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DRM: How To Boil A Frog
symbolic writes "This article on the Register explains their experience with Creative's first attempt at supporting DRM, and also reviews a sneaky little technique for 'easing' DRM into peoples' lives via a free Costello preview CD. Two of the tracks are free from any DRM, but for the two that are DRM-enabled, you have to activate the right to listen to them (up to four times), by accessing a central server via the net. For those in the know, the doublespeak used to inform users of any actions they need to take to enable their DRM rights might be quite amusing. To wit: 'The content you are accessing requires an additional level of security. In order to play it, you will need to update your Digital Rights Management Installation.' Others, however, will think they're getting something, when they're actually having something taken away from them. It's a matter of time to see if consumers will flat-out reject this new 'enabling' technology, or let it seep into and infect their lives like the disease that it is."
(Note to self: don't buy Creative. iPod works fine.)
sulli
RTFJ.
Elvis Costello in his prime was ANTI-establishment, ANTI-big biz and PRO-individual. You can see a lot of that from his interviews and comments.
Now he's just a tool. And it is funny as well since his music isn't as important as it once was. He could USE some of the exposure P2P offered. Now he'll be known by the masses as the first person who's CD stopped playing after four times. (At least in the UK.)
"You better do what you've been told. You better listen to your Radio" - EC.
Now, if I remember correctly, we have the right to make backup copies of media, right?
Has this simple little fact gotten lost among all the complexities of the DRM stuff? So, tell me, where is the class-action lawsuit for consumers?
Damn, now I sound like a troll, oh well
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
check out the article at http://www.fastcompany.com/online/01/frog.html
:)
it actually shows the opposite of the frog boiling
myth. makes sense, really. if you put a frog
in boiling water, it will be severely injured
right away and probably won't be able to jump out.
Whereas a frog in cold water will get bored and
jump out before long.
from the article...
How did our expert interpret this triumph of science? "There are certain cases where gradual change is almost preferred," Hofman commented. "The change myth assumes a very narrow view of people. If frogs can do it, people definitely can."
I wonder if the same applies to people and DRM
software??
the person whose CD didn't play at all, because everyone threw it out rather than go through all the hassle of playing the WMA files.
sulli
RTFJ.
Damn... I was expecting information on frog-boiling. Videos would've been cool.
Microsoft recently announced their initiative to protect the content of their users' media through an initiative known as DRM, or Digital Rights Management. "It is absolutely essential that computer users adopt Digital Rights Management as quicly as possible," stated Microsoft spokesman Al Screwum. "Without this software, people's music and videos remain insecure." "It is only a matter of time before rogue black-hat hacker elements maliciously take advantage of this insecurity and replace parts of or even whole songs with other content," stated RIAA spokeswoman Annah Acker. "Imagine trying to listen to Brittney Spears and being forced to listen to Led Zepplin instead - all because someone exploited your unprotected music files!" "I hope this program is available soon," said Microsoft Windows user Nadja Clue. "Just yesterday I was trying to get the latest Christina Aquilera song off of KaZaa, but when I played it, all I got was static! Maybe DRM will stop the people who deleted the song I had to restart my computer 6 times to download!"
paintball
I guess it won't be too long before that mega-hit CD has a data track with an unreleased track that requires DRM in order to be played, enabling both the RIAA to get their control over hardware/software and MS to get Windows Media Player more entrenched.
I'd say who the losers are in this case, but we already know that by now.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
If you do, then you'll (most likely) end up with the beta of Microsoft's latest DRM player (which youn can't easily get off XP), and you'll also have your settings changed so that your installation facilitates DRM, WMA format and pay per play. But don't worry, it didn't cost you anything.*
Doesn't this violate the Microsoft agreement? There has to be a way to take Windows Media Player off your computer. If I am correct, there should be a program to illimate the presence of Microsoft products (IE, and that sorts) from desktop/startup menu. The program should also illimate WMP from these areas as well. Does anyone know for sure if this breaks the Microsoft agreement?
UK Sunday Times newspaper unleashed a neat little trojan that'll upgrade you to Windows Media Player 9
I always thought trojans are bad. This is no exception. I wonder how long it will take McAfee and Norton to come out with a fix for this.
creative was becoming one of the better hardware companies over the past few years, coming out with nice sounding soundcards that are well supported under windows, Linux and even beos(well when be was alive anyway- did you know beos had emu10k1 drivers well before linux), but this DRM crap goes to far, disabling the digital out so you its harder to create copies that sound like the original, I don't have a problem with DRM for the most part as long as it stays out of my way. but hardware that cripples itself when something uses DRM is just lame, I think I'm going to go out and get a new soundcard, anyone know of any good brands/chipsets that are well supported under Linux that sound good and costs under 70$
For the ones with more initiative than myself, it may be time once again for the good 'ol buy...bitch...return, sequence of events. Be interesting to know if they honor returns. Too bad the CD is free.
Also, go to the review sites on the net and let this info be know about the Soundblaster Live. Amazon's a good place to start, I'm not up to date with all the current popular ones.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
If they're using Costello to promote DRM, this won't become all that widespread. If they start using combination NSYNC/Britney Spears album, then we're in trouble. Because then the world will be saturated with DRM, noise pollution and the pitter patter of little Britneys banging out their first album against the crib.
So, i have to boot up a windows box and connect to the net to play this cd through my 20 dollar speakers and my 10 dollar sound card?
I can't put it in my cd player and listen to it through real speakers? I can't listen to it in my car?
Ok, well. I dunno what that is, but its not an audio cd, and I don't know how much it costs, but even if its free, its useless to me. Thanks, but no thanks.
--sean
SouthPark, as far as I know ... remember the underwear-stealing gnomes?
Many stores don't do the "return" part, they only exchange it for the Same Thing. Meaning that if you by the latest Stones CD, you can only echange it for the (suprise) latest Stones CD.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Don't use DRM files
Don't hack DRM files
Don't pay for DRM files
Don't do anything with DRM files
As soon as it's known that DRM content doesn't make money it will tank faster than advertising CPMs.
It's funny because as much as everyone complains, its pretty apparent that DRM and Palladium are coming to a computer near you.
/. do you want to be remembered for posting the news, or would you like to be remembered as something that actually made a difference?
Instead of reading how fucked were going to be, it would be nice if we concentrated on what current efforts are being made to fight for our rights. If Slashdot is going to be posting Y.A.S.O.D.R.M.(yet another story on drm). Maybe they could actually do something positive and once a week post about the ongoing efforts to combat it. You know like "this week X happened", and have it be a ongoing thing.
I'm not really sure what page to link to, but someone out there must be organized. It would be great if every Friday their was some sort of update we could all follow along with.
Now I know some of you are saying Slashdot is a "news service" and shouldn't get involved. But gimma a break Slashdot is hardly unbiased and there is obviously no "journalism code" being followed. Amost every submission is heavily biased.
