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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."
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Tell me now, is this idea funny or terrifyingly close to reality?
Think about it this way: each consumer has some amount they are willing to pay for entertainment per month--the pie doesn't get any larger. Companies that have lower costs, lower prices, and satisfy consumers more will get that entertainment dollar. Do you really think complex DRM schemes are going to lead to usable and inexpensive devices and content?
What's going to win out in the long run is either no DRM at all or devices that anybody can author to; there won't be any need to imitate Microsoft's or anybody else's signatures. That, or people will just go back to small, live performances. In any case, the big media companies pushing for this are going to lose out. They had a golden era with vinyl and CDs, where they could mass-produce cheaply but consumers couldn't replicate, and there was no alternative or competition. That's over now.
Nevertheless, while it just delays the inevitable, it is disappointing that politicians don't get this. And it is particularly disappointing that some politicians are so much in the pocket of vested interests that they try to push through such legislation without much debate.
It's not like they're going to have the new DRM player in the store with a big sign saying "New player! Restricts your rights like never before! Enjoy new levels of slavery to big media!" They'll just quietly slip it in, like they're trying to do with broken CDs. More likely they'll stick it in with whatever technological upgrade comes next. I don't remember any DVD kiosks with big signs saying "High quality pictures! Extra features! Encrypted region encoding to enforce our artificial market segmentation!", do you?
I'm not so cynical that I think that not enough people to make this fail would care if they knew exactly what was happening. The problem is education, and that's the last thing the media companies want in their consumers. So it becomes our problem, and what I do worry about is that there isn't enough of us around to say "hey, don't buy that, it's a restrictive piece of crap".
The enemies of Democracy are
Given the shakeout occuring in the media abetted by the rapid disappearance of the advertising revenue stream, the content producers are entering an very difficult time.
Seems nobody can get anybody to pony up some cash just to have some bimbo wave her ass with their logo on it.
Radio and television started this by having "free" broadcast funded by people flogging their wares. Ask PBS how they survive and get a real picture of broadcast costs.
The internet and the web compounded this in an orgy of freebies and swag funded by IPOs, investors greed and lack of common sense (Warren Buffett never invested in the bubble because he never saw how these people were going to make any money once the IPO money ran out. He was RIGHT!)
End result, nobody wants to pay for squat.
But producing content (as unsatisfying as the pabulum that's regurgitated by ad-funded media might be,) costs. And nobody wants to pay for squat.
Given the balooning real and accounting practice BS costs of the blockbuster mentality you get studios that wither on the vine after one less than stellar season. The RIAA and MPAA members are victims of the same pressure and resultant paranoia. They have to play it safe while following a trend which is set by the players who aren't playing it as safe. (It keeps the shares of Pepto-Bismol and Tums in the stratosphere.)
Want to know why DRM is such a pain-in-the-ass but the AAs'll sell the economy down the sewer to get it?
Because nobody makes B movies anymore. They go straight to video and don't generate any buzz that would attract viewers and maybe get them to buy the product.) Nobody know how to generate buzz anymore. Ads don't cut it with Tivo or even the remote having perceptible results on the ad ROI.
Wanna know why the publishing industry is turning into a contentless wasteland?
Same friggin reason.
Misapplied greed. (This is above and beyond the USPO "patent buying for corporate black-mail by the unscrupulous [lawyers and other parasites.]")
The Web has the potential to make a meaningful buzz but search engines don't friggin cut it. The web will have to be ORGANIZED, INDEXED and cross-referenced the same way that libraries have been since the Great Library of Alexandria.
The days of "Cowboy Content Creation" are over. Creatrion of web content will have to be via XML with precise industry standard DTDs.
Otherwise you just get lost in the noise.
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I really, really you're right.
I guess the difference is going to be how much they are able to make it like the VHS -> DVD transition, instead of the working CD -> broken CD transition. Most people don't realize they're missing anything with DVDs. If they can somehow get mom to not -expect- it to play her old mp3's, but still want it anyway, then they can still win.
