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!!"

Comments

Just show up

[KrazyFool]

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.

National Medal of Technology

[pmsyyz]

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#1992

William 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.

Re:National Medal of Technology

[SwedishChef]

In 1992 Bill Gates deserved the medal. His vision of computing was much more coherant than the visions of other industry leaders of that time. Take into account some of these factors:

1. This was before the Internet. Sure, some people in universities and some large corporations had Internet access... but mostly it didn't exist. If we wanted to communicate we used bulletin boards (like FidoNet) and 300bps modems;

2. This was before Linux and in the infancy of the GPL;

3. Unix was fragmented into dozens of incompatible versions each of which was priced out of the reach of mortal users (over $1,000 for SCO Xenix, as an example);

4. Novell owned the small business network environment and charged over $1,000 for their operating system;

5. Virtually no one had any idea what email was or why they'd need it.

In this period of time Gates appeared to be leading us out of the wilderness of Big Computing Iron and giving us what we wanted (and needed). Who could have seen then the course MS would take in the years after this award?

Re:National Medal of Technology

[spitzak]

Are you on crack? In 1992 I personally had a NeXT cube and it was considered obsolete, it ran BSD Unix with the Mach kernel. I had a 14.4 modem. Email was in extremely common use, and AOL was used by tens of millions and the average idiot on the street knew pretty well what email was.

Bill Gates was a f**king lucky individual and if there was a slight change in history around about 1980 he would be here on SlashDot complaining bitterly about whoever did become the meglamanical monopolist. He did absolutly nothing that tens of thousands of other people could see as obvious ways to progress, and in fact made serious errors in judgement such as dismissing the internet and thinking information delivered on CD's such as encylopaedias was the future.

Also

[KrazyFool]

I would think sending an email to Public.Affairs@ta.doc.gov would work also.

From the document

[molrak]

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.

Remember: Write... And Be Polite!

[stuffman64]

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.

Show up in large numbers

[Jedi Creed]

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.

That's the big issue, isn't it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Protecting the artist's interest.

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. :) 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.

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. ;)

Re:That's the big issue, isn't it?

[e-gold]

Disclaimer: I have a crass-capitalist-commercial interest in convincing folks to do as I say below. (IMO, it's also better for the artists' interests, too, but I'm told that's debatable.)

In a perfect world, we'd just send artists money directly. All sorts. Musicians, authors, actors, CowboyNeal.. ...

I can't offer a perfect world, but I've repeatedly offered a way of sending money directly to artists. www.radsfans.net is an example and I suspect others will pop up soon.

If you look at the typical online tip (of whatever sort) you might get as a musician compared to what you'd end up with from a RIAA-member-pressed CD being sold, this might make financial sense. I wish I had a huge, silly dot com budget to promote the idea all over college campuses, but I don't, and the idea of paying for something -- even voluntarily, for something you like -- isn't as appealing as "free" (as in beer).

If anyone wants to try e-gold, send me an acct.# and I will click you a bit of it (not much, though). Hopefully, you'll find it useful. Perhaps the idea of musicians online getting tips right now will also help "our side" in the broader "DRM" issue, too. I hope so.
JMR

I speak only for Jim Ray, userid notwithstanding.

Completely Unnecessary

[ewhac]

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.

...Or, you could raise the speed limit.

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

DRM vs. Free Society

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Read The Notice of Public Workshop FIRST!

[PinkSchizoid]

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.".
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 /.) 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.
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!

not the first...

[kubla2000]

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/Summar y/0,1338,10020,FF.html

whose 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).

Here's The Comment I Just Sent

[mikeplokta]

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.

Re:Here's The Comment I Just Sent

[Zeinfeld]

My criterion for an acceptable DRM system is simple. It must be incapable of removing any rights from the end user.

That goal cannot be achieved technically for the same reason that DRM cannot be achieved technically. Information is policy neutral, the only means of attaching a policy to information is through secure hardware which does not exist in mass producable form (as the advocates of the Clipper chip discovered).

I have not yet written a submission, if I do it will probably be on the following lines:

1. DRM technology must be judged by its actual capabilities and not the claims made for it.
   At present DRM technologies are subject to a technical equivalent of Gresham's law, the bad schemes drive out the good. Nobody has a scheme that can provide for perfect security.
2. The purpose of security technology is to control risk, not eliminate it
3. Legislation should not be used to deprive consumers of use rights, in particular those that operate in restraint of trade
   The real purpose of the DVD zone scheme is to allow artificial price differentials between markets to be preserved. While this is repeatedly denied these denials are not credible.
4. The primary impact of any DRM enforcement mechanism is psychological.

Re:My Vote..

[Technician]

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!

Re:The General Public vs Stakeholders

[agentZ]

I live in the Washington DC area and am a computer crime investigator with one of the federal agencies based here. I also care a lot about this issue and will be attending this meeting. Given my credientials, I should be able to get in without being labeled as "one of those long-haired Linux freaks." (i.e. They might listen to me. Yes, sad as it is, law makers don't speak geek and don't believe anybody who isn't from "their" system.)

If I get the chance to speak at the meeting, I'm debating what I should say:

• As a federal agent, enforcing the laws on DRM would be impossibly hard. The bad guys are just going to break whatever system you put out there.
• As a law abiding, but busy guy, I like the convenience of downloading music on-line and putting it on my iPod when I go jogging (to stay in shape and help defend America from terrorists. Okay, that last part is implied, but it would curry favor with the types on this kind of panel.)
• Forcing everyone to use DRM will stifle innovation as it limits the uses of the music. JXL would never have been able to get an editable copy of Elvis Presley's "Little Less Conversation" to remix into the new cool tune he put out. (Yes, I know JXL went through all of the licensing hoops, but IMHO it's a good example of something that would be denied to ordinary people if DRM is universal.)

Does anybody else have any other ideas? I'm open to suggestions.

Re:My Vote..

[Technician]

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.

Move the debate away from "copying"

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

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...)