"Squishy" DRM?

lhouk281 writes "There's an article on Wired about squishy DRM. Apparently some companies are trying to find a happy medium in implementing DRM between the consumer and the RIAA. Good luck..."

Comments

Digital Managament = Digital Management

[AriesGeek]

Sugar-coat it all you want. It's just as bad.

Just my dos centavos.

Re:Digital Managament = Digital Management

[Anonymous Coward]

In a related story

Lead singer of The Phlegm Puppies has a list of 19,000 people who downloaded his songs and is going to sue each one

That lead singer is a diabolical moron.

Re:Digital Managament = Digital Management

[stratjakt]

Yogurt is squishy and I dont want that in my PC or Home Stereo either.

Re:Digital Managament = Digital Management

[Anonymous Coward]

But don't you see? Pirated music is funding drug trafficing (as if drung dealers aren't manking enough money) and inhibiting the war on terror!

We NEED "Digital Rights Management" to protect ourselves from those nasty drug dealers and terrorists!

Re:Digital Managament = Digital Management

[Anonymous Coward]

...plus now they rot your teeth!

Re:Digital Managament = Digital Management

[captaincucumber]

Just like grandpa always said: "you can call a dog a cat, but you can't make it meow."

Squish This Maddog

[KelsoLundeen]

"Squish DRM" equals "Compromise" -- something Jack "Maddog ... Grrr! ..." Valenti and Hilary Rosen are incapable of understanding in their current, frothy states.

Re:Squish This Maddog

[KelsoLundeen]

Make that "squishy DRM" not "squish DRM".

I don't want the DMCA SWAT team to come "hup-hup-hupping" their way into my trailer and dragging me off to a SuperMax facility in Colorado for advocating the notion of "squishing DRM".

Re:Squish This Maddog

[AssNose]

Talk like a Pirate Day isn't until September 19.
You'll probably have to wait until then...

Re:Squish This Maddog

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of Hilary Rosen, does anybody have the nude photos of her I heard about? I'd like to check them out!

Re:Squish This Maddog

[Tackhead]

> "Squish DRM" equals "Compromise" -- something Jack "Maddog ... Grrr! ..." Valenti and Hilary Rosen are incapable of understanding in their current, frothy states.

I took it the other way around. Squishy DRM is indeed a "compromise". It's a compromise in the same sense that the DMCA was a "compromise" between ISPs and Hollywood and the CBDTPA was (presented as) a "compromise" between hardware makers and Hollywood.

Jack and Hilly are very capable of understanding what "compromise" means. To MPAA and RIAA, "compromise" means "You give us some of what you used to have, and we keep it until we decide it's time for another compromise."

(The content cartel's notion of compromise from one of their more popular movie characters, namely Darth Vader, of "I am altering the terms of our bargain. Pray that I do not alter it further" fame)

Re:Squish This Maddog

[Anonymous Coward]

I have nude photos of Jack Valenti -- let me know if you'd like to see those.

Re:Squish This Maddog

[hpavc]

with the scary side show she hangs out with of course

Re:Squish This Maddog

[Anonymous Coward]

well, she's not nude, but she is sucking my monster cock.

simple

[geekoid]

Forget DRM, let market forces dictate the business model for business.

the consumers is happy, and the business that can adapt are happy.

the rest will die.

Re:simple

[Anonymous Coward]

The rest will litigate

Re:simple

[cpt kangarooski]

While this is _sorta_ true, the big problem is that the market is not a cure to all ills. If enough members of the market conspire to create a cartel that monopolizes the field, this is in fact a market failure caused by too little intervention.

'Course, we have things like copyrights because there was a significant market failure without them too, so it's really just one big screwy area.

Re:simple

[trip11]

Forget DRM, let market forces dictate the business model for business.

The companies are trying to addapt to market forces by using DRM. Those that survive will just pick the right balance between making money and not pissing off customers.

If it works though, I think this 'squishy' solution sounds like it could be a decent compromise between the two. As much as we all know the recording companies are evil, it is stealing to rip off their stuff and they have a right to protect it. This could be a way to allow fair use without being a pain in the ass. Just my 2 cents.

Re:simple

[Reality Master 101]

Forget DRM, let market forces dictate the business model for business. the consumers is happy, and the business that can adapt are happy.

Forget the police, let the criminals decide whether to steal or not. The criminals are happy, and the citizens that can adapt are happy. The rest will die.

On behalf of the people that actually create things of value in society, rather than people like you who just want to take the work of others, let me say: screw you.

Re:simple

[Boss, Pointy Haired]

Since when did customers become an essential part of a business operation?

That's so Q4, 1998.

Re:simple

[demonlapin]

It's not about cops v. criminals, not at all. For starters, people don't like criminals, but they don't seem to be bothered by low-level copyright violation.

Music is, effectively, free. Perhaps it's good, perhaps it's crap, but it's extraordinarily difficult to go anywhere and not be surrounded by music - stores, hotels, cars, homes, you name it.

People don't pay for music per se. They pay to hear what they want, when they want. They pay to get a known good-quality recording of something. They pay for liner notes and, amazingly, out of a sense of duty to the artist.

Software is different; I'm not going to pay money to see Will Wright code, live, on stage. He doesn't get money unless I buy his games. I can, however, hear an mp3 or two of some artist's work and decide that I want a copy. Wiser artists give some of their stuff away for this very reason.

I don't doubt that the attitude of warez traffickers is detrimental to society, but "let the market sort it out" isn't the same as "there shouldn't be a market because information wants to be free". Maybe we'll find that (as with the cotton gin) people really are horrid thieves, and we have to protect the artists. Maybe we'll find that (as with so many copy protection schemes for software) it's just more trouble than it's worth, effectively keeping the honest people honest.

Re:simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but making piss-poor electronic music in your parents' basement does not make you a musician. Learn to play an instrument, or write poetry, or generally do something worthwhile.

Re:simple

[PjotrP]

first of all FUCK DRM... that being said my hopes are that the greed of the "entertainment" companies will eventually be the downfall of this system. It's like those first discman-mp3 players... started out with some obscure brands from hong-kong first making those. of course irritating the big media companies... BUT when philips and other companies saw how much money those hong-kong companies were making with their mp3 disc-players they quickly followed. Just like the region free DVD players or copied vcd-capable players... some unknown companies made quite a name for themselves on that market... of course now you can get region free sony players as well... moral of the story... there WILL be money to be made in evading DRM in any of its forms... and do you really think those companies will not screw the rest of the companies if there is money to be made?

Re:simple

[Anonymous Coward]

its not about the instrument, its how you use it. Why else can reed pipes, overturned buckets, partially filled wine glasses, make music. most commercially printed poetry sucks

Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[cioxx]

They should just work on a way and make music Opensource under the GPL license.

Mozart did it, look how much it helped him with fame.

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[gclef]

Mozart did it, look how much it helped him with fame.

Mozart died nearly penniless, without even the money for a private grave. (He was buried in a mass grave, so we don't know exactly where to go to pay respects.) Yeah, that's a great incentive.

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[geekee]

Mozart died pennyless.

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[cioxx]

Mozart died nearly penniless, without even the money for a private grave. (He was buried in a mass grave, so we don't know exactly where to go to pay respects.) Yeah, that's a great incentive.

You're looking at the small picture. Would you rather be like Nelly and make recyclable music which will die in a year and live in luxury? Or would you rather live in poverty, make beautiful music and become a legend, having billions of people after your death play and enjoy the music you created? There lies the question.

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[rknop]

Mozart died nearly penniless, without even the money for a private grave. (He was buried in a mass grave, so we don't know exactly where to go to pay respects.) Yeah, that's a great incentive.

Myth.

http://europeanhistory.about.com/library/bldyk11 .htm

-Rob

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[Mydogmaverick]

Didn't Motzart die in poverty?

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[Sylver Dragon]

You're looking at the small picture. Would you rather be like Nelly and make recyclable music which will die in a year and live in luxury? Or would you rather live in poverty, make beautiful music and become a legend, having billions of people after your death play and enjoy the music you created? There lies the question.

Money and luxury, thank you very much. Same reason I get out of bed before God and go to work in the morning.

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[Anonymous Coward]

He died in poor health, but not really in poverty.

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[rmadmin]

Hmm.. I'm guessing most artists these days would go for the money. :-) Personally, I'm not all over the idea of being dirty rotten filthy stinking rich(tm). I'd rather just have enough money to live comfortably. Otherwise I'd prolly end up REALLY really bored.

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[cristofer8]

And, actually, mozart didn't have any copyright etc laws, and so protected his musical scores with his life. No one else (besides his dad, who was also his manager) was ever allowed to see them, for fear of them being copied.

Sorry for that, but I visited his childhood home last summer :-)

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[uncoveror]

If Mozart had lived in our modern age, with our recording industry, his end would have been the same. The record lablels rip of artists, and fans, then call both theives. Check out this article. They accuse artists of "biting the hand that feeds them," if they don't repeat the RIAA party line. Fans' hands feed them, not those record company leeches! Boycott the recording industry. Don't buy CDs.

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[Erasmus Darwin]

"They should just work on a way and make music Opensource under the GPL license."

And Microsoft is welcome to release Windows under an open source license. That doesn't mean they have any incentive to do so. If you want open source music, make some of your own. That's how it's worked so far with open source software, at least.

Oddly enough, even RMS hasn't done the open source equivalent of music. On his song page, he gives people free license to sing and perform the songs. He does not, however, give them license to modify the songs. Furthermore, the copyright notice at the bottom of the page only provides permission for verbatim copying. Given his passionate views on software freedom, you'd think he would've made the logical extension to other intellectual property ventures.

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[Anonymous Coward]

Go Back To GBS

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[gclef]

Or just...debated:

http://www.wamozartfan.com/bio.html

(cue duelling banjos theme)

It's clear that finances were a problem through all his life, though, so the central point remains.

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[gclef]

I'll respond to this with another question:

Would you rather have music only made by one or two obsessed people who can't help but create music? Or would you rather have a legion of people who create music? The fact is, allowing folks to make a living of some sort by making music, even if they do get screwed by the recording labels, means that a lot more people are creating music. That means there's more music around.

Yes, there would still be music without copyright, but there would be much less. Whether this situation would be better or not is debatable.

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[Ctrl-Z]

Obligatory Slashdot reply:

1. Release music under GPL license.
2. ???
3. Profit!

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[Anonymous Coward]

He died in poor health, but not really in poverty.

Except for those who are violently killed, most people die in poor health. That's why they die.

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[nsigma]

As an artist and musician (albeit a digital nerdy one! :-) ), I'm strongly in favour of making music (and in fact all creative work) 'opensource' - in the sense of copyleft / GPL style licence. Maybe 'Opensource' is not quite the right word in this case as music is already opensource - you don't have the clear distinction between hidden source and open 'product' that you get with software. In the creative arts everything is, and always has been derivative (it's a meme thing!) - sampling is just an enhanced form of memory after all, so let's get over it and get on with creating. People created many wonderful works of art before copyright was even a blip on the horizon.

Interesting site, among many, is The Free Music Philosophy at www.ram.org/ramblings/philosophy/fmp.html .

Although, to play devil's advocate, the coding of the author's information into digital media files could also be a way of ensuring the upholding of an 'opensource' approach. After all, the copyleft principle does rely on proving copyright exists!

My tuppence worth - oops, dammit, given away the fact I'm British! :-)

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[Anonymous Coward]

DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN

Do not mod this up! Strike it down! I actually didn't mind the "all your base" jokes, but this one isn't even very funny the first time. This has rapidly progressed to beowulf cluster status.

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[Anonymous Coward]

This has rapidly progressed to beowulf cluster status.

The Beowulf Cluster jokes make my crack up every time. Even after a year of seeing it on /. It's just too damn funny.

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[pizza_milkshake]

You're looking at the small picture. Would you rather be like Nelly and make recyclable music which will die in a year and live in luxury? Or would you rather live in poverty, make beautiful music and become a legend, having billions of people after your death play and enjoy the music you created? There lies the question.

where are you writing this from? a street corner or your office/home?

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[azimir]

Actually, I think there is an answer to this one:

1. Release music under GPL license.
2. Perform it for a live audience who buys tickets.
3. Profit!

Putting the "performance" back in "performer".

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[cioxx]

where are you writing this from? a street corner or your office/home?

From the recording studio, quite ironically.

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[Sique]

Mozart died nearly penniless, without even the money for a private grave. (He was buried in a mass grave, so we don't know exactly where to go to pay respects.) Yeah, that's a great incentive.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was one of the best paid musicians of his time. He was for instance giving music lessons to aristocratic people, getting a fee of about three gold ducates per hour. The girl, who cleaned his house, got 12 gold ducates per year. So if he was giving one hour of lessons a working day he had the yearly income of his house maiden after two and a half week.

W.A.Mozard and his wife were spending his money with both hands. Buying expensive things, having expensive parties, travelling to the best spas around. W.A.Mozart died not in poverty. It is true that he got buried in a mass grave, but this was because his wife hadn't any will to pay too much on a decent funeral. His body (or whatever one thought was his body) later got a second funeral, paid for by his "fans" and admirers.

W.A.Mozart died of bad health. But this was not because he wasn't able to pay a medican. It was because his lifestyle was exhausting him. Having parties all night and drinking too much and being a workaholic with his music destroyed his health. So W.A.Mozart is one of the worst examples anyone defending copyright can use.

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. Beowulf = best... troll... ever.

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[MadAhab]

Wow. Great article. That guy proves that it's possible to be stupider than a sea cucumber and still knot a tie! He must live in LA: that town is made for "special" people like him. We used to call them "simple" but that's not polically correct now.

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[Anonymous Coward]

EVAR!

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[timmyf2371]

To be perfectly honest with you, whether people play and enjoy my music after my death doesn't *really* affect me too much - it's not like I'd know much about it.

I'd rather be successful and respected for the music I create and live comfortably.

Tim

Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.

[JScarpace]

BOTH alternatives are better than the lot of most musicians today who haven't had a big break. For those bands who can't get Clear Channel et al to play their music, P2P may be the only hope they have of finding a large audience.

It'll work.

[purduephotog]

Because people will find the restrictions easier to swallow. They'll accept it since its, say, 20% painful instead of 100% painful.

And then in another year, after our collective memory has faded.... it'll be 40% painful.... then 60%... then soon you'll find a coin slot next to your 3 gig floppy drive to pay for copywritten letters that make up the emails you are reading.

Once down the slippery slope, the only way to stop is to either dig in or hit the bottom.

Re:It'll work.

[Planesdragon]

And then in another year, after our collective memory has faded.... it'll be 40% painful.... then 60%... then soon you'll find a coin slot next to your 3 gig floppy drive to pay for copywritten letters that make up the emails you are reading.

No one but me has the right to copy something I own the copyright to--or charge for that right.

The logical extreme of DRM is a flag that truly prevents you from copying or saving a file with that flag on--but that's it. Everyone, even RIAA drones, wants some use of "copyrighted works" to still be free.

Once down the slippery slope, the only way to stop is to either dig in or hit the bottom.

And if Vietnam fell to communism, the entire world would follow...

Or if you start walking towards a wall that's 1 mile away, and you cover half the distance in a minute, you'll never get there...

And because your stock is going up, you can assume that it'll go up forever because people can just buy in and sell higher no matter what.

There are very, very few real "slippery slopes." DRM isn't, IMO, one of them.

The slippery slope in this model is, IMO, "file-sharing." Once it was MP3s on IRC, then websites, then Napster--and then the slope ended when RIAA was forced to take legal action because it had gotten too big to ignore.

Re:It'll work.

[Sturm]

"Once down the slippery slope, the only way to stop is to either dig in or hit the bottom."

Or hit the bottom and dig?

Re:It'll work.

[Anonymous Coward]

well said. Thanks for slapping down this clown's ill-thought-out rantings.

Re:It'll work.

[Phanatic1a]

No one but me has the right to copy something I own the copyright to--or charge for that right.


Really?

Explain the existence of compulsory licenses then.

Re:It'll work.

[bogie]

"There are very, very few real "slippery slopes." DRM isn't, IMO, one of them."

Denile ain't some river in Egypt.

"The logical extreme of DRM is a flag that truly prevents you from copying or saving a file with that flag on--but that's it. Everyone, even RIAA drones, wants some use of "copyrighted works" to still be free"

Windows "media pc" is coming out in a few months and it will do just that. Next Gen HDTV's are going to prevent you from making an actual "true" copy of the signal your paying for. Soon rather than later you will be unable to make legal backups of your music CD's due to either hardware or software DRM. Right now the Entertainment industry is lobbying for total lockdown on all future products which plug into and outlet.

Your one of those people who on the road to Hell keeps commenting on how nice a drive it is.

Re:It'll work.

[mangu]

And if Vietnam fell to communism, the entire world would follow...

Laos and Cambodia did. Then Angola and Mozambique. Then Ethiopia and Afghanistan. Then Raygun got elected and started StarWars. A simple invasion of North Vietnam in 1965 would have avoided all that, saving a few million lives and a lot of misery from happening.

DRM today is like when Hitler burned a few books written by "subversives" in the late 1930's. He was just burning a few books, it wasn't as if he would start a world war, was it? It may come to nothing much in the end, but the proposed DRM systems to this date are the first step on a very dangerous direction.

