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Commerce Dep't to Hold Public Workshop on DRM
ttyp writes: "The United States Department of Commerce Technology Administration (TA) announced a public workshop on digital entertainment and rights management. They're taking public comments here according to the announcement, but they sure have hidden it well. Can anybody find the form? The deadline is July 11!!"
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Further information relevant to the substantive issues to be addressed by this workshop may be obtained from Chris Israel Deputy Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy, Technology Administration, (202) 482-5687. Limited seating will be available to members of the general public. It is recommended that persons wishing to become general public attendees arrive early, as seating will be first come, first served.
From http://www.ta.doc.gov/Medal/default.htm
The National Medal of Technology is the highest honor bestowed by the President of the United States to America's leading innovators.
Guess who won it in 1992?
http://www.ta.doc.gov/Medal/Recipients.htm#1992William H. Gates, III., Microsoft Corp.
For his early vision of universal computing at home and in the office; for his technical and business management skills in creating a world-wide technology company; and for his contribution to the development of the personal computer industry.
Competition crushing monopolists sure promote innovation.
Phillip
I would think sending an email to Public.Affairs@ta.doc.gov would work also.
How many people who bitch here about DRM will actually send a comment?
From the doucment:
"Topics to be addressed at the workshop include:
[rtrif] The effectiveness of efforts to pursue technical standards or solutions that are designed to provide a more predictable and secure environment for digital transmission of copyright material;"
Let's see, so far the efforts that content providers have created to secure content include:
Macrovision - prevents authorized and unauthorized copying of video content, also adds signal detioration--status: hardware cracks exist, may be negated by content providers abandoning it due to its inability to do anything of value
CSS - DVD's digital protection--status: cracked by Norwegian linux users
SDMI - Watermaking/digital music protection--status: cracked by a professor, stalled in deployment by its creators
'secure' cds - prevents pcs from ripping cds, causes macs to expolode--status: cracked, felt tip marker
[rtrif] Major obstacles facing an open commercial exchange of digital content;
The industry itself seems to be the major obstacle.
[rtrif] What a future framework for success might entail;
A lessening of the current insane and ridicuously long copyright laws in the United States; abolition of the music industry in its current form
Or, value added content, or value priced content using a working protection scheme
[rtrif] Current consumer attitude towards online entertainment.
Gimme, gimme, gimme.
You're only as smart as your brain.
The worst thing any of us can do is flood them with comments like "DRM Sucks CowboyNeal's Dirty Toes" and the like. Be professional and curtious, and allow your concerns to be heard. Although I do not support any of today's proposed DRM technologies, I feel it is important to protect the artist's (as opposed to the profit-hungry record company's) interest.
Whatever your stance is, however, Be Sure to Write! Someone probably will read your comment and take it into consideration, as long as you are professional about it. Now that we have the opportunity to be heard, be sure that we are.
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
Having more people show up would be a good way to show that many people really do care about these issues. Even if only some of them are allowed into the session, the masses quietly waiting outside will make a statement.
Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. - Yoda
Protecting the artist's interest.
:) But even there, though most movie stars get a good deal in terms of pay, unless you're one of the 'top celebs', you probably aren't getting paid enough.
;)
In a perfect world, we'd just send artists money directly. All sorts. Musicians, authors, actors, CowboyNeal.. Remember, DRM isn't just about the music industry, though they'll be the biggest proponent behind it. I don't think the publishing and movie industry are that worried about being 'hard hit' by piracy, at least not like the RIAA. Publishers have had to deal with libraries, and box offices have had to deal with Blockbuster.
But they'll be looking into DRM as more authors are willing to risk the snickers of their collegues and start to publish online, and *if* broad pipes ever become a reality to home users, Dreamworks and friends will start looking at distribution of movies over the 'net.
Now, back to artists. Bands get squat from cd sales, and unless they're top 40, they don't even get much advertising from the bloodthirsty corps. Authors? As any good author can tell you, unless you're a marketing gimmick, or have been around for years, you'd best have a day job. Movies, well, there's one thing they've got going for them - a home theatre will never equal a *real* theatre.
Sucks, doesn't it? But think about this: With DRM, we ensure artists get *something*, even if it is a nickel. Without it, there's a much better chance they'll get screwed totally. One can argue that a person who steals (Not pirate. I don't see anyone with eyepatches, damnit!), wouldn't pay for such content anyway, but I'll not argue that anyway.
