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The Day The Music Died: Windows Media and DRM
SampleMinded writes "The Guardian reports on an early glimpse of what a DRM controlled future looks like. Imagine backing up your files, reformatting your hard drive, then copying the files back over only to find your music no longer works. It happened to this guy. Now That's what I call Xperience!"
It happened to my fiancee. She backed up her music made using Real Jukebox to her D drive. We re-formatted drive C and re-installed Windows. Of course, not having saved the security key, when she restored her music files she couldn't play them.
As always, the honest people suffer.
have been collecting music using Windows Media Player to copy from CDs.
That was the first mistake...
What I am more worried about is iTunes going that way. It is probably the best mp3 player and disk ripper out there (at least for mac). The RIAA can't be happy with how easy it is to 'mix, rip, burn.'
I wonder if Apple has thought about iTunes for Windows. They have iPod for windows and iPod and iTunes play so well together I couldn't imagine one without the other.
I am going to hell and I am going to take all of you with me.
You don't even have to try to reload backed up data to get bit by this. Not too long ago, I upgraded my processor and was subsequently locked out of all the media files I made using Media Player.
I was less then pleased, for obvious reasons. It was just a minor headache remaking files using other programs and such, but it was a minor headache I could have lived without.
With all of these countermeasures against copying and piracy put on all digital media, people are eventually just going to quit buying music and stick to listening to what they already own. I have already started to do this and have really uncovered some gems in my cd collection and of some mp3's that I've just had stored in the back of my HD. Rediscover your old favorites and let all of this crap blow over. Besides, most of today's music is manufactured crap anyhow.
Give it a look
I formatted, transferred everything over my LAN, opened up winamp, tried to play something, and nothing happened!!! I was dismayed!!!
:)
Then I installed the sound card drivers, and Poof! it worked!!
And yes, that WAS a joke.
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
Just another reason to not use WMA files, seriously, I can't see a reason?
The compression factor isn't an issue, you don't get better quality, so what's the point. Plus MS is into all of your files now...yuck..
I can't wait for better than mp3 compression with more sound quality, it'll make that Creative Nomad an even better investment!
-discostu
I find this kind of stuff at least annoying and at most repulsive. But let's all remember that no one is putting a gun to anyone's head and making them use this stuff. It's up to companies to protect their own IP however they see fit, and it's up to consumers to feel free to try to find ways around it (DMCA be damned). No you go on and do what you want to... -- L
Of course it may not really be that easy, and it still is a pain, but that doesn't seem like that big of a deal, IF what they say is true in this case. Yes, this is a pain, but it could've been worse. If that's the future, it doesn't look as bad as I thought it did.
Thank goodness I only use it to play porn clips from the internet, and use WinAMP and RealPlayer for anything important.
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
Use MP3. The sky ain't falling, yet. If Microsoft's solution for compressed music storage is such a pain, and involves this big a hassle when you re-install Windows (ask any Windows user how often they have to re-install ... doesn't matter if they're Unix bigots or not, they'll give the correct answer), it's not going to survive.
;-)
Simple as that. Most windows users are sheeple, but they'll see the light!
it did sound like updateing the licenses for the "new" computer was pretty simple.
What I don't understand is the reason the files could be "re-licensed" was because they were legit in the first place. Well.... isn't this true for any copy? (at some point down the line it was legit)
-... ---
DRM will happen. Deal with it, Michael. What other solution would you offer to deal with the rampant piracy and IP theft that escalates every single day?
So the user in question didn't follow the procedure for either turning off the DRM protection or backing up his licenses. I'm no fan of DRM, but RTFM still applies in a "DRM controlled future". Maybe even more so!
1) Now Joe Public starts understanding and disliking DRM
2) Techies that already hated DRM but are not listened to by Joe Public don't use silly WMP and are not hindered by this.
What's the problem again?
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
Updated? How did they get the original and how would they know that your files are the right files, etc... because they are watching what you are listening to. Time to read that EULA Mr. End User. Problem is, most bloody end users really don't care. I've talked to many a person and they really think it's ok. I guess that means that I _can_ put that hidden camera in their daughter's bathroom Boy, I certainly hope noone takes that one literally. ;)
How is Microsoft planning on competing with all the legacy hardware out there? Say the first Palladium equipped boxen emerge.....a large portion of america (the napsterites) upon learning what it means for their (illegal) mp3's....aren't going to want said boxen. There becomes a huge market for the remaining non-DRM enabled hardware......so what does MS do? (Wait for the government to MANDATE drm in a similar fashion to whats happening with HDTV??)
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
Imagine backing up your files, reformatting your hard drive, then copying the files back over only to find your music no longer works.
Hard drives never fail? Right!
This is crap and will never happen. As long as there are people out there making up new ways to distribute data (a la Ogg) then people will be able to share it. Now, they may do so illegally, but so be it.
~ now you know
just how many old boxes do you keep around? use on of them, install windows 98 or 2k, do NOT upgrade to the latest MS product, play your files to your hearts content....
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
I am not opposed to DRM, in principle, but the companies behind today's implementations of DRM need to get thier head on straight. Limiting what we are able to do with our own property is only going to force us to search out non-DRM solutions. I'm not a big fan of WMP, but I realize that a lot of people use it. The default settings will just push people to using mp3/Winamp again.
Perhaps there is a way to protect both the IP of musicians as well as the fair use rights we are seeing slowly torn from us, but I'll be damned if I know what it is.
she use wmp then got the update and nothing worked, she asked me about is and being an avid /. reader.... well, ended up i gave her a cd full of shareware/freeware alternatives to wmp to help her out of the XP/wmp problems.
I wish MS would go even further, like automatically delete the music files after a set period, or when you reinstall Windows, Word will stop working, and you need to rent a new license etc.
You know that line from Star Wars applies (paraphrasing): The more control they take over your system, the more users they will lose.
Je ne parle pas francais.
The direction M$ wants to take the world in (not where we might want to go today,) is one where PCs boot off of a network and have no local storage.
Of course its THEIR network and you pay for the connection, the storage and for every hit, every app and file load. And people who want to sell their software have to pay M$ for "retail shelf-space" at least until they suddenly find their product co-opted and integrated into the, uh, collective.
Complete and total, anal-retentive, obsessive control. Its the bully's way.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
* If certain software becomes hostile to copy survivability, switch to more user friendly software.
* If a file format becomes undesirable for some reason, switch formats. The shift from GIF to JPEG was accelerated when CI$ wanted royalties for GIFs. if MPEG becomes untenable, switch to a format WMA/Windoze, etc, wouldn't tell from any other binary.
I think all people are proving is that they can muck up a file format or two. But there are a number of ways of encoding music after the fact. Just, you may need to convert your precious MPEGs to a more modern (and less policed) format.
thats y i didn't upgrade to media player 7.0 or higher because it wont let u play a lot of stuff and i believe that there was actually a story here on slashdot about it. im still using 98se and don't plan to upgrade until i go Linux because while microsoft used to just be a monopoly they r now using that power not only to squich competition - they r also using it to regulate wut i do.
We seldom regret saying too little but often regret saying too much.
I'm sure that posters after this one will highlight the solution presented. I just want to add this: when did our computers stop working for us, and change to us having to work for them?
And if that yahoo can't get the solutions to work, I hope he thinks about a Mac, or Linux, for each CD (of his own music! already encoded, even!) that he has to reload. If his time is worth something, that Mac looks cheaper every day...
--
$tar -xvf
People don't realize that they can't do these things until AFTER they have purchased the computer and OS.
By then they don't care anymore.
Now that you can't backup your data, does that mean that MS will release an OS that won't crash as often?
Maybe this is why they stopped shipping MS Backup with Windows. They saw it coming!
As a moral conservative, I have no problem with people attempting to protect their property and their rights. Would any of this be that bad? I know the average Slashbot is used to "ripping" their CDs and then splattering illegal MP3s across like 50 different hard drives. Get over it, and get over yourselves. What does DRM really mean, anyway? It means that if you want to listen to music from a CD, you have to put in the darn CD.
Oh, horrors!
-1 offtopic
Someone set us up the date! All your girlfriend are belong to us.
The real problem is not that windows is controlling her, that she's trying to control windows. Anyone with any common sence knows that windows xp provides a superior user experience and that it's rock solid reliability eliminates the need for tenous reinstalls. Not only is it never neccessary, but only hackers, pirats, and the dark forces of the universe would try to get control over windows for their own selfish gain. In my opinion, she got what she deserved. That filthy evildoer
Or even better, don't use Windows at all.
..need to get the following tool, ASAP: CDex.
This format might tickle your fancy a bit more than WMA ever did. It sure as heck sounds better.
From the MS web site:
...
When this feature is enabled, each track that is copied to your computer is a licensed file that cannot be played on any other computer unless you backup and restore your licenses on the other computer.
Even if you forget to disable the feature, there is still a way to transfer the licenses. It's not as if they are forcing it on anyone. Seems pretty fair to me
(Score:-1, Wrong)
We all know the pros and cons but your average jane/joe in the street doesn't. Without this message getting across to them with clear examples of what may/will happen we'll be shouting the message to ourselves.
If your local/national newspaper has a tech section where you can ask questions, drop them a line.
Get the word out!
Lessee:
1. 'When you first run Windows Media Player, it will ask if you want to keep copy protection on, and you can turn it off if you wish.'
and
2. 'We did anticipate this scenario and developed a tool to help them update their licenses: the Personal License Update Utility.'
What's the big deal here?
p.s. What's funny is, My Lyra requires a funky DRM'd MP3 format that only uses their propietary software to create it...those files won't work on anything else either. BUT, copy any kind fo WMA file directly to the CF card and it works fine.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
According to Microsoft's lead product manager of Windows Digital Media:
There is still a way to get these licenses back and it is pretty easy using our Personal License Migration Service (PLMS), [which] was designed to address the exact situation you outline.
It's morning and I'm still feeling pretty alert, but even the acronym PLMS is enough to make me think, "this is going to be a gigantic pain in the ass." Would it be possible to come up with a more intimidating bit of tech-speak for a product's name?
More to the point, can you picture an inexperienced user having to track down the Personal License Migration Service utility and get it working? Just the name of it alone makes it sound like an afternoon's project.
Looks like Windows users who want to maintain rights to their music libraries are going to have to regularly clear some rather intimidating hurdles every time they buy a new system or reformat their drive. I wonder how Apple will handle the same situation. Somehow, I can't picture Steve announcing iPLMS at an upcoming MacWorld ;)
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
But what if they had paid for them? Even a trivial amount like 25 cents adds up extremely quick. At least in their case, though, they still have the files. Hard drives fail.. the Windows Registry can be corrupted.. what then? Do you re-purchase all the files you've already bought once?
This should be yet another compelling reason to dump Windows in favor of Linux on your PC's.
* I can't feel too sorry for anyone using Windows Media Player Spyware.. Is it really Microsoft's business that I spend a large part of my work day writing code and listening to (legal) mp3 rips of my Ozzy Osbourne cd's?