Re:It'll work.

[poot_rootbeer]

Please post one historical instance where the 'slippery slope' scenario you envision (as inevitable, I might add) has actually panned out that way.

If it's opinion, sure, that's great. But if you're going to assert that 'this is how it happens', I need proof.

Re:It'll work.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Denile" ain't a word, either.

Re:It'll work.

[Casualposter]

First, Copyright is a GRANTED monopoly. That monopoly is a grant from the people to the creator of the work. The creator of the work is entitled to profit from that monopoly for a finite length of time in any way he deems fit, so long as he stays with in the terms of the copyright.

So who owns the copyright? We do. It is ours to give and take away. This reasoning is why most people don't have a problem copying music they bought from one medium to another. We gave creators a monopoly so that we could enjoy the creation (music, literature, art, movies, etc)in any fashion we choose.

Napster was a clear signal of the people's desires with regards to enjoyment of music. We want it on our computers at our demand. We will pay for a convienent service for this, but not too much.

Copyright is not bad and not good. We must come up with a fair compromise between having unfettered digital copies and totalitarian copyright DRM system. Neither system works well for us.

The RIAA has created an adversarial relationship with their customer base by claiming that fair use= theft. Should a totalitarian DRM be enacted, the backlash will be horrendous. Verylikely the copyright holders could be stripped of their monopolies. As long as the people are generally satisfied, things are quiet, but should this become unfair, the people will rise up and change things.

Re:It'll work.

[Planesdragon]

Explain the existence of compulsory licenses then.

You mean like the GPL? By making a derivitive work, you are making a copy of part of someone else's copyrighten work, and thus need their permission--which is the GPL. (That's why it's called "copyleft.")

Or do you mean the sort of licenses that the government (the FCC, IIRC) forces the music industry to apply to radio stations? I don't know a lot about them, but they seem (to my layman's view) to be a forced use of powers the copyright holder has, not a reduction of them.

I.e., if they publish the songs, they have to charge no more than $x to anyone who wants them and can pay. But they can still charge less than $X (including $0) or not publish.

Show some guts

[Night Goat]

I wish the hardware and software companies would just not put DRM in their products and tell the RIAA, "Our customers don't like this stuff. We're not including it." There ARE other ways to stop piracy, like prosecuting those who break the laws. But no, instead I have to jump through hoops to get songs from my CDs to my Minidisc player through the OpenMG software (which is proprietary, of course). I'm not doing anything wrong here, yet I get punished. That's just not the right way to treat customers.

Re:Show some guts

[GigsVT]

Lobster and all that.

I don't think it is even possible to get a computer card or motherboard with TV-Out that does not have macrovision.

Re:Show some guts

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop buying CDs!

It's all about the money.

Super mp3

[Anonymous Coward]

SuperMP3 is already here. It's called Ogg Vorbis.

Don't Require Money

[Anonymous Coward]

DRM certified companies sure as hell won't be getting my money. DVX was killer technology too. I feel sorry for the companies betting on DRM in the midst of this recession. Start offering products that are hostile to consumers. That'll be a shot in the arm to the economy.

When Aunt Tilly's cd player starts rejecting her cd's, she's gonna be pissed.

Good.. we need Ideas, not just complaints

[Feanor1]

I'm glad that a company is thinking of the customer at all. Its about time.

What needs to be done is more people seriously thinking of DRM models that are good but flexable on a Personal level.

Its going to come, one way or another, so the best course of action is to attempt to develope one that is "Fair". If it means that you cant send your DVD you ripped over the net, Fine, you cant do it, but maybe it can be written so that you can Fairly RIP your DVD to a Video Disk that you can view on your LAPtop that for some reason doesnt have a DVD player.

Are there any Open Source projects thinking about DRM? I dont know how it would work but it must be possible. Plus, with so many companies looking towards Linux for embedded players and such, if an Open Source alternative for DRM came out that at least satisfied whatever stupid laws may eventually get passed, then its just another victory for community software evolution and a loss to Microsoft's plans rule the media future

Re:Good.. we need Ideas, not just complaints

[aronc]

What needs to be done is more people seriously thinking of DRM models that are good but flexable on a Personal level.

Its going to come, one way or another, so the best course of action is to attempt to develope one that is "Fair". If it means that you cant send your DVD you ripped over the net, Fine, you cant do it, but maybe it can be written so that you can Fairly RIP your DVD to a Video Disk that you can view on your LAPtop that for some reason doesnt have a DVD player.

I think it's completely fair that I should be allowed to make a completely functional backup of _any_ media I buy. I have an extremely hyper 7 year old, a 2 1/2 year old, and an extremely destructive (at times) cat. Shit happens. DVDs and CDs get damaged. I don't think it's reasonable to expect me to shell out for the $75 box set again because my pet knocked the box off my bookshelf. Without even getting into other fair use areas (excerpting bits for mixes, etc) at the bare minimum the media companies should either allow me to make backups or bear the full cost of replacements.

Re:Good.. we need Ideas, not just complaints

[lostPackets]

Your comment suggests the idea that there is a "good idea" with regard to DRM. How about the concept that "any" DRM style restrictions are unacceptable.
Personally, I don't feel the need to justify any of my network traffic to "the powers that be". I paid for me bandwitdh, I'll send what I want.

Re:Good.. we need Ideas, not just complaints

[qwerpoiu]

Its going to come, one way or another,

No, it is not unavoidable.
If enough of us spread the word, it can be stopped. Even if it is adopted, rebellion is possible.
[godwin's law]
After all, we fought off Hitler, right?
[/godwin]

so the best course of action is to attempt to develope one that is "Fair".

No Digital Ristrictions Management system will ever be "fair". It's about giving arbitrary enteties the power to restrict people from doing things at their whim. This does not necesarily represent the law.

As Bruce Perens said, though on another issue, "If we keep backing up, we'll end up with our backs against the wall."

If it means that you cant send your DVD you ripped over the net, Fine, you cant do it,

Fine?? What if the disc is public domain? What about when it becomes public domain? What if copyright law changes some day to allow this?

You would still be restricted.

Are there any Open Source projects thinking about DRM? I dont know how it would work but it must be possible.

There is no way this will happen; DRM ristricts users, and users don't like it, so therefore if an open source project adds DRM, it will be removed, and the author's reputation will be seriously damaged. After all, reputation is the main driving force for OSS development.

Re:Good.. we need Ideas, not just complaints

[aaarrrgggh]

...at the bare minimum the media companies should either allow me to make backups or bear the full cost of replacements.
How is this logical? I fully appreciate the fact that if the media itself has a limited life under normal circumstances, then that should either be disclosed to the consumer, or the supplier should be somehow responsible for replacing damaged media provided the media is within its expected lifetime, and the customer has taken reasonable measures to protect it.

I don't think it's reasonable to expect me to shell out for the $75 box set again because my pet knocked the box off my bookshelf.
If you know that you have an hyper child and violent cat, then adequate measures should be taken to protect your valuables. This isn't the supplier's role!

Instead of being able to make a "completely functional" backup, I think you have to look at a "reasonably functional" backup. For a DVD, you could then argue that the menu is important, for a CD, the quality has to still be there... but that doesn't mean they will replace broken jewel boxes!

Re:Good.. we need Ideas, not just complaints

[aronc]

How is this logical? I fully appreciate the fact that if the media itself has a limited life under normal circumstances, then that should either be disclosed to the consumer, or the supplier should be somehow responsible for replacing damaged media provided the media is within its expected lifetime, and the customer has taken reasonable measures to protect it.

The point sort-of is that it's not logical for them to provide backups for me. Thus they need to leave me alone to do so.

If you know that you have an hyper child and violent cat, then adequate measures should be taken to protect your valuables. This isn't the supplier's role!

Truly spoken like one who has neither children nor a determined cat. Short of having them literaly under (heavy) lock and key there is no way to completely protect stuff. Shit happens. As a 2 year old my step-son somehow managed to tip over a 250 pound + tv. Thank the gods he didn't end up under it. We don't know how he managed that. My cat almost daily gets places that seem outright impossible for a 8 inch tall quadraped to get to.

Instead of being able to make a "completely functional" backup, I think you have to look at a "reasonably functional" backup. For a DVD, you could then argue that the menu is important, for a CD, the quality has to still be there... but that doesn't mean they will replace broken jewel boxes!

I'm not asking for jewel boxes here. When something gets knocked off a 4 foot high shelf it usually pops open (particularly 4 dvd box sets) and often a disk or two pops out with it and thus gets damaged.

The whole general idea is that it seems rather undoable for companies to provide continual backups for their customers. Given that we're not buying the medium but a licence to use the content (at least, that's their argument) then we should have a resonable way to protect the licence should the physical medium be damaged. The obvious, even trivial, way to do this is to simply allow backups and prosecute those who abuse that ability.

This is the way our system of law and order works with innumerable other items that can be used for both legal and illegal purposes. Why should items that can kill you be under less restrictions than something that might cost some megacorp 10 bucks?

Re:Good.. we need Ideas, not just complaints

[hysterion]

I dont know how it would work but it must be possible. Isn't this exactly the discourse of those lobbyists who want laws to say that the problems must be solved -- with absolutely no regard for the feasability of it?

Re:Good.. we need Ideas, not just complaints

[spitzak]

I too think there should be some Open Source people, with a lot of crypto experience, trying to come up with a *real* solution.

Basically any real solution should allow open-source players. The companies have to realize that, to a determined pirate, ALL players are open-source. Thus if their system requires closed-source to secure it, by definition the system is not secure and can be broken.

It seems like their are two solutions.

One is to encrypt each piece of data to play back only on a specific piece of hardware. Though you know how the encoders and decoders work, some variation on PK encryption is used so that knowing how to encrypt data for your player does not allow you to decrypt. Publishers would only give you the encrypted data. Attempts to write a fake player would fail because the publisher would have a database of all players that have been manufactured and would refuse to encode using keys that are not in this database. I think crypto systems can be made so that only a small "decrypt block" has to be specific to a device, it tells the hardware how to decrypt the main block of data. The obvious problems with this is that all-new hardware is needed, and that playpack is limited to one piece of hardware. However the publisher should allow a tiny or fee for additional hardware to be added, you send them the encoding you have and the old key and they reencode it for the new key. They can limit how many times this is done so it could be free.

The other much nicer solution is watermarks. Not the "don't copy" watermarks, but watermarks that do very little to the music and do not affect the operation of any devices in any way. In fact they must be absolutely as invisible as possible so there is no incentive to detect or remove them. The watermark may contain your personal identification, but this could work if it just contains the publisher's idenfication. They can then look at the net and easily detect pirated songs by looking for the watermark, and then use normal laws to go after the people doing it. How to decode the watermarks must be kept secret. It would be nice if you were still allowed to *add* watermarks but this will only work if knowing how to do this does not allow you to decode them, I'm not sure if this is possible. If you can add watermarks, adding enough of them may eventually hide the original watermark, but it should be designed so that the music deteriorates to unacceptable levels long before this happens.

Both of these schemes could be done. In my opinion both of these are really workable and legal and are fair to users. I also believe anything that does not allow open-source players is not only unfair but in fact will fail to achieve their goals. Convincing them of this fact is going to be hard, but a serious investigation of a real working scheme may do that.

Re:Good.. we need Ideas, not just complaints

[TFloore]

provided the media is within its expected lifetime, and the customer has taken reasonable measures to protect it

I'm curious... what are "reasonable measures" to protect a Disney DVD from your 5-year-old? Have you seen what they do to DVDs or CDs?

You broke the jewel case? I'll give a "tough, too bad" to that.

Your kid scratched the DVD and now it won't play? Disney is selling a child's toy (a DVD movie for children) that does not stand up to normal treatment from children. If the consumer does not have a way to properly safeguard the product (make fully-functional inexpensive backups) then the product should be replaced by Disney at their expense.

Re:Good.. we need Ideas, not just complaints

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the purpose of having computers and this internet was to share information, not build imaginary walls between every single piece of software and data that exists. Why do you think we have so many problems with compatibility today? Its because we're trying to proprietize everything to maximize profits. In short, capitalism is holding back our technology. We've lost sight of what is important, taking care of eachother, automating our work, etc. And now are solely focused on the only thing that has never been important. Money. And you, my friend, seem quite happy to fall into their propoganda. Good luck to ya. While you're paying for each song you listen to off our virtual radio I'll be happily jammin on my vast collection of media, completely ignoring all this useless DRM, since I own not only legitimate copies of my media but also streamable unencrypted high quality compressed copies that are not affected by your desire for DRM. This means I can also bring my music and video collection over to my friend's house when I feel like sharing it with them in that very legal fair use sense. Oh, but fair use hasn't been written into law yet, so that's just too bad for your friends.

Re:Good.. we need Ideas, not just complaints

[NeMon'ess]

I'm glad you don't expect the TV manufacturer to replace the TV just because the child knocked it over. I'm assuming it broke. For the sake of my argument, I'll assume it broke. What about a Pokemon game for the Nintendo Game Cube? This product is inherently fragile, but made for children. Must Nintendo replace it if the child uses it as a frisbee? The only valid point you make is that if we truly have only a licence to the music, we should get replacements. If what we buy is the media that happens to contain copyrighted data, then we must obey copyright law while knowing that when the disk is damaged, too bad we just own the disk.

Re:Good.. we need Ideas, not just complaints

[aronc]

Actually, luckily, the TV survived. Good TV. But anyway..

The issue with demanding the backups is not something I expect in a general case. What makes me want to go that route with my music and movies is the fact that the media companies are taking active measures to make it very difficult to create the backups that I have a legal right to make. Then, on top of that, they have passed legislation making it a felony for me to obtain the tools necessary to overcome that difficulty.
If they are going to make backups made by anyone other than their approved agents punishable by years in prison and tens of thousands of dollars in fines then, yes, I feel they should then shoulder the burden of providing free (or at least trivialy cheap) replacements.

The "buying the physical media that happens to contain data" doesn't wash with me. The media costs pennies to produce. The average music CD costs something like 60 or 70 cents to physically produce (in the quantities of a major label release) and most of that is the case and the booklet. If that's what I'm buying it shouldn't cost 20 bucks.

Re:Good.. we need Ideas, not just complaints

[PhilHibbs]

I thought the purpose of having computers and this internet was to share information,

That may be true, but the whole point of the printing press was to mass-produce information for the public. That didn't stop the church from burning people at the stake for publishing English bibles up to two hundred years later.

Piracy Police

[brandorf]

Quote from the article: The twist: The Super MP3 will come with a tracking signature -- a digital fingerprint -- that will identify the PC that made it. "People will pay for better MP3s," said Henry Linde, Thomson Multimedia's vice president of new media business. "If the MP3 file that Brad King encodes shows up on a system, we will know where it comes from. We call it lightweight DRM, but it won't prevent you from doing anything." And then what? If one of my MP3's shows up on somebody else's system, is sombody going to make me justify the exchange? Err... No officer I never gave cooldude76 any MP3 files, he must've stolen it!

Re:Piracy Police

[Lumpy]

what about old mp3's? I'm happy with them and their hhorrible evil insane and unamerican lack of DRM. Or how about OGG?

If you can control what people see and hear and USE then you can control it... but guess what.. they cant.

Re:Piracy Police

[Sylver Dragon]

"If the MP3 file that Brad King encodes shows up on a system, we will know where it comes from. We call it lightweight DRM, but it won't prevent you from doing anything." And then what? If one of my MP3's shows up on somebody else's system, is sombody going to make me justify the exchange? Err... No officer I never gave cooldude76 any MP3 files, he must've stolen it!

Moreover, this system will have to have a way of collecting information, and storing it as part of the DRMP3 (Suggestion for an acronym for SuperMP3's). Do they think that no one is going to figure out how to modify them to change the owner? So suddenly someone who dislikes me manufactures a bunch of Britney Spears DRMP3's with my name attached and dumps them on the web. Now, not only do I have to prove that I'm not the one releasing them, worse, I have to try and prove that I really never bought one of her CDs, to the world at large, to rebuild my little bit of reputation.

Re:Piracy Police

[krugdm]

Umm... why would one of your squishy MP3's show up on someone else's system? If it is, then one of two things probably happened: he really did steal it, or you gave it to him, in which case, that's what this is intended to prevent.

Honestly, I don't see anyone really using this to encode music. What this will be good for is downloading music directly from a record company. I have an account, pay my 25 cents, and download a song that has been pre-encoded with something that associates the song with me, and giving me a disincentive to give it away.

Re:Piracy Police

[jonabbey]

That's what public key cryptography is for. The only way this system could work is if each consumer has a private key attached to his PC, and if all mp3 software available was PKI aware.

If the record companies were a bit less finicky, and were content to know who originally downloaded a song from an RIAA-approved online music service, that part could be got round.

In general, I really, really like the idea of putting identifying markers into media files rather than programming computers to preemptively constrict the user's freedom of action, but in the end it sort of comes down to putting technical and legal restrictions in place. Identifying markers could simply be less onerous.

Re:Piracy Police

[Billly Gates]

Good question. You also point out the growing trend of the burden of proof being shifted away from the accuser and to the accused. Ask any legal expert about this? I believe slashdot even had a story on this last June.

