Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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
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 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)
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
The smart people already get it. The time for subelty is over. Leave that to SNL and the satire web sites. We need to get through to everyone, not just the ones that get the subtle in-jokes and clues. DMCA+DRM is a disease that threatens general computing; this isn't about CDs and Elvis Costello, this is about the right to use your turing machine to manipulate bits and bytes how you want it to.
The government considers computers a weapon, and just like Gun Control Inc. wants to remove weapons from the hands of those who could use them to threaten the social order, the RIAA and MPAA are a harbingers of a larger picture... The disarmament of the public.
Those in power want to stay in power, and private ownership of high speed turing machines, and firearms, and many other things that are being lobbied against, are a threat that must be eliminated.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
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?
Actually, the new Sasha CD does not play on my radio station's CD players because of the copy protection.
Most commercial radio stations nowadays keep all their music stored in digital format on a gigantic hard drive somewhere. Now, I'm sure most radio conglomerates will receive non-DRM versions of this stuff, since they're getting paid to play it in the first place. A radio network could probably refuse to play a single if only a DRM version is available and the record label didn't want to shell out for DRM players for every Clear Channel radio station.
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.
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. :-)
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 |
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.
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.
I've never seen articles from cancer's point of view commenting about how cigarette smoke reduces resistance to spreading throughout the lungs and thus on balance its hard to weigh the plusses for the cancer against the plusses for the normal cells.
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.
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
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.
- 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?
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.
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.