I dunno
Its just a suggestion, but if I had a website read by billions a visitors a day, I'd try to do some good. Are there other more worthy causes? Sure by far(AIDS,war,education etc), but this IS a tech news site and if there is even going to be opensource news to print about, things like DRM and Palladium need to be stopped now.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
MS was pushing this. Creative supports the "secure audio path" stuff, but they didn't invent it. If you don't accept the secure audio path files from Microsoft, then your SBLive will continue to work. When playing non-DRM files (such as MP3 files you encoded yourself) your SBLive will continue to work. Under Linux, your SBLive will continue to work.
I am not annoyed enough with Creative to get rid of my SBLives, and I'm surprised you are. I guess each of us has to decide where to draw the line.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
It's a matter of time to see if consumers will flat-out reject this new 'enabling' technology, or let it seep into and infect their lives like the disease that it is.
OK, I am against DRM too, and will never buy a system with Palladium in it or any DRM-{en|dis}abled media player, but this is ridiculous. If you're going to call it news, please report with some degree of objectivity. The "from the...dept" line is the place for editorial comments. In this case, not only is the title rather suggestive (appropriate, too, but not impartial), but the author goes out and says DRM IS A DISEASE. While I agree, not everyone does, and you will find that your journalism becomes stronger and less controversial/offensive if you smash something subtly (or not at all) instead of openly, especially when the facts speak for themselves.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
It WAS.... before a neat little piece of legislation passed a few years back, called the "Digital Millenium Copyright Act"...
Now not only is it illegal to try to find ways around it, (or "circumvent access control measures") but it's even illegal to TALK about a way to get around it that someone ELSE found. And heaven forbid you post a web link to their work....
Does anyone know of a tool that can reliably test a CD to see if it meets any of the various *book standards published for CDs.
That way it'd be real easy to prove that it wasn't a CD-Audio disc and return it.
The article is over-hyped (more than is usual for The Register) - it's not necessary to download WMP9beta to play the "limited" media files, it just offers you that as the default download if you're lacking WMP or are too far out-of-date.
On WinXP with the default version of WMP (8.1 or something like that), I had to go online and pick up a license file for each track (and fill in a form on a pop-up window for the first one, giving them a BS name and address). There was no super-clever Secure Audio Path stuff when playing back the files on WMP8 and it didn't seem to notice I was ripping the stream to disk with TotalRecorder for later mp3-encoding!
(to their credit, the audio files on the CD are 192kbit WMA which does sound pretty damn good, even after MP3ing)
Ok but my other computer still has an analog in, and I have a nice little cable that will bridge the 2. Start recording on one, play on the other, problem solved. Sure it may not be the absolute best quality but it still allows me to excercise my right to make a backup copy of cds I own.
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
I'm just gonna write to Mr. Costello and explain that I am now unable to hear his music at all. I use linux and they don't play Costello on the radio all that much anymore.
Last time I heard Costell was during an interview on Fresh Air on NPR.
-
Many pieces of software are already protected using a license manager or whatnot. Music, like software, is a mathematical piece of art. Like software, it should not be free. If all software was free, I would not be able to pursure my passion as a software developer and still support myself. The analogy is directly applicable to music (I am also an amateur musician). The point is that the DRM must not impede the user's experience. As long as they have the freedom they need to enjoy what they own, I'm all for it. It puzzles me when so many Linux zealots fight so hard for music to be free yet support things like the GPL that they probably don't understand the full ramifications of. Every wonder why BSD is more stable? When I write a song, I want to protect it and protect my rights to it. Why is the medium (audio) being treated with such disdaim when the artist trys to protect themselves. Eventually this will help indy artists as well. Please examine your viewpoint and make sure you're not being a hippocrite. If it takes me 40 hours to develop a piece of software, I expect to get paid. If it takes me 40 hours (probably more) to produce a single I expect to get paid. It is my artwork. Maybe creative doesn't have the right approach but don't discount the notion entirely.
maybe I'm just too much a hardware purist, I don't want crippled hardware even if I don't do anything that triggers it becoming crippled, supporting DRM is one thing if you like drm for some reason more power to you, but I feel sorry for anyone who has the audigy connected via the digital out, If DRM takes off game companies will eventually use it as another copy protection device, again something the audigy is good at that will cripple the hardware, if creative was so much afraid of the digital out being used as a copy device they shood not of put a digital out on it to begin with
Divx A few more words... You can read a book written hundreds of years ago, and listen to a record pressed decades ago, because they used simple, open technologies. My single biggest grip about any sort of protection mechanism (aside from inconvenience to me) is that the technologies are so short-lived. If DRM does catch on, how long do you think companies are going to keep the activation mechanisms around? If they want to protect their investment by building mechanisms to prevent illegal copying, they better hang onto them to protect *my* investment so I can listen to my DRM-protected music 40 years from now.
I was anxiously waiting to read about that levitating frog hitting some power line and getting fried...
A few weeks ago, my dad, not a techie by any means, casually brought up the issue of Palladium. "Have you heard about Palladium?" he asked.
/gives/ you rights, and ironically, additional privacy.
I was ready to go into "Yes, I agree, it's dumb-shit" mode, but the next thing he said shocked me:
"I read that it lets you send emails to people that they can't forward or copy. It's called Digital Rights Management."
I've since heard this exact same statement twice more from other, random people, among which, tech-oriented guys that should know better. Somehow, Microsoft marketing has somehow pushed DRM and Palladium as something that
Of course, I told him that how DRM really works, but on a larger scale, the huge "consumer backlash" I've been counting on to end all of these anti-consumer technologies just may be further off than anyone expected. It very well could end up as the next Macrovision: people will think "it's there because copying stuff is illegal, and only bad men want to copy stuff", even after they've bought their 2nd or 3rd copy of the same scratched CD.
The misinformation campaign is obviously deliberate, and real. And the worse part is, mindshare typically goes with the media, which just happens to be the rights-slayer this time.
You're so right. That's exactly how slavery got started. First, the white landowners would be like "Hey Bukka, would you mind getting be a beer, as long as you're up?" And of course, the black people were kind and good-hearted, so they'd be like "Sho' nuff!" But then whites got too used to the idea. Pretty soon, they wouldn't even ask, they'd go "I'm thirrrrsty, hint hint," and their black friends would go "Yeah, yeah, I'll get you a beer." Before long, they were allowed to whip them into submission and fuck their wives. So beware! If we don't nip this in the bud, soon your wife will be ripe with the bastard child of a Microsoft exec, and you'll be singing "No more, my Lord" as you program in his cubicle farms.
Or you could just not install the software, you knob.
c-hack.com |
The title of this story actually makes sense. To boil a frog you can't just throw a live frog into a hot pot of water (it'll jump out). What you do is put a frog in a cold pot of water and slowly turn up the heat, the frog never leaps out because the change is too slowly, then when the water's too hot the frog can't jump out because it's dead (PLEASE DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME, I HAVE NEVER DONE THIS BUT I READ ABOUT IT!)
Anyway what the story title is suggesting is that we're like the frogs, DRM is like hot water. To get us used to DRM (and eventually "killed" by it) they (yeah it's always them) have to introduce DRM slowly so you get used to it, then they add more DRM, then you get used to that, it's a cycle that ends only after it's too late and DRM is everywhere.