Actually - he did bring up some new information which was that RealPlayer displays this functionality as well as Windows Media Player.
I've made similar comments like this before, but in this case it is worth repeating (well, I'll find out whether it is).
The sooner the general public begins to experience the real issues behind DRM, DMCA, Palladium, UCITA (or whatever they're calling it this week), etc, the sooner the issue will rise to the importance of other issues that get real (ie political, financial) attention.
It will probably be painful for a while, since the entire public won't realize the impact of this sort of thing at first, but give it time... the general public let their opinion be known about DivX and it didn't take long for CC to back down and toss that idea (or at least table it for a while).
This too shall pass? I hope so.
If this happened to my MP3 collection I'd be pissed. But, what do you expect with WMF's? You use Microsoft's formats -- you get held to Microsoft's rules! That is why the RIAA and friends HATE MP3's... because it is format that they can't control. Just keep encoding your shit to MP3 or OGG format and you won't have to worry about this sort of thing happening (at least until Palladium comes along!)
If you want to use Windows Media Player to rip your CDs just un-check 'Protect Content' in the copy music options.
That way if you really want to use Windows Media Audio then you wont have license problems.
Buying audio from the internet however is a whole different story.
Just imaging the fun when the library of Congress does the same thing....
(Well, maby they have a smarter boyfriend who anticipates these things...)
-On a Mr. fixit note, NEVER destory your source. Copy info to new media, and verify functionality on that new media, THEN format the source...)
The direction M$ wants to take the world in (not where we might want to go today,) is one where PCs boot off of a network
Actually, that is Sun Microsystem's catch line - The Network is the Computer - or at least it used to be. Sun was the one with the whole goal of going back to dummy terminals.
Hang up
I keep forgetting to close my internet connection, and consequently remain attached to my ISP for hours doing nothing but run up a phone bill.
Reg Bauckham
-Is there a Dumbass Tag for HTML?
When applying this logic to Music, it's absolutely against music lover's interests. When you've bought a CD and converted the music to WMA 7.x format in your PC, you DO NOT own the copy anymore. Instead, whoever controls the licence controls your usage since you normally cannot fiddle with the licence itself. In all, use Windows Media if you want to lose control of the music you own and want to being tracked each time you copy, rip and so on(Technologically they have no problems tracking you with controlled licence and internet connections mentioned in the article). Otherwise, stick with MP3.
While those things may apply to this case, DRM is a scary thing where it would be very easy to make it so it doesn't matter what app you use, DRM could be embedded in your processor (Palladium). They could make it so that you can't turn off DRM in the apps, or there is no manual to read, it will all just be built in so you don't have to "worry" about it.
And since when did it become a REQUIREMENT to be connected to the internet to listen to music that you own?! Sure, internet access is more widespread than ever, but required? That's BS. That just means that Microsoft is watching and controlling what you are listening to. How long before it goes beyond that to cover every app on your system?
I talk to some of my friends about this stuff, and they think it will never happen. They also don't know about the DMCA and the CDPDTA-E-I-E-I-O. This shit is real, and it is very scary. I have heard people say "Well, I don't care if they know what I do." Well dammit, I DO! It is none of their business, and that is the first step down a long, dark path. You want to tell them what you are doing, what web sites you are visiting, where you are shopping? Fine. Opt-in. But don't force that on everyone. Some people may actually want some of these dumbass services that Microsoft and other companies offer. Maybe they like targeted advertising. I don't, and I should not have to jump through hoops to NOT get it.
Think it won't happen? Who is going to stop them?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
If you read the article fully, it can be seen that the music can be migratted across using a few simple steps. It's not as if the music was lost for good...
Think of it like a cage. It's meant to let us see what's inside, but not let what's inside get out. It can never effectively be used to get back what's escaped. And something only needs to escape from it once to be outside, fruitful and multiplying and all that, forever.
It's an absurdly complicated cage, with hundreds of potential points of failure. Even if it's the best designed cage in the world, with encryption and booby-traps at every joint and hindge, someone in a good lab in Hong Kong is going to arrange a jailbreak anyway. And you know it's not going to be the best designed cage in the world. It's going to suck, maybe slightly less than CSS sucked.
Once the content is out of it, that's it. You can't make a computer that refuses legacy data and applications (mp3s). That might be what Hollywood wants, but it's the only thing Microsoft can never do. At least not in the next 10-20 years - they'd have to work up to it very gradually. And even then, there are a million problems.
The real purpose of DRM is to act as a shield against free software technologies interoperating with commercial products. MS has been considering fighting compatible free software with patents and bribes and EULA suits (and probably would, but for the awkwardness of doing it during their anti-trust trial), but by far its best weapon is to pretend to ally with the content people. They, after all, own Washington, and they were the geniuses that engineered the DMCA. The law that will make Samba, or the encrypted-WindowsDRM-filesystem module, or any number of other enabling technologies illegal... because it's trying to "bypass Microsoft's access control features."
People will point out that the DMCA has provisions for allowing interoperability. That's right, it does. That's called a "bait exception." Sort of like the distributor price caps in the California electric utility deregulation, they're there for show; they can have no real effect. DeCSS, after all, is meant to allow free softare to interoperate with DVD's. But tell that to all the people in court all around the world right now. When deciding on whether there's a "significant non-infringing use," it turns out that it's quite easy to make a non-savvy judge (and how few of them are savvy?) believe the worst. DVDs are case in point.
DRM will accomplish none of its stated goals. But it will be great for Microsoft. Paladium is a big deal to them because it will be the first Windows which can't be emulated by Wine, for instance, or interoperated with by other software, without risking the appearance that one is interoperating in order to open the cage. And if you mess with cages, you know we're not just talking about a civil trial and bankruptcy. We're talking about a good long stretch in federal prison.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
Isn't it funny how m$ takes it upon itself to license your music? I am sticking to OGG from now on. Anyone who is dumb enough to use WMA for anything now deserves whatever they get.
And another thing: We should boycott music until the RIAA goes bankrupt. Don't buy CDs, don't even go to concerts (if you don't buy cd's then the RIAA will just get their dough from the concerts anyway, despite the written contract). Then and only then, will we have freedom once more. It'll be one of those things that go down in history like the boston tea party or something, maybe.
When updating my soundcard drivers recently, I discovered a notice of Digital Rig^H^Hestrictions Management from Creative Labs. Apparently copy protected "intellectual property content" causes the digital output of the sound card to be shutoff. Of course this only works on WMAs, so I believe this fits in the context of this article. For more information visit this URL Creative Labs: DRM with WMA
There is still a way to get these licenses back and it is pretty easy using our Personal License Migration Service (PLMS), [which] was designed to address the exact situation you outline. The customer just has to be connected to the internet, then they can automatically restore their licenses just by playing the music files in question.
How exactly did Microsoft get the job of maintaining my licenses? If I pay for a cd and rip it to mp3 for my own use, why do I need MS to "license" me the ability to play it? They didn't pay for the cd, I did! How is it that the duty of maintaining my licenses for non-MS data can belong to MS? This is just silly...
do not read this line twice.
He/She shoud uncheck the option to encript the WMA file...
Microsoft should do the humane thing and have their computers euthanize these poor wretched creatures.
I was using Xp for a single semester in school. I must have reformatted a dozen times. POS! Now I'm using linux, and I haven't crashed once.
I think they got this idea from elison(sp; the oracle guy). In that Cringley documentry 'revenger of the nerds' or something like that, he's in there saying "i hate the pc. bits on plastic. plastc in cardboard box. box on truck. me in car to store. buy box. open box. read manual. put it on the NET" or something like that.
Go to Tools | Options | Copy Music in WMP. Now uncheck "Protect Content".
From the help file:
Protect content
Specifies whether tracks copied from CDs in Windows Media Format are licensed files. Licenses help protect the copyrights of artists by preventing illegal distribution. Selecting this check box prevents you from playing the tracks on another computer.
Note You should back up your licenses to a floppy disk periodically. If you reinstall or upgrade your operating system, your licenses could be lost. For more information about how to back up licenses, see Related topics.
All I can say is...RTFM
"You can also choose to turn off copy protection when you create your music collection, which can be done easily in any version of [WMP7.x or later].
When you first run Windows Media Player, it will ask if you want to keep copy protection on, and you can turn it off if you wish. If you missed that dialog box, it is still easy to turn off copy protection by going into the Tools|Options menu. Click on the Copy Music tab, and under Copy Settings, uncheck the 'Protect Content' box. In previous versions, this box was called the 'Enable Per sonal Rights Management' check box." Turning off copy protection would seem the best idea.
<grub> Reading
Doc: Well don't do it!
Seriously, why the hell is anyone using WMF? MP3 has wide hardware support, obviously great software suppport, and sounds great. What compelling argument is there for using WMF? Some people claim superior sound quality.....just ask the guy in the story how good his music sounds since he can't play any of his files.
-ted
I own hundreds of CDs and records which I paid for from which the record industry and musicians got their rightful dues. If I want to convert them into MP3's and cram them into an ipod or just have a couple of thousand songs randomly playing while I work on the computer, surely I don't have to pay for that song again just because I want a different media format. I'm not paying for the plastic they're printed on, I'm paying for the music and that music is the same regardless of the media format. Microsoft can't act as the arbiter for Fair Use. They're not even in the music industry (as far as I know)
What about that giant fucking cloud over India?!
Blar.
I love the solution they give - all that hassle just to restore files...!!
Check what version each wma is encoded with, connect to Internet, get new licenses or license update program. They should have just used MP3.
So much hassle only a geek would have time for, most geeks use Linux so M$ will be losing normal WMA users over this!
Why we are continue to use GNU/Linux.
Day by day M$ users look like battery people like Matrix Movie.
M$ consume everyting.
[My english is better than most other people's Turkish, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]
There is a staggering amount of music and video out there these days that the 500-channels of Cable were supposed to be pouring into our homes. Copyright laws turned that flood to a trickle, so here are the consumers digging it up for themselves...
:)
Imagine that.
I've found tons of music that I passed over as a teen, and with the amount out there, I could be happy if all artists everywhere stopped creating more music, etc. There's enough in the past to be new to me to last (most) of a lifetime already. If the trend continues, there will soon be more art on file than anyone could ever go trhough in a lifetime.
Is this perhaps the real reason the films and music from our past have to be safegaurded from the consumers of the present?
If you read the artice, it metions that Microsoft knew that this sort of problem would arise, and took the time to develop some services and tools to fix the situation.
The article says that if you're connected to the internet, then most of the time it will just fix itself. WMP will somehow realize that you lost the special security license files that authorize you to play the music, but that you did once have them. So then it just downloads them from the net.
That won't always work (if the WMP versions before and after are different, or maybe if you changed your hardware), but Microsoft also said that they developed a special tool that you can run before wiping you system or upgrading your hardware that will record these licences for you, and let you restore them.