Anyway what you are reading today in regards to the RIAA vs Verizon and yahoo lawsuits is that the DMCA switches the burden of proof away from the RIAA and to the accuser. Not only that but they can ask to retrieve evidence for any reason without a search warrant or judge giving them permission to search. This is why they want Verizon to hand over materials based on a hunch. Scary as hell!

Worse hardware drm with the DMCA effect added in will not only have the burden of proof agaisn't the accused, but it will also server as the judge and jury for any dispute between yourself and the megacorp. Even if you prove you are right, your own fritz chip will not let you use it without a repurchase. For example if Microsoft assumes your stealing MS-OFFICE they can add your copy to the master blacklist! Guess what? Now you need to repurchase and try to defend yourself in court with the burdern of proof agaisnt you! Doesn't the US constitution prevent users from prosecuting themselves aka fith admentment? How are you supposed to defend yourself if computers never lie( juries opinion)? If a police officer tells a judge that your own computer signed this application everyone is using then your toast.

I believe Microsoft may be envious of the RIAA and want their own special powers above citizen as well.

Just look how long it took before the product activation was defeated for WIndowsXP? As long as its not hardware, it can and probably will be cracked.

Ad astra per astra

[Anonymous Coward]

-aqau- i can't see anywhere that says Stephen king is dead
-aqau- i looked on Cnn.com and skynews.co.uk

...

kkk

not gonna work

[viperblades]

all your DRM are belong to us
you are the wave of bankruptcy
you have no chance to survive

Crack to stop all this...

[HaeMaker]

All it will take, and I am sure it is inevitable, is for someone to write a virus/worm/trojan that will make all data on the victims computer DRM controlled and expired.

Trillions of dollars in damage to protect a billion dollar industry.

Re:Crack to stop all this...

[ebacon]

No no no ... The worm/virus/trojan will replace the 'digital fingerprint' with one that identifies the originator as Hilary Valenti ... or is that Jack Rosen?

Re:Crack to stop all this...

[goldspider]

"All it will take, and I am sure it is inevitable, is for someone to write a virus/worm/trojan that will make all data on the victims computer DRM controlled and expired."

...only to further strengthen the positions of those who support DRM. I wonder if it ever occured to the people who create these circumventions that they're actually hurting their own cause in the long run.

Re:Crack to stop all this...

[caudron]

Except that the virus, by definition, cannot run on a DRM machine, so fat chance getting it propagated. That is the terrible beauty of their idea. It /will/ make for a safer computing environment for the end users..at the low low cost of their civil liberties and inalienable rights.

Re:Crack to stop all this...

[nojomofo]

I don't really think that I agree with this. You're saying that in order to win, we have to play at their game. I think that by playing their game, we'd lose - we would all begin to think that it's normal that the RIAA can go into any audio file and find out everything about anybody who has ever touched it. By refusing to play their game, we remind ourselves (and them) that they don't have the right to force this down our throats.

Re:Crack to stop all this...

[goldspider]

A more effective way to accomplish the same thing would be to stop giving these industries money. Stop going to movies. Stop buying CDs and DVDs. Don't buy products with DRM built in. Show these companies that you don't want their tainted products. If you get enough people on board with this legal form of protest (as opposed to the illegal theft that I am convinced is the cause of these extreme measures) you will show them that forced copy-protection isn't necessary, nor wanted.

However when copyright infringement is so obviously present (and rampant) it will only convince them that they are losing money because of MP3's and such, not because of dissatisfied customers.

Re:Crack to stop all this...

[Arakonfap]

Do you seriously believe that the first (or second, or third, etc) DRM controlled OS will be 100% free of bugs and holes?

All it takes will be -ONE- cracker to snoop an encryption key over a bus, or a few months of distributed hacking, and then there will be signatures available for all the viruses!

Or what of the hundereds of holes that will be discovered in MS's scripting security model?

I'm sure the Powers that be will try and push DRM on everything, but in the end I'm sure it will also be cracked, and just as dangerous.

Re:Crack to stop all this...

[geekee]

Guess what. People have already written viruses to delete your hard drive. You're just making a case for Palladium, which I bet was not your intent.

Re:Crack to stop all this...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easy to stop doing stuff when you're a nerd with no life.

Re:Crack to stop all this...

[56]

You do realize that, even if people really did stop giving money to these people, the industries would simply say 'look what piracy has done to sales, we need more DRM.' I can see the headline - "Metallica sales fall 60% due to music piracy."

Re:Crack to stop all this...

[Elwood P Dowd]

If by "More effective" you mean less effective, sure. I would never suggest that grandparent poster's idea is a good one, but please explain to me how your plan will be more effective.

Re:Crack to stop all this...

[Billly Gates]

"Stop going to movies. Stop buying CDs and DVDs. Don't buy products with DRM built in"

Unfortunately the MPAA/RIAA will blame the losses on piracy and lobby for even stricter laws and forms of DRM. I believe this is happening currently. I can easily imagine 1 out of very 10 consumers boycutting them right now. Remember younger generation kids and adults are very well aware of the greed of the RIAA. Their loss statements claimed they lost %7 this year due to piracy. I think %7 are boycutting and they are using this to make pallidium standard. Remember that sales were sky high during the days of napster.

Apu sez...

[Anonymous Coward]

"...Perhaps you'd like to try an experimental flavour of my own concoction. A delicious chutney squishy...You can really tasted the chutney!."

Please, no! The singing! Make RMS stop!

[Osty]

They should just work on a way and make music Opensource under the GPL license.

In which case, the only music we would have would be RMS playing his recorder and singing his terrible song about hackers. Or ESR playing his flute.

Cmon

[PygmyTrojan]

The Recording Industry Association of America claims $4 billion in losses, and the Motion Picture Association of America claims it's lost $3 billion

How do these numbers keep floating around with no evidence whatsoever? I'm sure I'm like most people, if I download a song/movie, it's because it's there, i'm not going to buy it othwerwise.

Re:Cmon

[Rude Turnip]

Now that CEO's are required to swear on oath in their financial statements that everything in there is true, I'd like to see what the piracy loss numbers are in those statements.

I find it appropriate

[yerricde]

There ARE other ways to stop piracy, like prosecuting those who break the laws.

This "squishy DRM" system, which puts a unique identifier in each record ("record" in copyright law refers to a copy of a recording) but doesn't restrict fair uses, allows copyright holders to identify those who break the laws so that prosecution can begin. I find it an appropriate compromise, as long as there's a way for any individual copyright owner to mark a record for free redistribution.

Re:I find it appropriate

[aronc]

This "squishy DRM" system, which puts a unique identifier in each record ("record" in copyright law refers to a copy of a recording) but doesn't restrict fair uses, allows copyright holders to identify those who break the laws so that prosecution can begin. I find it an appropriate compromise, as long as there's a way for any individual copyright owner to mark a record for free redistribution.

I'm inclined to be a bit happier about this idea as well. It would allow the actual infringers to be tracked down. It does have some problems however. If I give my pal Bob 1 copy of the song, say on a mix cd, that is covered under both general fair use and the specific provisions of the Audio Home Recording act. If he then takes that (legally) shared file and hosts it on kazza who's gonna get busted? This is why the industry needs to focus on the prosecution of those on the recieving end of the transfer, not the sending.

There are also a number of privacy issues, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.

Re:I find it appropriate

[Sylver Dragon]

...doesn't restrict fair uses, allows copyright holders to identify those who break the laws so that prosecution can begin.

And, of course, the tracking information embeded into songs would never be used for anything other than tracking down pirates. After all, the RIAA would never want to track users listening habits.

Sarcasm aside, it wouldn't be easy to track people's listening habits. Especially in a car CD-player, but on a computer, it gets eaiser. And assuming Gates and his ilk are right, we are going to end up with more of our entertainment equipment on our network, and eventually internet.
I admit it may be a bit parinoid at this point, but its something to keep in the back of the mind. Personally, I wouldn't mind this "squishy DRM" idea much, as long as there are some strict regulations preventing collecting any of this sort of data. And, of course, those regulations would have to require a fine large enough to cripple the biggest business in the event they are broken, lets say aroung $5 billion inflation adjusted from 2002 dollars. In the end though, I have a feeling that we are going to have something like this forced upon us, and we are not going to be given the protection that should come along with it.

Re:I find it appropriate

[Kwil]

Strange, I look at the RIAA members knowing what I like to listen to as a good thing.

It'll give them added incentive to stop putting out crap.

Re:I find it appropriate

[lostPackets]

This is just as offensive as full scale digital rights managment. Replace the corporations involved with "the goverment" and ask yourself if you would find this idea so acceptable? If the goverment wanted to screen all communications without warrents (not that they aren't trying) "to identify security risks" how would that sit with you. None of this changes the basic facts, it's my damn computer, I'll do what I want to with it. If I break the law I may be proscueted, but this fact in no way gives authorities any right to "check up on me". Personally I find the fact that a lot of crime/theft will go undetetected a perfectly reasonable price to pay for living in a free society (if only).

Re:I find it appropriate

[Cryogenes]

This "squishy DRM" system, which puts a unique identifier in each record ("record" in copyright law refers to a copy of a recording) but doesn't restrict fair uses, allows copyright holders to identify those who break the laws so that prosecution can begin. I find it an appropriate compromise, as long as there's a way for any individual copyright owner to mark a record for free redistribution.

The idea sounds very nice until you stop for a second and think about what it takes to implement it. How are you going to stop all the bad pirates from continuing to use their non-watermarking rippers? Uh-oh...

Re:I find it appropriate

[Sylver Dragon]

Strange, I look at the RIAA members knowing what I like to listen to as a good thing.

It'll give them added incentive to stop putting out crap.
Point taken, I guess its just a bit of a knee jerk reaction on my part, I really don't like being tracked. Realisticly, I wouldn't mind them getting aggergate data, which has no serial numbers, no names, no individuality to the data. That is as much as they need, and keeps info about me happily lost in the noise.
I realize that, as things currently stand, that privacy and amnomitity are basicly dead, I still don't have to like it. When it comes to privacy/amnominity I really feel that every inch of ground should be fought for. Maybe I'm just parinoid, but on the other hand I'm sortta glad that I'll be dead in 70 years or so and no longer care about where some of this stuff might go.

Re:I find it appropriate

[forevermore]

This "squishy DRM" system, which puts a unique identifier in each record

I don't see how this will stop piracy. When I copy a cd to ogg, or a dvd to svcd (I actually have to do this because my tv-vcr combo trips the macrovision sensors), all of that "digital" information is getting converted into something else.

Besides, what's the point? I don't see what some id code (or even a watermark, which is a little more stable across conversions) is going to do to help them identify pirated music/movies that listening/watching doesn't already do. It's not like they'd put a unique identifier on every single track of every single cd that's ever pressed.

Re:I find it appropriate

[blank_coil]

Amen. Very good points.

Personally I find the fact that a lot of crime/theft will go undetetected a perfectly reasonable price to pay for living in a free society (if only).

Frankly, so do I, and I'm suprised more people don't feel this way. For example, there are devices that you can install in cars that give a police officer the power to turn its engine off remotely. One of the applications of this would be to stop car thieves. I would rather take the chance of having my car stolen than to drive around with something like that. That's the price I pay for having that freedom, I guess. And damnit, that's fine with me.

Re:I find it appropriate

[Eric Damron]

"If I give my pal Bob 1 copy of the song, say on a mix cd, that is covered under both general fair use and the specific provisions of the Audio Home Recording act."

If you gave your pal Bob a copy of any song that he didn't have a legal right to have, it would not be covered under the fair use laws. I don't know what "specific provisions" of the Audio Home Recording act you are referring to but I don't believe that any of them include giving away other peoples IP with out their consent.

Re:I find it appropriate

[susano_otter]

In psych research, at least, each instance of a particular survey must have a unique identifier, otherwise the data is suspect. This can be a serial number that is bound to nothing but that particular set of responses, but without a system to ensure that each set of responses--and each respondent--is unique, no credible institution or journal will accept the data. If you want your opinion to be heard, you'll have to accept the fact that your opinion will be uniquely identified, even if measures are taken to prevent revealing who, exactly, "you" are.

Re:I find it appropriate

[Shimmer]

How the heck do you think they'll be able to match this supposed "unique identifier" to an actual person? By SSN? By some sort of government registry of "unique identifiers"?

That's the scary part to me.

-- Brian

Re:I find it appropriate

[aronc]

If you gave your pal Bob a copy of any song that he didn't have a legal right to have, it would not be covered under the fair use laws. I don't know what "specific provisions" of the Audio Home Recording act you are referring to but I don't believe that any of them include giving away other peoples IP with out their consent.

I havn't read the act in a while, but yes it covers exactly this type of thing. In exchange for some other restrictions and royalty crap the industry wanted they were forbidden to interfer with consumers making digital copies for home use. As I said, I don't know the full legal jargon offhand, but that was the gist of it.

Re:I find it appropriate

[Jester99]

The Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) of 1992 specifically stipulates that you may make "mix tapes" of all the music you bought, and distribute them to your friends, family, etc, for no cost.

You pay a tariff on all recordable media which is then given to the RIAA companies to compensate them for their "losses" due to this.

Re:I find it appropriate

[EccentricAnomaly]

How the heck do you think they'll be able to match this supposed "unique identifier" to an actual person? By SSN? By some sort of government registry of "unique identifiers"?

The serial number of the computer used to encode the files would probably be good enough to find any software pirates... or each CD-burner could encode its serial number on any cd it makes.. this could easily be done via hardware /software and be very effective.

Re:I find it appropriate

[Shimmer]

The serial number of the computer used to encode the files would probably be good enough to find any software pirates

That means that:

The OS would have to know the serial number of the computer so it could make it available to the ripper application to embed in the file. Any OS or ripper that failed to cooperate would be illegal?

The government would have a registry that maps every computer serial number to a single person. When you sell the computer, you'd have to notify the government. What happens if you are caught using an unregistered computer?

As I said, scary.

-- Brian

Re:I find it appropriate

[lynx_user_abroad]

This "squishy DRM" system, which puts a unique identifier in each record ("record" in copyright law refers to a copy of a recording) but doesn't restrict fair uses, allows copyright holders to identify those who break the laws so that prosecution can begin. I find it an appropriate compromise, as long as there's a way for any individual copyright owner to mark a record for free redistribution.

Sounds great in principle, until you start thinking about it. Let's go over this again:

Who's "unique identifier" is on the original? Who gets prosecuted when I download a record with a MPAA unique id on it? Or maybe I have to give them my name, address and SSN before they'll give an original to me?

Maybe the unique identifier identifies the equipment which made the copy (hardware) or the person who was logged-in and using that equipment (through a software tie-in).

If you sell me your old system, then a bunch of copies show up with that unique identifier on them, who goes to jail? What about if your system was stolen? Can you be prosecuted for copies made on a system stolen from you? Maybe your box was just rooted for a few minutes? What if you haven't even unpacked the system but someone forges your hardware tag onto a record? Are you that sure no one had access to it before you got your hands on it?

Imagine the mess one Klez would create...

And who hands out the unique identifiers? Do I have to "get one" or can I just make one up? Can anyone get one? Can I build my own computer still and get a "these copies were made by me" unique identifier for it for free, or does some organization get to choose which people are approved to create innovative technology? What if I typo my unique id while I'm entering it into the ROM and "accidentally" enter an unregistered/untracable one (or perhaps yours ;-) instead?

Can I make a copy of your (copyrighted) work, then mark it as "for free redistribution"?

Who keeps the database of which unique ID's belong to which people owning which copy-capable machines? And how big of a "publisher" do I have to be before I can request a copy of that database "...just to make sure no one is illegally sharing copies of my pickle song..."?

Are we really ready to treat CD burners (and anything that can create a digital copy in general) as being more dangerous than firearms? Should we stamp a serial number on each one, require owners to register, file a report if it's ever sold or stolen, no transportation across state lines, background checks for potential purchasers? etc)? Heck, I can cite a link to a web site showing you how to build a gun, but it's illegal to refer you to a website with DeCSS.

Computers make poor policy implementers. Heck, half the time we can't get them to run their own software correctly, and it's been written by people who understand software. What is fair use again? We still haven't figured out a clean-cut way to decide what's allowable and what isn't, and we want some $50 CD-RW to be judge and jury?

Piracy (if you care to call it that) is a social problem and it must be addressed as a social problem; a technical solution cannot be a complete solution.

Re:I find it appropriate

[Sylver Dragon]

In psych research...

Stop right there. This is not Psych research. I do understand the principals behind scientific studies, yes they need the ability to ensure that there were no double votes or the like. What I'm talking about isn't research in the scientific sense of the word. Its collecting of aggergate listening data to get a feel for what people listen to. It has no need to be scientifically valid.

This can be a serial number that is bound to nothing but that particular set of responses, but without a system to ensure that each set of responses--and each respondent--is unique, no credible institution or journal will accept the data.

Again, true enough for a scientific study. Though this means that there must be some relationship between respondent and serial number, to avoid issuing more than one number. So the serial number is linked to the person.