By the way, check google for "How to boil a frog" and you'll find where I got my information from (should be the first result.)
FYI: WHQL certification for WinXP audio drivers *requires* that DRM be supported by that audio driver. Also, all drivers downloaded from Windows Update are WHQL certified. Windows update is something that the public is used to. DRM support in kernel mode audio drivers is spreading as we speak. Windows update is seeing to that.
:-(
So not only Creative is involved here. They are merely herded along this path by MS via the leash of WHQL. Don't have DRM kernel mode components on your system? You sure about that? Do you have WHQL (signed) audio drivers for WinXP? Yes? Then DRM has infected your system.
Just thought you might be interested.
Recently, some discussion with legislators have been pushing harddrive manufacturers to do something similar, in efforts to stem piracy. In march of this year, Senator Hollings introduced a bill that would require it. Lookup "Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Act"
This is no different but not legislated, fortunately. It merely means I won't be buying a Creative card when I upgrade.
I strongly suggest you archive some of Creative's current drivers (without the protection enabled) if you plan on using this card in Windows in the future.
I still say all the subscription money from slashdot should go towards buying a senator so that we can have a voice in congress.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
its going to be a lot harder to crack then decss, decss works on the local computer, DRM in this case connects to the net to verify that you can play it and then gets the encryption key , maybe when wine/winex runs WMP7+ corectly linux users will know the joy of having drm music ;)
I dont know if the crossover plugin works with DRM or not
The law is slow, deliberate and generally fails the consumer. However, with the marketplace, consumer demand could easily spell the demise of DRM without having to grease one legislator's palms. Fast. Look at DiVX. If no one buys it, no one will want to make it.
Maybe I am hopeful, but I don't think the generic consumer is going to think, "Hey! Great! The DVDs and CDs I am buying are protected by DRM. They only work at my house so my pesky friends can't steal them!". Nothing that DRM does benefits the consumer except for the pesky friend problem. Consumers want better, bigger, faster. Not complicated, rigid and limited.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
...if the CD is free?
RMN
~~~
here
When there's mindless stuff like this been going on for over 10 years... well....
who knows?
Funnily enough, PlayCenter, a Microsoft DRM supported audio player has a large button that says "Rip This CD" and allows you to rip directly to MP3 (up to 320kbps). Your other choice for format is (surprise, surprise) WMA, but there's a checkbox that just says "DRM" next to to. According to the help file "Click the DRM option if you wish to restrict the transfer of the audio file. Protected WMA files cannot be transferred to other systems." I'm not sure how/if this works as I don't use WMA (or PlayCenter, for that matter) but it seems odd the for such a pro-DRM player you have the choice not to enable it in their integrated ripping program.
Also, how do we reckon this would affect motherboard-integrated soundcards. Can MediaPlayer disable the SPDIF coming from it...do ANY motherboard sound solutions support this now?
Cue The Sun...
Now that I can actually see happening. How far will we be from this in just a few years?
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
Their products have been going downhill for years now... the Live should have been the pinnacle yet was worse sound quality and overall quality than their AWE64 Gold. :-( why?? the Audigy is only a rebranded live with added firewire.
Now they have DRM devices... Will all of them follow suit? Turtle beach? will they fold? how about the 90,000,000,000,000,000 Korean and chineese and other eastern country manufacturers making the knockoffs? will they all comply? I highly doubt it.
So the only way to make this DRM stuff work is to either force all manufacturers to comply and design it in, or to make the non compliant cards illegal.. which will increase the sales of them 10 fold, encourage the kiddies out there that can easily outwit college graduates with masters and doctorates and either design a hardware hack or a software crack, or some simply elegant workaround that will put the genius designers to shame (sharpie marker anyone?)
I am both entertained and appaled at the new era we are beginning... entertained that it is finally proven that the brightest and best people by definition of the large piles of money you have are easily defeated and smacked squarely in the face by children and yound adults. BrRAVO! As I am appaled at the unadultered Greed driving every aspect of industry...
Intellectual property, anyone who is for it is a greedy self serving bastard that more than likely really isnt creative in the first place. 95% of everything you have and use is based on someone elses IDEA! just because you though up something does not make it your property... where would we be if the current levels of stupidity were running rampant 100 years ago? we would all be driving only FORD cars and trucks, buying anything from outside the USA would be illegal and you would have to watch only one TV channel, one radio station, you would only be able to buy an IBM pc, and own a Zenith Television while listening to your RCA records.. Phillips CD's? Banned as they infringe on RCA's INtellectual property of recording audio on disc shaped objects.
programmers, your software is not innovative nor special in any way... 90 people did it before you and 90 more will do it after you. Musicians... let's see something origional.... I dare you... and Movies or photography? Oh come on nothing has been origional for 100 years.
and now we are going to be thrust into the largest black period of creativity all because of some narrow minded dimwits should have been beaten more as children because they cant grasp the idea of sharing....
I am tired of hearing the 3 year olds screaming "GIMMIE! MINE! MINE! MINE!"
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Like I said over the past few years, before then they tried their hardest to have a monopoly over sounds cards, they pretty much had it for a while, I cant think of even one dos game that dint use a sound blaster
I had a Aureal 1 card (still do some ware) other then that neat 3d effect with only 2 speakers it was crap, but in only cost me like 15$
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
LMAO... they had an un-password-protected admin applet at riaa.org/admin.
ROFL!
Morons!!
I think this language is very deceptive. By claiming to "protect you" and by claiming they are enabling "additional security", they're implying that you will receive some sort of benefit. What benefit is that, exactly?
This giant PITA scenario illustrates why DRM without force of law is destined to fail: Any solution that requires an end user to think along the lines of an IT department in order to work will not be acecpted by Joe Blow or his family.
Joe isn't going to get the concept of "digital certificates" that allow him to play his media files, and won't remember to backup his licenses.
Instead of starting over, re-ripping everything again (hopefully not in WMA) they're going to look for a way around it, and his 10 year old will know where to download the player software that breaks it, and the port to block to keep it from tattling to Microsoft.
So, I guess what I'm saying is that this does suck but it isn't the end of the world. What we need to concentrate on is defeating the laws that will ban non DRM media players.
As long as we can access non-DRM media players, we are still free. I for one think we should continue to fight like hell to stay that way.
Who did what now?
Isn't the point of DRM that you won't be able to play it 40 years from and will, therefore, have to purchase another copy?
No sig for you.
This may be entirely coincidental, but the copy of When I Was Cruel that I purchased (sic) in its first week of release refused to play well in my recent-vintage Mac G4 tower. The first two songs sounded as though they'd been recorded using the same deck used to record the Watergate tapes, and the rest had mysteriously long bits drop out suddenly. Nowhere did the package or disk itself state that whether it was copy-protected in any way. So did I return it as defective? Nah, 'cause I was too lazy--and it's not such a great album that I absolutely, positively need to have MP3 copies of it for my own use. Sic transeunt iura digitalia.