So they seem to have done a bunch of work to solve this problem, except ofcorse the most obvious thing: informing the user. That utility up there may work great but you have to run it before you make any changes so you need to know about it. That's the biggest problem.
Oh, and also this WMP behaviour can be completly turned off. Somewhere in the options you can disable it, so that it just plays music normally. It was unclear in the article whether turning this off after WMP refuses to play something would work.
The idea, of course, is to get people used to it, so when it does come time to shove it down people's throats, there won't be much resistance.
... so what looks fair on the outside is actually pretty sneaky and deceptive.
I don't know about you, but I find that the phrase "Protect My Music" is a bit deceptive. Admittedly, "Make it so my music will only play on this computer" is a bit of a mouthful, but at least it's not misleading.
If someone like my little sister (who is a fairly average computer user) sees that checkbox, they don't know what it means, but they generally leave it checked because it sounds positive. A power user (who has some experience with recent commercial software) may be more inclined to be a bit suspicious about the vague and somewhat ominous "Protect My Music." Sadly, most users are the average kind and not the power kind
I have been told, and I believe even read in dead-tree publications, that the reason the DivX plan died was that people were creeped out by having to dial someone up and transfer information. Even with the *promise* of anonymity, this is guaranteed to scare some people away, since they worry "What if?" (Like "What if the company goes bust and they sell their database to someone that doesn't make the same promise?" or "What if they get hacked and someone takes my credit card number or personal viewing habits?")
Add into this that much of media innovation and format decisions are apparently driven by the porn production industry, and the reason for media without a tether to home base becomes more clear. No one wanted to buy a DivX disc that phoned home to validate and no porn movie maker really wanted to go that route because they know their audience.
Having to phone home has got to be the Achilles' Heel for this kind of stuff. I sure as hell don't want it, and I imagine most people would feel the same way, even if they aren't watching dirty movies.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
Does every music file have to be re-licensed individually? Can you imagine doing that with, say, 20 or 30 gigs of 3 minute long songs?
This simply will never work in the long run. Customers will give up in frustration and use some other way to listen to music.
I was under the impression there was a newer format that was completely free, but also provided consistently better quality than both WMA and MP3. I read a review of it on Tom's Hardware I'm sure. But can't for the life of me remember the name of it.
IF you do decide to use WMP, you should at least know enough about it. The article says itself "You can also choose to turn off copy protection when you create your music collection, which can be done easily in any version of [WMP7.x or later]." so why is this a topic of discussion? The story is a tale of someone who didn't know what they were doing... why does this matter to me?
- what is the definition of simultanagnosia?! I've been meaning to look it up!
Pulled it from the wife's pc not 5 minutes ago. Don't use it for illegal actions(make far too much money to worry about a few dollars for a cd) but I will not tolerate such an invasion of microsofts(read RIAA's butt partner) ideals and lack of morals into my home. Interestingly enough I have been pushing at my company to go linux and after the article in the HP magazine our IT director gets gave it thumbs up, it looks as though I may get my way. IBM,SUN,HP all pushing linux....Gee, I wonder if Bill is pissing his britches yet. The article also pushed StarOffice, although I prefer OpenOffice personally, anything to get microsoft out of my company is good stuff. I've been pushing against microsofts hold since everyone hated linux, and I look up to see that suddenly Linux has become fashionable....my dreams are coming true.
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
No dedicated slashdot reader is ever going to get close enough to a girl to try this advice out anyway. (Booth babes at conventions don't count.)
Look around your next RPG session or Linux users group meeting? Where's all the estrogen? It's all coming from those ectomorphs you call friends that snort when they laugh and jerk off thinking about Tomb Raider or some 12-year old anime character.
Are you a slashdotter and want to lay a girl? Here's my advice: throw every computer in your house out the fucking window (your Gamecube, too). Join a gym, start showering every day instead of once a week, and begin reading books that don't have pictures of spaceships or foreign planets on the cover. Within a year, isolated from that which makes you so repugnant, you ought to begin developing some shreds of personality that will one day allow you to have normal social intercourse with a human female. With dedication and perseverence, one of them might someday feel sorry enough for you that she'll allow you to mount her for the five seconds it takes for you to blow your load.
Good luck. You'll need it.
because you were able to find and install sound drivers for your machine!
In this case, an unobvious (mis-)feature caused a user to lose hours of work. That's a software problem, and specifically, a problem with a particular software feature, DRM. It shows that DRM reduces usability in practice. The burden of proof that this isn't necessarily true is on proponents of DRM to find workarounds.
Also note that this particular implementation of DRM is deliberately not secure; an implementation of the form that the music industry might like might simply not let the user recover their music when they reformat their drive no matter what they do. That is, after all, effectively how CDs used to work (if the medium went bad, you lost the music), and the music industry would love to get back to that kind of environment.
Notice the "by default" bit. If anyone here had actually USED WMP's copy from cd options you'd know you can turn that flag off completely, letting you do whatever you want with those .wma files you create.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
When I hear the panic-mongers (I think the original article needed to point out that the person could have disabled the privacy feature) start to bitch about something in Microsoft that just turns out to be user error (I'm not talking about the fact that they use MickeySoft), my usual reaction is to return to my perennial (sp?) project of creating a Linux box that can do everything a WinXP box can do.
As you can imagine, I'm still working on this.
Can anyone spare a driver?
['$CleverAnecdoteOrPhrase']
Funny how you only see this with winblows machines. No linux, mac, BeOS, amiga, dos, or abicus user ever has the issue. *softly pats his new iMac and SuSE machine* I know it's been said over and over and over again but I will just say it again, M$ seems to think it knows whats best for the user. Of course using WMP was a mistake to copy music but thats beside the point. Software of this nature should never do this. The user nows what he/she is doing and if its illegal and thats between the user and the copyright holder. Anyway I am going to shutup now. This is a pointless rant. Windows is going to be like the US government and decide to police the world at everyone elses expense.
My suggestion. Get a Mac. Its a UNIX and doesnt have the bull floating thru it like any PC with windows installed on it. Even a linux user should be able to admit that Mac would be the simpler move for a person use to windows. Linux is great for the more advanced users.
Honestly I think its time windows users started complaining about software like this. It wouldnt sell on the open market. Why attach it to a OS? Or maybe thats reason enough.
Oh well.
It's not shut off, it's emitted with a copyright bit (part of the stream format) set. It's the "client" end (a DAT recorder, for instance) which does the prohibiting. This is all well-trodden ground to anyone who's messed with audio DAT drives or audio CD recorders: it prohibits you from recording copyright-asserted content from one to another digitally.
Peter
But they are built in, and you of course know that there are plans, and the required "Critical Updates" have already been written to completely remove your ability to disable these "Features". This will occur when the economic and political climates are right.
Get a free ipod.
There is one solution to this (that could be used dozens od other ways, too) that many people won't like: Universal IDs. If everyone was issued a unique personal sequence (Long enough to be virtually impossible to remember) these issues would never occur.
The UID should include personal space as well - so I could have several different accounts (home, job1, job2, hobby, oss project1, etc) without losing the access to my media/data.
Log on at work with your work UID. Your work UID server authorizes your log on and file access. It also knows you have access to your HOME UID systems, and sets up a VPN connection, allowing you access to your home computer & MP3s.
Log on at another company's office with your work UID. The local UID server doesn't know you. The UID Root Servers are queried for your UID's ownership. It returns your work UID server and your home UID server. The company's server recognizes that you work for a "trusted" company and allows you acces to certain portions of their network, as well as setting up VPN to your work and your home.
The UID could be attached to a fingerprint identification database, to a magnetic stripe card, to a SD card for login identification. The UID would make easy permissions tracking. Use any cellphone on your account, as long as you insert your UID chip. It could be great.
Alternately, it could be used to track your movements, your whereabouts, everything that you do and have electronically. This is why the Root UID servers should be set up on floating installations with Satellite connectivity in International Waters...
--
Or maybe I'm insane.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Legally, a user that does not read the EULA then can not fiegn ignorance later if they break the license. It was presented to them at the pre-installation. It is there responsibility to make sure they legally understand what they are getting into.
Having said this, the way most EULA are presented are HOSTILE to the user. Confusing legalese language presented in a tiny scrolling text box smaller than the text area I'm writing this response in. What is your recourse if you have a question about a clause? Stop the installation and e-mail MicroSoft? You bought the software today and would probably like to use it today. Waiting for a response from MS and then possibly consulting your private lawyer is a laughable action to take for minor piece of software. Then step it up a notch: Window's Media Player is tightly integrated. You can't PATCH the system properly unless you take all of the parts which requires reading multiple EULA which are all different. What happens if you agree to one but not another? Your installation (and your computer) is probably now unusable or will have incompatible hiccups.
I am still waiting for EULA in general to be challenged in court. Where did the consumer right for quality assurance and regress go? Why does one have to sign away more rights to get bug fixes?!?
Btw, just so I know what to use and what crap to avoid -- does Roxio EZCD Creator 5.0 have DRM stuff built in?
Hey, I hate MS products as much as the next Slashdotter, but the article simply points to someone who wasn't really paying attention to what his software was set up to do. The application performed its fnctions as designed, and it used the settings as they were configured. He obviously didn't bother to look closely enough at his own configuration and figure out what the settings in the options panel meant.
Indeed, some people need to be protected from their own ignorance, but the real story here is that a Microsoft product actually worked the way it was supposed to. How novel.
I used to copy my CDs onto tape to listen to in my car. Now I make MP3s so I can carry my music collection around with me. I have never copied someone else's music, and I've never allowed friends to copy mine. The same goes for movies. By insisting on copy protection, groups like the RIAA and MPAA are calling me a liar and a thief. This pisses me off enough that I have not bought nearly as much music and video in the past couple years that I might have otherwise.
I hope these groups understand that if fair-use copies are some day not allowed at all, I will no longer buy their recordings. Period. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way.
A user's WMA collection doesn't have to be copy protected, so don't shoot down WMA for having the capability. Even if a user doesn't disable the copy protection and they reinstall Windows, they can still use their WMA files (The whole point of the Q&A). No big deal.
I saw a few responses saying that there's no good reason to use WMA. Well, when the same quality can be achieved at a lower bitrate, I see a very good reason to use WMA. The only reason I use MP3 is because my Archos Jukebox only supports MP3.
I don't like the monopoly that MS has, but I'm not going to play along with the MS witch hunt that a lot of people seem to enjoy. Let's stick to posting informative stories instead of posting anything at all that can be twisted into a trolling, anti-MS statement.
micro$ and the music industry have one up'd us again..
go figure
I've build a few XP systems for friends who are newbies but know how to use (office, kazaa, e-mail, www, etc.), I installed winamp and a few other programs for multimedia. Three of them ripped their collections with media player and didn't even realize that it was saving them as windows media format.
I had a similar thing happen to me. In win2K you can encrypt your files. So I naturally encrypted the file I store all my passwords in. But without extensive understanding you will never know that the certificate needs to be stored in order to decrypt the file.
