · Score: 5, Insightful
      If we take this piracy/drm/et al mess to its logical conclusion, the only foolproof solution is for the distributors to stop distributing content altogether.

      That's an excellent idea. The global populace can simply pay them a daily retainer levied as a tax. In return the "content" companies will ensure that our musical and literary heritage is well protected in a vault beneath the hills of Hollywood, far from the prying ears and eyes of those who would remember this precious intellectual property and be inspired by it to create "derivative works" without a license.

      After all, the functioning work in "intellectual property" is "property". And a property holder is certain within its rights to hoard its belongings.

      The fact that this scenario is so ludicrous demonstrates that even if all music and literature can be the "property" of a single corporate entity or trust which I doubt then society has every right to claim access to that "property" as a central part of its culture.

      A clear case of eminent domain!

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    2. Re:An even better solution... by drsoran · · Score: 3, Interesting

      After all, the functioning work in "intellectual property" is "property". And a property holder is certain within its rights to hoard its belongings.

      That reminds me of Corbis. Bill Gates and this organization are hoarding thousands of priceless historical photographs and keeping them locked up away from prying eyes. Hey, if you're lucky you can get a copy of one of the photographs they deem interesting with a nice big old CORBIS watermark all over it. The others that they don't deem interesting? Well, you wouldn't want to see those so we'll keep those in the vault. It isn't so much that someone wants to get credit and payment for their work, but this kind of thing takes it to the extreme. Most of that archive should be in a public museum not locked away where only billionaire playboys can access them. It's our heritage and our history!

    3. Re:An even better solution... by Saint+Nobody · · Score: 3, Informative

      record companies are the same way:

      them: your album isn't selling well enough, so you're fired, and your album is being deleted from our catalog.
      you: but it's critically acclaimed, and we have a growing cult following!
      them: but if we hire a group of dancing monkeys and dress them up like 30-year olds pretending to be teenagers, we'll sell millions.
      you: fine, i'll take my album elsewhere.
      them: no you won't. we're holding onto it in case you become popular on another label.
      you: but it's my album.
      them: no it's not. check your contract and then fuck off.

      sometimes they even refuse to release an album but won't let the artist have the masters. buncha pricks.

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    4. Re:An even better solution... by jdcook · · Score: 5, Informative
      "Bill Gates and this organization are hoarding thousands of priceless historical photographs and keeping them locked up away from prying eyes."

      That is such garbage (or a pretty good troll). Bill purchased the Bettman Archive, true. But Corbis has preserved the collection through custom storage at the Iron Mountain facility. The collection was literally disintegrating at it's former home. They've also made more than twice as many (so far) images available as were ever available previously. (And only a few hundred prints account for over 70% of the requested images. People keep asking for the same things.) They are digitizing the collection but it's a huge task. And if you don't want the watermark, buy the print! It's that simple. Access to the archive is not as open as it once was. But if it hadn't been moved to Iron Mountain, it would be lost forever. The low temperature and correct humidity of Iron Mountain will preserve the collection indefinitely so that more and more of it can be known.

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  4. Re:Plugging the analog hole by alienmole · · Score: 3, Funny

    When I click on that link, my DRM helmet immediately fogs up. Could you please sell me a license??

  5. for gods sake!!!! by kevin+lyda · · Score: 5, Funny

    patent this!

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  6. fifth avenue by Triv · · Score: 3, Informative

    Interesting point - Most of the facades of the major buildings on New York's fifth avenue (or practically anywhere else in the city, really) are copyrighted - film producers go through days worth of paperwork just to make sure the nuilding their shooting ouside of isn't protected.

    What'd this helmet do to walking down the street? Would you have to buy the rights to your walk to work so you didn't get hurt, kinda like seatbelts Buy the rights - it's for your own protection?"

    I realise it's a stretch and that people walk down the street all the time, but if there's one thing we've learned about the copyright industry it's that it's real good at pulling fast ones.

    Triv

    1. Re:fifth avenue by peddrenth · · Score: 3, Informative

      "Most of the facades of the major buildings on New York's fifth avenue are copyrighted"

      Probably wouldn't help you in New York, but English copyight law says that incidental use doesn't matter. i.e. if you're interviewing someone in their office and a television's on in the background, nobody will care that you've "copied" the TV signal.