:wq
What happened to those players?
DIVX(TM) (please note the capitalization) was pulled in summer of 1999 by Circuit City after it was deemed to be an utter failure, having lost millions of dollars during its two-year life.
A search on Google will bring up a myriad of useful links. It was sort of a nebulous form of DRM, but it went nowhere - why the hell would people want to pay for something again after they own it?
Frankly, I see the DRM enhancements coming about failing miserably for the simple reason it's being developed for and by...well, management - they have such high hopes that their product will be given to people who will respect it, and forget history. Copy Protection to this day doesn't work, why should DRM?
This sig no verb.
This FAQ describes what we can do about public servants abusing their power. Includes such goodies as Public Servant's Questionnaire.
Ver 1.7 seems to be the latest.
http://www.nettrash.com/users/frogfarm/fffaq.html
What's stopping you is the fact that Sound Recorder is limited to thirty seconds of recording. Total Recorder, however, will fit the bill nicely. :-)
How long will it be before we have great DRM propganda like this:
http://jeff.whoark.org/images/drmpropaganda.jpg
The slashdot crowd has tremendous influence on purchasing choices for friends families and employers. "No sis I don't think you should buy HP they use creative sound cards in their systems, why don't you buy this system from Gateway instead".
"I think we should use gateway's and not HPs for the sales laptops. The HPs have DRM and we don't want sale's presentations getting locked into the laptop and not being able to be backed up".
The next time CL releases a sound card it will get trashed here. They will notice the negative reaction. No company likes terrible word of mouth.
Here, let me clean it up for you, Clean Flicks style:
You're so right. That's exactly how slavery got started. First, the [caucasian-american] landowners would be like "Hey [Booker], would you mind getting me a [malt beverage], as long as you're up?" And of course, the [locationally-challenged african-american] people were kind and good-hearted, so they'd be like "[I gleefully acquiesce]!" But then [caucasian-americans] got too used to the idea. Pretty soon, they wouldn't even ask, they'd go "I'm thirrrrsty, hint hint," and their [locationally-challenged african-american] friends would go "Yeah, yeah, I'll get you a [malt beverage]." Before long, they were allowed to [wet-noodle lash] them and [have lain with] their [mutually-agreed-to-upon life partners]. So beware! If we don't nip this in the bud, soon your [mutually-agreed-to-upon life partner] will be ripe with the [love] child of a Microsoft exec, and you'll be singing [a popular work song] as you program in his cubicle farms.
Or you could just not install the software, you [frame-challenged door].
c-hack.com |
"DRM only works when it's illegal to circumvent it."
Isn't that like saying encryption only works when it's illegal to circumvent it. Encryption doesn't work because cracking it is illegal. It works because it is impractical to crack.
If they would just have improved the strength of their copy protection, they wouldn't have had to buy the DMCA. An additional benefit would have been that the hackers, who should be trying to convince their friends and family to not support the RIAA, would be kept busy trying to break the latest scheme.
The analogy of GPL to DRM music is pretty faulty a better analogy would be:
:: open music :: DRM protected music
GPL
copy protected software
and I haven't seen the slashdot crowd be huge fans of copy protected software.
It's bad enough when the person posting a story puts a biased spin on it in his commentary, but when slashdot allows biased stoires like this to qualify as "news", they need to start examining what they really want this site to be. Apparently, they don't want to present unbiased information, and let the slashdot community decide for themselves what it means through opinions and discussion, but instead prefer to push their agenda on slashdot community.
Vote for Pedro
It is my artwork.
No, it's not. Many people had a hand in getting you where you are today. You would know nothing of music if it weren't for people who came before and paved the path. You'd know nothing of musical theory or composition if it weren't for you instructors, who got their knowledge from someone else. The sheet music you study, the instrument you play, and the songs you cover when you're learning, were all made by someone else. If it were illegal to cover a song without written permission, if it were illegal to "reverse engineer" a song, and play the melody on your guitar just by listening to it, just how far do you think you would have made it composing that 40 hour song? What you did was pull together all the knowledge you've gained from others' work, and with that knowledge, you were able to craft something of your own style. The song you made is not your creation, but rather the culmination of knowledge that came before you, guided by your hand. You don't live in vacuum. Physical property belongs to you, but ideas do not.
No sig for you.
Well, the first generation of 3D printers is already here. They aren't all that great (creations in 3D, but only out of plastic), but they exist. Just a few more generations and ...
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
An interesting side of this DRM technology is, the Artists could now sell their records in DRM format from their own servers. That means record companies may now retire. The end-user may now pay through credit-card / paypal, download the song and press the play button. No CDs to press, no record company is needed.
No, it is not.
If Slashdot is going to be posting Y.A.S.O.D.R.M.(yet another story on drm). Maybe they could actually do something positive and once a week post about the ongoing efforts to combat it. You know like "this week X happened", and have it be a ongoing thing.
The fight begins with information. Slashdot has been great at documenting abuse and potential abuse. They have also been good enough to report news of those who are doing something besides reporting, and they make it all available at zero cost. What larger impact can anyone have besides telling everyone?
Now I know some of you are saying Slashdot is a "news service" and shouldn't get involved. But gimma a break Slashdot is hardly unbiased and there is obviously no "journalism code" being followed. Amost every submission is heavily biased.
Huh? what do you want to do besides complain about Slashdot? Why don't YOU start a group and then submit a story about it? Then you might end up with that site or even do some good.
That's true, thanks for caring, don't buy that shit.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
How bout we turn up the heat and ask the man himself? www.elviscostello.com has a special section titled "Ask Elvis" where he responds to your questions. Have fun. :)
...And let's everybody sit on the inevitable hacks until after they've deployed this crap sixteen ways from Sunday. DON'T publically test the security of any such system while it's on the drawing board. Let's keep things niiiiiice and zero-day. 'Kay?
The downside is that the key boxes would likely be expensive: current equivalents on secure comm cards for PCs run around US$4000 -- but they suffer from not being produced in large quanities.
You could've hired me.
The same happened to me with the latest de/vision cd. It wouldn't play in my radio station's cd players, nor my pioneer pro-dj player which i use to dj at clubs in the like. So, i decided to post a rant on copyproofcds.org , in case anyone wants to read it.
"Well, that there is no such thing as free music. If a carpenter made a chair and then someone went into his workshop and took it without his permission, that's not free, that's stealing. I think that the Napsters of this world only encourage that."
n te rviews24611.asp)
-Elvis Costello, 2002
The man plainly does not get it.
(http://www.dotmusic.com/interviews/April2002/i
Turtle Beach will have to add support to Secure Audio Path to its sound card drivers. Without support for the Secure Audio Path, Turtle Beach won't be able to get Microsoft to sign its Win32 drivers.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Seems to me that if even supposedly technically aware people are making the mistakes such as the poster's above, what chance does the average Joe have of understanding the erosion of rights?