If you want your opinion to be heard, you'll have to accept the fact that your opinion will be uniquely identified, even if measures are taken to prevent revealing who, exactly, "you" are.

Not always true, just because my opinion isn't in a scientific journal, doesn't mean that it won't be heard. I'm not talking about trying to get a paper published, I'm talking about marketing weasles getting a feel for thier market. Moreover, the measures to prevent identifications become doomed to fail at this point. They have my answers, linked to a serial number, in a separte table in thier database that serial number is linked to me. An SQL join command is really simple.

Re:I find it appropriate

[gnugnugnu]

Here is a copy of

The Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) of 1992

I hope you are correct but i cant figure out the relevant section that allows for fair use. I am not a lawyer, but you cant believe much of what you read on slashdot.

Re:I find it appropriate

[spitzak]

Both you and Bob should get busted. You did violate the copyright by giving the music to Bob! Also Bob also did obvious copyright violations so he was caught directly.

Most likely they will go after Bob because they can prove he is doing something that is not allowed by copyright. You could always claim Bob broke into your house and copied your music without your permission.

Anyway if the RIAA is starting to consider sensible things like this is is a great relief. But people here should show their support by indicating they will fully support lawful prosecution of copyright violators and not act like a bunch of children, which will just make them go back to their earlier stance which is going to outlaw all non-MicroSoft systems eventually.

Re:I find it appropriate

[spitzak]

If this really is just a watermark, then Open-source players would be allowed and they won't track listening habits. I would also recommend that they not imbed the watermark reader into any closed-source files, because hackers are going to find it and figure out how to defeat it (suddenly all p2p music files are owned by George Bush!). Keep that information out of private computers completely if they want it to be safe.

Also closed-source players have lots of other ways to track listening habits and don't need this tag for that.

Re:I find it appropriate

[aaarrrgggh]

...Actually, it gives them an incentive to put out things that you BUY, but don't actually listen to much. All they really care about is your buying habits... they don't care how many CD's you don't listen to!

Re:I find it appropriate

[spitzak]

This is easy. The rippers have no way to detect if they successfully removed the watermark, and they have no incentive to do so (because the music plays anyway). This does require that there be no software that reports what the watermark is, instead the RIAA should keep a machine in a vault in their basement with the only copy of the watermark-reading software, because any program outside anywhere (closed source or not) will threaten the watermark with being hacked.

It would be nice if there was software to *add* a watermark but I'm not sure if this would be possible without revealing how to remove or read the watermark. What it would do is make it so both watermarks are visible. If it is designed right you can't hide the watermark by adding thousands of new ones because the music would deteriorate to unusable long before the first watermark is hidden.

Re:I find it appropriate

[EccentricAnomaly]

every OS can get the serial number of the CPU or BIOS or ethernet card... some software use these serial number to enforce their licenses.

The government doesn't need a central registry of these serial numbers. If you're suspected of pirating, they can look at your computer and check the serial number after they get a court order... standard constitutional stuff.

Re:I find it appropriate

[Shimmer]

every OS can get the serial number of the CPU or BIOS or ethernet card

I know that every (decent) OS can get the serial number. But that's very different from saying that every OS must get the serial number.

If you're suspected of pirating, they can look at your computer

In that scenario how are they going to know to suspect you of piracy in the first place? They'll have a bazillion copies of a Britney Spear song ripped by computer #123-456-789. How are they supposed to know who owns that computer?

-- Brian

Re:I find it appropriate

[Eric Damron]

Fair use allows you to make copies that you use but not give away.

The act can be found at http://www.hrrc.org/html/ahra.html

I don't find the section to which you refer. Perhaps you can point it out?

Re:I find it appropriate

[Eric Damron]

Nope. I don't find anything about giving away the media that you use to friends. If you could point out the paragraph it would help.

Re:I find it appropriate

[susano_otter]

If there's no rigor to the surveys in question here, then the very data that /. uses to support the claim that filesharing doesn't hurt is suspect. If the survey has no rigor, then your opinion is meaningless anyway.

Re:I find it appropriate

[Sylver Dragon]

If there's no rigor to the surveys in question here, then the very data that /. uses to support the claim that filesharing doesn't hurt is suspect. If the survey has no rigor, then your opinion is meaningless anyway.

I'm sorry, I must not have been clear in what I was getting at. I'm not after proving anything. The only surveying (and I do use the term loosely), I was refering to, was the collection of marketing data, for use by the company selling a product, to target further advertisments.
I don't want to prove or disprove anything about file-sharing. In order to figure out what type of add to send to an area, I don't need to have a bullet-proof scientific study. There's no need to prove causality, or even really a strong corolation. Commonality is enough for someone to say, hey lets send a few more [insert music type here] ads to that area.

Simple method for creating a happy medium

[Anonymous Coward]

1. kill Jack Valenti and Hilary Rosen
2. find a spiritualist
3. pay spiritualist lots of money to contact J&R
4. ????
5. PROFIT!!

One happy medium between the consumer and the **AA

Minidisc player

[oliverthered]

Midi disk players have to have build in copy protection under the home recording act(I thought I'd give you the RIAA link for a worst case senario!

How do we distance ourselves from the thieves

[ACNeal]

The real problem with the whole DRM debate is that people steal music. The words download or p2p and the phrase fair use have no place in the same breath.

I am all for ripping CD's to put all my music on my computer, so I can shake up all my CD's, make my own playlists, and the like. This is fair use.

Unfortunately, the people that only do this are in the minority. The majority, even giving them the benefit of the doubt, steal music. Sure they may have never bought it before, but that doesn't make it right. Sure they might have protected themselves from buying a whole disk just for one song, but did they delete the song they did like when they decided not to buy the music?

These types of arguments do make a reasonable argument for consumer rights and advocacy, but are still stealing and don't fall under the purview of fair use.

Until we can argue against DRM without bringing up these types of arguments, redefining fair use to what we'd like it to be, then we as a downloading, file sharing community will have a hard time being taken seriously, let alone winning the argument.

Re:How do we distance ourselves from the thieves

[puckhead]

I don't steal music, software, movies or whatever. There, I've distanced myself. Now why should I have to put up with restrictions on fair use?

Re:How do we distance ourselves from the thieves

[richieb]

Unfortunately, the people that only do this are in the minority. The majority, even giving them the benefit of the doubt, steal music.

I'm pretty sure you are wrong here. Check out the analysis of the stats by Dan Briklin here: http://www.bricklin.com/recordsales.htm

Re:How do we distance ourselves from the thieves

[Anonymous Coward]

That is not saying they don't steal music, that just says that the ones that do steal music usually buy a lot too. Just like the example with the Phreaker, he stole a lot, but he also payed a lot. Just because you might make up what you stole with what you buy, doesn't mean that the stealing is now justified

Re:How do we distance ourselves from the thieves

[stratjakt]

Those stats (or rather that particular misinterpretation of them) are irrelevant.

Buying 12 cds doesn't excuse the fact that you stole 1.

Just like rescuing 12 kittens from the local pound wouldn't excuse me for the 1 I drowned in my bathtub.

They don't have to accept "p2p is good for the industry" as an argument.

The poster has a point. I'm just surprised he hasn't been modded into oblivion for playing devil's advocate.

Re:How do we distance ourselves from the thieves

[aronc]

The real problem with the whole DRM debate is that people steal music. The words download or p2p and the phrase fair use have no place in the same breath.

Actually.. there are a number of arguments for them existing quite nicely together. First, and strongest, the provisions assuring personal digital copies under the Audio Home Recording Act. There are a few other as well, may favorite being a neat corner that hasn't been explored much. If a copyright holder wields their copyrights in an anti-competative manor they lose the monoply distrobution right that copyright law grants (i.e. you get a monopoly on the item, if you turn that into an industry monopoly, we step on you). Given that the record industry has been slapped by the FTC for price fixing at least twice in the past ten years or so, it could be said that they really don't have right to copyright protection currently.

These types of arguments do make a reasonable argument for consumer rights and advocacy, but are still stealing and don't fall under the purview of fair use.

Until we can argue against DRM without bringing up these types of arguments, redefining fair use to what we'd like it to be, then we as a downloading, file sharing community will have a hard time being taken seriously, let alone winning the argument.

VCRs can be used to infringe as can cassete tapes. I can kill you with a butter knife, a fork, a pencil, or a rock. You can quickly bypass the ignition key on quite a few models of car using a skate key. A photocopier has potential infringement in it's very name. Yet none of these things are outlawed. Why? Because they have uses that are legal. I feel fairly safe in guessing that the amount of legal p2p activity is in the same ballpark as the amount of legal use of the copy function in a dual-deck GoVideo vcr. The courts have already said that these facts do not warrent a ban on VCRs so why am I still having to defend my ability to make copies of my music?

Re:How do we distance ourselves from the thieves

[jorlando]

"The words download or p2p and the phrase fair use have no place in the same breath.

I am all for ripping CD's to put all my music on my computer, so I can shake up all my CD's, make my own playlists, and the like. This is fair use."

If I have some CD's that are the same as the ones of someone else... that other person put them on a P2P network... I don't have the expertise to encode CD's by myself (I do... it's a supposition :-) ... I download these files correspondig to my CD's... why there is no fair use here? I just skipped the enconding part... Am I lazy? maybe... but someone had the work to encode the files and think it's ok to offer the enodes for the ones who are lazy, dumb, owners of slower machines...

Anyway... I don't care much... I hope that the media giants start to flood the market with DRM encoded devices so they can also blossom and thrive in the market, just like the Divx (the standard movie player, no the encoder Divx :)... oh... divx is dead? Nobody wanted to pay the rest of their lives to watch a movie that they "owned"? you got the point...

Re:How do we distance ourselves from the thieves

[cpt kangarooski]

They might excuse it. We have copyright laws because we want to cause the public to benefit. Public benefits are measured by a) useful works available, and b) freedom to use works.

For example, without copyrights we had, let's imagine, 5% of a, and 100% of b. Let's further say that after the first copyright laws were passed, the numbers became 25% of a, and 90% of b.

(N.B. these numbers are all pretty damn arbitrary!)

Since the old total was 105, and the new total was 115, this means that the public would benefit more from _THAT_ copyright law than if they didn't have it.

On the other hand, what if right now, we're at 75% of a, and 25% of b? With a total of 100, this means that not only are we worse off than we were with some different copyright law, but we are actually worse off than we would be with NO law.

While the realities are not so easily quantified, if copying 1 cd did somehow result in an overall public benefit, then honestly, we want to encourage it! 'Cos the system isn't there to prevent people from doing something, it's there to leave them better off than they would be without it.

Re:How do we distance ourselves from the thieves

[blank_coil]

Jesus Christ, for the last time, COPYING IS NOT STEALING. Stealing is when you deprive someone of something. If I stole your car, you would no longer have it to use. That's stealing. Intellectual Property is an idea. It's not physical. You can't steal it. The only way to ever control it is to keep it to yourself. Once you tell someone else, you have no reasonable expectation of control of that idea.

These companies have managed to convince you, and people like you, that trading files is stealing. Everyone KNOWS stealing is wrong. It's ingrained into you from an early age. Label it "stealing" and everyone automatically assumes you're doing something evil.

Generaly the advancement of technology improves people's quality of life. Intellectual Property Laws are stunting innovation and slowing this down. Think about it, these companies are making money in today's market. If there is any kind of major change or breakthrough (such as Napster, for example), whether it be cultural or economical, or whatever, it would change the status quo. That scares the hell out of these companies. They will do whatever they can to maintain the status quo and therefore slow down the benefits new technology gives us. All for the sake of money.

It's not stealing. It's copying an idea. And I say instead of the people adapting to please these companies (by implementing DRM), let these companies adapt to the way people now get their music. Change or die. It's called evolution. And it breeds creatures fittest for survival. If these companies cannot survive, then prolonging their existance artificially simply burdens the people. I say let them crash and burn. Eventually someone will come up with a business model that works.

Re:How do we distance ourselves from the thieves

[cvas]

Which thieves? The ones that copy files or the ones that charge me $15 for 2 good songs and are trying to steal my rights in courts.

Re:How do we distance ourselves from the thieves

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point, Anal Cunt. So I'll delete all my MP3s, and you'll refund all the CDs I bought because I got to hear the music on MP3 first, right? And you'll let me keep the MP3s for which the CD is not available at any price? No?

I thought not. Now go back under your bridge, goatfucker, Hale-Bopp has left the vicinity, Reverend Moon awaits your asshole for delectation, culturecide doesn't need any help from you.

More like mp3PRO

[yerricde]

SuperMP3 is already here. It's called Ogg Vorbis.

From the brief description in the article (MP3 based, Thomson Multimedia involved), SuperMP3 seems to be an mp3PRO file with a watermark embedded in the sound. The mp3PRO technology uses MP3 coding of low frequencies and then spectral band replication followed by dynamic re-equalization of high frequencies to provide a subjective quality at 64 kbps to 80 kbps similar to MP3 at about 112 to 144 kbps. The similar competing mp3+v technology replaces spectral band replication with a simple white-noise generator to achieve similar gains.

Re:More like mp3PRO

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting as AC 'cause I just moderated somebody.

Palm Digital Media uses a wraparound for their Palm ebooks. I believe the idea is that the purchaser's credit card # is wrapped around the book itself, and serves as a kind of watermark.

Of course, there is a program out there on IRC/newsgroups by the name of "pdbshred," but as Palm is the #1 seller of ebooks currently (Fictionwise.com has momentum...), it can be called a partial success at least.

The only squishing going on...

[kvn299]

is what the music industry is doing to its customers in attempt to get every last penny they can.

Two Evils

[Target Drone]

Kind of seems like they're trying to get us to choose between the lesser of two evils.

1. Palladium style DRM - The hardware/software prevents you from making copies even if they would be legitimate ones.
2. Squishy DRM - No restrictions on copying but copies can be traced back to the source so that people who make illegal copies can be prosecuted.

So we basically have

1. Palladium - More privacy less fair use
2. Squishy - Less privacy more fair use

Re:Two Evils

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, we have a two-party system for computing, as well as politics now.

And we all see who well it works in politics...

Btw, didn't the Nazis get power by convincing the germans that the only alternatives were the communists? Kinda sorta like talk radio today, isn't it? But I digress...

Computing's over; bit the dust. Time to move on and find another; less corporate-dictated hobby.

Re:Two Evils

[Anonymous Coward]

And we all see who well it works in politics...

And we all see HOW well it works in politics, too. ;)

Re:Two Evils

[bnenning]

2. Squishy - Less privacy more fair use

And really, you don't lose privacy unless you're "sharing" with 50,000 of your best friends via Gnutella or something. I could live with a system like this; it seems to be one of the few cases where "if you're not guilty, you have nothing to fear" is actually true.

Of course there would still be problems, as the RIAA would continue to try to censor software and research that could possibly be used to defeat the protection, but overall I think it would be an improvement.

Re:Two Evils

[aronc]

And really, you don't lose privacy unless you're "sharing" with 50,000 of your best friends via Gnutella or something. I could live with a system like this; it seems to be one of the few cases where "if you're not guilty, you have nothing to fear" is actually true.

Sorry, but this is incorrect. I'll use the same example I did earlier:

I give my pal bob a single copy of one of the fingerprinted mp3s in a mix CD. This is legal through a couple of ways (ARHA primarily). Then, without my knowledge, he shares that SuperMP3 with the world. I did nothing illegal but the RIAA & their FBI pals just kicked in my door and are dragging me off.

And would you like to take bets as to how long it will take a utility to change that fingerprint to come out? Sounds like a darn tootin' way to frame somebody.

This is not really a good system once you dig into the possibilities. It's nice on the surface, but (as with my rights issues) the larger implications are not good at all.

Re:Two Evils

[Ctrl-Z]

I find your post interesting, but I'm curious about one thing: what is ARHA? I have not seen that FLA before and google is not helpful in providing a definition.

Re:Two Evils

[Target Drone]

And really, you don't lose privacy unless you're "sharing" with 50,000 of your best friends via Gnutella or something.

I think the idea of Squishy DRM is that every time you copy a file it gets an ID tag embed in it, perhaps the serial number of your computer.

I suppose it depends on how its implemented but some possible issues do come to mind:

• Do you have to register your computer with the government so that they can find you if a file with your ID shows up on Gnutella?
• If you don't register your ID then how do they track you down? Will they need a warwant
• Is there a possibility of forging an ID or maybe even framing someone?
• Will a black market appear for stolen computers or maybe even computers found in a dumpster because they have an "untraceable" ID chip inside them? Will the previous owner of the computer be held liable?

Re:Two Evils

[Rupert]

Unless you buy the CD with cash and use an open source ripper. Squishy DRM is pointless unless you outlaw at least one of those two things. My money is on both.

Re:Two Evils

[Stonehand]

I think he meant AHRA -- Audio Home Recording Act.

Re:Two Evils

[Sawbones]

It was a typo on his part. ARHA should read AHRA (Audio Home Recording Act). Full text http://www.virtualrecordings.com/ahra.htm.

Re:Two Evils

[geekee]

How is squishy DRM not private? If you aren't sharing your files, they are your private files, and no one knows about them. If you share them, which is illegal, you've chosen to make them public yourself. Sounds like you yourself gave up your privacy right at that point. I think this compromise is a great idea. People can make all the copies they want for their own PRIVATE use. If they distribute them to others though, prosecutors now can identify the criminal.