      Presumably this applies to building also. I suppose it explains why everybody does their filming in Canada, and why New York is getting screwed of possible income from filming.

  7. DRM helmets are outdated. by Jacco+de+Leeuw · · Score: 5, Funny

    Neurodongles are where the action is!

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  8. Doesn't go far enough by JordanH · · Score: 5, Funny
    Really, we need a helmet with brain probes that detect if licensed media is being consumed and debits your account on a metered basis.

    At the end of the consumption period, the probes could zap the memory of the experience from your mind to prevent illegal retention of copyrighted works.

    Whoops, better not give *AA any ideas.

  9. Unworkable as Designed by Bob9113 · · Score: 5, Funny

    This device is using default accept. Anyone who knows anything about security knows that default deny is the only way to be sure. If he really wants this helmet to ensure that the market continues to provide the economic incentive necessary for a healthy culture manufacturing industry, he'll have to modify it slightly. It should remain fogged and silenced unless it can verify that all photons and sound waves within visible and audible range have been licensed by the user.

  10. why stop at prevention? by trb · · Score: 5, Funny

    The DRM helmet could do much better than simply fogging up when a user tries to access unlicensed media. Prevention is a start. But how about punishment?

  11. /.ed by Aanallein · · Score: 3, Informative
    I'd think oreillynet could stand up to it, but I at least can't get through anymore...

    DRM Helmets: An Idea Whose Time Has Come by Gordon Mohr Jun. 7, 2002

    The CBDTPA could require billions of individual "digital media devices" -- every TV, stereo, speaker, PC, walkman, hard drive, monitor, and scanner -- to carry enforcement circuitry -- but there are only 300 million people in the country. Mathematically astute readers will note that's less than 600 million each of eyes and ears.

    Further, a single economical helmet can cover four of these analog holes at once!

    I humbly suggest the most cost-effective and reliable solution to the copyright industries' troubles will be DRM helmets, bolted onto each dutiful consumer at the neck. When these helmets sense watermarked audio or video within earshot/eyeshot, they check their local license manager and instantly "fog up" if payment has not been delivered.

    This will especially teach people not to use unauthorized copies of music while driving.

    By bolting a suitably-small DRM helmet onto people at an appropriately-early age, the citizenry's consumptive habits can be "arrested" (along with cranial volume) at a revenue-maximizing developmental stage. I'd guess this is around age 13, but I'm open to the latest research. Give and take is what policymaking is all about.

    So step up to the plate, senators, lobbyists, and titans of industry. Write this into the next rev of the CBDTPA. Why try to imperfectly plug billions of analog holes, when you can just cap the problem at far fewer endpoints? The end-to-end design principle is your friend!

    [Intellectual Property Disclosure: The "DRM Helmet" and the "Cranial Arrest Adolescent DRM Helmet" may be covered by patents granted or applied for by Gordon Mohr. Licensing will be available on unreasonable and discriminatory terms.]

    Gordon Mohr is the founder and Chief Technology Officer of Bitzi, a cooperative, universal metadata catalog for all kinds of discrete files. Gordon's personal page is at http://xavvy.com.

  12. Think of the Terrorist Uses! by The+Raven · · Score: 5, Funny

    With a device like this, if ubiquitous enough, malicious individuals could cause massive harm! Imagine projecting a ripped off copy of Episode 3 onto a plane runway... or taping playboy centerfolds next to stop signs and traffic lights. The carnage! The humanity!

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  13. You'll take one WITH commercials -- and like it. by nullard · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think that it would be more likely that anything you aren't licensed to see would be replaced by commercials. You go to your friend's house to watch a movie on her big screen TV and all you see is a series of Pepsi commercials.

    In version 2.0 it selects the advertisements based on your thought patterns. If you think about sex a lot, you see lots of ads featuring Trojan Man.

    Version 3 would take a different approach. It would alter your thought patterns to fit the available commercials. You don't think about homeowner's insurance? Now you do.

    I would be in favor of this system. It would be so costly to develop that the ??AA would go bankrupt before realizing that there is no technical solution for "DRM."

    I use "DRM" in quotes because it is more like DRI: Digital Rights Infringement. All of this DRM crap infringes on my digital rights.

