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Philips & Sony To Purchase Intertrust DRM Tech
tuxlove writes "Reuters is reporting that Philips and Sony Corp, the parents
of the compact disc, teamed up on Wednesday to buy InterTrust Technologies
for $453 million -- a deal expected to speed up copyright security for
digital media.
The acquisition by Philips Electronics and Sony of the leading U.S.-based
holder of intellectual property in the field of 'digital rights management'
technology is widely seen as a way to prevent Microsoft, which has been
embroiled in a legal battle with InterTrust, from grabbing control of the
potentially lucrative business.
Philips and Sony, the electronics giants who introduced the CD format 20
years ago, said the deal would enable secure distribution of content as more
films and music are sold over the Internet and other media in digital
format."
If their DRM is simply preventing people from illegally sharing or possessing copyrighted works, then I'm somewhat in favor of it.
The slightest breech of my "rights" to make backups and view them on any device I wish ends that feeling.
So does this mean that Philips and Sony are now endorsing the production of digital audio discs that partially violate the Red Book standard?
Will I retire or break 10K?
"We come very much from the side of the consumer and we believe the consumer should have the right to reproduce content for their own use," said Philips spokesman Jeremy Cohen.
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
So far, it seems that Philips has been on the side of consumers when it comes to copy-protection on CDs. The big question now is what effect their acquisition will have on their stance.
More specifically, was their earlier stance just posturing until they could lay their hands on some "good" technology of their own, or will they continue to defend the CD standard?
Now, I don't expect Philips to be in the game to befriend the consumers, so it might just be that they want to keep others from doing too much with the CD format before they (and Sony and their other usual bedfellows) can launch their New and Improved(tm) digital media with a DRM system of their own, to secure future income and sew up the market...
Oh well, I pretty much decided to give up on buying music after BMG's announcement the other week. If they're so intent on actively trying to make it hard for me to use the music I pay for, I might as well just save me the money and trouble.
Actually, the collective buying power of us "open source nutjobs" is a mole on the ass of the buying public. Whether we boycott or not, it won't be noticed in the aggregate against the masses buying Britney Spears and N'Sync.
widely seen as a way to prevent Microsoft, which has been embroiled in a legal battle with InterTrust, from grabbing control of the potentially lucrative business
Q.) Why exactly would hardware companies spend almost half a BILLION dollars on a company developing technology that makes products less useful to consumers? Why would they go out of their way to conform to Hollywood's interests? A.) To become the new gatekeepers of media of course! Of course it's a "lucrative business.." not a very ethical one... but hell, it's all about the money these days, right?
Hopefully people will boycott this garbage and it'll go the way of the Divxsaurs. At very least we now have the beginnings of a new format war. Maybe competitors will crack each others DRM systems to prove them insecure and "leak" code through 14-year-old kids in northern europe. (:
Strange times we live in. Vote with your dollars folks!!
This should also be seen in perspective with the recent news of Macrovision's acquisition of Midbar recently.
"Do something man. Right now."
...to prevent Microsoft, which has been embroiled in a legal battle with InterTrust, from grabbing control of the potentially lucrative business.
The lucrative business of screwing over the customer? Sounds like Microsoft already has the bases covered.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
If DRM can do what it SHOULD do and stop illegal trading, fine. The reality is most technologies stop me from using what I pay money for in VERY legitimate ways.
In FACT most often they don't actually stop me copying. They stop me from reading on something that CAN copy. Stupid.
"We come very much from the side of the consumer and we believe the consumer should have the right to reproduce content for their own use," said Philips spokesman Jeremy Cohen.
So you purchased a company that deals in copy protection?!?!
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That's why I said "who thinks they'll notice". I'm also curious as to how many ACTUAL RETAIL sales of Brittney Spears and N'Sync (amongst others) there are. I'm sure any numbers the RIAA throws at us are doctored a little, not including those extra that retailers had to buy to get any at all... Aw hell, I'm drunk...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
Why? Because secure digital media is a contradiction in terms. It's one of those rarities in life that are so misunderstood and unviable that people are going to wage a war of attrition in its name. I, for one, am going to capitalize on that. All while burning my CDs to Ogg. :)
My former employer had a strategic alliance with Intertrust. Guess this is bad news for them. Good.
Here's an overview of how Intertrust's stuff works, what's right with it, and what's wrong with it. This is really complex, but it's not hard to understand at all.