Re:Two Evils

[aronc]

Yes, the other replys are correct. Typo. Should read - AHRA: Audio Home Recording Act.

Re:Two Evils

[Amazing Quantum Man]

what is ARHA?

ARHA is ancient Kargish for The "Eaten One".

Actually, as others have said, it's a typo of AHRA (Audio Home Recording Act).

Re:Two Evils

[Anonymous Coward]

How would they know that Bob got it from you? The fingerprint only tells them that the mp3 was encoded by some artist/studio - and if your friend bob starts sharing it with the world and violating that artist/studio's copyright, he is the one that is going to be prosecuted, not you.

Re:Two Evils

[aronc]

How would they know that Bob got it from you? The fingerprint only tells them that the mp3 was encoded by some artist/studio - and if your friend bob starts sharing it with the world and violating that artist/studio's copyright, he is the one that is going to be prosecuted, not you.

If you are the one who encoded the MP3, say from a CD you bought, then it has your print on it. I'm also confident that if you download a file from somewhere it will be stamped with your print. Having their print on it does nothing. They already know who owns the copyright. What this is designed to do is track down the few users who are archiving the huge stores of files that feed 90% of the p2p system.

Re:Two Evils

[MeNeXT]

I understood it as:

1...You REGISTER

2...You can make copies

3...If they find the copy they know who it comes from.

The privacy invasion come in at #1...

Re:Two Evils

[RWarrior(fobw)]

> 1. Palladium - More privacy less fair use
> 2. Squishy - Less privacy more fair use

Except that with Palladium, you'll have less privacy and less fair use, because the hardware will have identifiers built on.

Re:Two Evils

[nebby]

How are you losing privacy by registering with them? They know nothing about you, really, since they're not tracking any information about you.

You could argue about giving them your e-mail address, but you're a fucking idiot if you give them something other than a Hotmail or Yahoo addy.

Re:Two Evils

[spitzak]

You *can* be prosecuted. You gave the music to Bob, which is a violation of copyright! So in fact there is nothing wrong with the system.

The biggest problem is that you can claim that Bob stole the music from you. However they can still go and prosecute Bob in this case, and if he can prove you gave it to him they can come back and get you.

Re:Two Evils

[aronc]

As others and myself have pointed out, no it most probably is not due to provisions in the Audio Home Recording Act.

Re:Two Evils

[cheezedawg]

Actually, privacy is maintained despite the hardware "identifiers" (which amounts to a public/private key pair). Under palladium, data that is encrypted using your private key is first prepended with a random nonce, so the outside world would never get the same ciphertext twice (and thus wouldn't be able to track any specific key).

Re:Two Evils

[geekee]

The RIAA and MPAA have the same freedoms you and I share since these companies are composed of individuals just like you and me. They also deserve some fair use protection. If your not willing to give any ground either, then your as bad as Jack Valanti.

Re:Two Evils

[NeMon'ess]

If you give bob a gun to use at the shooting range and he kills someone, he needs to be arrested, not you. What would work compariably in the digital music world would is a record of ownership and trasferability built into each file. If I own the file and it can be transfered to five different devices, but only one "hop", bob won't be able to share it on Kazaa. If I switch the ownership to bob, he can share it over Kazaa to five other people, but no more. Of course if Bob records the file from the analog out with a deck and gets it back in his computer, only a watermark containing ownership/transferability would still stop him.

Re:Two Evils

[MeNeXT]

Do you ever wonder where the SPAM comes from?

Do you ever wonder where telemarketing gets your name? If you think it's from a phone book then your are talking about the amatures. The pros buy it. You can tell that they are pros because they know more about you than just your address.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming that you should not register, I just don't beleive that you are not losing privacy when you register. And why do I need to tell them more than my name, address and phine number?

Re:Two Evils

[MeNeXT]

I think not. Can I call an ISP and force them to remove someones content? I have less freedoms than RIAA MPAA.

Re:Two Evils

[geekee]

If someone stole your computer and you knew who it was, you could certainly call the police and ask them to recover it for you. They're doing the same thing. It's not someone's content their removing it's THEIR content they're taking back.

The implementation outlined in the article...

[Anonymous Coward]

The article says that there will be some sort of digital sig. which is specific to a comptuer built into the 'new uber' MP3. And any other computer will not be able to play this file since the sig. does not match any other computer's. If that is as far as they take it it is not a bad thing, you will have to rip your own cds to make back up copies. Other non-computer players then should not have this built in. Why you ask, so you can listen to not expensive back up copies on trips, ect. Use the $19.99 copy for the archives and the burned copy for daily use.

Be careful with the term "Compact Disc"

[yerricde]

When Aunt Tilly's cd player starts rejecting her cd's, she's gonna be pissed.

Compact Disc players don't reject Compact Discs unless they're scratched badly. They may, on the other hand, reject audio discs that make a half-hearted attempt at following the Compact Disc Digital Audio standard as defined in the Red Book.

Squishy is a funny word

[Anonymous Coward]

As my maths teacher used to say:

"What is squish plus squash all squared?"

to which we would promptly reply
"Squish squared plus two squish squash plus squash squared"

actually it's a good way to remember:

2 2 2
(X+Y) =X + 2XY + Y

Re:Squishy is a funny word

[Anonymous Coward]

As my maths teacher used to say:

My teacher said:

Why are you taking this class? You are wasting my time.

Re:Squishy is a funny word

[Anonymous Coward]

I was once asked whether I had done my homework by my maths teacher. I answered, "Errr, probably... not.".

He shouted at me, walked out of the class, and didn't return for the rest of the lesson! It was *so* funny, and the whole class was speechless!!!

The definition of "compromise"

[HP LoveJet]

"We're only going to rape you a little bit."

Re:The definition of "compromise"

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's "We're going to rape you, but we'll be very gentle and we'll use a condom and lube."

Think trade secrets

[yerricde]

If one of my MP3's shows up on somebody else's system, is sombody going to make me justify the exchange?

I imagine that the contracts will follow trade secret law. You must make every reasonable effort to safeguard your personal Super MP3 collection. Otherwise, the labels have every right to sue your for copyright and/or trade secret infringement.

3...2...1... Cracked!

[Andy Dodd]

And shortly afterwards, statistics show that the #1 and #2 producers of illicit MP3s in the United States based on the fingerprints of MP3s found on the net are...

1) Hilary Rosen
2) Jack Valenti

With William Gates coming in close with the #3 spot

Watermarking...

[Junta]

Is probably the most fair method, so long as it in no way impacts audio quality. It won't be effective (once known, removing, or at least making a watermark uselsess through distortion is likely trivial), but if it was, it would have the potential to be most fair.

I mean, nothing stops a user from doing anything with the music. You can play and copy as much as you like.

As companies scan P2P networks and use the watermarks to identify huge distributers, those would be cracked down on.

This is the ideal, but the reality probably wouldn't work within those bounds.

Of course, there are privacy concerns, but if it is distributed, the law is broken. However, the music industries would likely use this as a foot in the door, producing players that required that Watermarks match the current system. If lack of the correct watermark becomes 'wrong', then the system loses the fairness...

Ultimately, there is no practical and fair solution. Nothing will be bullet proof. Somehow books have gotten by without strange measures to protect them from scanning.... Amazing, isn't it?

Re:Watermarking...

[Cryogenes]

The problem is, how are they going to enforce watermarking? Afai can see, it can only be done by wresting control over their PCs from users.

Re:Watermarking...

[aronc]

The problem is, how are they going to enforce watermarking? Afai can see, it can only be done by wresting control over their PCs from users.


You mean sorta like Palladium?

n/s

[U R TEH SUX]

n/m

Silly

[Dotnaught]

Squishy DRM is about as good an idea as soft handcuffs.

Re:Silly

[BeeShoo]

Ah yes, I must be reading Slashdot. Most other places, people would have no problem at all thinking up GREAT uses for soft handcuffs :-)

Re:Silly

[MadAhab]

Most other places, people are ACTING on great uses for soft handcuffs, and have no time to post on slashdot. then again, some people are married.

Squishy

[Anonymous Coward]

Just think how many people felt the need to comment on this story, just because they thought the word squishy was funny.

Squishy.

Cool word or what, I'm going to be saying that all day tomorrow, hahahaha. :-)

HAHAHA

[sulli]

"People will pay for better MP3s"

That's a good one!

Good luck...?

[nochops]

Good luck?

When are we going to realize that we are most definitely a minority. Call us nerds, geeks, techno-savvy, educated...call us whatever you want, but the general public, en masse has no idea about any of this.

Ask you average AOL using grandma/grandpa to define DRM, DMCA, GPL, OSS, etc., and all you'll get is a puzzled look of bewilderment. These people have no idea what's brewing beneath the shiny exterior of their favorite programs. All they know, and all they care about is the latest, greates features in those programs. Do you really think grandma is going to read that EULA, start to finish, and understand the implications involved in it? In fact, I'm willing to bet that grandma doesn't even know what an EULA is, so you can add that to the list of acronyms above.

So you see, there will most likely not be any luck involved in this at all. The developers just have to give the users the features they want, and the users will buy into it. Nobody is going to hear us, the minority screaming about fair use, privacy, or any of that.

I'm not saying that we're wrong, just that luck is hardly a factor when the average computer user has no idea why this type of stuff is bad.

Re:Good luck...?

[gsfprez]

No - you're just not explaining to them like a human.

"You know, Grandma, how i used to send you pictures on the internet that i made with my camera? Well, i won't be able to do that any more unless i pay someone some money to make sure that it can't be stolen..."

"Mom, i used to send you DVD's full of video that we'd make of the new baby... we'd use our video camera and iMovie and then use iDVD and make those for you? Well, now that Apple is gone because they tried to survive the legal assaults on them for iMovie 3 - i have a Windows computer now since computers that could copy DVD's without protection were made illegal - and the DVD's i burn in that machine won't work in your Microsoft Media Center/HDTV setup unless i pay a license fee to Microsoft..."

"Aunt Mary, why are you calling me that your computer won't start up? Did you pay your computer-use bill to Microsoft this month? You did? Well.. hm.... Oh - i see, you installed a new hard drive because the old one went bad, and the 800 number has had you on hold for an hour?...."

"The new Michael Bolton CD won't play in your old CD walkman i got you a few years ago, cousin Sally. you're going to have to buy a new CD player that only plays only the new CDs. No, i know you're not a studio artist, so they won't sound any better.. but you're going to just have to keep 2 players around until next year unless you pay to migrate your old CD's to the new protected format..."

"I know, dad, you like to record Matlock when its on during the day - but unless you pay $5 a month for the right to record the show, you're just going to have to come up with something else..."

give them real examples of what's going to happen - then point out to them that its already happened with their new Windows computer at home.

Did you know that you've already given Microsoft the right to access your computer and modify your system without letting you know? And that they may pick and choose which software you can run on it?

this isn't hard - you fscking nerds just don't can't explain shimple shit.

Re:Good luck...?

[jorlando]

These people will complain when the messages "You are not authorized to listen that music in this computer/player/radio" etc... and start dumping brand new players/radios/computers in the trash and start to buying the cheap old-styled products made somewhere in the far east... where the industries are greed as any others, but seem to don't be stupid enough to let the marketing hype drive them...

Re:Good luck...?

[geekee]

Did you even read the article? Apparently someone is listening because they are proposing an alternative to the one machine only DRM that everyone has been objecting to.

Re:Good luck...?

[Phroggy]

Don't forget that A) people tend to reject and discount the patently absurd, and B) we're the minority here.

"You know, Grandma, how i used to send you pictures on the internet that i made with my camera? Well, i won't be able to do that any more unless i pay someone some money to make sure that it can't be stolen..."

"Who would want to steal your pictures? They're not worth anything to anyone else! They wouldn't really make you pay for that, that law is to stop criminals."

"Mom, i used to send you DVD's full of video that we'd make of the new baby... we'd use our video camera and iMovie and then use iDVD and make those for you? Well, now that Apple is gone because they tried to survive the legal assaults on them for iMovie 3 - i have a Windows computer now since computers that could copy DVD's without protection were made illegal - and the DVD's i burn in that machine won't work in your Microsoft Media Center/HDTV setup unless i pay a license fee to Microsoft..."

"I don't understand all that technical stuff. Why can't you make DVDs I can play? My friend Bob at work says his niece just sent him a DVD of her wedding, and he has the same setup I have. Why can't you do that?"

"I know, dad, you like to record Matlock when its on during the day - but unless you pay $5 a month for the right to record the show, you're just going to have to come up with something else..."

"Oh, I'm not paying $5 for that, I'm paying $5 for these great new features that I couldn't get a few years ago. I could never figure out how to program my old VCR, that thing was such a pain. This is so much easier!"

etc.

Try it. You'll find I'm right.

Re:Good luck...?

[geekee]

How is this insightful moderator when it isn't even on topic. What does this have to do with squishy DRM? Slashdot moderation is so biased

The only good DRM...

[Anonymous Coward]

is the non-existant one.

Sorry about that, but if we can't enforce copyright law in a fair way (I am innocent until proven otherwise by a court, not a multinational company) then is copyright law what needs to be rewritten. Remember "Dry Law"?

"Not letting us make lots of money selling CDs" is not a justification for bypassing Justice with this kind of dirty hack DRM is.

I'd suggest a new kind of copyright with a sensible duration (maybe 20-30 years from publication) BUT only affecting commercial distribution. Otherwise is just negating the evidence.

(Excuse my English)

Conflict

[Lysander Luddite]

Even the IP industry admits that DRM methods restrict access that otherwise may be legal. The consumer electronics industry is right when it says you can't encode intent and all possible uses into software.

So who's going to win? The IP industry getting the legal defintion of Fair Use restricted even more or the electronics industry who can't give the majority of its customers what they truly want? There can't be any compromise or solution until the legal defintions of acceptable legal use are able to be encoded in software.

All your IP are belong to RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

We're fucked. It's that simple.
Accept it and move on...

DRM must be possible (NOT)

[shren]

Are there any Open Source projects thinking about DRM? I dont know how it would work but it must be possible.

Reality does not require that it be possible. Palladium is coming around precisely because nobody's thought of a way to make guaranteed software DRM and few expect such ways to ever be discovered. DRM that's not trivially beatable when you have unlimited abilities to use and modify both code and data is pretty widely believed to be impossible.

Be careful with the word 'must'.

DRM not that bad!

[crazyarab]

Please enlighten me, whats the problem with DRM?
As far as I can see it, it only helps the creators of the media to ensure the stuff they sell does not get mis-used.

Oh well, guess the /. crowd wants *everything* free.

*DUCKS*

Re:DRM not that bad!

[cpt kangarooski]

That's not their choice. You must understand that the intent of giving creators any protection at all is not for their benefit, but for our own.

Re:DRM not that bad!

[be-fan]

As far as I can see it, it only helps the creators of the media to ensure the stuff they sell does not get mis-used.
>>>>>>>>
By violating the rights of the consumer. The end does not justify the means (funny how that phrase has fallen out of common use these days...).

Re:DRM not that bad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is DRM bad? Digital Rights Management attacks the problem not where it becomes illegal (distribution) but where the user still has substantial legal rights (copying). If I buy an apple from the store, I am allowed to eat it, use it for target practice, even plant the seeds and grow my own apple tree. In a similar way, if I buy a CD, I have the right to play it, use it as a frisbee, even rip the tracks to make my own compilation disks. DRM is an attempt to bypass the laws that protect these rights. In other words, they take away the ability to exercise our fair use rights.

In addition, there is the matter of expiration.

Copyright in the U.S. was created "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts." It does this by encouraging artists and scientists to create, by guaranteeing that for a short time, they have absolute control over the distribution of their creations, and therefore can recoup the costs of development and earn a little extra for their effort. But a work that is copyrighted cannot truly live up to its full potential until the copyright expires and it becomes public domain, and freely distributable. Restriction on the distribution of a work is a restriction on its ability to benefit society. The purpose of copyright is to increase the public domain, even if 99% of the world doesn't understand that. DRM has no expiration built in, and therefore restricts the right to distribute even after the copyright expires. It goes completely contrary to the purpose of copyright in the first place. The fact that the time length of the copyright has been extended to an unreasonable amount of time is no excuse. The state of copyright law in this country is diametrically opposed to the original intent of copyright.

Make no mistake about it. DRM is the latest in a long line of abuses of copyright that the entertainment industry has attempted to enact into law, In most cases they've succeeded. So-called "pirates" are insignificant compared to the robbers of the public domain that the movie and music cartels have become.

That said, I'm not really opposed to the idea of digital watermarks, provided they don't hurt the user's ability to copy, and that independent artists can still release their works with no restrictions, if they want. This puts the battlefield back in the correct place: the distribution channels. Who cares if I have a dozen copies of a CD, each of which has a watermark saying that I copied it on my own computer? If I follow the law, all of those watermarked copies are going to stay in my own possession anyway. It would be impossible for me to get the RIAA on my case unless I really did break the law.