Why? Because, DRM is coming. We can fight gloriously and lose, or we can cut our losses and give them input on how it should work. Don't let the bloody warcries on the death of the RIAA/MPAA/etc. dissuade you from tossing these guys some input. It could very well make life much more bearable until we do finally get rid of them.
Great. Once again our "elected" officials are fellating the monied interests and giving them exactly what they want, regardless of whether or not it's actually necessary. And I can think of few things less necessary that government-mandated copy protection.
I can't begin to describe how infuriating it is to sit and watch this happen. Every time there's an "open" discussion of the issues surrounding digital copying. there is always an unstated assumption that it is something that must be stopped/controlled/regulated/quashed, and how best that can be accomplished. The very idea that, "The Sky Is Not, In Fact, Falling," is never brought up.
Let us be clear: Everyone agrees that artists should be rewarded for their good work. The dissent centers around whether copyright is any longer the best way to provide that reward. I contend that it isn't. First off, it doesn't scale. When there are only a handful of people with a printing press, it is reasonable to expect them to be cognizant of each other's "property" and avoid infringement. However, every computer is the equivalent of a printing press. With hundreds of millions of presses out there, all turning out copyrighted works (by the Berne Convention, everything is copyrighted upon creation), it is mathematically impossible to be aware of and avoid infringement of every other article.
Second, these legislative initiatives are being pushed because the respective industries claim to be losing money to unsanctioned copying (incorrectly referred to as "piracy"). However, these figures are complete fabrications, since they are attempts to measure events that never happened. No independent study of the effects of unsanctioned copying has ever been done. Heck, the industry's own claims have never been subjected to even the most rudimentary critical analysis. And yet these "reports" are being taken as gospel. The story is being repeated so many times, people are starting to believe it's true.
Third, the idea that solution is to "clamp down" is, at best, extremely suspect. Consider the dawn of the automobile, when society had known nothing but the horse and buggy. Automobiles were loud, smelly, and moved far more quickly than their organic counterparts. It is easy to see how the initial reaction would be to "clamp down" on automobiles: To pass laws prohibiting them from travelling faster than 30 miles/hour (somewhat below the top speed of a horse); to mandate that engines have governors to physically prevent them from going faster than 30 MPH; to require radio tamper switches to report if anyone attempts to defeat the governor; and to authorize and provide for police on every street corner to monitor the speed of automobiles, and incarcerate anyone caught exceeding the established limit. Though some would claim it impossible, you could, in fact, incur the financial and social costs and make such a system work.
One of those solutions is much less costly and much less destructive to the social fabric we've struggled to create and grown to enjoy.
We now find ourselves at a similar crossroads, where a new technology is upsetting the old order. "Solutions" are being discussed. And the idea of raising the speed limit is being assiduously kept off the agenda. One is forced to wonder why.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Ok, so this is going to be a series of moderated meetings between the Commerce Dept. and the "stakeholders". Why do I suspect the only stakeholders included will be the **aa's? I call bullshit.
Who can represent us? There has to be someone the Commerce Dept. rates as a "stakeholder" that doesn't work for Disney. EFF?
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
I think that the issue of DRM falls into a much larger debate about society in general. If we can prevent people from breaking the law, should we do it ? This question will become very relevant in the near future, as techologies are inevitably developed which can remove peoples' ability to break the law (be it copyright law or something else).
I believe that it is fundamental aspect of a free society that people can break laws as they see fit and suffer the consequences. After all, this is one of the few remaining options for ordinary people to overturn "bad" laws. Wherever our ability to break the law is removed we will have transfered absolute, nearly unaccountable power to the people and organizations who write the laws. This is particularly disturbing when the people behind such schemes are not even elected, ie: Microsoft and Palladium.
Most slashdot readers probably understand the importance of this principle to democracy, but I wonder how many lawmakers do. We should bring this to their attention, because although we will likely win the war over DRM, there will be numerous other techologies of a similiar nature appearing on the horizon shortly.
As stated, this is strictly a meeting for "relevant stakeholders" in the industry. It is relevant only as pertains to the economy of the United States. The notice does however devote one line to consumers stating (in part): "the proper role for the Government in facilitating solutions that are best for innovation and best for consumers.". /.) is just who is going to dictate what goes where and by what method, and how it will change what you and I call the net.