:D (unburned)
So when I did my yearly reinstall, I no longer had access to my password file since I didn't save my certificate (not that its easy to locate anyway)...Thank God that I hadn't bought the shredder yet and I found an old copy of my passwords in the fireplace
I run windows, but I don't trust any of my files to M$ utilities. I use audiocrusher with the LAME extensions to rip. You have to download the LAME extensions from the website, but even with that it took me less than 5 minutes to install. Beautiful 224bit, full-stereo ripping without any bull.
I'm just wondering how the poor bastard didn't see this coming? Bummer.
Your comment about tiny text made me wonder - could a user unable to read the EULA (because of the type font size) call up a software company and ask for them to read them the EULA out loud? Is this not a reasonable accomodation to a common disability (inability to read 6pt type, or whatever is used)? Is there some reading disability that would make it impossible to read and understand something presented only one line at a time (because of a really small scroll window)?
Most EULA dialogs I've seen have been very limited in functionality - no chance to, say, copy the EULA text into a program and change the font size. That being said, they usually appear to be in about ten-point type. This is much better than the font that used to be used on the break-this-seal-to-agree envelopes. (Which I actually had to pull out a magnifying glass to read)
How does M$ expect people to you there computer without a internet connection? There need to be away to keep M$ from sending information from your machine to them. Linux is great but for my work machine I run AutoCAD and there is no Linux port of that.. so Im stuck in Windows ville. It seems to me that M$ is breaking the law with there keeping records of everything I do, read, play, download online.
I've been concerned about the entertainment giants being able to dominate and control all information in the future, through DRM schemes and other usage-control schemes.
However, I think now that none of these schemes are likely to be widely adopted by the public as they are all WAY too complicated to understand, let alone use.
For example, here is Microsofts page for its
Personal License Update Wizard, which apparently will let you transfer DRM limited music from one machine to another. Of course you need to run it before you transfer the music, so if your installation of Windows dies, but the hard drive is still readable you have still lost all your music.
Read the page and see how many times you say 'huh?' (for me it was about 8)
Compare this to MP3s, which work transparently across PC, Macs and portable devices without difficulty, and can be shared by people without having to transfer their 'Digital Rights' to another machine. It's going to take a lot of armtwisting to make people pay for entertainment products, which are more difficult to use and less useful (if they're tied to single devices) than current major formats, eg CDs and DVDs.
Talking of arm twisting, anyone interested in the UK 'equivalent' of the DMCA should read an overview of the implementationof the EU directive on Copyright Harmonisation. This is very probably going to become UK law before Christmas and basically makes it illegal, to intefere with any DRM schemes. So for example if a music CD has a program that phones home on it, whenever the disc is played in a PC, it's going to be illegal to use a firewall from stopping it from sending any information out.
Oh and btw, of course everyone copying music from CDs to a computer in the UK is breaking the law anyway, as we appear not to have a doctrine of fair-use (or fair-dealing as it's known in the UK). oops.
also btw Microsoft has slightly modified the Eula for this update wizard, from the horrendous 'by using this software you allow Microsoft to run any software on your machine or stop you running any software' to being able only to affect software that is concerned with security for the DRM.
Owners of Secure Content ("Secure Content Owners") may, from time to time, request Microsoft to provide security related updates to this Software ("Security Updates") that may affect your ability to use this Software. Such Security Updates would be provided only for the purpose of controlling the use of security technologies in this Software and would not affect other software or content on your computer.
"Free software as in beer, copy protection as in racket" - Telsa Gwynne
What happens if you take one of these "copy protected" files that won't play in WPM and play it in winamp? Is it locked out by Windows or just WMP. With winamp3 now supporting media files and a much better playlist editor, i don't see why people would use windows media player. Yeah it has some purdy things like cd ripping and writing, but i'd not trust microsoft to do this for me. besides even with the mp3 pack i still couldn't get it to rip anything but wma files.
- tristan
I think that Microsoft is pissed off that -nobody- likes the WMA format, and everybody's using MP3 and the Ogg Vorbis format (although I haven't had a chance to try out the latter of the two yet.
Methinks, perhaps this is an opportunity, to suggest the use of OGG Vorbis... Free, open source, worlds better than mp3, and absolutely no DRM!
Many, but not all! I'm almost 30 now, and I finally have the income that allows me to buy new music regularly, and I've matured enough to become interested in older stuff that I wasn't much aware of before (eg. older punk & industrial, Nick Cave, the Velvet Underground, even some cheesy 80's pop just for fun). Not to mention, I've made so many diverse friends in school and work that I am exposed to a lot of weird stuff I wouldn't have thought to check out myself. As a result, I have a rapidly mushrooming music collection, encompassing death metal, industrial, classical, trip-hop, acid jazz, house, classic jazz, classical, folk, rock, etc. and I love it!
:-) Crap is crap, new or old.
Now, if by "new music" you meant "Britney, Pink, Creed, Eminem, P. Diddy", then yeah, I'm not too into that
Freedom: "I won't!"
Use CDex to rip your MP3. It's free too.
Gorkman
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I was able to do just this perfectly easily with my Audible.com content, which has some pretty tough DRM restrictions.
and it happening to the general masses is a very very good thing. The more this stuff pisses off journalists, writers, average joe the better...
Me? I rip everything to mp3 with lame and the proper settings to get the absolute best copy I can get. (I dont use OGG and probably never will because my car stereo,audiotron and 2 portable devices never will play OGG. No DRM crap to worry about, no mysterious "licenses" or other crap needed.. and finally I use a non-bloated fast responding media player.. it's call winamp, freeamp(or Zinf now) and XMMS. winamp os starting to get bloated so all windows boxen I touch get Zinf instead now.. and linux boxes get either zinf or the default XMMS install.
Anyways, DRM cant and wont bother anyone that makes sure they know what they are using and doing. As it is easily avoided without causing any discomfort. Non-techies? it's gonna bite them in the ares and bite them hard... and I hope that it start biting people at a rapid rate... that's the ONLY way to get the word out...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
people are eventually just going to quit buying music and stick to listening to what they already own. I have already started to do this
By any chance, are you in your in your mid- to late- twenties? Many people stop getting into new music in that timeframe, and have been for 25-30 years.
I don't know about the other person but I am currently 34, about 4 months short of 35, and I am still finding new music that I like. For the past 2 years, I have been getting into country music. Before that it was Rock and Roll. I also like classical. Some genres that I could never really get into was Rap, Heavy Metal and Punk. I like music that has a good beat and gets my toe tapping. I also like to be able to tell what the singer is saying. I just thought that I would let you know that it is not inevitable.
"If the reader is connected to the internet and this is still not working, it is most likely because they created their music collection with an earlier version of Windows Media Player (7.0) and then upgraded on top of that collection. We did anticipate this scenario..."
Yes, we did not anticipate the scenario that you would ever need a media player other than WMP 7. What were they thinking? This right here should be enough of an example to show Joe Public/Congressman why DRM is bad.
Of course, it probably won't.
...it would have been funnier. How bout:
"The more you tighten your grip, the more Dell Systems slip through your fingers."
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
just a general warning, if you convert from .mp3 to .ogg, you'll progressively lose quality, and could end up with strange audio artifacts since both codecs are lossy. whenever possible, re-encode from the source/lossless copy so you only lose sample quality once.
.ogg is the "skinning" feature, where you can, for example, rip your CD's to a 320kbps file for archiving, and (with some loss, but not PROGRESSIVE loss) then "skin" (like onion skin) off the file to be streamed at 64kbps over the net or to a portable player. This will be VERY nice, yes? Don't have to encode the song 4 times...just keep that 320 archived and skin when you want a smaller file.
Sidenote: one thing to look forward to in
-Skymunky
This really points to the disturbing trend (Palladium anyone?) that says you have to connect to the internet to even use your computer. Half of time I'm using my computer at home, I'm not connected to the internet (yes I still have dial up).
I'm with you on this.
Until recently, I couldn't even connect to the net at home. Phone lines were so noisy that I couldn't even connect at 9600, and SWBell refused to do anything about it until the trunk line got so bad that half the neighborhood lost ALL service.
I'm not going to let MS (or anyone else) tell me that I can't use my computer just because I refuse to deal with a company (Comcast) that has previously told me they don't want to take my money.
When in windows, the only answer to the question of which ripper to use is CdEx.
Besides, that Roxio stuff does strange sh~t to your ASPI layer.
just out of curiosity, how does the quality of the rip compare to Exact Audio Copy (not open source)? i mean in terms of error detection, etc.
If you're lazy and use MS products just because they're already there, you're likely to keep running into this problem.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
If you're so pissed about WMP killing your music, (however temporarily) don't use WMP! There are plenty of alternatives out there. I use WinAmp for my music, and while I do use WMP to play movie clips, I do have other options. I have Creative PlayCenter, (I hate it, though) and DivX's The Playa available to me anytime I want. I'm sure there are hundreds more. Also, if I may ask, why are you ripping your songs as .wma? I don't care how small they get them, .mp3 is the industry standard. Others will come and go, but .mp3 will be here forever. (I'm not dissing Ogg. I myself like Ogg. It's simply that there's not enough commercial products available to play .ogg yet) Or hey, there's always CD players...
(-:Stephonovich:-)
"Who needs reincarnation when we've got parallel universes?" -Me
This is a good example of why this technology is doomed from the start.
Can you imagine what will happen when Mary Jan Mathteacher and her husband Joe Sixpack run into this? I mean, you and I are above average with respect to our computer knowledge and this is a pain the in the butt even for us. To Mary and her brethren, this is just one more reason why "the computer hates me". I can't thing of any better way to stifle online music sales (if there ever becomes a market for them)
from the coming-soon-to-a-computer-near-you dept.
Not over my dead body.
...wasn't this DRM version cracked last year, and wasn't the crack source and executable made available? The article mentions Windows Media Player 7, as does the "technical discussion". I won't say what to do, but I think there might be a connection here... ;-)
What is it that you don't like about USB in this application? Is it that you prefer Firewire? I've never messed with transferring mp3s from device to device (I've never had to, as I have a car stereo that plays mp3 CDs), so I'm blissfully ignorant on this subject.
I may want to get one of these portables soon, though, so I thought that I might ask.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
Jack Schofield, the Jack in "Ask Jack," the title of this Q&A, is a notoriously pro-MS cheerleader. It's almost sickening, in fact, having read his articles over the years. Many newspapers have these sort of "Doctor PC" columns, and they give Microsoft a free ride in terms of customer support and advertising. But how is it these columns don't ever advise: "Internet Explorer really sucks, you should download Mozilla" or whatever superior Open Source alternative there is. Certainly Jack never does.