But judging from past experience, it won't stop there. Every time the movie or music cartels force a "compromise" that pushes copyright far beyond what is fair, they always say the same thing. "It's a good start."

Can you tell I'm a little bitter? I just want to see copyright start working for the good of mankind again.

Re:DRM not that bad!

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone clap for this RIAA/MPAA/Microsoft brainwashed idiot.

Re:DRM not that bad!

[Billly Gates]

I worry about the slippery slope arguement. First off software drm which is what this arguement is about is crackable. My guess is crackers and pirates will figure out a way to circumvent this while in the meantime drm will become standard.

After it becomes standard and cracked the MPAA/RIAA/Microsoft will come up with a strict hardware version aka pallidium. With hardware based drm, the companies and not the users decide which rights you have. You will have no choice but to bend over and take it or not use audio. Extreme hardware based drm like TCPA implementation contain encypted bootsectors which will prevent linux from ever booting. Pallidium at least does not have this.

The second problem is that bad and currupted laws like the infamous DMCA prevent circumventing a hardware based device, even for fair use. This means Linux will never ever be portedto crippled hardware unless it can be dissabled. IBM's drm crippled pc's at least have this option to boot linux. For now they are only available in europe. But remember that the RIAA/MPAA/Microsoft decide and design the hardware platform so will they let you do this? Fat chance.

Remember its that they and not you decide how to use it. A standard pc today lets the user do whatever he/she pleases with it. But these chips will be hands off and if your lucky will only be particially usable by yourself. What I mean by this is that you can DRM your own documents if you please. However Microsoft and the Thompsons media(owners of mp3) will also use it.

What scares the hell out of me is that every single company out there supports this!

Every one! From Microsoft to IBM to HP to THompsons media, Intel, AMD, to the DIVX group, to the MPAA/RIAA! Like it or not drm will be here. WHat the f*ck is up with that? With all these companies around support it, its only a matter of time before its defacto standard.

Re:DRM not that bad!

[Anonymous Coward]

DRM violates the rights of the purchasers of the music / video / software. It also acts as a barrier to the public's ability to use the work without restriction once it returns to the public domain.

Re:DRM not that bad!

[ejeet]

so is hardware based DRM TOTALLY uncrackable?

reading your reply and doing a bit of searching on DRM & Pallidium, I get the impression that Microsoft is supporting DRM because:

1. It doesn't want to see RIAA/MPAA media unusable on the Wintel platform
2. It wants a quick and easy way to kill Linux

Any compromise is a defeat for the consumer

[Junior J. Junior III]

The RIAA comes out and demands outrageous things. They get maybe 10% of what they ask for, but once they get that, those rights will be gone forever.

Next time Congress meets, or next time industry works out a new spec for standardizations, they'll demand outrageous things once again. Maybe they'll get another 10%, maybe 1%, maybe nothing. But they'll just keep coming back, again and again, until they've whittled away free use rights down to nothing. Eventually they get what they want, it just takes them a while.

Don't give them anything. They're not entitled to anything, so don't give them anything. Appeasement is a slippery slope to defeat.

Re:Any compromise is a defeat for the consumer

[zenyu]

Appeasement is a the way to defeat, but compromise doesn't have to be. It all depends on the exchange. If say we allowed mp3's to decay with a semaphore that got decrimented on each copy, disallowing copies after the fifth copy. If you own the original that makes for 5! or 120 copies, but the first person to copy your copy only gets a maximum of 4!=24 copies, the next 3!=6 max, the next 2!=2, the next 1!=1, and the next 0 copies. But in exchange for putting this in every legal p2p program, cd copier, etc. we get the copyright shortened to the intended maximum of 14 years, shorter for software, music, etc. I think that would be a net gain to the consumer and society at large. That's a compromise not appeasement.

Note: In reality there would never be 120 copies made. Prolly everyone would back up the original and then never touch it until the first copy died, and prolly share that one, reduced to 20(24 - 4 for personal use) individual non-copyable files. And there would be programs that allowed you to reset the counter, but they would be illegal and their distributors cracked down on. The crackdown would work because people would buy into the copyright scheme if they saw it as something whose benefits outweighed it's high costs. Right now most educated people see it as a perversion perpetrated by Disney. I can't tell you how many lawyers really thought the name of the Sonny Bono Act was the "Disney Act II."

How is this security?

[sweatyboatman]

"We need interoperable DRM products that allow people to never feel the walls (of security)," said Ted Cohen, vice president of new media at EMI

words are just words and they mean what we use them to mean. But I am sick of this use of the word "security".

Security A: protection from hackers, SPAM, viruses, spies, corruption
Security B: copy/cartel protection

A and B have nothing to do with each other. And current software (especially the MS variety) is full of security (A) holes. Consumers are concerned that their computers are at risk and want to be more secure (A). And they enjoy the freedom that digital media (without security B) provides.

By saying that DRM addresses computer security, the industry is throwing up a smoke screen. The consumer believes that MS, Intel, et al. are addressing their security concerns when in fact they are really crippling their hardware and software. With no added security (A).

RIAA also wins using this technology because file-sharing and burning are thrown together with viri and hacking as "threats to computer security". Just a semantic turn away from making casual file-swappers into federal felons.

Security is the wrong word. I can't even imagine how it came into use in this sense, except as an incredibly succesful PR ploy. Just stick with "Copy-Protection" or better "Software Restriction" or more realistic "Software Crippling".

Sweat

Re:How is this security?

[WetCat]

Can we name Security A - Shielding?

WTF does it matter anymore

[RiotXIX]

We don't have rights, the politicians do (and a bunch of protestors, no matter how numerous, won't make a difference. The American public didn't even get to vote in it's own president this time). It's this sort of stuff which is going to provoke me to go into blackhat hacking without any remorse (and, I can imagine, a lot others). Jack Valenti can go fuck himself.

Mozart

[El]

I beleive Mozart died broke, as he got paid very little for each composition.

Re:Mozart

[Anonymous Coward]

But I think you're framing Mozart's life in your
contemporary notions of compensation and benefits.

If you were a member of a European aristocracy in the 18th century, "getting paid" would only be one
piece of the picture. It was not necessarily the key ingredient that made the difference between you living in a palace or in a hovel. To be sure, having money never hurt, but, Mozart never lived in squalor, never did without food or shelter, and certainly did not "die broke" any more or less than anyone else does.

He did die young, and in very poor health, but please don't base your historical view on that movie. Salieri did not murder Mozart.

Nothing new; DRM is still destined to failure.

[mesozoic]

No matter how much you pad a wall, people still stop when they run into it. Consumer backlash against these products hasn't hit full force yet, but it will.

Consumers define a market, not the other way around. When people start getting crippled hardware that doesn't do what they want it to, companies will pay the price.

Moreover, once media companies lose legislative support for DRM enforcement (and this will happen, although it may take the judicial system a while), tech companies won't have any more reason to implement this sort of consumer-unfriendly crap.

We need to remember that the judicial branch of the government is always slow to react, but that it does react -- and more often than not, it will favor the rights of the consumer over the rights of industry. A very convincing argument could be made (and will be, in the next couple years) to the Supreme Court challenging something as unconstitutional as the DMCA, or mandatory DRM. When Hollywood does get slapped in the face by the courts -- and I'm confident they will -- all of this nonsense will fade into the past, and a new wave of technological innovation will be allowed to continue.

This sort of situation has come up in the past, and the American system has resolved it. If this weren't the case, we would have no VCRs, no cassette tapes, and certainly no MP3 players. But we do. It's only a matter of time before we can continue the developmental trend uninhibited.

Re:Nothing new; DRM is still destined to failure.

[geekee]

Did you even read the article? They're proposing a style of DRM whose only restriction is that it places a signature in the file to identify which pc created the file. How does this cripple hardware? This compromise seem in tune with current fair use legislation.

Re:Nothing new; DRM is still destined to failure.

[jo.cool]

Except that court ordered compromise has cost us surcharges on blank tape and Macrovision on VCRs. So I have to pay an extra tax, and buy a fancy RF modulator to get my DVD player to connect to my old-fashioned TV set.

Re:Nothing new; DRM is still destined to failure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you even read the article?

Considering where you are asking this question, the answer is pretty obvious :)

Re:Nothing new; DRM is still destined to failure.

[colanut]

mesozoic wrote:

We need to remember that the judicial branch of the government is always slow to react, but that it does react -- and more often than not, it will favor the rights of the consumer over the rights of industry. A very convincing argument could be made (and will be, in the next couple years) to the Supreme Court challenging something as unconstitutional as the DMCA, or mandatory DRM. When Hollywood does get slapped in the face by the courts -- and I'm confident they will -- all of this nonsense will fade into the past, and a new wave of technological innovation will be allowed to continue.

Unfortunately this might not be true for much longer. 39 States have elected judiciary. Over the last decade industry has found it is just as profitable to buy judges just like they do legislators. There was an article about it in The Nation (I can't find it in their archive, but I believe it was the Sept 2 issue) a couple of weeks ago. A judge in Montana (or Texas) ruled against an industry and was soundly defeated the next election cycle by being out spent with "issue ads" sponsored by that industry and trade group.

Most industry has the money and time to stall the judicial system until a more favorable court is elected. Also the Supreme Court can refuse to hear an appeal. And they have been doing that more and more with consumer/civil rights issues. The checks and balances of the US isn't what it used to be.

Re:Nothing new; DRM is still destined to failure.

[hyphz]

> Consumers define a market, not the other way
> around. When people start getting crippled
> hardware that doesn't do what they want it to,
> companies will pay the price.

No, it doesn't work like that. It ideally ought to, but it doesn't. The majority of consumers will still buy the hardware they need for whatever entertainment they want to view, and won't give a damn about fair use. I mean, how long have games consoles been selling for?

Another point is - they already HAVE paid for the crippled hardware. DVD players have already sold. Copy-protected CDs have already sold. They'd need new hardware to get the "nice" DRM methods - and nobody will make it for them.

I've posted it before and I'll post it again: developing "nice" DRM, which respects consumers' rights, will do NOTHING until legislation forces companies to use it. Until that happens, IP companies will just carry on using the old consumer-hosing DRM because it's to their benefit to do so; and as there's always a significantly large population of lemmings who refuse to go without their entertainment, consumer backlash is unlikely as well.

+3h 1337 h40rZ

[Anonymous Coward]

And when the MP3 file shows up with the message "Cracked by Eaglesoft" we will have no idea where it comes from.

Digital Restrictions Mangement (DRM)

[gnugnugnu]

Dont get caught by newspeak make sure to call it Digital Restrictions management

"Squishy" sounds almost cute and harmless, more like "spikey" or "prickley".

I like this bit though (emphasis added):

But it's impossible to put an accurate dollar figure on how much -- or even if -- it's costing the entertainment business.

And for good measure a link to the privacy implications of DRM for the benifit of searchbots, cant have pro DRM propoganda getting listed first in search engines now can we?.

Super MP3 doesn't seem to be DRM

[Sloppy]

The "Super MP3" they talk about, doesn't sound like DRM at all. It looks like they're just talking about good old fashioned watermarking (or something like it) for tracking/identification purposes. If that's all it is, I don't have any objections. (But I wouldn't use it anyway, due to the patent nonsense and general obsolesence in the face of Vorbis.)

This ISN'T DRM

[NigelJohnstone]

Its a WATERMARK. I like this.

The other DRM solutions had bits of code deciding I could do X, Y but not Z.

This one says, I can do X, Y AND Z, but if Z turns out to be illegal, I can be punished.

Fine - thats innocent until proven guilty. Exactly the principle what these new RIAA and MPAA rules forget.

Now give me all that nice digital media, in this unprotected digital format, to use how I wish and I promise not to distribute it.

If I do, it will have a watermark that can track it to my account.

Fine. There's no code managing my rights, if I do something illegal, I get to argue my case infront of a human.

Kinda reminds me of...

[randomErr]

Kinda reminds me of... these Mac Hall strips:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Mod Parent Up

[lostPackets]

To the point and articulate argument. I wish go-public would read this post.

hmm...

[tandr]

how it is different from taking your fingerprints from any surface that you EVER touch for "just in case"?

Scary prediction

[drew_kime]

From the article:

Judges determine fair use case by case, but technology companies are being asked to develop DRM systems that determine ahead of time what people can and can't do with files. In many cases, there are no precedents for DRM companies to draw from.

Focus on the phrase "DRM companies" for a second. Does anyone realize we're already casually assuming that there will be a whole new class of companies that will spring up just to create, administer and monitor DRM? The "friction" this will add to the already-bloated digital-entertainment distribution system is enormous. Large distributors will create whole new divisions to take on the work. Small distributors, if they survive, will have to outsource the function. This is insane.

How about just plain ol' NO DRM!

[pennystinker]

How about the mo-fos just stop looking at every friggin' customer as a pirate and back off! DRM ain't going to stop the real pirates anyway. DRM in any form is just going to hurt the average consumer.

By the way I have a completely OGG format digital music library composed ENTIRELY of music I purchased on CDs (backup media). Why the hell is M$, RIAA, MPAA, and others interested in hurting guys like me? bastards...

Jim Powers

Re:3...2...1... Cracked!

[zbuffered]

Don't crack it right away! Wait for it to become firmly entrenched as a standard, for people to accept it, then crack it. And in the mean time, keep ripping those Audio CDs...

Squishy DRM??

[Eric Damron]

DRM that's a no brainer to crack maybe?

Re:Squishy DRM??

[unDiWahn]

Ah, but how do you crack something when it just squishes?

I beg to differ with the conclusions....

[Svartalf]

It's more akin to:

1. Palladium - Less privacy, less fair use.
2. Squishy - Less privacy, more fair use.

In order for Palladium to be useful, it's going to have to report home periodically. I don't want either, but if they're going to make it so there's only two options, I'll take the second for sure.

Technology precipitates change

[MolecularBear]

In my opinion, this is the beginning of drastic change in the music industry. I can rip a friend's CD, or buy it myself for $17. Personally, I will generally rip the CD. Is that illegal? Yes, of course it is. Will that stop me? No, of course it won't. It doesn't feel like stealing because you aren't walking into a store and slipping a CD into your coat; you're making a digitial copy of some data. And who are you harming? A bunch of millionaires? It is very easy to justify to yourself that copying music is not a big deal. I don't think I could argue that it is morally correct, but I think that most people who do a cost-benefit analysis on it would find that copying music is more favorable than buying it.

Rather than put ridiculous restrictions on our technology, I think the music industry must adapt. Exchanging information is only going to become faster and easier, and I don't think the exchange of music can be regulated without dramatic restrictions of freedom. I envision the dissolution of the major record labels and a flood of new music from artists who can now compete without signing their lives away. Cheap CDs and cheap downloads would be available for convenience, but little would be done to discourage the copying of these things. Musicians would make the majority of their income from concerts, donations, T-shirt sales, etc. I think that society can only benefit...

I'd rather feed my kids!

[RatBastard]

I'd rather be able to feed my kids, put a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs, shoes on their feet, and keep them from having to beg in the streets.

Or should artists have to get day jobs so cheap bastards like you can have the fruits of their labor for free.

Go to Hell.

Re:3...2...1... Cracked!

[Anonymous Coward]

And Osama and Sadam coming in fourth and fifth.

Death Spiral

[Anonymous Coward]

Big Media companies had a niche when distribution required large technical and logistical structures to produce and sell the information.

The world changed and they are attempting to maintain their niche with brute force. Who shed a tear when the niche of factory workers dissapeared, and when niche of US computer workers evaporated with the H1B laws?

Why does the music industry deserve special attention? Do they really employ that many people or provide any great value to society at all? So we will miss out on future boy bands, and rocky 28. Boohoo.

ITS NOT ABOUT PIRACY!

[Gannoc]

Yes, piracy is a problem. This isn't about piracy, this is about control.

They're concerned about people stealing music, but they know as much as we do that some college kid downloading 5 CDs doesn't equal $100 in lost revenue.

Digital music frightens them because they lose control. Once you have that music, you own it FOREVER in whatever format you want!

That means that all of their great ideas about having people pay for music that "expires" after 30 days, and all their other reoccuring revenue plans can't happen.

They WANT you to get sick of music. If you can listen to any one of your 6000+ songs at the touch of an iPod, thats less of a motivation to buy new music than if you're getting tired of listening to the same 6 CDs that you've had in your car the past month.

This isn't even touching on the whole business of buying and selling physical CDs. There is a huge business in printing, selling, distributing, and marketing the CDs that you buy at the mall. If music was totally electronic, that revenue would be GONE.

RTFM!

[RatBastard]

Read the fucking manual and learn to do it yourself. Laziness is not an excuse.

Re:RTFM!

[japhmi]

but someone had the work to encode the files and think it's ok to offer the enodes for the ones who are lazy, dumb, owners of slower machines...

There are people who know a lot about computers but don't know how to Rip/encode a CD. They don't know (because they have no reason to know) that you need a separate program. My Dad, when he wanted to copy a CD to his computer, at first tried to simply copy the .cda (or whatever they are) files from the CD to his HD. That would be what made sense. It didn't work. He was able to ask me how to do it.