Strictly speaking, the primary goal of both is to substantially change some fundamental underpinnings of how data is transferred from point A to point B and perhaps back. The problem (as has been discussed to death here on
Many of us are a bit paranoid about it as well we should be. The term "Digital Revolution" may even conjure up a new meaning for a few of us if this keeps up. Please comment in person, in writing, or via email to anybody and everybody you can concerning this because OUR GOVERNMENT HAS SOLD US OUT! It's as simple as that. They even put it in writing. It's a done deal and anyone who thinks differently should really look at what's been happening.
Same old story. It's been gathering steam for quite a while and now it may be rolling too fast to stop.
Secure, Broadband, Economy? Hmmm, sort of sounds like something my t.v. cable company should be scheming with, not the Feds and certainly not in collusion with what they blatantly refer to as the major stakeholders. I don't want to say too much here as it may get misconstrued as a threat to national security (chuckle...), but this is utter bullshit. In theory, you can get your voice heard if you contact your Government representative. Beyond that this may require a MOVEMENT, a SIT-IN, a DEMONSTRATION, or something perhaps even more substantial.
IMHO, we will all see the internet become a place where even the most trivial activity will eventually be monitored, archived, and we will all be operating under an OS with the Federal seal of approval. This is not a good thing.
I specifically said we will all see this happen as it will not take too long in the making if nothing is done to put it in check.
I'm Mad As Hell and I'm Not Going To Take It Anymore!
This is not the first such workshop that has been held.
The previous was held on December 17, 2001: http://www.ta.doc.gov/PRel/MA011214.htm
Participants included all the usual suspects including the MPAA, RIAA, Microsoft, and Intel
Interestingly, one of the participants was Forrester Research who, in their public archives which unfortunatly only has summaries available, include several reports such as:
http://www.forrester.com/ER/Research/Report/Summawhose summaries with punch line conclusions like "Media companies turn into eBusiness network" alone would have been enough to curl the nose hairs of any movie / recording industry executive still stuck in the 90s (1990s that is).
My criterion for an acceptable DRM system is simple. It must be incapable of removing any rights from the end user. Where any form of copying or other use is legally permissible without the consent of the copyright holder, such as redistributing extracts as part of a criticism or comment, making a copy for personal use on a different device, copying a broadcast for later viewing ("time-shifting"), viewing a work on a player in a different part of the world and so on, the copyright holder must be incapable of using the DRM system to prevent such copying.
If a technical solution to preserving "fair use" is not possible, a legal solution would be acceptable -- legislation would have to require that a copyright holder not use a DRM system in such a way as to prevent fair use, and I suggest that the appropriate penalty for failure to comply would be for them to lose the copyright on the work concerned and have it placed in the public domain for all to copy and resell freely.
You will note that several existing DRM technologies, such as DVD region coding and Macrovision, fail to meet this criterion. This is a serious issue which I suggest you should address at the workshop.
I vote with my pocketbook. I was shopping for a new GPS. I found the Magellan Meridian line use the SD card instead of one of the cheaper more popular cards for map storage. I would like a GPS with removable media for easy changing between topographic and street maps, but I refuse to support that memory format. I refuse to buy products using secure media. This includes SD cards, MMC cards, and the Sony Memory stick. I don't need or want to support 6 diffrent styles of memory card. Products must meet my specifications or it's no sale. So far I only support Compact flash and Smart Media. I have no intention on increasing the spread of non-interchangable parts. When I upgrade my camera, I will drop the Smart Media format.
CD Recordable became popular because it was almost universaly interchangable. Sony MD is much less useful as they have a Data format and a Audio format that is not interchangable. I also voted against this format. I went CDRW in a CD/MP3 player instead. It was worth the wait. CD'r has left Sony MD's in the dust. Compact Flash can do the same thing to the SD card. Be sure to vote!
The truth shall set you free!
Where exactly is the form I need to respond to? I don't see anything on the second page linked that says "form here" and none of the random links I've clicked get me there. It's all well and good to be clever and say "see, they hid it", but let us know where it is so we can respond!