Google Bombing has been effective in the past at putting the "real" word out using mob jusice, so why can't we combat the digital cancer of DRM in the same way? Having a government control technical advances is not too far removed from socialist oppresion, and we can see how that helped Russia become the tech powerhouse it is today. This really is the government's/corporation's (they are effectively the same thing in the US) best chance to control your lives and turn you into a statistical resource more than ever. You think DRM is just about "protecting content"? What about the enormous amount of marketting information companies will be able to gather by a few SQL queries matching the "thieving_customers" table with "address" and "purchases". It's a goldmine for the scum pushing junkmail into your lives.
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
Unless they force everyone to upgrade to a certified sound card
Or at least a signed driver. The Secure Audio Path won't play sound on a driver that Microsoft hasn't signed with Secure Audio Path permissions. I've written about this before.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The keys are in the box aren't they? It decrypts content doesn't it? To a sufficiently motivated attacker, tamperproof devices aren't. Once one is in possession of a "Judas Box", the DRM can be removed from any content desired. It only takes one and there won't be just one.
For that matter, bribery and social engineering work as well as they ever did. Have your Judas box built to spec while-u-wait.
When copying is outlawed only outlaws will make copies.
When the goverment takes away the means and ability to make copies, they control the past.
How can future generations read about the rise and fall of our culture if the information is controlled ?
Maybe 10 years from now it will be against the law to produce mp3 playing hardware or software ?
DRM,Palladium these are the cancer's that infect our society!
I'm not saying DRM is good, but unlike cancer it is not self-evident that it is bad. My point is: when's the last time you looked at a newspaper, or a scientific journal, or just about any publication, and the front story was "smoking sucks"? Probably never, because there is no reason to tell people "smoking sucks." They will ignore you. You have to tell them why smoking sucks if they don't already know, and you have to give them a better reason than "it's EVIL!!!!!"
If you're going to bash DRM, which should definitely be done, bash it objectively. Write an article about *why* DRM sucks, and post it on the web, or send it to a magazine or a newspaper. "DRM sucks" is not news. "Why DRM sucks" could be interesting and informative, but it is not news either. Slashdot is, supposedly, a news site.
Conversely, if you are going to report on DRM, don't say "DRM sucks." If you appear to be unbiased or at least objective, people will take you more seriously. Therefore, if you wish to bash DRM, say why DRM is bad. That way, the people who know little about DRM will know why it is bad, not that some random Slashdot person thinks it is bad. And don't just say, "here's why DRM is bad:". Instead, write "here are some problems with / concerns about DRM". That sort of argument could be integrated into a news article without provoking posts like this one.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
To operating systems that don't support this kind of bullshit.
I've been using DOS/Windows ever since 1992 or so when I was 12. Before that I used Apple II's. Right now I'm using Win2K because like a lot of people I've just sort of followed the Microsoft upgrade path since then. Windows has done what I've needed it to do, I feel comfortable with it, and I've never had to pay for it, so I've never been forced out of my comfort zone with it.
I've just never seen a big enough payoff to switch to another operating system. I'm a professional computer programmer, I build my own boxes, and I've even installed Linux on a couple of them, so it's not like there's technical hurdles to running another OS.
The point is that Windows has been Good Enough (tm) for me, and that there are literally millions and millions of people who continue to use Windows for just the reasons I outlined.
But now, as Windows gets more and more shitty baggage like this, it stops being good enough. It's actively becoming an obstacle to the things I want to do. I've already given up on PC gaming, because the technical troubles are such bullshit that I'd rather play on a console. The last two games I bought recommended that I "buy a new CDROM drive" as a solution to my problems running the game due to their copy-protection schemes. And this is on top of the typical driver-related and other compatibility issues that have plagued PC gaming since Day One.
Now, Microsoft is trying to pollute the user experience even further with this DRM stuff. It turns me off even more. I think Win2K is the last version of Windows I'll be using. Linux and/or OSX is next for me. It's funny, proponents and developers of non-Windows OS's have been frantically trying to promote and improve their products in order to get users to switch... but the real key for a lot of people might be once Microsoft actively starts taking *away* things that users take for granted.
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
It seems to me that the best way to combat DRM is to politely but firmly let the companies that include it know that we will not purchase their products. Those of us here have (comparitively) a lot of influence on purchasing decisions for hardware and software, both through friends that come to us for advice, and because many of us hold IT positions in our companies. In this case, we need to identity which sound cards have DRM, publicize that fact in any reviews/recommendations we do, and encourage people to buy hardware without such restrictions. So, to get the ball rolling, would anyone like to reply to this post with a recommendation for a good sound card that does not have DRM, and preferably has open source drivers?
, which states that the SoundBlaster Live and Audigy series have built in Digital Rights Management (DRM), which will disable the digital output of the sound card if the card believes that the audio signal is copy-protected. Can you confirm or deny the presence of such restrictions in your cards?
To make my position clear, I just sent the following letter to Creative Labs:
---
I am currently the owner of a SoundBlaster AWE64 Gold, and have been very happy with its performance. I am in the process of purchasing a new computer, and am trying to decide what sound card to get. I just read the story at http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/27232.html
If your cards do contain DRM, I would like to express my distaste that you have included such restrictions without clearly notifying the consumer of their presence, and state that I will no longer purchase your products as a result, and will recommend that my friends do the same.
---
Why not take a few minutes to send a similar letter? I sent mine to sales@soundblaster.com, but I have no idea whether its valid or not - they don't list many email addresses on their website. Perhaps a followup poster can find a more appropriate address?
Aaactually, the actual decryption / authorization occurs on your local machine. What doesn't is the generation of the decryption token. That bit is hard-coded on DVDs and in the players and thus is very easy to get.
Here you have to be really sneaky and be able to be able to forge talking with the servers.
Wouldn't be a bad idea to ask everybody who got the CD to run a tcpdump capture of all trafic to/from the authentication server, their UID, and other such information. That way we could start reverse-engineering immediately without having to actually prod at the server.
--Knots;
Anarchy$ dd if=/dev/random of=~/.signature bs=120 count=1
DRM is sort of like that. People are gonna get mad... "Why can't I open this stupid file?" Et cetera. And guess what? 99% of the pirates out there are tech-savvy users who know that there are other choices around, like that thing called Linux, and they'll switch from Windows to Linux in a second if it means they can watch the pirated version of whatever for free. And you know what? There won't be any difficulty in obtaining audio, video, pictures or whatever you want. If you can display it on a screen, or play it through speakers, you can record it in whatever format you want. All it takes is for one person in the entire world to do this for a song or movie or whatever and it's out there. DRM is not going to work because it's just plain stupid. We still need to fight, but not against Microsoft. They'll realize the errors of their ways when they're cashing their welfare checks a few years from now. We need to fight against the laws that have already been passed, and those that will be passed, that make copyright, patents and trademark last virtually forever. The limits should be returned to their original values, so that a reasonable number of years after something is published, it becomes public domain so that knowledge and ideas and whatnot in this country can flourish. Not the crap that's going on right now, where the huge crush everybody else, and therefore, widely-used software sucks, because it doesn't have to work properly, and movies suck, because nobody needs to make them intellectually stimulating, etc.