Intertrust's system basically works like this: the seller encrypts the media (video, picture, audio, whatever you want) into what they call a "package." The process also generates what they call a "rights package," which gets stored on a net-connected machine called a "rights server." Rights packages are, of course, also encrypted like crazy. Everything in this system is, with digital signatures like you wouldn't believe. Forgery of a rights package or of an authorization is the biggest vulnerability to the system, and Intertrust knows that.
When you buy the media, you download what they call an authorization. The authorization contains information about what rights package you bought (one media package can correspond to more than one rights package). The thing you're using to do all this-- it could be a computer running special software, or a set-top box, or an MP3 player in your car... whatever-- takes the authorization and downloads the content package from what they call a "content server," along with getting the rights package that defines what rights you bought from the rights server. At this point, you have three things: the content in its package, the rights that define how you can use that content in its package, and an authorization that ties them all together. The authorization, of course, contains some information that uniquely identifies your device, which means that only whole set-- the combination of the content package, the rights package, the device, and the authorization-- can work together.
All of that downloading and transacting is supposed to happen behind the scenes. To the user, it looks like this: Hmm, I think I want that song. Here I go, choosing a rights package from this list of three or four, and putting in my credit card number. Tap, tap, poof! Now I have the song on my MP3 player (or whatever), and I can listen to it according to the rights I bought. It's designed to be easy for the end-user and the provider both, with all the hard stuff happening in software.
Now, the interesting thing is the rights package. A record company might give away free authorizations for single-use rights packages. For instance, you might be able to go to RecordCo's web site and download any song for free and listen to it once; sort of a "try-before-you-buy" thing. If you decide you want the song, but you'll probably get sick of it, you can buy the rights pack that lets you listen to it all you want for a month, and then expires. Or you can buy an unlimited rights pack that lets you listen to it all you want forever. It's really flexible, which is something that DRM systems in general haven't been thus far.
It's worth mentioning, too, that Intertrust does not depend on a new, proprietary media format. You can encrypt anything as an Intertrust package. Intertrust controls how and when you get to access the data-- according to the rules defined in the rights package-- but what that data is and how it's formatted it is entirely flexible. You could wrap an Ogg file up in an Intertrust package if you wanted to, just by running it through the packager tool.
Also interesting is the idea that all of the pieces-- the content package, the rights package, and the authorization-- can be duplicated to your heart's content. Wanna make a copy of a CD so you don't have to worry about scratching the original? Go right ahead. But it'll only play in your CD player, because that's what the authorization says. You can make a copy and give it away, but your friend can't play it in his player because he doesn't have an authorization. He can, however, download an authorization for it quickly and easily. Intertrust calls this "superdistribution," and it's a big selling point for them.
All in all, I think Intertrust's model is the best I've seen. If the world ran on Intertrust, I think it would probably be pretty okay.
But there are problems. Intertrust's system depends on a hell of a lot of infrastructure: every device-- and I mean every device-- that interacts with the Intertrust system has to have an Intertrust client running on it, either in software or in hardware. If your MP3 player isn't Intertrust-compatible, you can forget being able to play those MP3s you downloaded from RecordCo. They simply won't work, because the device won't be able to decrypt the package. This basically means that Intertrust's system can never be used for general-purpose media content protection, because it relies too much on client code ubiquity.
The other obvious down-side is that the system is complex. I don't think it's needlessly complex, per se, but it's complex, and that means there are lots of ways that something could go wrong. That could mean inconvenience to the customer, which is death in this market.
So while it's an okay idea-- probably one that would work well for both sellers and customers if universally deployed-- it's got some serious flaws, too.
Just my two cents. I may have some of my facts wrong-- I never worked for Intertrust, but I got a ton of technical info from them under NDAs and shit, so I think I'm right in the broad sense on all of this. Hmm. NDAs. Oh, well. Fuck it. They can sue me, if they can find me.
I write in my journal
I have not yet understood how any DRM or copyprotection will overcome the problem, that when the content is downloaded/played through legitimate HW&SW it can at the same time be resaved without the copyprotection - atleast in the case of video and audio.
I just posted a long-ass dissertation on how Intertrust works, and I'm not going to repeat it here. But the short version is that Intertrust doesn't care about your ability to copy the encrypted media. In fact, making it easy for customers to copy encrypted media from each other is a big selling point for Intertrust, because it lets the content providers focus on what they like to do: sell licenses. If you copied the Britney Spears CD from your friend but bought your license from us, then we just saved money manufacturing, storing, and shipping that particular CD. Yay.