In fact, last week the section's letters page got a letter from a reader asking why "Ask Jack" never answered any Mac queries, or any other OS for that matter. The reply was, oh Jack's a real expert, you can ask him anything. So, please, go ahead, why not "Ask Jack" your deepest questions about some tricky Debian or Slackware problem, I'm sure he'll be just delighted to answer. Email him at: jack.schofield@guardian.co.uk
That's the golden opportunity in this. We will never secure our rights online until the general populace gets upset. Right now, all they care about is getting their Must-See TV and their low-fat chips. But the Content Cartel is pushing harder and faster and making more and more intrusive policies. Some day -- perhaps soon -- they will step over the line and change something that people actually do care about.
Denying people access to their own, legitimate copies might be the thing.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
This is one case where immaturity has its uses, and being overly sympathetic to clueless users is damaging.
We dont need laws against DRM, we dont need huge consumer outcries about this. There is no need for having a campaign against DRM.
The appropriate responses are:
Once people realize that Microsoft is not on their side, and that those clue-possesing individuals they know are not going to make it all better, then maybe theyll put forth the effort to get an user-rights-friendly OS on their next machine.
All the pieces are in place for a change on the desktop. (Palladium,WinXP,DRM,etc)
I'm not sure when something that benefits the RIAA but can only cause headaches for end users started being called a "feature."
If you build a car that is incapable of going over 65mph do you advertise it as an anti-speed ticket "feature"?
nonsense.
ôó
So how does this so-called DRM actually provide any security whatsoever for the copyright holders? It doesn't. It is irritation-ware pure and simple. Just another totally unnecessary hoop to jump through.
<PARANOIA>
Or is it? How about this for a totally irrational paranoid fantasy: could it be that by clicking the "turn off DRM" button you are circumventing the copy-protection and so, technically, in breach of the DCMA? Just how twisted would MS have to be to implement a honey-trap just so they could sell the RIAA a list of the theoretically guilty?
</PARANOIA>
Disclaimer: no, even I don't really believe this. But, hey, food for thought, eh?
--
What short sigs we have -
One hundred and twenty chars!
Too short for haiku.
It's called CDEX, people! Get it! It rips to the fully-standard MP3 format or even the Open-source Ogg Vorbis format. No DRM-BS. Get it! Use it! Love it!
www.wavefront-av.com
How often? Well, back in the 9x days it was once every 4 months. Since I've installed Win2000 (also known as "Windows that doesn't fucking suck ass") I've only done it a few times, and that was usually to fix a driver bug from Nvidia. And of course, two reinstalls for XP - one to put it there the first time, and one to go from a cracked prerelease copy to my legal copy when I got it in December (damn slow educational licensing!)
In short, the nice thing about NT is that it doesn't degrade the way 9x did.
Btw, just so I know what to use and what crap to avoid -- does Roxio EZCD Creator 5.0 have DRM stuff built in?
They do have an annoying spiel about how you should respect copyrights when burning a CD. It really kills me when a company whose product I have paid for automatically assumes I am a thief. Although it is very likely that they would embed some sort of identification info on all CDs burned.
And kids, this is why we use cdex. The fully functional, open source ripper without all the bloat of other rippers. Billy the open source monkey says: "that was a blatant plug, but it applies"
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
So when I did my yearly reinstall, I no longer had access to my password file since I didn't save my certificate (not that its easy to locate anyway)...Thank God that I hadn't bought the shredder yet and I found an old copy of my passwords in the fireplace :D (unburned)
I think you are a good candidate for the thinkgeek keychain which is advertized all the time. :-). Although I think the loopback system doesn't need anything other than the password.
No.
YOU'RE funny, bozo.
I hate Microsoft (trust me) just as much as the next Slashdotter, but if you read the page, it's a Q&A forum for people with computer problems and how to do this successfully is explained. In other words, you need to know what you're doing before you do it.
If someone whined to your average slashdotter that linux didn't install before they did their hardware homework, they'd be laughed at. The issue is more or less the same.
But as an aside, I think DRM is fairly evil in general inasmuch as fair use is not preserved.
My
Limekiller
The day this happens is the day I move to a small hut just outside Ulan Baator, surrounded by three walls of electrified barbed wire, with a very large Doberman leashed to the doorknob. I'll use only software that takes no input and produces no output and do my networking via encrypted smoke signal - and my packets will walk uphill both ways! On their knees! Backwards!
Geez, how come he didn't turn copy protection off? I mean come on, it's not that complicated. Besides, from what I remember, the first time I tried copying music files onto my PC, WMP asked me if I want the content to be protected from now on or not.
Sure am glad that I run Linux now... this whole DRM thing is going to get out of hand within the next 2-5 years.
:)
Of course, when TCPA/Palladium hits it'll be integrated into hardware and will probably kill off any solution that ISN'T Microsoft-based. I sure hope some other hardware manufacturer will make non-TCPA-compliant hardware during the fallout.
Welcome to hell. Here's your copy of Windows.
-- Jim
If I can relicense my music so easily, what's to stop someone else from doing it? What's the point in "protecting" a file with a license, when anyone can relicense the file whenever they wish?
Does this make sense to anyone? Am I missing something here?
Yeah - it's called .
Given the state of most web pages, it appears to be <body> ... </body>.
You can turn it off, and as soon as you can't people will start using another media player that doesn't limit their freedoms which is a good thing (IMO). The only way I see this being newsworthy is if steps are being taken to make it a law that all media players must implement this feature, that would be really bad for the windows users. Of course the linux users could just download a GPLed media player and disable the feature by editing the source and recompiling. Wouldn't even be that hard for non programmers most likely, anyone designing an open source media player for linux would probably put something like this into the source:
//ATTENTION: delete the next three lines to disable the annoying copy protection.
so this is really only a problem for windows users, and if you voluntarily use MS Windows as your primary OS then you should already be used to giving up your freedoms.
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article
The first time someone wants to replay their child's birth (or conception :o)) MPEG and they are informed they can't unless they use the internet or they jump through the right hoops. Then at that point will DRM be an infringement on a person's own right to play their own content on any machine they want?
What about burning the image of a child, as an example, playing little league you want to send to the folks at home? Does this DRM mean that those images can only play on the originating computer?
I guess in MS's world, content managament means they can manage any content that plays on any of their licensed products. Wasn't this, like, declared illegal summer 2001? Help me out here, you folks who are so in love with Redmond's products... Enlighten me...
You know MS is so fixated on digital rights management they don't even consider what their obligations are to the world at large, the obligations that though the new paradigm is they own the software you are using and you have only those rights they grant you, at some point there must be a delineation of responsibilities by MS: that they may not interfere with your online or offline activities, EVEN IF ILLEGAL, unless they go through the same processes that law enforcement agencies must go through to build a prima facie case; where is MS's obligation? Doesn't their use of the internet to manage XP constitute broadcasting and is subject to the same strictures that everyone else is under the FCC? Even in computers it would seem to me that citizens in a republic such as ours (USA) must be protected from outlaw contracts such as EULAs.
Dawn of the Dead
Man FUCK THAT SHIT
I have iTunes!
I tell people that WMA is not to be trusted, its a closed codec that's designed to trap you in MS bullshiat, but they never listen. Mp3s forever, seriously. They work great and never give you any hassle. Who needs WMA? All your PC licence gibberish gives me an instant headache.
--hongpong.com
"Personal License Migration Service (PLMS)" Forcing people to pay a monthly fee for the privelege of playing their mp3s and having MSFT spy on them. They'll be lining up by the dozens to sign up for sure....
Why is it that everyone wants so many damn features in their "media player"? Doesn't anyone just fucking LISTEN to their MP3s? I swear that half of you freaks just organize them obsessively. And really, is there a need for 20,000 MP3s? I doubt that there are that many songs I would ever want to listen to, much less have in my playlist.
...and then the software developers get the hell out of the U.S. just like the bioengineers did.
"The Day The Music Died: Windows Media and DRM"
I don't think anybody ever thought of Windows Media as a vital organ to music. That's like saying "The Day Movies Died: The Cinema Hotdog"
"Derp de derp."
Had it not been for your last paragraph, I would have demanded that you remove the "Or maybe".
Even so, you give so little weight to the down side that I must insist that you change that to "I'm Quite Likely Insane".
One thing I didn't get is what format was created when the guy copied music from his CDs. Was it .wma or mp3 or what?
Here is what I don't understand. I have about 30 gig of MP3s. Most of this came from the 250 - 300 CDs I have. But a small percentage of it came from emusic.com and mp3.com...and a very small amount from Napster or Napigator.
I don't understand how they could make any of these files stop working, considering I paid money for 100% legal MP3s from emusic.com and downloaded 100% legal MP3s from MP3.com (personally, I consider MP3s made from my personal CDs as legal, too).
Considering the volume of legal mpeg content out there, isn't there some way we could sue someone if it suddenly stops working?
Again, I understand watermarking, what I don't understand is how they can make legal non-watermarked material not play at some point in the future?
usurper_ii
Ron Paul
To avoid any chance of this (except per-track water marking) I never do a straight disc-to-disc copy.(*) I always rip the tracks to .wav and make a new compilation.
(*)This copy, of course, would be so I can play the CD in the car and keep the legitimately purchased original at home on the shelf.
...you fools.
Slashdot Eds Link Anonymous Posts With Logged Posts
They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
How hard would it be to build a 'black box' with an SPDIF input and and SPDIF output that strips the copyright bit from a digital audio stream as it passes through?
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that the AC who posted that comment is a chick.
Here's Microsoft's version of Apple's ad:
Rip. Mix. Burn. Spend half a day jumping through Microsoft-induced hoops that are forced on you by your own computer.
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.
YOUR A TOADY!
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2002mar/m ac20020305010561.htm
What is going to have to happen to kill DRM is for a major hardware/OS company to say "go to hell, I'm giving my consumers what they want," and right now, the most likely candidate is Apple.
With a major player opting out, the entire DRM house of cards falls down. Consider Apple. After all, MacOS is just a pretty version of BSD now.
Probably a CIA plot to make the Chinese, Brazilians, and Sub-Saharan Africans look bad, right?
668: Neighbour of the Beast
In the olden days, when I was a college freshman writing FORTRAN programs on punched cards for an IBM mainframe, all of us students were set up with login accounts that had a certain amount of "money" in them at the beginning of the semester. As we ran our jobs on the machine, it deducted money from this account based upon processing time consumed.
I'm surprised that a certain giant OS vendor hasn't yet re-implemented this concept, except using real money, and requiring all accounting transactions to go over the dot net.
I thought the advice submitted by readers was funny:
'And finally, three readers who shall remain nameless suggested Bauckham switch to BT Openworld's service: "He will be disconnected regularly!'
If we back up our songs to CD-R or DVD-R aren't we protected against the DRM systems?
It would play until it gets formated anyway. The DRM would still be valid until you wipe the c drive, then no more music
DRM killed the Internet star....
The format the guy used was .wma. It allows the music to be encrypted and require a special license to listen to it.
.wma, realplayer files, liquid audio, and other propietary music formats. Another safe format to use is .ogg, which is like mp3, but they are smaller and sound better.