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Announce a workshop on the day before (what is for the people who would be most affected by the outcome of the workshop) a four day weekend to virtually guarantee that few, if any, people are going to hear about it or have the time to compose any meaningful input.
Frankly, I'm surprised they didn't publicly announce the workshop until July 12th.
This smacks of the ``let's sneak it through when they're not looking'' tactic that the mayor of Chicago and his political cronies pulled in Illinois when they pushed through a bill to authorize a major airport expansion on Christmas Eve because they knew that few people would catch on.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Maybe you should only support computer hardware that is built with common multi-sourced parts, like the 7400 series of TTL
You missed the point. The new stuff is a downgrade, not an upgrade. It's memory. For more than the price of a 128 MEG compact flash card, I can get a slower more expensive 64 MEG SD card. In a pinch I can't use the card in my camera because it's a diffrent format. Use the faster cheaper more flexible and compatible format in your product and you have a much better chance of selling me your product. The SD format is not making faster higher capacity memory cards. They are making slower cards at a higher price that do not support all common file formats and will not work in my USB card reader/writer. (which supports 3 of the six formats) In short it cost more, does less, works slower, and is not interchangable. Show me an upgrade in that. If you think that is an upgrade, I will love to sell you my external floppy drive from my old tandy M100. It's single sided, with 2 sectors per track. It will not work with 1.4 meg floppies. If interested in this secure storage solution, drop me a line. Buying a card that will not store an MP3 or JPEG but encodes it into something else is not useful for me. Check out the reviews of the 20 Gig Nomad MP3 Jukebox. Check out it's number one complaint. It takes way too long to upload MP3's into it because it supports DRM and changes the file format. Now if it would just be a USB data drive to the PC without the DRM junk, they could sell a bunch of them because they would be more useful and would be much faster. By not supporting odball formats at higher prices is to encourage manufactures to drop the pricey hard to sell stuff for faster more featured stuff at better prices. Think about it, would you like to upload your data using a common USB card reader/writer, or would you like to have to upload the stuff at 19.2K baud. Think about it next time you download your digital camera. (You have tried to download a RS 232 serial megapixel camera haven't you? I upgraded and gave my old camera away for free. No more 20 minute downloads per 8 MEG for me. Don't even consider a 64 Meg transfer in a slow serial format!)
Don't consider using anything with less capacity and slower speeds at higher prices.
That is why I am not considering those models of GPS. It uses a format I refuse to support for the reasons listed. May the format die a quick death. The sooner it dies, the sooner we can get faster higher capacity compact flash at cheaper prices. There is economy in scale. Fracturing the memory market into 6+ formats makes all the specialty items expensive. I want far away from the market fragmentation.
The truth shall set you free!
- The following content is owned by the Me Corporation (hereafter referred to as "Me").
- The content may not be redistributed without the handwritten consent of an officer of Me.
- By reading the content, the reader agrees to allow Me to remove any incompatible software on the reader's computer.
- The reader further agrees to allow Me to install any software Me deems necessary to ensure this ERLA is adhered to.
- The reader is hereby licensed to read the content a maximum of two times. A fee of $5 U.S. will be charged to each credit card number found on the reader's computer for each reading in excess of two.
- The reader agrees to hold harmless Me and its officers for any damages or unintended effects that result from Me's Digital Rights Management.
[reject] [ACCEPT]<ENCRYPTED CONTENT>
I respectfully submit that Digital Rights Management will enable corporations to exert inappropriate control over the consumer's rights and property, and that it will be abused in ways we can only imagine in the persuit of every last penny of profit.
</ENCRYPTED CONTENT>
As far as I can tell, MOST of the problems caused for consumers by DRM plans involve the **AA's focus on preventing "copying" (indeed, it's even called "COPYright")...despite the fact that the Fair Use doctrine seems to imply that COPYING is not the "cause" of a copyright violation - DISTRIBUTION is.
Theoretically, anything I have a legal right to access, I also have a legal "Fair Use" right to copy, translate, garble, "space shift" to other media, "time shift" to watch later [I assume rented media includes this right, up to the length of the rental agreement, after which I no longer have a right to KEEP a copy], and so on. Where the violation occurs is when I DISTRIBUTE these copies to people who don't have a right to them.
