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Movielink Snubs DRM-less Macs
mcwetboy writes "CNET reports that the Macintosh is being shut out of online movie services like Movielink, and connects it to the Mac's lack of digital-rights management. From the article: '[Apple VP] Schiller says Apple has not released much in the way of protective technology ... because effective techniques for securing content without interfering with the experience of consumers have not yet been invented.' A consumer-friendly attitude towards DRM may be a double-edged sword (content may not be made available for that platform), but if the content is locked out of the Mac for that reason, do I really want it anyway?" In other news, the USSR provided free bread only to the poor people.
I use http://sourceforge.net/projects/asfrecorder/ to download those nice protected microsoft media files.
OF course for how long it will still work, I have no idea.
For the Americans who live far enough away from a video store (something that is rather rare now), there's also Netflix. Since it's delivered by the USPS, every American household has access to the latest movies.
To the person replying saying there are no mom and pop vid stores, you just need to get out of the suburb where there's no mom & pop *anything*. Many cities, towns, and villages have independant video stores.
Repeat after me slowly:
IP protection is not about ABSOLUTE protection any more than "the club" is absolute protection against car theft. IP protection / DRM schemes are about making infringement LESS CONVENIENT and MORE OBVIOUSLY ILLEGAL to those doing it and thus marginalizing it to the true bedroom criminals and technogeeks.
Haven't you ever figured out that you can't find as many songs on gnutella as you could on Napster because of this?
Some technical points on Mac DRM:
m 7/ drm/offering.asp
Windows Media for MacOS only supports WM DRM v1, which only supports the older WMV7 codec, not the WMV8 MovieLink is using. Presumably they're using DRM 7.1 (7.0 was cracked). However, MovieLink will run on Windows 98, which doesn't support the Secure Audio Path, so there isn't a huge technical DRM difference here.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/w
Real's subscription service is available for MacOS X with the full functionality of Windows, so their DRM is presumably feature complete cross-platform. And I believe for Linux as well, but I haven't checked.
My video compression blog
That link should be http://www.netflix.com.
Free speech in your precious USA was done in by Wee-Willy Clinton back in '98
The U.S. Congress passed both the DMCA and the Bono Act by "unanimous consent" aka "voice vote", a measure that requires the support of 81 percent of each house. (The Constitution provides that 20 percent opposition can force a roll-call vote.) The President can veto a bill, but it only takes 67 percent of each house to override the veto. So even if then-President Clinton had vetoed the DMCA, it wouldn't have made much difference.
Will I retire or break 10K?
sjobs@apple.com
He actually reads it. I've worked in Apple support, and I've seen him respond to a customer's e-mail a few times. He's the big gun, and he'll notice if his mailbox gets slashdotted with praising e-mails on this subject.
When encryption is outlawed, ?o'AZ-,++o+i++##4AoA+-/-C++bI+/.+~
You need an Audible account to purchase the tracks, but once they're on your iPod, there's really nothing stopping you from sucking it off with any one of a dozen utilities.
Freedom to write code. Code is a form of expression. DRM makes certain code illegal, *no matter how you use that code*. When such code becomes essential (e.g. DRM hard drives) expressions like Linux effectively become illegal.
For a more detailed explanation, take a look here:
http://www.eff.org/cafe/gross1.html
Which do you buy?
"I pay for the software others steal. I pay for the music others steal."
Actually you don't. Software, music and movies are sold at industry standard prices for the most part that stand completely aside from how many copies they actually sell. They are priced depending on what they think what people are willing to pay, not based on a forumla like a majority of consumer goods. (Production+Marketing+Shipping+Profit).
The public at large doesn't get much guilt from copying material. This may be for a reason.
Apple's doing the right thing. If everyone jumps on the wrong technology for protecting movies, it will become entrenched no matter how bad it is. That will inhibit better technologies from taking hold. It's a classic scenario in the computer world.
On the other hand, Apple is taking a chance by not getting involved now, but I think their customers will respect them for it and appreciate it since Apple's image, at least, is more about freedom than lockin.
In order for this to be a proper analogy, it should go like this, "Well, I had it coming; I shouldn't have left all the doors and windows and the gate OPEN, and the door to the safe held shut with a 3-inch piece of masking tape." Depending on how stupid the DRM technology is, it could actually go more like this, "Well, I had it coming, I shouldn't have hung paper bags full of money on the outside of my fence, with a note saying, 'Opening these paper bags full of money is a violation of the DMCA.'"
The law doesn't expect you to have an impenetrable fortress for a house in order to receive legal protection, but it also doesn't have much respect for the opposite end of the spectrum. That's why we have legal ideas like criminal negligance and why people are expected to take "reasonable measures" to protect their property.
Now, when someone sells you something, like a DVD, it becomes your property. Except the DRM supporters want to be able to still treat it like *their* property, after you buy it, and be able to revoke ownership if the product isn't used in a way that they like. They also want to be able to do a strip-and-cavity search on every customer that enters their store to purchase their products. I imagine a grocery store that did that wouldn't last too long.