If approached reasonably and creatively?
For example a while ago I was doing my home contents insurance. I have a fairly large CD collection and insuring them all would be expensive, especially as they don't fit under general contents above a rather low threshhold.
That got me thinking, I've already bought the rights to a copy of all this music, if those physical copies get stolen then I should be able to replace them cheaply. With a sufficiently powerful DRM system, perhaps I could have some ID that I can use to get new copies of all my tunes (and maybe invalidate all the stolen ones).
Of course, I don't trust the buggers any more than most of you, but it astounds me that they don't even appear to be offering the consumer any enhanced functionality to sweeten the DRM deal.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
If only people would distinguish between taking and removing and taking without removing.
Information wants to be cloned!
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
And a major headache this is, too, for me anyway. But I digress.
I do. I wish I had more time to develop software, but I do manage to write a bit while supporting myself doing something else. (Perhaps if all the software my company bought were free, they could afford to pay me a little more and I could afford to spend a little more time on my software hobby.) But the main reason this argument doesn't fly is that most software development is actually not for the shrinkwrap market - it is writing custom software for individual customers. If all software were free, said customers would still be willing to pay for such work.
Uh, I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but by uttering a complete non-sequitur I think you just shot whatever credibility you might have built up. Or do you have a grand unified theory that ties software stability to the use of various non-GPL licenses (some more free, some less) in various releases of BSD-derived software?
Amateur, meaning - you don't get paid for it. Yet you play music anyway. Funny. That's how I am with software.
You have an unreasonable expectation, then. Whoever told you that mere effort guarantees remuneration fed you a line. That's not how markets work. You also have to succeed in producing something the market is willing to buy. If all of us go out and produce lots of free software and put you out of a job, you can hardly just sit and whinge about it.
But all that is beside the point. Traditional copyright law does not restrict the uses to which you may put your lawfully obtained material, except in context of other people. I.e. you can't put on public performances without negotiating royalties, or make copies to "share" with others, but anything you do for your own gratification has been allowed - including backup copies, etc. Now with DRM, The Man wants to retain control over how you use what you have lawfully obtained. This in itself is more or less fair play, and I'm happy with the Spy vs. Spy of creating / defeating playback protection - except that they've rigged the contest with the DMCA so we can't legally play at all.
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
- DiVX. Same idea. They made it as conveinent as possible. You had to dialin once in awhile to verify/bill or your crap stopped working. They wanted a pay per play. And what did people do?
/me plays the AOL "Goodbye" sound.
- Bible Beaters. The "666, mark of the beast" crowd, and the "this is the beginning of concentration camps and serial numbers on the forehead" crowd that showed up at the Pentium serial debacle have yet to make their appearance. They will, and it will be felt.
/me plays the AOL "Goodbye" sound.
- No Working Examples. I can think of no other real examples of a vendor selling a product successfully to the masses for years, then turning around one day and completely handtieing the enduser, stalking the enduser, monitoring the enduser, etc, that continued to make the same, or more money.
/me plays the AOL "Goodbye" sound.
- The Lawndart Example. Lawndarts were extremely popular at one time. They were dangerous, but everyone had some. They sold quite well Im sure. For outside reasons of safety, the manufacturor of lawn darts was forced to change their product to a more hand-tying, watered down version. They made Nerf and plastic lawn darts as replacements. Same product sort of, but less effective as the original. Now how many people own the Nerf lawndarts? No one?
/me plays the AOL "Goodbye" sound.
- Hacker Challenge. All of this, if enabled somehow will amount to the biggest hacker/cracker challenge on the face of the earth. And I have faith in them. I expect a WindowsXP.2004.FritzChipEMU-hacked.RiSE to be quite popular.
/me plays the AOL "Goodbye" sound.
All this boils down to a picture where this crap is halfass tried, and for every $1 they extort from a naieve person who forks over another $600 for a copy of Photoshop to work from home, they'll lose $2 to crackers, disenfrancheised customers, people who've lost interest in having to work to listen to the latest N*Sync DRM CD, and privacy fanatics who won't go near it. And what happens when things lose money in America?I'm Rick James with mod points biatch!
Your comment brought to mind a disturbing vision involving DRM-protected content that can't be *deleted*, because you don't have rights to do so.
What an opportunity for entrapment -- just email the victim some kiddie porn (or whatever) that's rigged so DRM won't let him delete it, then call the cops.
I know this sounds farfetched, but what if DRM eventually incorportates a no-delete/no-format feature (which would probably require hardware involvement) that could be used to *prevent* people [think corporations and mobsters] from deleting "evidence"?? A handy tool for catching Bad Guys, but how far would YOU trust it in the hands of certain law enforcement agencies??
Yeah, the cops could just as well have used a data recovery agency, but this is SO much easier, can be inspected on the spot, and besides, the perp *might* be a terrorist!
I think you can see where my train of paranoid extrapolation is headed. I hope I'm suffering from an overactive imagination.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Ha! They're already warming you up, just like the frog in the pot.
.WMA files with DRM stuff. Would you get rid of it and buy another brand? Perhaps a non-upgradeable one so you can be sure that you will never ever inadvertently own a piece of hardware with the potential to run DRM?
I don't know what you mean. The sign clearly says "Free Hot Tub!" and I'm just enjoying a good soak.
For now you can play all your files, but what about when the DRM files become ubiquitous?
When DRM files become ubiquitous, my SBLive will continue to work. Unless ninjas come in my window and solder new parts into it, the SBLive will just go on working as it does right now.
Now, if Creative ever comes out with a new card that is so broken with DRM junk that it won't work properly, I won't buy it. But I am not planning to get rid of all my SBLive cards! They are well-supported in the Linux kernel, and they work.
Tell me, suppose you buy a motherboard with built-in audio, and then you find out that the motherboard company has released a new driver that supports the MS DRM stuff. Would you tear the motherboard out of your computer and get a new one?
Suppose you buy a music player that can be firmware-upgraded, and a new version of the firmware is released that can play
And if you want to get rid of this stuff, will you sell it, thus helping disseminate hardware that is capable of DRM, or will you destroy it and eat the loss? Just how far do you recommend I go to avoid being boiled in the hot tub?
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
So, if I was using that digital speaker set, and the Digital Out is being disabled, how am I supposed to listen to what is being played?
Simple. Throw those digital speakers in the trash, and buy new ones that are DRM-enabled. Secure Audio Path is designed to make sure that no one gets a clean digital copy of the audio; if you have SAP-enabled speakers, an encrypted copy of the audio goes into the speakers and the speakers themselves decrypt it.
The MPAA wants computer monitors and HDTVs to have similar decryption features. After all, if a movie can be played over an unencrypted digital connector, you could slurp a copy of it and pirate it! Of course, people will still pirate movies even if all this junk gets built into every computer. At least until we all get mandatory DRM chips embedded in our brains.