So copying encrypted content is good and fine. So Intertrust spends is energy instead trying to make sure that encrypted content stays encrypted all the time, up to the point where it goes analog and hits your screen or your speakers or your whatever.
It's not too hard, in principle, to do this. The ancient PGP client had an "eyes only" mode that did the same thing: it decrypted the data, displayed it, then wiped the memory where the cleartext had been, never writing anything to disk. It would have been impossible to get the cleartext out of PGP without some really intrusive method, like somehow reading the actual memory pages of the PGP process, or trojaning the PGP binary itself. So that basic methodology is not a terrible idea.
The key to this is that Intertrust isn't meant to be a general-purpose content encryption system. For example, it wouldn't work for something like stock photography, where you need to be able to place the photo-- unencrypted-- in a page layout program and do all sorts of interactive stuff to it. Intertrust wouldn't work for that at all, because as soon as you decrypted the image, the system would stop protecting it.
But think of Intertrust instead for something like video-on-demand. The set-top box and the upstream servers have Intertrust bits in them that allow you to download (or stream) HDTV-resolution movies to your home over fibre or whatever, with all sorts of customer-friendly rights features. For example, you might be able to spend $5 and get the right to download a movie to your (Intertrust-savvy) PVR and watch it all you want until you feel like deleting it. Or you might be able to spend $19 to be able to download it and burn it (with your Intertrust-savvy disc burner) to a disc that you can own and watch whenever. Or-- and this is the cool part-- you might be able to spend $1 and only have the right to watch the movie in real time once.
In general, instead of saying "you can't do that" to the customers all the time, Intertrust could (in principle) let media distributors say "you can do that, if you buy the rights to" instead, and the system would enforce the arrangement in both directions.
I write in my journal
The internet has suddenly exposed the distribution mechanism wide open. Historically it was easier popping down to the music store rather than advertising for the music you wanted. The sale of old CDs/vinyls through auction sites such as eBay means that what the major studios/distributors throught of as consumable good suddenly becomes a capital good. This is the difference between lease v sale and it is impossible to radically change the pricing least the consumers revolt. Attempts so far to move towards a licensing model (a la software) have been resisted by courts (cough*DVD*cough) and experiments in alternative protected media formats indicate dawning awareness that their knowledge in the retail distribution channel is at risk.
Digital Rights Management (or restrictions for the cynical) is a mechanism for asserting their traditional control which has been weakened by P2P and parallel importing. This is a logical business decision but I suspect that defending back catalogs means less attention being devoted to new services. Why can't people mix tracks to accompany their video handhelds? Why don't people dub skits to satirise stupid commercials? Why don't people create new GC sequences of Doom-like spoofs?
Hopefully we will be entertained by novel and innovative forms of media rather than being bombarded with rehashed old forms.
LL
"Philips said the companies would start an open licensing program and would encourage content providers to use the technology, which can protect all digital formats, including CDs, MP3 and DVD."
"Some analysts say Microsoft may lose if Philips and Sony are successful at promoting the InterTrust technology throughout the entertainment industry because Microsoft's technology, called "Palladium," would have a tougher time making inroads."
The above says it all. It's all about battling Microsoft's Palladium. Of what I know, Philips and Sony haven't signed up for Palladium, and since they're big time players on the entertainment hardware market, they can afford to develop their own standard without having Microsoft involved in the equation.
"All the major music labels, in particular BMG, Sony Music and Universal Music have been investing heavily in copy-proof technologies to protect their artists."
It's not so much about protecting the artists as it is about protecting their companies. The music industry has been used to having a steady monetary growth each year until P2P was made popular among the general public. Now they won't make as much profit as they used to. What the artists actually gets is peanuts compared to what the record companies gets. The artists sell all their rights to the record companies, and these companies can continue to make money on their music even after the artist has disappeared from the charts. (eg. collection albums)
The ancient PGP client had an "eyes only" mode that did the same thing: it decrypted the data, displayed it, then wiped the memory where the cleartext had been, never writing anything to disk. It would have been impossible to get the cleartext out of PGP without some really intrusive method, like somehow reading the actual memory pages of the PGP process, or trojaning the PGP binary itself.