Your mp3 files are safe. mp3 files do not have any encryption built in and any mp3 player will still be able to play them. They will still be playable 20 years from now. Just avoid
All the whining and comments made here wont be any good for any of us. How many of you have actually sent a courtesy copy of what you posted here to your local legislators, congressional rep or senators? Until you start doing that, you are just wasting time in here.
The DMR, DMCA, UCITA, and so on, wont be dangerous to any one out there, until we address it with the appropriate people and educate John Public.
The reporter from the linked article was AWFUL. He should have cautioned the clueless respondant that in order to have drm, .wma files have MS's famous "active" content, like a word macro or a self-executing Outlook attachment.
.wma file can thus carry any sort of coding payload one wishes to install in it, from deleting "illegal" MP3s and Oggs to reformatting your hard drive, to mailing pictures of children having sex with priests to John Ashcroft.
.wma files does not lessen the threat, as if you rename a .wma file to .mp3, Windows Media Player will play it, as well as any nefarious payload it carries.
.wma files as well, as all players are succeptable to running .wma viruses.
A
Simply avoiding
Fortunately, no other media player I know of will play a media file with a misnamed extension (neither Real nor Winamp will), so you should avoid playing music with Windows Media Player, and avoid
So far afaik nobody has written anything but trojans for wma files, but when you finally hear about the "mp3 virus" you'll know it was really a wma virus.
-steve
springfield fragfest
Well, at least he's honest about it:
from User Info for tshak (173364)
See me @The Seattle Slashdot Meetup [http://slashdot.meetup.com/?localeId=413]
... and on that page:
tshak
Windows/ASP.NET developer with an open mind about technology. Representin' the Evil Empire baybee!
Thanks for confirming what I'd already suspected for other reasons: my next sound card will NOT be from Creative. (And I have just notified their public relations dept. of this, and why.)
That said, what sound cards (and they *must* be fully DOS-compatible to be useful to me) don't have such BS built in??
A legal can of worms comes to mind: if the hardware performs DRM, and the DRM itself fails to prevent copying, does that make the hardware mfgr legally liable for any acts of "copyright infringment" that occur because of said DRM failure?? (Note that in my scenario, circumvention is NOT used so is not relevant, nor is user intent addressed.)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Because when it drops it will look something like this:
The Software players themselves will clock out and have to be relicenced. This licenced code will recognize that all of the media files are 'old' and they have to be relicenced as well. And Oh did I mention that the licence to the objects will use a 3 way handshake that couples a corresponding key in the OS itself and will embed a keyed licence in the objects themselves so they will only play on a machine that already has a licenced OS with a licenced player playing licenced media files.
And if you had three legs the third shoe will look like this.
All media files will be 'owned' by someone else, probably the DMCA licence owner and they will have the ability, through your licenced OS to revoke the licence of a media file at any time for any reason. You will receive a bill in the mail, like your phone bill, that charges you for listening to or watching those media files and it will be 100% usage based.
And if you had a fourth leg the last shoe dropping will look like this.
All Libraries will be privatised and they will charge you to borrow books which will be slowly phased out anyhow in lieu of digital media. They will charge you for each viewing of each page on a per view per page basis.
And if you are a starfish it will loko like this.
Eventually there will be a literate class and an illiterate class distinguished my wealth just like in Medieval times. Long live the revolution!
Sure! There's one here
I had one, but the wheel fell off.
No, M$ was buying time and free PR, so that they could decide on the best way to profit from DRM.
No corporations are against it, those that say they are simply haven't figured out how to use it to their own advantage.
Duh.
Can we put Bill Gates and other MS employees (including the customer service department) for creating two circumvention devices and discussing them?
The Personal License Migration Service (PLMS) and the Personal License Update Utility mentioned in this article both circumvent the copy protection written into WMP. Is MS violating the DMCA for customer service? Or to make up for their bugware?
So, I guess my question is: Can we sue MS for violating the DMCA with respect to their own products?
It would be nice to have MSs big budget against the DMCA :)
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
That is interesting article. So now instead of trading the music we will also trade the license. Considering when you buy a new computer you'll get a new license instead of transferring and how long before someone gets a program running that masks your license to look like your friends license who gave you the music file. I don't see how this is really going to stop anyone.
Save Pangaea!! Stop Continental Drift!!
MS is for government or industry imposed DRM as long as MS can set and own the standards and is the sole controller and gatekeeper and thereby make a fortune from it. (I hope that I don't have to fill you in on the browser / anti-trust history to make the point). Also, they know that best way to keep track of and influence something is to appear to be against it and surreptitiously do the dirty work from the inside. That is something MS does well. The appearance that MS does not impose DRM on users is value added for MS; they can actually convince people like yourself that they're the "good guys".
Or maybe you're just astroturfing.
By this comment, the level of recursion demonstrated should be enough to make anyone's head hurt.
make a hacked license so it unlocks all muisc files...
Why do I have to ask someone just because I want to do something that I own it, on my own computer?
In a few years, you will have to ask MS if it's OK to run Word.
Unless of course, he's like some of my friends, who do nothing but complain about Microsoft's tactics, and then run out and buy the next release of the OS.
MS doesn't want to tell this to people, but it obviously must be archiving your list of songs on their servers somewhere. Remember the EULA of WMP that says you give MS the right to 'spy' on what you are playing? I think this feature might be the reason why that clause was there. They know that you had played that song in WMP once before.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Nobody is going to like this, but I'm going to say it anyway. These sorts of problems wouldn't exist if computers had a unique serial number in them.
I work a lot with SGI computers. Software on SGIs is licensed with FlexLM, and FlexLM depends on this thing called the license host ID number. On an SGI, that host number is burned into a special chip on the midplane called the NIC, for number-in-a-can. (Yeah, another instance of an overloaded acronym.) SGI's have had these for years and years.
When you get a software license, you provide the vendor with your license host ID, which is that number-in-a-can number. The vendor generates a license that will only be valid on your computer. Because the NIC is a piece of hardware, you can wipe your disks to your heart's content, and your license keys (as long as you keep copies of them) will continue to work.
It's a pretty foolproof system. I don't know precisely how it works, but there are at least two NICs in each computer, and new components are shipped from the factory in a special blank state, such that the old, failed part can be replaced with the new part and the system will flash the new NIC chip with the system's license host ID at power-up. Or something like that. All I know for sure is that I've had virtually every piece of my SGIs replaced at one time or another, and I've never had a problem with the license host ID.
I want to re-emphasize that this is not a new thing. SGIs have had NIC chips on them for as long as I can remember. Computers from other vendors may have them, too, but I couldn't say.
Now, if PCs had NIC chips in them, or the equivalent, the sort of problem described in the article would never arise. Copy-protected music files could be linked to a specific license host ID, which is stored in hardware. Wipe your drives, upgrade your machine, whatever, as long as you keep the same license host ID, the licensed stuff on your computer will continue to work.
Of course, you'd be unable to move your music files from one computer to another, but that's the whole point of the system, isn't it?
Now, how do you think the Slashdot audience would respond if somebody-- anybody-- advocated putting NIC-like technology in personal computers?
I think we're all going to have to acknowledge that some form of copy protection for media is necessary. The question then becomes, how do we (and I don't literally mean "we," but you get my point) devise a system that protects the media to the extent necessary, but that ensures as much convenience to the user as possible?
Next time somebody advocates something like the Pentium unique serial number scheme from a few years back, don't be quite so quick to flame them.
You take the SOURCE out of the system. (Image it off to a 2nd drive, if necessary)
You Install a new drive, or format the original if you are SURE you have a valid exact image off on the side, load windows, etc... then when everything works great on the new setup, THEN you can trash the source.
(Yes you have to have a spare drive around to do something like that...)
And if you select the wrong option? Guess what, click on Options, and uncheck "Protect Content" on the Copy Disc tab. Not that difficult, and no reading of manuals needed. He chose to protect them, even when he was given the opportunity not to, so it is his fault.
Now, my opinion of the thing? Don't protect, no problems. Windows Media Player 8 is by far the best media player available for Windows. It catalogues and integrates every feature needed better than any other player. You can use pre-installed handy skins for customizing. It burns, it rips, and in Series 9, it rips to multiple formats, in any bitrate you select. It has all artists information, and click a button, find out about the artist's other albums, and it even downloads a picture of the album cover! Perfect for library cds.
Don't knock WMP8 until you've used it for over 10 cds. You'll quickly realize why it's the best choice over other free players. Just wait till WMP Series 9, it has a good deal more features, more expandability, and add-ons, plus, it can catalog all of your music and allow you to access all of it instantly. The way artists and albums are setup makes the entire process a less-than-5-second dig for any song started from no where.
Try that with a massive Winamp playlist, or most other free programs.
Don't eat your soul to fill your belly.
conesus.com
You mean like the "Word" format? Did people convert all their files to a different format? No, they just upgraded their version of Office. A few might go through the trouble of switching formats, but that isn't the solution - that is a workaround. I sure as hell don't want to convert all of my 10Gig of MP3s to another format, even though I could easily write a script to do it in the wee hours of the night. Nobody else wants to do this either, it is just too much of a pain. Once something gets settled in as the "industry standard" it is very hard to get away from it.
Microsoft is a lot like Michael Corleone. If you get kissed on the cheek, you had better start looking over your shoulder.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
[No one wanted to buy a DivX disc that phoned home to validate and no porn movie maker really wanted to go that route because they know their audience.
:^)
Having to phone home has got to be the Achilles' Heel for this kind of stuff. I sure as hell don't want it, and I imagine most people would feel the same way, even if they aren't watching dirty movies.]
I believe you missed the point here. The original DivX (not to be confused with "get bootleg movies" DivX that uses mpeg with mp3 sound) died because it was a pain in the arse. People were used to going to the store to rent *and* return movies. They'd adjusted -- typically by just renting another when they went back, "saving" a trip.
People were not used to having to plug in a player to a phone outlet. Who has a phone outlet beside their TV? Heck, I still owe DirecTV for a few movies the receiver let me buy without a phone cord stuck in the back. (Someday I'll hook it up.) Who wants to rearrange their living room to save one trip to the Blockbuster [to return the movie]?
When things aren't a pain in the arse, like they aren't with Media Player in this example, people will blissfully (and to finish the cliche, ignorantly) go on reporting information on their computers to any server that'll listen on the Net. Heck, people on the up-and-up might concede that Microsoft is doing them a service -- for free!!
I think the article's mention of MS looking for a "honey-pot" might be closer to being on the money, however. At the very least, *you* decided to rip illegal CDs with Media Player, not Microsoft. MS is doing all they can to keep tabs on what you've done legally or otherwise, and I'm sure they'll be happy to help the authorities find a suspected pirate. Though I doubt the authorities are going to ask.
Finally, most/many porn users really don't care who knows. You think the mailman doesn't know that that brown wrapper's in your box holds Hustler? You think the porn industry's "pay-per-view" systems are suffering because people have to have an account? How about the Playboy channel? These places all keep tabs, and millions of honest porn lovers keep getting their fix.
