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

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.

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

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: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.