Actually it's a lot simpler: use a terminal program that allows you to save the output to disk and you've got your perfect copy.
The same thing can be done for any music format that can be played on a computer. Just create a sound device that saves the digital music stream to disk instead of playing it. It has been done and it's pretty easy (see this page).
The only way around this is to handle the decryption of the data in the audio hardware or to make it impossible to use non-official drivers like Microsoft tries to do with Palladium.
I've seen a DRM for ebooks that I actually don't have any qualms with, and think it's the best that it can get and still be DRM, though I don't like DRM in the least...
It's called Libronix. Actually, it's primarily for religious publications... Libronix is an e-book reader and format... but I haven't seen any books non-Christian on the format... but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist... http://www.libronix.com
Here's how it works.
The system recognizes the "resources" that you supply it, usually from download or CD-ROM and then requres a license key... license key is keyed to the "activation" of the product. Basically, it says you can access these resources but not those ones...
You can copy the resources to any computer your want but only those PC that have a valid license can access them... if you're friend wants to, they can purchase a license from your copied file and view it themselves.
You can install the Librinix system on any other PC for backups and when it installs, just supply the activation confirmation supplied when originally activated and then "restore" the license key backed up and you can view it on any PC you want, that has your activation code. It doesn't restrict how many times you activate but you cannot use any license that was granted with an activation not your own.
This means you can use it on your 5 computers at home and your laptop but you can't necessarily do so on your friends PC unless you installed and used your activation and supply him your licences for each resource or collection of resources (I have 147 resources licensed to me)...
In all, it's fairly unintrusive but goes a long way against sharing unless you want your personal info distributed on the net...
That's the best (meaning least intrusive) implementation I've seen so far.
Thanks,
Leabre
It might look like MS walked away clear from the antitrust case, but this is the real damage that was done. The trial dragged up all sorts of things MS had been up to, it has been reported widely - in the techie news, of course - but also in places that the suits read. Now world+dog knows what sort of man billg is to do business with, we all now what he done to the PC market. The vendors are just bill's box-shifters, living on razor-thin margins, while MS exceeds its own earnings expectations - during a recession. This is the reason Passport fell on it's face, this is the reason Nokia and all the others have frozen MS out of the phone market, and this is the reason that Philips and Sony are pre-empting them on DRM.
-- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as
The problem is that the only thing that can determine what is and isn't copyright infringment is a federal judge. Unless you can mass-manufacture a box with a federal judge in it, any system for 'digital control' will either be too permissive, or too restrictive.
I highly doubt it'll be too permissive; there are too many fair uses that could require the full decrypted output (legacy hardware, backup on more modern media, etc)
Given that, then there's a legitimate fair use need to break *ANY* encryption or other access controls on controlled media. If this is explicitly made legal, then at that point, there's no point in bothering. There'll be controlled media, but it'll be legal to sell products to break the protection. Those products will be very lucrative and sell extremely well as people won't want controlled and restricted media. (See playstation or other modchips.)
It'll be a pointless war, but a war the controllers can't win. Thats why they'll fight tooth and nail against this.
After the stock market collapsed - we'd gone public in October and couldn't sell until April, a month after March collapse, shattering most of our paper-millionaire dreams - lots of people started leaving for various reasons. When I started working there in the beginning of '98 there were just over 100 employees. By the time we'd gone public, we'd more than doubled, and many of the people we'd hired were blubbering idiots. I didn't interview a single person who was worth hiring, and yet somehow, people kept getting hired. Stock price plummeted, layoffs, layoffs, layoffs. Last I checked, it was just a handful of people. All of my ex-coworkers from there have moved on, willingly or not.
The technology was good, and somewhat complex, but not frighteningly so, but when I was maintaining running instances of the software it was not terribly stable, in ways that would make most sysadmins cry. Instead, I quit in Dec '00, as the developers weren't putting in the features I requested - needed! - to know if the software was even running properly. Makes me laugh now, but it wasn't that funny then.
Intertrust had been around for years, and in it's beginnings was staffed primarily by folk with PhDs in Computer Science and related fields. They had a research team that was brilliant, and Intertrust has such an impressive patent portfolio that I am surprised that they didn't manage to successfully sue Microsoft, as has been commented here in slashdot before. Several references in google, and there's a techdirt.com and a kuro5hin article around for those who are interested.