It's not the anonymity that killed DivX; it was the paradigm shift (aka, "trouble hooking the danged thing up"). Sounds like you might be confusing "right to privacy" with "right to pirate", which is quite different. Really, what's the harm in Microsoft selling the information that I own a Britney Spears album? I mean, not that I do.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
Pretty easy. Only problem is that it's currently a felony.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
it's a hard thing to be able to use a windows pc, I don't know how people do it.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
This is the result of the DMCA, only now you have the option to turn it off. Soon this will no loinger be an option.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Great. Then Microsoft goes out of business and you're screwed.
Isn't anyone bothered bt Microsoft keeping a database of what you have done on your computer?
Bothered? Hell yes! Surprised? Hell no!
Sorry about that, but that's exactly why you shouldn't use Windows Media format, and, as much as possible, stay away from anything from Micro$oft because they are not interested in your welfare but in making their money by any means necessary.
unfscking believable...
We're like rats, in some experiment! -- George Costanza
Ever since Microsoft offered to buy Apple's Quicktime (and was shot down), they have started doing some mischeivous things with their own media player. This is one of two of my favorite examples. The other is as follows: in the WMP 7.x license agreement, the user agrees to allow Media Player to download binaries from Microsoft and run them; regardless of associability to WMP. This means that when MS decides to implement the Personal-Rights-Enforced Filesystem, WMP can automaticly install this software onto your (wiltel) box. If you read the WMP licence, you'll get a bad feeling about some of the things it assumes your consent on.
Suggestion: create a competing product to WMP, because the only reason people use it is for Burning CD's and looking at trippy visualizations - something I have seen in any other software.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
RazzleFrog wrote:
n ni um/mgoals.html
o k under "Previous Projects".)
.Net, DRM, Palladium, Longhorn, they are definitely moving in that direction. And they have duped a group of open source developers into extending their Millenium to Linux and the Mac.
;)
(that crovira wrote:)
>> The direction M$ wants to take the world in (not
>> where we might want to go today,) is one where
>> PCs boot off of a network
> Actually, that is Sun Microsystem's catch line -
> The Network is the Computer - or at least it used
> to be. Sun was the one with the whole goal of
> going back to dummy terminals.
True, but there is a big difference between running programs off of a server while viewing them on a dumb terminal and the network really being the computer: ie. a distributed network that takes over your computer.
As it happens, Microsoft had just such a research project, called Millenium, back in the late 90's:
http://research.microsoft.com/research/sn/Mille
(Especially "What would such a system be like?")
http://research.microsoft.com/research/sn/
(Lo
From the technologies they have been introducing, or revealing as vaporware:
crovira was quite right about the ramifications as well. And the scariest thing is, Microsoft has rigged its EULA's in such a way that they can simply install it any time, without the PC owner's knowledge (they got their consent when they clicked through the EULA).
Please keep in mind that when Media Player plays a song and checks online to restore that license info, the user of Media Player has already given their permission to Microsoft to automatically upgrade their computer with new "security" features at that time. MSN users, well you've agreed to let Microsoft make downloads to your machine any time you connect to MSN. I believe a recent service pack ropes in XP and 2000 users as well.
We do have three hopes of escaping Microsoft's Millenial Kingdom:
1) Microsoft, being Microsoft, blunders Millenium so spectacularly badly that they sink under the weight of a thousand billion dollar lawsuits.
2) Linux gets on the desktop (really, what is keeping you?) and joins Apple in the fight to grab marketshare from Microsoft's monopoly. Without monopoly power, Millenium would never happen on a global scale.
3) At the very worst, if Linux and Apple are infected by Mono and get assimilated by Millenium, there is one last hope yet. Nintendo, I'd move your American offices out of Redmond, because an old (and highly radioactive) friend of yours will be coming to town. The One True Monster King has no intention of sharing his crown with the likes of Microsoft. (Or CGI iguanas for that matter.
Oh, and Microsoft, where did SQL Server (you know, the basis of Longhorn's file system) put the sacred nuclear materials of the Dreaded God of the Atom? He *really* wants to know.
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world. And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it."
Miyasaka, Godzilla 2000 Millennium (Japanese version)
(Note: I'm not associated with Toho in any way, besides loving their monster movies.
A better, or more prophetic, version of "Godzilla vs. Microsoft" than "Godzilla 2000 Millenium" could not be made.)
Is that sig a real quote?
Last post!
At the very least, *you* decided to rip illegal CDs with Media Player, not Microsoft.
Where the heck did this come from? How long has it been illegal to copy a CD to another format? Silly me, I just thought "piracy" was a distribution thing, not a personal preference thing.
Sounds like you might be confusing "right to privacy" with "right to pirate", which is quite different.
How long have you worked for the RIAA? Just curious. It's sad when an industry assumes all its customers are criminals. You have a major problem with logic if the following makes sense to you:
WMA and MP3 files can be used for piracy, therefore all users of WMA and MP3 files are pirates.
How sad.
Igor
How is this Microsoft's job, anyway? Why does Microsoft have the authority to do this? Who gave them that authority? What does Microsoft gain from having this authority? Is the FTC paying attention?
[At the very least, *you* decided to rip illegal CDs with Media Player, not Microsoft.
:^) (Senator Hollings' home state. Boy I wish he'd clue in a little)
Where the heck did this come from?]
I believe you missed the point. There's an implied "if you do rip something you don't own with MediaPlayer and Microsoft doesn't know about it, it's because you actively (as opposed to passively, which is how the "protection" is turned on by Media Player) turned off the protection. It's not our [Microsoft's] fault." The whole system seems to be a very good attempt by MS to CYA (or "CTA" in this context).
I'm sorry the implication wasn't clear enough. Hey, I've got iTunes ripping CDs I own as fast as I can find hard drive space and haven't bought an eyepatch just yet.
As to whether I've worked for the RIAA, I do live in SC.
*Burning Karma*
.conf files for many things to work properly, you'd think that finding a checkbox in an options dialog would be no big deal.
For a buncha guys that use OS's that REQUIRE editing of
i'm amazed that i survived - an airbag saved my life.
OK, let me quote from the Windows Media player help file:
====
Note: You should back up your licenses to a floppy disk periodically. If you reinstall or upgrade the operating system, your licenses could be lost. You can use the back up disks that you create to transfer licenses from an old computer to a new one, or to transfer licenses from a work computer to a home computer.
====
There is a very simple "backup licenses" function that'll let you copy them to a floppy. Then you can reinstall your OS and simply restore the licenses. Nothing to it. I've done it myself. *I* read the instructions. Judging from the vast majority of comments here I'd say no one else bothered to read the help and see how this is actually done - instead prefering to assume MS is being evil.
fuck you, microsoft.
FUCK YOU HARD.
you suck ass.
FUCK OFF.
It is _not_ a recommended practice to re-encode MP3s to Ogg. And if you do, please don't distribute them, because then you're giving the public a skewed representation of Ogg Vorbis' real audio quality.
The bitrate reduction in Ogg Vorbis is called peeling, although, no real tool for peeling currently exists, and no one has really proven it works (only a small sample program that didn't sound that great)
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
I actually used to be a big fan of Microsoft. Evil Empire, shady business tactics, yeah yeah, whatever. I admired their goal of transforming the then-chaotic software world into a coherent, integrated whole that would do really cool things. Ask almost anybody at Microsoft ten years ago and they would have sincerely told you that was their mission.
... Personal License Migration Service blah blah... Personal License Update Utility yada yada... I translate these 4 or 5 paragraphs into one sentence:
But back then MS was still truly a geek-run company, headed by one particular geek who had figured out how to hack the business world. Today lawyers and bean counters are running the show, and making tremendous amounts of money is the only goal. Today we get root authorization snuck into security patches, and circle jerking with the entertainment industry.
Reading through all the MS instructions
Do not use Microsoft software.
A bomber the FBI was hunting recently discovered something similar about his cell phone.
He had driven halfway across the country from the area where he had been planting bombs in people's mailboxes. Somewhere in Nevada he powered up his cellphone. And when the cellphone identified itself to the network, the new "locate the 911 call" system (which actually tracks the phone any time it's on) reported his location to the cops (who had already notified the phone company to look out for him). They had him captured within half an hour.
Of course the first time the general population heard about this capability was when it was mentioned in a news story about the capture. (If the cops hadn't told the reporter it had been used, even those of us who knew it was possible wouldn't have known it was already deployed.)
This digital rights management registration has the same properties, but for any type of line:
Turn on your computer while it's attached to the internet and it "phones home" to check your licenses, which are identified to you personally.
This identifies the IP number you're currently using.
The IP number - even if it's dynamic - identifies the ISP, and the port within it.
The ISP can track the port to a physical connection - either hardwired or dialup - and can do this either in real-time or from logs after the connection is dropped.
The location can be identified immediately for hardwired connectinos. For dialups the phone company or companies handling the call can track it - again either real-time or from logs. (Both the ISP and the phone companies can tie this to your name, bank account, and so on.)
The entire process CAN be automated (if it has not been already), much like Carnivore, giving the FBI or others instant access to the information.
This may already have been authorized by the Patriot act. It's directed at enemy non-citizens and intended to be used by the "intelligence community" and so claims to escape many civil-rights safeguards (such as the need to get a warrant before using it), much like the incarceration without recourse to courts used against Johnny Walker Lindh and others associated with the Taliban.
Of course if this facility is used to capture an actual bomber and save lives, that's good. But if it's used to capture somebody some law-enforcement or spy agency THINKS is the bomber, it's not so good. And if it's used to harass opposition political figures, anybody some bureaucrat or cop doesn't like, or random citizens, it's called "a police state".
Please don't tell me "It can't happen here." Because it DID happen here. Repeatedly. (Look up COINTELPRO - or the general history of the FBI - for examples within the computer era.) And don't tell me it USED to happen but doesn't anymore, either. It takes decades for this stuff to come to light, so the recent stuff is still not general knowledge. (I remember people saying it doesn't happen anymore when COINTELPRO was happeneing.)
But the "digital rights management" hook is just the last straw, tying your personal identity to your computer's identity in advance. The bulk of this has already been deployed - at least in Microsoft systems and possibly in others.
Microsoft system installs attempt to configure your network connection. If they succeed, it's "PC Phone Home". They have your Software Product Key (a unique identifier for the software distribution), the serial number of your CPU if it exposes one, the MAC address of any ethernet cards (which can serve as a hardware unique identifier if your CPU doesn't expose a serial number), and any info you entered during the setup - like to sign up for network service. Of course the connection itself gives them your call trace information.
A few years ago Microsoft found a new use for spam: They sent out a series of "developer conference" adds. The remove-me email address would bounce. But the remove-me URL would load a mix of HTML, Javascirpt, and VBscript which would construct a URL containing your registry information and use it to query register.microsoft.com. (The registry contains your Software Product Key, ethernet card MAC address, etc.)