Now, I have an old computer that I got when I first went to college as a present. I am in no position to upgrade it due to the fact that: it works for what I _need_ it to do. However, it is too slow to rip CDs. So, I've used p2p apps to get files from CDs _that_I_own_. Note: the person put our 'too slow' of a computer as a way for p2p to have fair use.

So, before you tell someone to RTFM, why don't you read the post that he made, and think about the point.

Re:RTFM!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you missed the point by about 3000 miles.

What About Independent Artists?

[Tsali]

My question is this: If I am an independent artist and I directly create MP3's on my own, do I have to pay some corporate entity somewhere for a watermark? Does this turn into a domain name kind of thing where a corporate entity doles out certificates? Regardless... I don't mind watermarking in principle. We all know its going to get hacked with the tech equivalent of a $0.99 marking pen, but in principle, I'm okay with this. It may even be desirable for some people to get music straight from the source instead of from Joe Napster's hard drive.

Re:What About Independent Artists?

[Maran]

Don't worry, we all know the only artists worth listening to are on labels that are part of the RIAA. "Independent" artists are really criminals who take money away (note it's not "didn't contribute in the first place", they actually steal) from the decent lawyers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H people at the RIAA. Support your local politician by buying RIAA-owned music! Yes we own it - those so-called "artists" just write it and perform it for us.

This post brought to you by the RFSPAA - the RIAA-Funded Slashdot Poster's Association of America.

Maran

A Step in the Right Direction?

[tetsuo13]

I glad to see that there is some effort being put into a compromise on this DRM thing. As much as I'd like the hardware/software companies to "just say no", it's not in their best interest to do that. For every company out there that says no, there are 3 others that can't wait to get in bed with DRM and profit from it.

I'm not so sure that voting does any good these days, with politicians being easily bought, but we can be heard with our dollars! Just Don't Buy It! We may be a minority in this but out dollars do count! The consumers should not have to comprimise to the products; the companies producing these products should be comprimising to the consumers' demands.

Okay...

[DeltaSigma]

This idea has acquired a, somewhat, more positive reception than most other DRM methodologies. However you must keep something in mind: Consumers aren't behind the wheel on this bus.

We all know the RIAA has been getting what they want when it comes to anything related to intellectual property.

So how will it be recieved amongst them? Well I'll let you decide for yourself. However, allow me a chance to display the facts.

The Recording Industry Association of America is an interesting animal. It deviates from our usual assumptions in the way that most corporations work. It is usually assumed that a large corporation wants money, that money is the bottom line. This is not the case with the RIAA. The RIAA wants control. The end result is still money but control is the most effective means to get money.

I've explained this situation before, but for the sake of clarity I'll explain it again. They don't want control just because they're the multinational, multibillion-dollar, multi-million employing incarnation of pure satanic force. They want control because in the entertainment industry, more than any other, this is how you make the most money.

The (literally) billion dollar question is "why?" The answer is simple. Cost and risk. More than any other industry there's more money spent at a higher risk in entertainment (save, possibly, stock trading). Unlike other industries with development processes, the entertainment industry does not gaurantee that a large amount of time and money will produce large profits. So what must they do? They must assure that they are the only sources for their product. They must make it as difficult as possible for users to get music other than theirs.

That's half the reason the RIAA exists, to remove competition between high profiting companies and instead force it upon the rest of the world, including start-ups and independant businesses. I'm getting ahead of myself, however.

So what do they do with this control? They bring on a finite number of artists, have them produce as many CDs as possible, while diluding the mainstream public with as much related advertising as possible.

So you say, "why not hire more artists and make more CDs? Then you'll make more profit!" That's the traditional way of looking at it, but it's altogether untrue. They'll make more money, yes, but they certainly will not make more profit. Albums sold would increase but the cost of developing this music, signing the band, advertising for the band, buying radio play, and everything else associated with music production would increase at a higher rate than their sales.

So you see, keeping a small number of artists (a full CD store doesn't appear to be a small number of artists but when you consider that the RIAA only signs approximately 1000 artists annually you begin to see the situation with clarity) is quite beneficial to them. Making sure that these are the only artists you ever see, hear, or talk about is even more beneficial to them. It's the real reason P2P is under attack.

Given this super short, abridged, and summarized synopsis of the situation let's look at this DRM approach again. This "Squishy DRM" would allow P2P to continue. It would assure that people could not illegally acquire music. Yet, it would also allow consumers to venture with their music taste, and try smaller, less advertised artists/bands/genres. This DRM method would still compromise their control, and thus, their profits. How do you think they will recieve this idea?

Re:Okay...

[geekee]

Ahhh, your theory has a huge hole. There are already plenty of independent labels not in the RIAA big 5 that produce a lot of music. They don't get as much exposure because they don't spend the same amount on promotion. Artists who are successful migrate from these independent labels to the RIAA labels if they're successful enough so they can make more money. REM is one example. I remember when they were on and independent label back before Document was released. The RIAA wants to enforce copyright protection because they are afraid it'll cut into their business. When a company reaches the 3dr stage of its existence, like the RIAA members, they're biggest responsibility to themselves is to protect their market. They're worried about piracy, not competition. They know they can sign artists from indie labels if they get popular enough since the indie labels don't have the resources to further the artists career like the big labels do.

I find it INappropriate.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

This "squishy DRM" system, which puts a unique identifier in each record ("record" in copyright law refers to a copy of a recording) but doesn't restrict fair uses, allows copyright holders to identify those who break the laws so that prosecution can begin. I find it an appropriate compromise ...

I see a problem here:

The Super MP3 will come with a tracking signature -- a digital fingerprint -- that will identify the PC that made it.

And if the user is attempting to put out anonymous speech on an MP3 his anonymity is destroyed. Very handy for identifying, prosecuting, and executing dissidents, along with anyone who encodes a tape of their voice for distribution on the Internet.

I bet every totalitarian regime in the world is already drooling.

Of course if this "user serial number" is installed by software you just need to hack the software to change it - or clone someone else's. Setting an individual serial number on open-source encoders will be on the honor system, right? And pirates will honor the rules, and not subvert the unique-ID generator, right? Or are we going to have no open-source encoders for this flashy new format? Even if we have object-only encoders there are ways to subvert them (which I won't even start to describe here thanks to the DMCA.)

The example sounded like a good compromise

[geekee]

I slashdotters are really interested in fair use instead of piracy, I see no reason why an mp3 file with the signature of the pc that created it is a problem if the file is a normal mp3 in other respects. If you use the file on your own audio equipment, no one else sees the file. If you distribute the file over the internet, however, the RIAA has legal recourse. Sounds like a good compromise to me.

Finally a name that makes sense

[frozenray]

"Squishy" DRM - as in "the sound you hear when you step into something soft and stinking/slimy on the sidewalk"? Makes sense.

DMCA already prohibits collecting that data

[yerricde]

Personally, I wouldn't mind this "squishy DRM" idea much, as long as there are some strict regulations preventing collecting any of this sort of data.

The DMCA (17 USC 1201(i)) exempts from the circumvention ban any copy-protection system that collects personally identifying information about a user and doesn't tell the user about it.

Re:DMCA already prohibits collecting that data

[Sylver Dragon]

The DMCA (17 USC 1201(i)) exempts from the circumvention ban any copy-protection system that collects personally identifying information about a user and doesn't tell the user about it.

But is doing so a punishable offense? And, if so, is it a useful punsihment, or just a slap on the wrist?

Re:DMCA already prohibits collecting that data

[yerricde]

But is doing so a punishable offense? And, if so, is it a useful punsihment, or just a slap on the wrist?

If a copyright owner collects personal information in a prohibited manner, it isn't allowed to use 1201 against alleged infringers. Isn't that enough punishment in itself?

Re:DMCA already prohibits collecting that data

[mangu]

If a copyright owner collects personal information in a prohibited manner, it isn't allowed to use 1201 against alleged infringers.

You mean, if they spy on me they aren't allowed to send me to jail? I propose we rescind DMCA, since it's way too harsh on those poor copyright owners.

serial-number watermarks on CD Digital Audio

[yerricde]

How are you going to stop all the bad pirates from continuing to use their non-watermarking rippers?

Distribute all recordings on Compact Disc Recordable, with embedded watermarks giving the serial number of the disc.

Re:serial-number watermarks on CD Digital Audio

[Cryogenes]

That does not work. The purpose of the watermark is to trace a song back to the person who started to distribute it. Except, of course, if you plan to outlaw anonymous buying of CDs.

What they have in mind, I think, is proprietary hardware, each with its own key, that puts the watermark on the copy. All other copying hardware is to be outlawed. Then, and only then, does it become possible to prove that a certain copy originated from the machine of a specific Joe user.

Re:serial-number watermarks on CD Digital Audio

[byran lei]

>Distribute all recordings on Compact Disc Recordable, with embedded
>watermarks giving the serial number of the disc.
>
>
How does this tells you who copied the disk?

they've got it all backwards

[Rader]

I don't get it. Exactly how do they stamp your "computer name" into the superMp3? What ID are they going to set up? Another Intel ID on the PCU? Would you have to register your CPU when you buy it? Would you have to get a license like when you get a gun? Have to wait 5 days for a cool-down period?

What would keep you from ripping your songs at work (with the ID similar to: BigCompany PC#2004).
Then take them home, log into your favorite P2P system and sharing them with the world.

Actually the whole setup seems to be against the original ripper, but not against the 400 people later trading it. Considering most of the leaches out there in P2P-land, who download only, and hardly ever upload (or rip) it seems like it would be safe to continue trading all your BobSmith-PC#01 files, as long as your name isn't BobSmith.

Re:they've got it all backwards

[geekee]

An ethernet card mac address is a pretty unique identifier. Palladium will eventually be used. The point is, Bob Smith won't rip songs for other people anymore since it will land him in jail. Once they "leeches" have no one ripping songs for them anymore, they will buy the music, according to the RIAA.

Re:they've got it all backwards

[Rader]

I would guess that a large percentage of mp3's out there come from the release groups. This would continue to happen because they are dedicated at what they do. They would find a way to rip & encode mp3's.

They could easily do it on a machine with no ethernet card. Burn it to CD-R/DVD-R, move it to their next machine, and start the releasing process.

They might even LIKE having their ID on it, since they love the notoriety, and "fame". They already release their mp3 albums with a NFO file that proudly carries their group's name.

Original ripper -> Private FTP library -> Lots of releaser FTP sites -> Other FTP sites -> IRC -> Newsgroups -> people like me -> P2P -> people like you -> your mom.

Re:they've got it all backwards

[geekee]

Yes, you've probably pointed out the reason why squishy DRM will never fly. It's way too easy to circumvent.

here is where I would draw the line

[g4dget]

To me, the key question about a DRM system is: does it let me or you or anybody else publish and distribute non-DRM'ed content without restrictions or costs? If it does, it's OK by me--I may think that many artists should be grateful for anybody that listens to their stuff--but that's their decision to make. If it interferes with the distribution of free content, I consider it an infringement on basic rights of free speech and a threat to our society--we don't want Disney and Microsoft to hold the keys to distributing video, audio, images, and text.

So, tracking is fine by me. I think it's technologically futile, but if they succeed and don't track things that don't belong to them, more power to them.

Re:Good luck...? QWZX

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it matter whether none of that is EVER going to happen even in the worst scenerios?

This is what galls me about the issue: I'm concerned about the direction of these things, but people like you lie about it worse than the supposed "offenders".

Oh that kind of DRM!

[Ixe]

You know you've been using linux too long when you were thinking of the Direct Rendering Module stuff you config in the kernel to allow DRI acceleration to work in X11...

And honestly, that was the first thing that came to mind -- my bad

Not True. Stop Spreading Microsoft Hype.

[FreeUser]

Except that the virus, by definition, cannot run on a DRM machine, so fat chance getting it propagated.

You are echoing Microsoft marketing hype which is simply untrue. Palladium will only allow "signed" or authorized software to run, which sounds good until you realize that many worms and viruses run as a subprocess of an authorized process. That is one of the reasons wbhy ActiveX was such a dismal failure at preventing malicious code from being executed.

Palladium will do nothing to stop viruses or worms from spreading or running on systems, as the worms and viruses will simply insinuate themselves into authorized code and run anyway. Microsoft's claim to the contrary is simply untrue and deceitful (what else is new?), designed to leverage their incompetently designed systems and their notorious reputation for being unable to design a secure system into a selling point for a new product designed to kill the commercial viability of free software, not viruses.

DRM isn't the same thing as Palladium, though the two are certainly akin to one another in some respects, and doesn't address authorization of software at all, merely of access to data, something that is also orthogonal to virus and worm prevention.

Know what scares me?

[Anonvmous Coward]

I'm aspiring to work in Visual FX soon. In order to get a job doing that, I need to provide a reel of FX that I created in order to prove I can do it.

The problem with FX is that some of the best effects you can do are the kind that people don't notice. For example, there was a scene in Showgirls where a fountain had to be played with digitally in order to make it come out right. (If memory serves, the fountain didn't work when it came time to shoot, so it was fixed later...) Not a spectacular effect, nobody even noticed. The idea was to save money on a reshoot later.

Well, the problem I have is that if I do a good enough job doing effects like that, how's anybody going to know what I did? An interesting idea hit me: Why not perform an alteration to a well known movie?

I could take a movie, do a DVD-Rip of it so I have an .AVI on my computer to play with, then I could do something like replace a painting on the wall of a set with something startlingly different. Imagine a Star Wars movie posting hanging in Captain Picard's ready room.

The more subtle I make it, the more likely that the effect will go unnoticed. But to have that poster hanging in a Star Trek movie would be startling. So my subtle effect could easily go noticed. Good, eh?

Well, here's what bugs me: the DMCA says I can't do that. Fair use rights used to let me do that. I'm legitimately trying to use copyrighted work to privately advance my education. If the problem wasn't so serious (i.e. DRM enfocrement of 'copy restriction'...) then this situation would be comical. The very industry that is pushing for this type of enforcement is the same industry I'm trying to build a skillset for so I can work for them and make more content!

Can I succeed without doing the DVD rip? Yeah, sort maybe. But they've made my life a good deal harder. I want to learn how to green-screen against footage shot professionally. This is easy to do if I rip a DVD with documentary footage. Without that footage, I'll have to hire somebody to professionally light a greenscreen set. Cute. If I had the money to do that, I wouldn't be trying to educate myself!

I hope the *AA realizes that they're destroying their talent pool.

Security through obscurity.

[Andy Dodd]

No. Crack it but don't tell anyone until it's major egg on the faces of all involved. :)

Although you may be right

[ACNeal]

You are wrong in your conclusion. Just because I buy more music today than I did yesterday doesn't mean I haven't stolen any today also.

You fall into the trap of wanting to redefine fair use to your benefit, as I already pointed out.

The argument that downloading and sharing music is good for the music industry is a strong one, I haven't denied that in my earlier post. The problem is, it isn't even remotely fair use. It will never be considered fair use. Hopefully some day it will be considered a good marketing strategy, but not fair use as the term is used.

Contrary to popular belief, information doesn't want anything. Music, in its role as information (content), doesn't want anything. The people that generate the information should have the right to dictate how it is used.

So, back to my point, if you can not argue that DRM infringes on your fair use rights without associating yourself with the thieves, the you won't even be heard. And that is where the unfortunate side comes in.

It isn't as easy as just saying that you aren't a thief, as another poster suggested. No one believes you. The people that don't copy their music just assume you are stealing. They don't need to rip their CD's, so why should you. The vast majority of people that do rip CD's, "share" their music. They also just assume you "share" your music as well.

This is why it it is unfortunate that we are all lumped together, and why we will always have a problem being taken seriously.

Re:Although you may be right

[richieb]

The argument that downloading and sharing music is good for the music industry is a strong one, I haven't denied that in my earlier post. The problem is, it isn't even remotely fair use. It will never be considered fair use. Hopefully some day it will be considered a good marketing strategy, but not fair use as the term is used.

Is listening to the radio "stealing music"? After all I don't pay for it and I mute it during commercials.

I sometimes tape stuff of the radio. Is that "stealing music" too?

Copyright violation (which this action maybe at worst) is not stealing. Depriving someone else of profits is not stealing (or is driving a fuel efficient car "stealing" from oil companies?).

If you think of file sharing as promotion (which is how record companies think of radio or MTV) then it's a great way for artists to be exposed to new listeners. Think how much music is being produced and how long playlists on a particular radio station are. There are probably less than 500 songs played on the radio any given week.

What if I don't like any of the crap that record companies put on the radio. Where do I go to hear music I may like?

The record companies somehow became total control freaks. They want to pick the music for me, then decide when I can listen to it, using what devices and in what order.

I want to control my own music. If the radio and MTV become a wasteland of stuff that doesn't interest me, fine. But don't expect me to pay for it. I'll go directly to the artists and buy my music there (I've been doing that more and more - since most of my favorite artists have their own websites). And to find new music I use the Net - news groups, etc and I use gnutella to sample stuff (althought most artists I like have samples directly on their sites).

If RIAA DRMs their precious "content" they can keep it, I'm not going to buy it.

You can fool...

[Captain_Stupendous]

..some of the people some of the time...
This sounds like an (always inadvisable) attempt to please everybody.
Such attempts invariably fail.

Polly Want a Cracker

[ACNeal]

Nice parrot job, but you are no more correct than RMS is.