I'm not a fan of this DRM junk. I'm just not planning to get rid of my SBLive cards, just because Creative has driver support for Secure Audio Path.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
No, it's not. Many people had a hand in getting you where you are today.
You couldn't be more wrong. The whole of commerce is comprised of commercial entities and the resources they consume (including their own skilled employees, financing, outside expertise, existing technology, research & development, etc.). Bottom line - whatever arrangement exists between an artist and any peripheral resources has nothing to do with the artist's relationship to you, as a consumer. An artist offering a finished work for purchase is no different than any other business transaction. You either accept the terms under which the artist's product is being offered, or you look for something more agreeable.
Secondly, a musical work is not an idea, it's an expression of an idea, and is therefore tangible in that it can be recorded onto a physical medium. It is this expression that is protected by copyright.
Finally, show me ONE THING having a method of implementation hasn't somehow been influenced by something before it. The evolution of anything, be it technology, art, or whatever, is really little more than the iterative refinement of methods and ideas that already exist.
And that's how to save the U.S. economy.
While destroying everything that has value other than monetary.
But the world is getting used to that U.S. concept. Slowly, but we're learning from this 'pinnacle of civilization'.
All generalizations are false, including this one. (Mark Twain)
...so apart from all the other nastyness of DRM, we'll be creating a big black hole in history, since all information from the DRM-age will just be strings of pseudo-random zeroes and ones in a few years.
Don't you just love progress.
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
Isn't the point of DRM that you won't be able to play it 40 years from and will, therefore, have to purchase another copy?
Doubt it will be that long, the people involved are probabaly considering something closer to 4 years than 40...
I went to this webpage and submitted a letter to Elvis Costello, indicating my strong disapproval of him allowing his music to be used as a wedge to take away people's control over their computers; I will not buy any more of his albums until his position changes on this issue.
You might want to do the same...
Cracking the key box (or display device for that matter), would yield private keys for a single owner's display devices (and thus content encrypted with them). While I suppose these keys could be distributed to other display devices, you'd need to encrypt them with appropriately signed public keys. At the very least this means cracking the key box's private key as well.
Key repudiation mitigates this problem somewhat, but it requires occasional distribution of repudiated keys to key boxes and display devices. I don't like the idea to which this translates: relicensing content via re-certifying key boxes and display devices. I suppose key repudiations could be included in content streams.
However, this presumes the key boxes and display devices can be cracked. There are specialized cryptographic processors that make this difficult: (1) they are pretected from xray, (2) they are protected from physical probing, (3) they destroy cached keys upon extreme temerature or shock conditions suggestive of tampering.
I suppose they still could be cracked, given enough time, effort, and money -- they key is to make this economically unworthwhile: all you get is the ability to decrypt one person's content (which could easily be detected if warezed to any large degree because of the plain text nature of it), and an awkward process for trying to build a key box that can distribute to others, so that other content could be decrypted.
I can imagine a repudiation mechanism built into the content provider's networks: they'd refuse to encrypt with public keys of known cracked boxes.
You could've hired me.
The DRM as implemented by Creative isn't that bad. It amounts to the equivalent of Macrovision for video cards. Data is still passing unencrypted between the player and the soundcard itself - The DRM wave of the future is to encrypt even this data stream and THEN we should be scared. Currently, the DRM tech is merely shutting down the digital outputs of the soundcard - Same thing as the Macrovision support in the TV-Out capability of every modern video card. Are you boycotting NVidia and ATi because of this?
:)
I'm guessing not.
Like Macrovision, I'm sure it's a matter of a little driver hack to disable this one "feature"
When Creative starts supporting an encrypted data stream between the player and the sound card itself, THEN it's time to start boycotting them.
As someone said, if a card wants WHQL certification for XP, it has to have this form of DRM. Creative isn't the only one - EVERY manufacturer that makes cards with digital outputs will be doing this.
(On a side note - How long did it take for someone to crack this CD? Probably 15-20 seconds.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I wonder what would happen if all of us on RIAA boycott wrote nice letters to the RIAA saying "Well, I make X per year, and of that, I would normally spend Y on CDs, but because of your policies, I have decided to spend my money elsewhere." If enough of those letters came in, I wonder if they'd sit up and take notice.
It certainly works at the microcosm level -- check out the look on the store manager's face when you tell him, "See this money? I was going to spend all of that here today, but since you don't carry this band, and this band, and this band, I'm going to spend it down the street at the cool music store where they do, instead." (BTW, I learned this tactic from Jello Biafra, and it's quite effective, at least on the small scale. I notice that our local HMVs have started carrying the Dead Kennedys and TISM again...)
The problem with opt-out dollar voting is that unless you specifically make your targets aware that they're losing sales, they don't notice, or attribute it to the right cause.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
And doesn't effectively *forcing* people to use a *beta* version strike you as ... well, just a wee bit unethical from a coding standpoint?
It would seem farfetched, if it weren't already happening... the problem is that in the eyes of the **AA and M$, consumers have become The Enemy.
As I've pointed out a few times before, DRM and its kin really are working up to a situation of "All things not compulsory are forbidden". (Stalinist proverb)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
If you're a fan of Elvis Costello, and you're offended by this, let him (by way of his management) know.
Don't try to debate him about the advantages and disadvantages of copy prevention mechanisms. Your words will probably never reach him directly.
Hit him in the wallet instead. Let him know that you would rather not listen to his music at all, than use a system that forces rights management devices on you.
http://www.americas.creative.com/contactus/
The Public Relations link seems to be the only one that lists actual named people (w/email addresses)
They're also pushing thier audigy 2 sound card (which I assume is thier big holiday shopping season product), so I specifically included that in my email to them, FWIW.
Will someone kindly give Arakonfap a +1, Informative? Thank you.
I've been trying to explain this very scenario to a client who thinks DMCA and DRM and suchlike are completely harmless and that the DMCA is a wonderful law (because he has visions of sucking lots of money out of it). The reality, that it's going to make it impossible for him to make a living, is not going to hit him until one day his preferred applications and methods, that he needs for his everyday work, simply won't work anymore due to not being DRM-compliant.
And I forsee utter chaos at the corporate level, the first time someone tries to deploy a DRM-aware email system. Hooboy!!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Don't know about older NVidia cards (Well, actually, I do, used to have an Asus V6800 Deluxe), but the GeForce4 cards (or at least my Dell Inspiron 8200's GF4Go) have very nice TV output encoder chips. (There are apparently a few video encoder chipsets supported by the GeForce line, and the I8200 has one that has more features than the others. Not sure if most GF4s have them and other GFs have lower-end ones or if only some GF4s have the good one.)
:)
From what I remember of the V6800, it wasn't nearly as good quality. The I8200 is excellent, if anything it's BETTER than our dedicated DVD player.
And of course, any DVD player for Linux doesn't support Macrovision even though the hardware allows it.
Are you sure the H+ doesn't have Macrovision or is it simply that the player you're using doesn't turn it on? (You specifically said you don't play DVDs - MV isn't going to be turned on for plain-jane MPEG2 files)
And your comparison in general is flawed - I think most of the people bitching don't even use their digital outputs anyway and are calling for a general boycott of Creative products, not just this "boycott of TV out" you claim to be doing. Some great boycott their. You bought the card, you're not boycotting it.