Some of the file formats used by Microsoft tools embed identifying information in files they store or exchange - which can also get it into email. An example is Microsoft Word, and the identifying information has already been use to arrest at least one macro-virus author.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
A BBC News article today has this ironic quote from Bush's National Security Advisor, speaking about Iran:
"I don't think there's any doubt that we are concerned that Iran is a place where an unelected few are really crushing the aspirations of their people."
Unelected few? Gee, sounds awfully familiar to me, an American living in the good old USA. She continues...
"So what we are saying to the Iranians is act like elected leaders, and that these unelected few should not be permitted to hijack the aspirations of the Iranian people."
Senator Hollings, Congressman Boucher, are you guys listening?
This seems like stupiditiy on the part of the poster/slashdot and sounds like the basic anti-microsoft bs from this site again. I give you the following quotes.
"There is still a way to get these licenses back and it is pretty easy using our Personal License Migration Service (PLMS), [which] was designed to address the exact situation you outline. The customer just has to be connected to the internet, then they can automatically restore their licenses just by playing the music files in question."
"You can also choose to turn off copy protection when you create your music collection, which can be done easily in any version of [WMP7.x or later]. "
"When you first run Windows Media Player, it will ask if you want to keep copy protection on, and you can turn it off if you wish. If you missed that dialog box, it is still easy to turn off copy protection by going into the Tools|Options menu."
So am I to understand that this guy was given the dialog to turn on or off copy protection when he first ran windows media, he chose to turn it on, is now too lazy to get on the internet and restore his licenses and is bitching to us through this page?!?!
...copy CD's with Windows Media Player???
Zis Guy Wrote:
>I have been collecting music using Windows Media
>Player to copy from CDs.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I'll go with knowledge, definitely. If it's a choice between being sorrowfully powerful or being blissfully screwed over ... well, it's not a hard choice.
There is no reason to convert MP3 to ogg (or ogg to mp3) and a very good reason NOT to.
.cda files as the primary session. This way, it plays in your car but if you want an MP3 (or ogg) copy, it is already there and you don't have to convert back.
Both formats (as well as the despised wma) are lossy compression. Any format converted from ogg to mp3, or mp3 to ogg, will lose quality.
ALSO, when burning downloaded files to CD, it isn't a bad idea to mark the CD (with a pen) as originally coming from MP3 (or ogg) so you won't think they are pristine files. If you convert back, you lose even more quality.
I usually (if there is room on the CD) make it multisession, with the original MP3s in the "computer only" portion and the
-steve
springfield fragfest
Only problem is that it's currently a felony.
Not in most countries...
Mod him up, just for the topic!
Never laughed so hard...
It's the CBDTPA now. Here's a site that explains it: http://blujay.us/cbdtpa/
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
To avoid any chance of this (except per-track water marking) I never do a straight disc-to-disc copy.(*) I always rip the tracks to .wav and make a new compilation.
Hopefully, you have software that will look up the track info on a central online database when you rip the CD. Of course, all this is academic now that you can't even play the newer CDs on a computer drive.
Oops. http://blujay.us/stopcbdtpa/
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
And so on.
Let me get this right.
Having spent 25 years trying to make VCR's as simple as a CD player (ie. usable when drunk, rather than requiring rocket science to set the clock), CD players as simple as toasters; and turn personal computers into appliances (take a bow Steve Jobs); the entertainment industry is now trying to turn CD players into (drum roll):
Okayyyy. Sounds like consumer friendly to me.
Not
Seriously, the entertainment industry really needs to consider this aspect of things. We all know that Digital Rights Management is a usability nightmare, but do they?
How many of these devices are going to sell to consumers who are forced to 'manage' their "Digital Rights"?
A large part of the corporate software and services market revolves around tools and services to make management of assets (read rights-to-see-the-movie) easy.
Software customers purchase software and then find themselves spending much, much more on ancillary tools and services to remove the added cost and complexity from their lives.
In fact, a good definition of "service" is "cost to the customer". If a customer has to spend a lot of time/effort/additional money to deal with me or use my product, that's poor service. If it's easy for them, that's good service.
"Ease-of-use" is not a strong point of the software industry (in fact we should hang our heads in shame)
On the other hand, "ease-of-use" defines the entertainment industry. The key to their success is making discretionary purchase of luxury goods so easy we can't resist.
How much does it cost me to see a first run movie at the cinema, or buy a CD now?
My legs to carry me there and some loose change for the ticket/CD.
How much does Hollywood and RIAA want me to pay in the future?
A whole swag of licence management software, DRM-aware backup software, etc, etc, etc,
In other words, a distribution channel with extremely poor service characteristics.
They must be mad.
No one is taking away my ability to play those music demo's on my Commodore 64.
Not yet anyway...
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
From the Winamp changelog:
Winamp 2.61:
* In accordance with Microsoft's license agreement, we no longer allow you to use DSP plug-ins or alternate output plug-ins when playing WMA files.
So you'd have to find a version older than 2.61 for that trick to work.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
DRM technology is still young by the way. If licensers were smarter about how they dole out licenses for music, this wouldn't be a problem. If they would associate the computer you just built with your previous computer (through account management), the files would transfer just fine. And you could probably be sneaky enough to send them to your parents, while still giving the licensers enough control to disallow widespread filesharing of DRM protected media.
Don't blame DRM for all of the stupid implementations to date.
I only just today was sent a .wma file be a friend. Upon opening the file by browser (NN)
opened to the migration page. Clicking the
Migrate License button, however, produced the erorr "Your Netscape browser does not have the Microsoft Windows Media Services Plug-ins installed.
Tried the uri in Explorer but clicking the Migrate License button produced "Sorry, we are unable to issue a license to you at this time. Please try later."
What the...?
We all make mistakes, but this one gave me a real belly laugh! Thanks!
I trust said developer was immediately terminated for gross incompetence then. Come on, the person writing the spec, responsible for implementing this valuable new feature of unique document IDs, didn't even bother to examine the method by which the ID was generated?
If there was a better way of generating unique IDs on a computer, you can bet that it would have been used instead.
It's hard to believe that the spec writer looked very hard for alternatives when s/he didn't even examine the provenance of the original.
But hey, why look at it in a reasonable fashion when you can go off the deep end with conspiracy stories?
In this particular case, the conspiracy story is a lot more reasonable than the explanation you've offered. However, it's certainly possible that there's no malice here; maybe the development team simply didn't care about their customer's privacy. That's the explanation I favored at the time; however, the pattern of behaviour we've all seen since doesn't cast a kindly backward light.
More and more it looks like that was when they started moving step by step away from the shallow end.
... logging in one day only to find all you music gone and a message: We found music on your machine, we were not sure if you owned the cd so we deleted it just to be safe. Have A Nice Day. billg@microsoft.com
Ah, yes. Social engineering for the greater good.
Personal Protection?
If I can't play MY music, then this is PERSONAL HARRASMENT, NOT PROTECTION!
Someone at Microsoft should be whacked.
Heck, to hell with all of them.
Hacking the Network
If you have the correct Windows Media codecs installed (any codec, for that matter, that you wish to use) you can use NiceMC Media Plugin for WinAMP and just add your video files via URL like any other streaming WinAMP-compatible media. I am still using v1.0(x86) (which is maybe why mine's free, ha) but it rarely gives me any problems. It seems to be a lot less resource-intensive than MS's Media Player, but I haven't actually measured CPU %. Of course, I mean, this should work for pr0n, cause it's not like I tested it, or anything. Yea.
If I had a sig, this is where it would be.
So use open formats like MP3 and non-mirco$haft software like winamp. Big deal.
Speaking of the day the music died - I believe today is the 25th anniversary of the death of Elvis. Amazingly, he's still in the charts!
-----
For great justice!
Backs up their music in a proprietary Microsoft format to begin with? It isn't like there is any real benefit over any other open and free format. It's like the same thing with real video -- It's going to be real funny (no pun intended) when real media goes out of business, all their players expire, and all those fools out their encoding stuff in that format are SOL.
Seriously, I don't mean to be harsh, but you sleep in the bed you make for yourself. It's sad that most people dont see the obvious advantages to using open formats instead (You think wmf is going to out live something like mpeg? Are you high?) but man -- if I felt sorry for every dumb shmuck on the planet I would be crying to hard to post to slashdot.
"The Wright brothers were the first to fly with a heavier-than-air machine, but boy did they have a lousy plane"
Anyway this time I had another look at devices and this time WMP, of all programs, told me this device was recordable. I could scarcely believe it so I decided to put it to the test and inserted a blank. Sure enough the orange light came up, a sight I have not seen for almost a year, and eventually it claimed it had managed to copy one single track and run out of space. When I looked at explorer it confirmed this was a writeable device whereas before it was always in denial. Looking at the recording it could not read it however, but looking at the disk it had physically burned about half the surface.
Could it be WMP did not like the look of my VLK and decided to knobble my means of "piracy"?
I'd just like to comment that Vodka is Good.
DRM still sucks though.
Thanks. I've used Ogg before, but the quality has never been astounding. I assume there were major improvements for the 1.0 release then?
If you object, write a nice letter complaining to your local newspapers.
Can I suggest you pick on one of those Congressmen that is making all this law against consumer interests while receiving large amounts of lobby cash from IP interests.
Howard *, Fritz Hollins etc.
From the screenshots, Rhythmbox looks like what I want. Thanks for the info. xmms looks just like WinAmp to me, and WinAmp's not my cup of tea. Now all I have to do is get my nForce sound chipset working under Linux.
FlexLM works exactly the same way in Sun machines.
And guess what? If you want, you can get a license file and fake the hostid and run any program you want.
Now, FlexLM is great for comapnies dealing with companies. The Sun machine in my desk is my companie's not mine, they can pretty much accept any leonine conditions imposed on them, that is none of my business (unless my expert, personal opinion is asked, in which case company gets piece of my mind).
But in my machine I don't want any spyware and I don't want any company tracking what I am doing.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
What about a better name: Personal License Migration Service futility ?
not using windows media player in the first place? Bet that'll fix most of your music problems. Don't like winamp? Try thisSonique Media Player instead.
--What, you ain't know about them country fried sessions?
Menken said that democracy is the belief that the people should get the government they deserve -- and good and hard.
Oh, and a local TV station is a license to collect money from politicians -- network programming is a wash for them but campaign adds are their real cash cow. So if you want to influence politics by contributing to campaigns, you may as well give the money straight to the TV station.
Senator Russ Feingold is trying to require local TV stations to provide more open forum opportunities for third party and independant candidates. Yeah right, the local TV stations are going to give up their racket in the name of public interest. Modern politics is the art of shaking down the political activists (dupes with open check books) to give it to TV stations to tell moron voters whom to elect.
3 months?! Man, you don't know sh!t, I did that in less than 2 weeks. And yes,this post IS offtopic, so feel free to give me a -1. But man, 3 months? I bet you're skipping breakfast every day, to be soooo slow...