If the focus of DRM would move towards distribution rather than copying, I'd feel a lot less worried about what the **AA were buying from my government. (Not to say that I WANT some sort of monitor chip implanted in every ethernet card, but I would feel less constrained by that than the monitor chip getting in my way every time I try to make a copy for my own personal use...)
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
I'm sure implementing US laws on hardware shipped outside the US probably breaks a few trade agreements (not to mention it enforces US laws [legal or copyright] on other countries). How will this affect us (us being users outside the US)?
At a guess the US will claim that the trade agreements in question oblige the rest of the world to go along with this. If they manage to fool the rest of the world then this will get pushed everywhere in the name of "globalization" & "harmonization".
The US would likely try very hard for this interpretation. Since as most of hardware in question simply cannot be sourced from within the US, including systems utterly vital to government.
Just refuse to support the DRM versions of the cards. Simple enough.
Umm.. That is what I am doing. Check the specs on the SD card. It's a multimedia card that is slightly thicker with an added layer of SDMI protection. A multimedia card will fit into a SD card slot. The SD card is a Multimedia card with and extra layer of protection built in. It has handshaking encryption as an added layer. Magellan says zero, nada, zip about the ability of using a multimedia card in their GPS. I think it is because it refuses to work with less secure media that will fit the slot. Reading between the lines tells me they are using the card for the extra level of DRM features and that is why I am boycotting this beast. This feature of the device drives up the cost of the memory cards while reducing the speed and flexibility of the card and raising the price. My answer to this consumer unfriendly choice is NO THANKS! Would you buy CDR's at $5 each that formatted into a drive specific (by bios serial number) format? One that will only work on the PC that formatted it and your one camera/music player/GPS, etc.? Why buy a memory card with the same restriction? I wish to knock the wind out of this format and fast. It's consumer unfriendly at a severe performance and cost hit.
The truth shall set you free!
I was under the assumption they simply would not work in the GPS because the GPS would not write to unsecure media. Now the big why--- How can they encrypt a data stream and write it to memory faster than just writing to memory? How can they read and decrypt data with 2 way handshaking the data faster than just reading the data. How can they add a onboard processor to handle the DRM and use less precious battery power than just reading the memory. It is true the SD card has a couple extra pins over the multimedia card, but I think it's for the bidirectional handshaking. I think I am being lied to. I have found no speed and power requirement comparison between this format and any of the various formats and speeds of Compact Flash. Compact Flash cards are avaliable in several speeds for faster photography (less cycle time between shots) Show me the numbers!
After a little google research [google.com] I found that regular multimedia cards work. Another thread [google.com] states that MM cards are not as fast as SD cards and are not recommended
I checked your links. The first link does not state the specific GPS functions properly using a MMC, only that some products may work at slower speeds and left the question unanswered. The second link indicates the magellan does not work properly with a MMC. It randomly crashes. I think the speed issue is a PR ploy. I think it crashes because it does not DRM handshake. MMC is fast enough for digital photography but not fast enough for a vector map. Wanna bet when faster MMC cards come out, they also will have crashing problems? Compact Flash cards are avaliable in several speeds, how about fast MMC cards? Rememer MMC is also encumbered by DRM Features. SD cards have the level 2 of MMC and adds an encryption layer for level 3 SDMI rights management. Anybody have speed and power comparisons between CF and MMC? How about MMC and SD? I have seen the claims that SD is faster than MM cards. My car is faster than my kid on a bicycle. I haven't seen claims that SD is faster than CF or Smart Media cards. I want to compare it to the other fast media. Hmm somthing seems wrong here...... I think it is a ploy to have SD replace MMC as a SDMI memory device.
The truth shall set you free!
Here is some size and speeds of some of the compact flash cards. I'm still hunting for SD card data. Anybody think a MMC or SD card is an upgrade?o mpare/
t m
http://www.dpreview.com/articles/mediac
This link shows CF comparisons only at the slower speeds and is the first refrence I found comparing CF to other formats. It does show the SD running about 4X faster than the competion. It does not show the faster CF which is popular with photographers in the comparison.
http://www.asusemag.com.tw/latest/ch13/ch13-1.h
I would like to use the 512 Meg CF card for my maps instead of the 64 meg SD for my GPS.
I would like to upload to it via my USB card reader instad of at 9600 baud RS232.
The truth shall set you free!
Go here.