The enemies of Democracy are
Dear Senator X,
[it's going to both a version will go my Rep as well]
I am writing to you today in regards to Senator Howard Berman's proposed Digital Rights Restriction provisions. These provisions have been included as amendments to bill number S2395. As a Software Developer and a citizen I oppose these provisions wholeheartedly as they will only serve to stifle competition and restrict legitimate research not prevent any unauthorized copying of copyrighted software, music or movies.
The stated goal of these provisions is to prevent the unauthorized copying of copyrighted materials. To that end, they make it a felony to produce a fake watermark or "digital signature" in order to fool watermarking technologies. They impose stiff criminal and civil sentences on the act and make distribution or intention to distribute these watermarks an offence in their own right. While this may seem reasonable on the surface I assure you that it is not.
Digital Rights Management is becoming a ubiquitous technology. It is already at work in DVD players, many music players such as handheld mp3 players. Microsoft and Intel have announced that it will be embedded at the lowest (Processor) level of their new systems, and the FCC is seriously considering mandating it in the Digital Television and Digital Radio standards. One pair of senators (Fritz Hollings and Ted Stevens) are seeking to make it mandatory in all new technology via the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act.
Because this technology will lie at the core of Microsoft's new operating system it will be necessary to obtain a watermark key in order to run any software on future versions of Windows. As a software developer I would be forced to obtain Microsoft's permission to develop and run software on my, or anyone else's machine. In short, I would need Microsoft's permission to do my job. I cannot imagine any legal tool more anticompetitive than that.
The same is true for Intel and AMD's proposed secure chips. These chips would embed watermarking at the processor level making it necessary to obtain a signature in order to develop any hardware or software for the AMD or Intel platforms. This would stifle the hardware vendor competition that has made computer hardware a 300 billion dollar a year industry, brought the prices of computers down, and fueled the recent economic boom.
Let me be clear that I do not oppose the principle of watermarking in any way. As a security technology it is useful and I feel that Intel and Microsoft should have the right to include it in their systems if they wish. However I feel that such technology should be open to examination and the general public should have a choice about which technologies they do and do not adopt.
It was Microsoft's ability to examine the CP/M operating system that allowed them to produce the first version of DOS, and Intel's ability to examine IBM's PC designs that allowed them to enter the PC market that they dominate today. Such open competition is beneficial to the economy.
This is also the case for movies, music and electronic books. By prohibiting other users from producing watermarks you are allowing groups such as the MPAA, RIAA, and others to control the DVD, and Digital Television distribution channels. In, effect, granting them monopoly control over who can and cannot produce movies and music in this country. Again this competition would stifle, not only innovation but the economic gains to be had from the 30 billion dollar a year music and movie industries.
Lastly, these provisions will also stifle useful research. Digital watermarking technologies and Digital signatures underlie many security systems in use today ranging from defense to private industry. Research on these systems involves attempts to break into them in order to test their strength. Scientific Peer-review of this research depends upon the ability of these researchers to share their findings and to test each other's results. This work allows those individuals to produce better, more secure systems to the benefit of our National Security and Economic infrastructures. These provisions would make that work illegal. This would seriously impair both our Economic and National Security.
These provisions are unnecessary because, as senators Berman, Hollings, and Stevens well knows making unauthorized copies of "Sinefield" or any other copyrighted work is illegal. These acts are already punishable by law. We also have a justice department capable of carrying out such investigations and prosecutions. Indeed, these provisions will not make the act of piracy any "more" illegal. They will only stifle economic competitions and industrial research.
In the end, even if these provisions are passed they will not prevent piracy. They will only permit a small subset of the business community to unfairly control the economic and cultural landscape of this country. This group will be in a position to decide who can develop software, who can distribute music, who can distribute movies, and who can conduct security research. In such an environment of inflated prices, the incentive to piracy will be far greater, and the likelihood of any real security weaknesses being identified will be far less.
Thank you for your time.
Irvu.