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    t'nera semordnilap
  14. Re:point by GigsVT · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It has to be either accepted or taught in schools to children at an early age that these practices are not ok.

    In other words, brainwashing and indoctrination at a young age, to protect commercial interests... hmm where have I see that before... Oh yeah... that great work, that is now in the public domain, and I will quote large sections of here.

    INFANT NURSERIES. NEO-PAVLOVIAN CONDITIONING ROOMS, announced the notice board.

    The Director opened a door. They were in a large bare room, very bright and sunny; for the whole of the southern wall was a single window. Half a dozen nurses, trousered and jacketed in the regulation white viscose-linen uniform, their hair aseptically hidden under white caps, were engaged in setting out bowls of roses in a long row across the floor. Big bowls, packed tight with blossom. Thousands of petals, ripe-blown and silkily smooth, like the cheeks of innumerable little cherubs, but of cherubs, in that bright light, not exclusively pink and Aryan, but also luminously Chinese, also Mexican, also apoplectic with too much blowing of celestial trumpets, also pale as death, pale with the posthumous whiteness of marble.

    The nurses stiffened to attention as the D.H.C. came in.

    "Set out the books," he said curtly.

    In silence the nurses obeyed his command. Between the rose bowls the books were duly set out a row of nursery quartos opened invitingly each at some gaily coloured image of beast or fish or bird.

    "Now bring in the children."

    They hurried out of the room and returned in a minute or two, each pushing a kind of tall dumb-waiter laden, on all its four wire-netted shelves, with eight-month-old babies, all exactly alike (a Bokanovsky Group, it was evident) and all (since their caste was Delta) dressed in khaki.

    "Put them down on the floor."

    The infants were unloaded.

    "Now turn them so that they can see the flowers and books."

    Turned, the babies at once fell silent, then began to crawl towards those clusters of sleek colours, those shapes so gay and brilliant on the white pages. As they approached, the sun came out of a momentary eclipse behind a cloud. The roses flamed up as though with a sudden passion from within; a new and profound significance seemed to suffuse the shining pages of the books. From the ranks of the crawling babies came little squeals of excitement, gurgles and twitterings of pleasure.

    The Director rubbed his hands. "Excellent!" he said. "It might almost have been done on purpose."

    The swiftest crawlers were already at their goal. Small hands reached out uncertainly, touched, grasped, unpetaling the transfigured roses, crumpling the illuminated pages of the books. The Director waited until all were happily busy. Then, "Watch carefully," he said. And, lifting his hand, he gave the signal.

    The Head Nurse, who was standing by a switchboard at the other end of the room, pressed down a little lever.

    There was a violent explosion. Shriller and ever shriller, a siren shrieked. Alarm bells maddeningly sounded.

    The children started, screamed; their faces were distorted with terror.

    "And now," the Director shouted (for the noise was deafening), "now we proceed to rub in the lesson with a mild electric shock."

    He waved his hand again, and the Head Nurse pressed a second lever.

    The screaming of the babies suddenly changed its tone. There was something desperate, almost insane, about the sharp spasmodic yelps to which they now gave utterance. Their little bodies twitched and stiffened; their limbs moved jerkily as if to the tug of unseen wires.

    "We can electrify that whole strip of floor," bawled the Director in explanation. "But that's enough," he signalled to the nurse.

    The explosions ceased, the bells stopped ringing, the shriek of the siren died down from tone to tone into silence. The stiffly twitching bodies relaxed, and what had become the sob and yelp of infant maniacs broadened out once more into a normal howl of ordinary terror.

    "Offer them the flowers and the books again."

    The nurses obeyed; but at the approach of the roses, at the mere sight of those gaily- coloured images of pussy and cock-a-doodle-doo and baa-baa black sheep, the infants shrank away in horror, the volume of their howling suddenly increased.

    "Observe," said the Director triumphantly, "observe."

    http://somaweb.org/w/sub/Brave%20New%20World%20f ul ltext.html

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  15. Oh, god... by Snafoo · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm such a geek. I read the headline and thought, 'Kick ass! With the new Radeon 8500 drivers, a DRM-enabled helmet could really make XF86 4 a very cool gaming environment!

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    - undoware.ca
  16. Bluring is by sonofepson · · Score: 3, Interesting

    a waste of valuable space. The correct answer is to replace the offending view with targeted advertising!

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