As to CPU usage - Modern video chipsets have 90% plus of the routines for MPEG hardware decoding built-in. Xine uses 10% peak of my CPU (usually far less - the CPU bar is often at zero) when playing a DVD fullscreen. Nice thing is that because many of these hardware acceleration features are generalized, they accelerate MPEG4 too! (DivX playback using Xine and Xvid is silky smooth and just like DVD playback, uses a very small fraction of my CPU.)
Note that I think the Geforce 4MX cards might actually have a few additional HW acceleration features not present in the Tis. I remember seeing a listing of the capabilities of each chipset in the NV driver docs, and it appeared that the MXes (and as a result, the "Go" chips) had MORE MPEG acceleration than the Tis. (One did both IDCT and motion comp, the other just did motion comp)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Have you ever heard of pen and paper? It's some prehistoric technology still
quite popular in most of the world...
Sorry, if you are in the USA probably you can't use it because it infringes the
DCMA... well you could use your memory *gasp* oh, sorry, I forgot that most
people don't even have a brain.
*sigh*
Sorry if I'm rude again, but I can't believe somebody can't understand this.
BTW: no need to be condescendent, I know pretty well what public key
cryptography is and how it works, and it will not stop me from doing whatever
the hell I want with the information I have access to.
And I know that if the data protected with DRM was something like video or
audio it would be more difficult to workaround it, but it *always* can be done
one way or another.
To make this more on topic, take for example the DRM in windows media player
this article is about: as soon as the audio comes out of the sound card, I only
need a 5cm minijak connector to be able to record it and do whatever I want
with it*, you don't need to break the cryptographic system behind a DRM system
to be able to copy the information it protects.
\\Uriel
* Of course, you can be sure in the future somebody(M$/RIAA) will try to
* convince
the rest of the world to throw their perfectly fine speakers, sound cards, and
other standard/profesional audio systems and substitute them with one that
carry the audio signal encrypted to the speaker, I wish them good luck doing
this... they are going to need it.
(and I'm sure once that is done somebody else will waste 5 minutes of his/her
time hacking the speakers to take a clear signal out of them)
"When in doubt, use brute force." Ken Thompson
A song that I make, on the other hand, is composed of notes and words that, when all is said and done, don't BELONG to me.
The words and the notes are not your physical property. You cannot pick up a word and move it from one location to another, as you can with a chair - but then in and of themselves, words and notes have little value. A resultant work based on a unique combination of words and notes, however along with the artful inclusion of other intangible qualities like instrumentation, tempo, rhythm, etc., is quite a different matter. The resultant work has value. What I really don't understand is where and how you acquire a right to this value by virtue of the fact that it exists. In other words, explain why you should be provided with something of obvious value, for FREE.
They should make the music they produce freely available to anyone, but charge per hour for their performance, like any other honest profession.
There's something you have failed to consider. Using your example, the chair that took 10 hours of your time to build, can provide the value the chair offers to only ONE person at any given time. If the chair resides at my place of residence, my neighbor cannot enjoy it. Further, unless I physically move it (which entails a cost in that it requires effort), the benefit I receive from the chair is limited to that one location.
Contrast this with your favorite song- both you and your neighbor (as well as countless others) can concurrently enjoy the value it offers. It is not limited to one physical location, and it can easily be ported from one location to another.
If you insist on turning music into a consumable medium (which it isn't), then in order to make it fair, you'd have to eliminate every musical recording, and limit your enjoyment solely to the availability of live performances by your favorite artists. I hardly think you'd consider this as an option.
In other words, explain why you should be provided with something of obvious value, for FREE.
How do you measure the value of a song? My point is simple: you can't sell music. In a pure capitalist economy (with NO government intervention), your music would be worthless because it could easily be copied, at NO cost to you. Copyright law creates an artificial scarcity, that is, an ARTIFICIAL environment, because selling music wouldn't work any other way. Instead of saying, "Lets come up with a business model for making music that WORKS" we just perpetuate this fake reality so that some very powerful people can make lots of money.
I suggested musical artists make their money by performing because it works as a business model. I pay for their TIME, not their music. Isn't that what bards did in the past, travel from town to town performing? And didn't they make money? Did they collect royalties on their songs?
I believe you should give me your music for free because you're fooling yourself if you think I'm going to pay for it. But by letting me listen to your songs on my CD player at home, I just might find you enough to my liking to go see you perform live. That equates to $$$ for you.
If you insist on turning music into a consumable medium...
I'm not. Groups like the RIAA want it to be a consumable medium. They want it only to be enjoyed by one person, for a limited amount of time. Think DRM. Think permits to perform. Think royalties.
Don't get me wrong, I still think you should make money from your artistic skills. I just think that there's a better model for doing it than the current one.
This is a very enjoyable debate.
Cheers
No sig for you.
Music (or any other form of "intellectual property") is an act of discovery founded upon previous discoveries, the most important of which are owned called the "public domain"
What is your source for this?
Or you make a counter-offer. It's called "bargaining", and it's a cornerstone of modern business.
So what has stopped you from making one? If they respond that they aren't interested in your counteroffer, it's over. You have no right to their material, and they have no right to your money.
How do you measure the value of a song?
How do you measure the value of a chair? There's your answer.
My point is simple: you can't sell music. In a pure capitalist economy (with NO government intervention)...
I disagree that you can't sell music. You can sell it, and this is aptly demonstrated by the fact that people can and do pay for it - not because it's the law, but because it's right thing to do. There is nothing in this world that guarantees anyone a right to the fruits of someone else's labor. If the terms of acquisition aren't agreeable, there's always the option to walk away.
Copyright law creates an artificial scarcity, that is, an ARTIFICIAL environment, because selling music wouldn't work any other way.
Artificial scarcity? That's interesting. There are recordings that sell millions of copies, and somehow that represents a form of scarcity?
I suggested musical artists make their money by performing because it works as a business model. I pay for their TIME, not their music. Isn't that what bards did in the past, travel from town to town performing?
I dare say they didn't have recordings back then, so the issue is moot. Today, however, a recording allows you the convenience of experiencing the benefit you derive from an artist's creative talent practically whenever, whereever, and how often you want. I'd say that $15 is a small price to pay for this convenience.
I believe you should give me your music for free because you're fooling yourself if you think I'm going to pay for it.
Then I'll turn this around and pose the following: If it has such little value to you, then surely you won't mind forgoing the opportunity to listen to it, will you?
Don't get me wrong, I still think you should make money from your artistic skills. I just think that there's a better model for doing it than the current one.
The current model of 'record once distribute many' is far more efficient than traveling from town to town, setting up and breaking down a stage, and paying gobs of people to do it. It consumes far fewer resources, and provides you, the consumer, with a maximum degree of flexibility. And you still find this problematic?
This is a very enjoyable debate.
I take that as a compliment.