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Sneaking DRM Amendments Through the Back Door
SiChemist writes: "Senator Joseph Biden has revised the 'Anticounterfeiting Amendments of 2002' to make it a felony to bypass certain DRM technologies. The bill has very broad senate support and is expected to pass overwhelmingly. Call your congresscritter! ZDNET story is here."
Quick! Throw away all your markers!!
seriously tho, this is getting insane, soon you'll be forced to watermark your work, but inorder to watermark it you will be charged x amount of dollars, what would this do to the opensource community, expecially since opensource doesn't incorporate drm and I seriously doubt that it will be easy to come up with a standard to incorporate drm into linux without it being hacked to shreds.. We need to contact our senate, tell them this is a big no-no, and this really cound hurt innovation!!
~slak
"Every episode of "Seinfeld" is now available to download free (from commercials) to anyone with access to the Internet."
Those bastards!
The article gives the example of a garage band wanting to distribute their music via MP3 and having to fake a watermark to make it playable on certain MP3 players.
Suppose the RIAA actually got their act together with SDMI and forced hardware manufacturers to only allow SDMI-licensed material on their MP3 players (probably via more legislation knowing how the RIAA works). Now Garage Band #5 wants to distribute their songs, but they know they won't be able to be played if they aren't SDMI-licensed. Of course, doing this would cost a lot of $$$ (more than they can afford) but would be included in any standard record industry contract. So GB#5 now has three options:
1. Sign up with a major record label. Upside: Their MP3s can be played. Downside: They are now basically slaves to the RIAA.
2. "Fake" the licensing and distribute the MP3s on their own. Upside: Their MP3s can be played and they don't owe the RIAA money/songs. Downside: They can be arrested for illegally distributing their own music!
3. Forget about making music, split up the band, and do something else. Upside: They don't owe the RIAA anything and they stay out of jail. Downside: Another independent band squished by the RIAA.
If this passes, eventually it might be used by the RIAA (and other similar companies) to squash competition and independents.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
The biggest problem here is the mere use of the term consumer. I'd getting sick and tired of Congress Inc. forgetting that we are citizens first and consumers much later on down the list.
This again has the same reasons as many other outrageous
copy-right laws that are being danced around. People simply
dont understand the technological details, and blind anologies
are made for the common public.
Take for instance:
> Gray believes that forging a digital watermark or signature
> should be just as unlawful as forging a physical watermark
> or signature. "It's like taking a T-shirt that you've put a
> design on and then attaching a Disney hologram or the NBA
> championship hologram, distributing it, and giving people
> the impression that it's an authorized apparel item from the
> NBA or Disney," Gray says. "That's a deceptive practice that
> we have a long history of banning."
But this is such a misleading statement. Consider the case where
you buy an expensive MP3 player from microsoft which plays only
digitally water-marked mp3 files. On the offset it may look like
this law is prohibiting me from playing a pirated song. But look
deeply. What its prohibiting is me playing _any_ songs which are
not water-marked by the some governing body. Which means that if
I make my own music (however cacofonic it might be) I will not
be able to play it unless I get it certified from this governing
body.
In light of this, it becomes clear that not only they are stopping
piracy,with this law, they are also giving themself absolute control
over what content can be played by people (even privately) and what
should not. How easy would it be for me to certify my own "music"
(or noise) by these governing bodies? Obviously I have to stand in
line along with the other members of RIAA and pay the prices that they
set. This is extremely dangerous situation, since the misleading phrasing
of the bill makes it impossible for ordinary senetors to understand the
ramifications and hence we could expect a wide spread floor-banging approval.
The very fact that this bill is set for fast track, scares me more
becasuse they precisely didnt want the time for people to let the real
meaning sink in.
DO NOT PANIC
In order for these watermarks to have any effect, they need to convince or force hardmare manufacturers to make their hardware play only watermarked, approved media. They know this, and they are already actively trying to get the hardware manufacturers to do this. Without the requirement of a watermark to be present, i could simply strip the existing watermark out and play/redistribute as usual. I'm not creating a fake watermark and thus I am not breaking this law.
The result would be that older unwatermarked media you legally own, music produced by garage bands, and other legal but unwatermarked materials, will not play on a newer player that has DRM. This law makes it a felony to place fake or forged watermarks on such media, even if your sole intent is to allow the media to be played on newer DRM-enabled players.
This bill is a step towards forced DRM, and as such we should oppose it. The next step will be to require new hardware to support DRM.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That all depends on what you're trying to generate buzz for. If you're one of those same Big Media corporations trying harness the Internet to generate artificial buzz, then you're right.
However, if you're an independent creator who just throws his stuff out there for everyone to enjoy, with no obsessions about profit margins or ROI, then you're wrong. The buzz will happen all on it's own.
A perfect example is Sluggy Freelance. It does almost no appreciable advertising -- and certainly less than MegaTokyo or Penny Arcade -- yet it is arguably one of the most popular and longest running comics on the Web.
How did it happen? Strictly word of mouth.
I think the corporate-driven hyperconsumerism of the last few decades has perverted our fundamental notions of just how the free market is supposed to work. The Internet is simply restoring the universality and equality that we used to enjoy in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, when anyone could buy an old printing press and call themselves a newspaper.
However, the trade-off is that we're now facing some devastating economic contraction. The dot.com bust, the slump in the media and advertising industries, the current financial scandals... they're all just symptoms of a larger problem: as the artificiality of hyperconsumerism is increasingly exposed and rejected, many modern corporations are discovering that they have no real reason to exist. They don't fulfill any real human needs. Their only products are novelty and convenience. Without a captive and ignorant audience, they're doomed.
All this stuff sounds more and more like a repeat of the American Revolution when a letter to Kinge George III was written in protest to the Stamp Act and others in which the Acts violated the colonists' civil rights.
Again, this all sounds like somebody wants control and have the little people pay the price. I'm not for it. I don't go to movies and I don't buy CDs. Any form of entertainment which relegates me to a simple consumer will not and has not receive any of my money.
BTW - the steps leading to the American Revolution can be found here.