And idea has a real cost to create. It also has a real value to the creator. If you abuse that creators ownership of his idea, then you have deprived him of something.

I can't believe so many people simply parrot RMS's argument without really understanding it. He makes the point that hard ideas are different than software (or music here). He is right. He makes the point that somehow these products deserve more protection since they cost a lot of money to R&D, produce, and even develop production means. This is where the wheels fall off. This is a perfect argument for them getting less protection (or actually, no hard ideas getting more).

These things (cost of production, and cost of means of production) are known as barriers of entry. It isn't very easy to steal my idea when you have to dump millions into it to capitalize on the idea.

Stealing an idea, where the idea is itself what is worth something (whether that be you getting your work done with a stolen word processing program, or enjoying yourself while you work with a stolen piece of music) needs more protection, because there is no barrier of entry.

It is stealing. The fact that it is worth something to a lot of people demonstrates that it has real value. The fact that you don't pay the creator for that demonstrates that you have just deprived him of something that has real value.

Re:Polly Want a Cracker

[Anonymous Coward]

You're making a circular argument. An idea is not the owner's property in the same way that a car is his property. An idea can be shared without diminishing anyone's access to it.

Should the person who had the idea be compensated? Yes. Should we insure that he gets compensated by depriving other people of the benefit of the idea? No. There are other ways to insure that creativity is rewarded than by the reductionist proposition that intellectual property is the same as physical property. There is legitimate distinction between intellectual property and physical property, and so between the unauthorized use of intellectual property and "stealing".

Re:Polly Want a Cracker

[blank_coil]

It's very unfortunate that the people who benefit from these "protections" on intellectual property are mostly major distributors rather than the idea creators themselves. And what happens when these companies go out of business and hold on to those intellectual property rights? Great ideas fade away. I think that's more of a disservice to the creator than anything copying would do.

I thought at one point people created art for it's beauty. I guess now it's strictly a for-money thing. If they're not getting money for the idea they had, they'd rather no one have it at all.

It won't work..

[RailGunner]

"Squishy" DRM or any other kind of DRM just isn't going to work. For one, it's too easy to just record the audio output to another medium without DRM. How many of your stereo's have tape decks? How many of you have ever recorded the output of a soundcard straight to a wav file? Or recorded it on another sound card on your second PC?

Besides, this messes with the consumer when 6 months after they download this DRMP3 file, they find that they have to reinstall Windows. *poof* there goes your music.

Give the RIAA / MPAA enough rope, and they're bound to hang themselves with it. I don't think they *really* understand where they're being hurt by piracy. It isn't by teenagers trading mp3's on-line (who weren't going to buy it anyways), it's the major pirates that press bootleg CD's and sell them at Flea Markets that does damage to their business.

Same goes for software. One kid burning a CD for a friend is NOTHING compared to the major illegal pirates. These clowns are trying to blow out a birthday candle when they've got a forest fire in their backyard.

Ah - screw them (the RIAA / MPAA). Their pure, unadulterated idiocy will be their downfall.

It's a JOKE, son...

[Anonymous Coward]

Steven King is a zombie. Hence, he's neither living nor dead.

DMCA question.

[Anonymous Coward]

This post is encrypted with double ROT-13 encoding. If you decrypt it, are you violating the DMCA?

How does squishy work?

[coljac]

Interestingly, I had the same idea a while ago - embed the ID of the creator or legitimate owner in the file. That way, if it gets out the original creator can at least in theory be held accountable under existing copyright laws.

I couldn't get very far with the scheme since as I was trying it, anyone who could get a hold of several copies of a song could figure out which bits were the id and change some of them. I didn't have the energy to pursue it after that, especially since I'm not sure it would prove a satisfactory disincentive to piracy anyway. Maybe something with a secret checksum but that would easily be hacked.

If they solved these problems, it would be nice, except that it seems too late to stop the RIAA Nazis.

Heil!

Squishy = Sneaky

[nanojath]

"The twist: The Super MP3 will come with a tracking signature -- a digital fingerprint -- that will identify the PC that made it."

From the article. So, let me get this straight. The idea is we don't "feel" the "walls" of DRM, 'cause basically it's just quietly violating my privacy rather than telling me outright what it's trying to prevent me from doing.

Uh, so do you "feel the walls" of digital rights management when the RIAA makes your ISP shut down your service because some hacker spoofed the "digital fingerprint" on an illicit MP3, or hacked your computer and stole your legitimate MP3s, and then distributed them all over hell with KaZaa?

" 'People will pay for better MP3s,' said Henry Linde, Thomson Multimedia's vice president of new media business."

Now why the hell would I do that when I can get a better Ogg for free just by sitting around on my ass for a few more months?

All IP laws need to DIE qjkx

[Anonymous Coward]

No compromises. All copyright and patent law needs to die. This is the slavery of today, although it's worse. Anybody who argues for the need of ANY ip law doesn't deserve to live.

sonofabitch

[Elwood P Dowd]

"As technology makes things easier to do, the concepts we grew up with -- sharing a tape with a friend, making a mixed tape -- turned from sharing an LP with a friend into plugging in an iPod and downloading 1,000 songs in eight minutes," said Cohen. "That may have to change."

Oooh. I'm so angry I could spit. The $20 Billion music industry wants to curb the $600 Billion tech industry? I didn't steal anything when I put 1000 songs on my ipod. He wants DRM to be squishy in that no software will contain the features that violate DRM. They're just talking about improving the user interface so you don't realize that capabilities have been stolen from you.

Losing money...

[TFloore]

The industry isn't worried about "losing money" because they mostly know that they aren't really losing sales right now.

They are thinking about DRM in terms of increasing future revenue.

If you look at enough of these studies, music file trading doesn't generally cause fewer music cd sales. People with disposable income get exposed to more music, and buy more music. People without disposable income get access to music they wouldn't have paid for anyway. And, yes, some people with poor ethics take music they could pay for but just don't want to.

But this isn't about current sales, and the known-to-be-false belief that the record industry is losing sales. It isn't, really, even about preventing loss of revenue in the future.

This is about future control, and increasing revenue in the future.

As to workable forms of DRM... Loaning a physical music CD to a friend is perfectly acceptable and completely legal. The digital equivalent would be to "loan" a copy of a computer audio file to your friend, where your friend gets a copy of the music and you lose the ability to play that music until your friend returns or deletes his copy, or buys/licenses his own copy.

Now, this introduces a few problems.

If your music license server doesn't allow loaning, then, personally, you have a broken system, and I won't use it. But this is really a minor thing.

I have a larger issue with this. How do you support loaning in a digital environment? I backup my computer, "loan" a computer audio file to my friend, my local license is disabled until it is "returned" from my friend... and then I restore from my backup... I just got my license back, and my friend has it too.

To get around this, you either need an OS that doesn't let you backup/restore licenses, or a central server that controls and validates license backup/restores, or simply a central license server that you have to connect to periodically.

None of these are good solutions for the consumer, for a number of reasons. My OS on my computer should do what I say. If it doesn't do what I say, then the person/company that does control it should pay for my computer, because it obviously isn't mine.

But further than that... No central server, and no company, has any right no know what I'm listening to, or how often I'm listening to it. This is a privacy concern. This is one of the major reasons I hated Divx. (Circuit City's Divx, not the codec.)

DRM has major problems working in a way that supports privacy rights. This is *one* of the reasons why I don't now, and probably never will, support it.

Re:Losing money...

[Anonymous Coward]

And, yes, some people with poor ethics take music they could pay for but just don't want to.

poor ethics? i think not. i think people who wish to perpetuate a system that forces everyone to buy a plastic disc to get their music should be, well, locked up. There are people who realize that the production of plastic is causing massive damage to the planet, and the very well being of ourselves and our children.

Right at our very fingertips we have many systems now that can freely distribute music accross the planet, and eliminate the mass production of music CDs. What an absolutely fantastic breakthrough!

But all the capitalist types want to strangle the earth and keep their massive profits. And all the people are letting them. ITS FUCKING SAD. You geeks are just too over paid. Get off your asses, have the fucking REVOLUTION, and put these corporate greedDogs in their place. Damn it.

The true questio is...

[mangu]

Would you rather have music only made by one or two obsessed people who can't help but create music?

...or would you have music only made by one or two people who were chosen by the RIAA, based on their willingness to comply with the RIAA demands?

Fraud is still a crime

[yerricde]

Can I make a copy of your (copyrighted) work, then mark it as "for free redistribution"?

Even if the system would permit you to do that, fraud is still a crime in all fifty U.S. states.

Re:Fraud is still a crime

[lynx_user_abroad]

Technically, it would not be illegal unless I redistributed the copy of your copyrighted work, presuming the original was a legitimately purchased copy. First Sale doctrine says I can do whatever I want with a legitimately purchased recording . (But even that is somewhat dependent on the exact type of "recording" we're discussing.) At any rate, I think we agree that the simple act of duplicating and distributing someone elses copyrighted work is illegal, regardless of wether the copyright notice or the "unique ID" has been filed off or not.

But if it's just as illegal either way, what point does it serve to have a unique ID? The "unique ID" becomes just another Interpol notice for people to ignore or edit out. If it does nothing to make it harder to distribute illegal copies then the only effect will be the unintended side effect.

The only thing this might buy a publisher is an answer to the question "Is the proliferation of digital copies the result of many people with each providing a few copies of a work, or rather the work of a few individiuals providing most of the copies of the work?"

A cartel? like the RIAA?

[mangu]

Digital media is bringing us a system that's closer to a perfect market than anything ever tried on any business. It's very hard to create a cartel in a P2P environment. Unless you have DRM, that is. If there's a way to control what people may offer on the market, there's a way to create a monopoly.

Well, of course, there's that little detail of monetary compensation for goods sold. But why is the music industry worrying about that now? We have been conditioned by 80 years of radio broadcasts to get free music. Isn't it a bit late to start complaining? How did the music industry survive so many decades of free radio, if they can't survive the internet?

you mean, like *WORK* for money?

[mangu]

Dude, you don't know the RIAA motto: record once, profit everywhere, anytime.

I didn't read the article either

[Anonymous Coward]

Taco Snot is squishy and I don't want that in my...oh wait...

I must object to your choice of words

[Anonymous Coward]

they're the multinational, multibillion-dollar, multi-million employing incarnation of pure satanic force.

No self respecting Satanist would want to be associated with the RIAA. As far as Satan himself, without freewill (or in this case fair use rights), where would he be?

The funny thing about DRM

[Pupp3tM]

No matter how much they try to bully us into not letting us copy music, as long as there are some systems (be they stereos or PCs) that will play the music, it can still be copied.

Your stereo has some sort of output (besides speakers), right?
And your computer has some sort of line-in, right?
Plug Wire A into Hole B, and presto.

Compromise

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a proposal. How about a law that

1. Allows the MPAA and RIAA to impose a DRM scheme.
2. Enumerates a comprehensive list of fair use rights, to include
   1. The right to make archival copies for backup
   2. The right to reorganize data, e.g., defrag, move to new partition
   3. The right to move from machine to machine
3. Provides for suing MPAA, RIAA and their members, in state or local courts for consequential, statutory and punitive damages, including legal fees, should their scheme interfere with fair use or first sale rights.

Re:Good.. we need Ideas,

[epeus]

Are there any Open Source projects thinking about DRM? I dont know how it would work but it must be possible.

No, it is impossible. The Church Turing thesis makes it impossible to do software DRM, and even hardware is tough. You can have a Universal Turing Machines, or you can have DRM. Not both.

If you want ideas, check out http://mediagora.com for how to solve this withouth DRM.

DRM will be applied to other area very soon

[jsse]

Take some time look at the transcript of "Understanding Broadband demand Digital Rights Management Workshop", hosted by Department Of Commerce Technology Administration.

It'll become reality very soon, with Government's support. *sigh*

What else can we do?

STASI would have liked it...

[MadAhab]

Back in the commie days, totalitarian regimes would make people register typewriters, complete with typing samples, so they could crack down on any "unauthorized" writings. Of course, now that Communism has been defeated, the RIAA is determined to repeat its crimes against freedom of speech.

Hmm.. Rosen. Roses are red. Hillary Rosen is a freaking Communist!

thank you ladies and gentlemen good night.

here is some help

[twitter]

I'm glad that a company is thinking of the customer at all. Its about time.

A company that does not satisfy it's customers is soon bankrupt.

What needs to be done is more people seriously thinking of DRM models that are good but flexable on a Personal level.

Why? Why do I need to have your software on my computer. Fuck off, I don't want your "content" and I don't need your software.

Its going to come, one way or another, so the best course of action is to attempt to develope one that is "Fair". If it means that you cant send your DVD you ripped over the net, Fine, you cant do it, but maybe it can be written so that you can Fairly RIP your DVD to a Video Disk that you can view on your LAPtop that for some reason doesnt have a DVD player.

What's going to come? Don't get your hopes up. DRM will give you nothing but pay per play, regardless of the promises made now.

Are there any Open Source projects thinking about DRM?

I hope not. People should be paid to be whores. Why would anyone donate their time to help out big media companies? What benifit would anyone making free software gain from preventing their users from sharing their software? Duh.

Free people have no need for your "protection" Digital publishing makes it possible for me to share without cost to myself. My photos are as free as the view whence they come. My songs as free as my breath. Why bother with it? Get out more and see some real views and sing some real songs with real people.

You no more need DRM than you need canned "entertianment". Don't surrender your first ammendment rights to free speech and press for something so trivial.

Re:here is some help

[NeMon'ess]

What's going to come? Don't get your hopes up. DRM will give you nothing but pay per play, regardless of the promises made now.

A company that does not satisfy it's customers is soon bankrupt.

Unless pay per play doesn't satisfy the customers and another company is created offering all-you-can-eat for a flat monthly fee, or perhaps let me purchase songs to keep and listen as many times as I want. If the oligopoly of music companies tries to shut down the upstart company with anti-competitive practices, the government can take them to court.

Re:Not True. Stop Spreading Microsoft Hype.

[cheezedawg]

Microsoft has never claimed that Palladium will prevent viruses. In fact, they have said the opposite:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default. asp?url=/technet/security/news/PallFAQ2.asp

Q: Will "Palladium" really stop spam/prevent viruses for me?

A: Unfortunately, no. Despite the hype in the media, "Palladium" will not stop spam or prevent viruses all by itself.

Old News: Watermarking

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem is, this is nothing new. It's watermarking, something that got cracked in the most trivial way when the big companies challenged the geek-community.

To quote the article (that I actually read!):

The twist: The Super MP3 will come with a tracking signature -- a digital fingerprint -- that will identify the PC that made it.

"People will pay for better MP3s," said Henry Linde, Thomson Multimedia's vice president of new media business. "If the MP3 file that Brad King encodes shows up on a system, we will know where it comes from. We call it lightweight DRM, but it won't prevent you from doing anything."

See? Nothing new under the sun here. It's watermarking, and removing the mark is just a matter of shifting a few bytes here and there...

Besides, I am always cautious when somebody says they will create the next "Super"-standard. It's BS on a big scale, nobody can really know who will come up with the Next Big Thing(tm).

On DRM in general: You cannot have DRM without breaking functionality in the computer system. It's impossible for the system to know if YOU are watching the movie on your laptop, or if the laptop is really your friend's, or a stranger you met on the streetcorner.

Besides, what the fuck do the movie/music industry have to do with what I do on MY computer?

Um It's Not Stealing

[Anonymous Coward]

Stealing means someone loses something. An electronic copy does not deny anyone access to anything. It's like (omg am I really typing this) the replicator on Star Trek. See, nothing gets taken away from anyone. What, someone's potential profit is lost? Not the consumer's responsiblity. I am not a charity and neither is congress.

Once you produce anything that can be digitized, it can also be copied. To all intents and purposes, the artist lost their rights. If an artist doesn't like that new fact of life, then maybe they shouldn't make recordings, just perform live.

I hate CDs. When CDs first came out, they said you could throw them around like FRISBEES. Maybe people prefer MP3s and MPEGs because you don't need a stupid neon-lit tower to hold them, not just because they're free.

DRM sucks

[MikeFM]

DRM is one of those stupid ideas that big companies love, individuals hate, and most people never notice. It essentially is just a waste of effort as it won't, and can't work, well but the pointy headed dollar counters don't understand the technology enough to understand why it won't work so they keep throwing money at it. Like any lock it only works as long as the person with the key wants it to work. In this case by necessity you give the user the key but the whole idea is to keep the user from using the key. It mostly involves smoke and mirrors to keep the user from realizing they have the key, not knowing how to use the key, or being afraid of using the key (legal liability). Sure this kind of thing works at first but over time you have to keep changing your keys and your methods of keeping the users from using the key or else the system stops working. This frustrates the users and they'll eventually just stop switching. Grandma for example isn't likely to buy a new DVD player ever 2 years to keep up to date and then new DVD's won't work on her old player so she'll just content herself to watching old movies and the ripped movies her clever grandchildren bring her. Of course there will always be just enough of us that will crack the security way faster than new security can be implemented and thus the systems will always crumble. So in the end businesses are throwing away gobs of money and alienating their customers. Not a very sound business plan in the long run.